Charity

April 28, 2008 at 1:34 pm · Filed under Lodge Discussion and tagged: The Definition of Charity

 “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.”

— 1 Corinthian 13: 1-2

SUCH WAS THE LANGUAGE of an eminent apostle of the Christian church, and such is the sentiment that constitutes the cementing bond of Freemasonry.

        The apostle, in comparing it with faith and hope, calls it the greatest of the three, and hence in Masonry it is made the topmost round of its mystic ladder.

        We must not fall into the too common error that charity is only that sentiment of commiseration which leads us to assist the poor with pecuniary donations.

        Its Masonic, as well as its Christian application is nobler and more extensive.

        The word used by the apostle is, in the original, love, a word denoting that kindly state of mind which renders a person full of goodwill and affectionate regard toward others.

        John Wesley expressed his regret that the Greek had not been correctly translated as “love” instead of “charity,” so that the apostolic triad of virtues would have been, not “faith, hope and charity,” but “faith, hope and love.”

        Then would we have understood the comparison made by St. Paul when he said:

“Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,

And though I give my body to be burned,

And have not love, it profiteth me nothing.”

        Guided by this sentiment, the true Mason will “suffer long and kind.” He will be slow to anger and easy to forgive. He will handle his falling brother by gentle admonition, and warn him with kindness of approaching danger.

        He will not open his ear to his slanderers, and will close his lips against all reproach.

        His faults and his follies will be locked in his breast, and the prayer for mercy will ascend to Jehovah for his brother’s sins.

        Nor will these sentiments of benevolence be confined to those who are bound to him by ties of kindred or worldly friendship alone; but — extending them throughout the globe — he will love and cherish all who sit beneath the broad canopy of our universal Lodge.

         For it is the boast of our Institution, that a Mason, destitute and worthy, may find in every clime a Brother, and in every land, a Home.

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