Freemasonry recruits through attraction.

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The "higher path" of Masonry

For Masonry means this or it means nothing worth the serious pursuit of thoughtful men; nothing that cannot be pursued as well outside the Craft as within it. It proclaims the fact that there exists a higher and more secret path of life than that which we normally tread, and that when the outer world and its pursuits and rewards lose their attractiveness for us and prove insufficient to our deeper needs, as sooner or later they will, we are compelled to turn back upon ourselves, to seek and knock at the door of a world within; and it is upon this inner world, and the path to and through it, that Masonry promises light, charts the way, and indicates the qualifications and conditions of progress. This is the sole aim and intention of Masonry. Behind its more elementary and obvious symbolism, behind its counsels to virtue and conventional morality, behind the platitudes and and sententious phraseology (which nowadays might well be subjected to competent and intelligent revision) with which, after the fashion of their day, the eighteenth-century compilers of its ceremonies clothed its teaching, there exists the framework of a scheme of initiation into that higher path of life where alone the secrets and mysteries of our being are to be learned; a scheme moreover that, as will be shown later in these pages, reproduces for the modern world the main features of the Ancient Mysteries, and that has been well described by a learned writer on the subject as "an epitome or it reflection at a far distance of the once universal science".

- W. L. Wilmshurst

THE POSITION AND POSSIBILITIES OF THE MASONIC ORDER

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Biblical Light

"Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

Gospel of St. Matthew 5: 15 - 16

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Praying Together

Source: Virginia.Catholic.org

OK, here's the scenario.  You're at work when your boss invites you and some co-workers out for lunch.  You all go out to eat together.  Before you eat, you silently bow your head to pray over your food.  Everyone doesn't do this, but the way you were raised, you bless your food at every meal.  You don't know what religion your co-workers might be, and you don't much care.  It is a diverse environment with people of many religions.  It's not really your business, and you're fine with this.  You simply exercise the tenets of your own faith and move on.

When you're around you're family, maybe everyone prays together, while one person recites a prayer, and then you all eat.  Or maybe you don't.  Or when you are in Church, maybe everyone prays together, with a leader.  But you're not at Church right now.  Some of the people around you don't pray at all, and maybe a few others close their own eyes and bless their own food.

But wait a minute?  What religion are those other people? Are they Christian?  You don't know!  Oh no!  If you have accidently prayed with people who are of a different faith then you,... that is... its... well what does that mean?  Did you accidentally worship the wrong God?

But you wouldn't worry about that, right?  Because you are not in a Church, a Mosque, or a Temple, you are in a restaurant.  And you were not practicing a religion, you are just having lunch.  Your prayer was quick and personal.  You performed an expression to the God you worship, and nothing the people around you did or did not do changes or in any way impacts your faith.

Freemasonry is something like this.  It allows people of different faiths to participate in a shared experience.  Each may have different faith.  Each may even pray, or participate in prayer, at the same time, and in the same place.  Yet each has a personal experience, worshiping their own God.  That one person may focus his heart on Allah, another on Jehovah, another on Christ, does not invalidate the faith of any of them.  One person's faith has no more impact on anothers in the Lodge than it does in a restaurant.  We can pray together.

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The Wearing of White

Candidate: 1. one that aspires to or is nominated or qualified for an office, membership, or award.  2. one likely or suited to undergo or be chosen for something specified.  3. a student in the process of meeting final requirements for a degree.


(Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary)


"Candidate" is a derivative of the Latin "candida" (white). In Ancient Rome, people running for political office would usually wear togas chalked and bleached to be bright white at speeches, debates, conventions, and other public functions."


(Source: Wikipedia)


The true candidate must indeed needs be, as the word candidus implies, a "white man," white within as symbolically he is white-vestured without, so that no inward stain or soilure may obstruct the dawn within his soul of that Light which he professes to be the predominant wish of his heart on asking for admission; whilst, if really desirous of learning the secrets and mysteries of his own being, he must be prepared to divest himself of all past preconceptions and thought-habits and, with childlike meekness and docility, surrender his mind to the reception of some perhaps novel and unexpected truths which Initiation promises to impart and which will more and more unfold and justify themselves within those, and those only, who are, and continue to keep themselves, properly prepared for them.


(Source: The Meaning of Masonry by W.L. Wilmshurst)

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The Five Articles of Remonstrance - Article V

That those who are incorporated into Christ by a true faith, and have thereby become partakers of his life-giving spirit, have thereby full power to strive against Satan, sin, the world, and their own flesh, and to win the victory, it being well understood that it is ever through the assisting grace of the Holy Ghost; and that Jesus Christ assists them through his Spirit in all temptations, extends to them his hand; and if only they are ready for the conflict, and desire his help, and are not inactive, keeps them from falling, so that they, by no craft or power of Satan, can be misled, nor plucked out of Christ's hands, according to the word of Christ, John x. 28: "Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." But whether they are capable, through negligence, of forsaking again the first beginnings of their life in Christ, of again returning to this present evil world, of turning away from the holy doctrine which was delivered them, of losing a good conscience, of becoming devoid of grace, that must be more particularly determined out of the Holy Scriptures before they can teach it with the full persuasion of their minds.

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Stones

And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to [our] father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

Matthew 3:9

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