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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 14

The Higher Law

The Higher Law.

The Grand Lodge of Ohio is reported to have ordained the sale of liquor to be "unmasonic conduct," and as such to disqualify a postulant from admission into the mysteries, and possibly other Grand Lodges may be induced to imitate the Ohioan example. We apprehend that in endeavouring to define the morality of a man's business Ohio has committed a grave and gratuitous error, inasmuch as it is not the province of Masonry to uphold special legislation, but to deal in general ethical principles. We are aware that in some States, where the doctrine of prohibition has obtained legislative sanction, the sale of liquor has been declared to be illegal under certain circumstances. Still, we cannot perceive that transgressions against the law of any one or two local districts can be made punishable by the general laws of the Craft. The jurisprudence of Masonry should be universal in its character and specific in its nature, equitable, and not interfering with personal or individual rights. As the order is cosmopolitan so should be the spirit of its laws. Masonic offences are already defined in the ancient landmarks and elucidated in usages immemorial, constituting, like the common law of the land, an unwritten code of our universal procedure. When a man commits a wrong upon himself or his neighbour his transgression is readily recognized upon general principles, and he is a criminal throughout the Craft.

Of late years grand bodies have occupied themselves entirely too much in the work of legislation upon extraneous subjects other than the general welfare of the Order, and in this wise they have endeavoured to supplant practice of usages by statutory enactments. We have no right to trespass upon the observance of ancient customs; on the contrary, it is our duty to sustain them intact in their pristine purity. For instance, it might be deemed indecorous for a lodge to hold its regular convocations in a tavern, still this is a mere question of taste, dependent upon the sentiments of the profane on the place of the lodge's location. But let a Grand Lodge enact a statutory prohibition against the assemblage of Masons under the roof of an inn or tavern and it usurps an authority not guaranteed to it by the spirit of Masonry, inasmuch as in all countries, save our own, the inn or tavern is naturally regarded as being the most appropriate place for lodge meetings, and particularily when the attendance of sojourners is solicited. We do not deny that the Grand Lodge of Ohio possesses an inherent right to recommend any dispualification of a candidate its wisdom may suggest as a local precaution, still we emphatically deny its power to legislate upon a vital point in our ancient jurisprudence. Rejection of a candidate implies moral imperfection of such a character as to debar entrance into the Order here, there and everywhere, and such ostracism should be based upon fundamental usages.

Masonic Chronicle,