Chaplain: The Lord bless us and keep us. The Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance and give us peace. Amen.
RITUAL FOR A LODGE OF SORROW.
The following Ritual for a Lodge of Sorrow is recommended for use in the Lodges. While necessarily of a funeral character, it differs essentially from the burial service. In the latter case, we are in the actual presence of the departed, and engaged in the last rites of affection and respect for one who has been our companion in life, and whose mortal remains we are about to consign to their last resting-place. The Lodge of Sorrow, on the contrary, is intended to celebrate the memory of our departed brethren; and while we thus recall to our recollection their virtues, and temper anew our resolutions so to live, that, when we shall have pa.s.sed the silent portals, our memories may be cherished with grateful remembrance, we learn to look upon death from a more elevated point of view; to see in it the wise and necessary transition from the trials and imperfections of this world, to the perfect life for which our transient journey here has been the school and the preparation.
Vocal and instrumental music are indispensable to the proper effect of the ceremony. The brethren should wear dark clothing, and white gloves and ap.r.o.ns. There is no necessity for any attempt at secrecy in the ceremonies of Sorrow Lodges. They may be held in churches or public halls, or in the presence of friends at the Lodge room, with benefit to all concerned.
Preparation of the Hall.
I. The Lodge room should be appropriately draped in black, and the several stations covered with the same emblem of mourning.
II. On the Master"s pedestal is a skull and lighted taper.
III. In the center of the room is placed the catafalque, which consists of a rectangular platform, about six feet long by four feet wide, on which are two smaller platforms, so that three steps are represented. On the third one should be an elevation of convenient height, on which is placed an urn. The platform should be draped in black, and a canopy of black drapery may be raised over the urn and platform.
IV. At each corner of the platform will be placed a candlestick, bearing a lighted taper, and near it, facing the East, will be seated a brother, provided with an extinguisher, to be used at the proper time.
V. During the first part of the ceremonies the lights in the room should burn dimly.
VI. Arrangements should be made to enable the light to be increased to brilliancy at the appropriate point in the ceremony.
VII. On the catafalque will be laid a pair of white gloves, a lambskin ap.r.o.n, and if the deceased brother had been an officer, the appropriate insignia of his office.
VIII. Where the Lodge is held in memory of several brethren, shields bearing their names are placed around the catafalque.
Opening the Lodge.
The several officers being in their places, and the brethren seated, the Worshipful Master will call up the Lodge and say:
W. M.: Brother Senior Warden, for what purpose are we a.s.sembled?
S. W.: To honor the memory of those brethren whom death hath taken from us; to contemplate our own approaching dissolution; and, by the remembrance of immortality, to raise our souls above the considerations of this transitory existence.
W. M.: Brother Junior Warden, what sentiments should inspire the souls of Masons on occasions like the present?
J. W.: Calm sorrow for the absence of our brethren who have gone before us; earnest solicitude for our own eternal welfare, and a firm faith and reliance upon the wisdom and goodness of the Great Architect of the Universe.
W. M.: Brethren, commending these sentiments to your earnest consideration, and invoking your a.s.sistance in the solemn ceremonies about to take place, I declare this Lodge of Sorrow opened.
The Chaplain, or Worshipful Master, will then offer the following, or some other suitable
Prayer:
Grand Architect of the Universe, in whose holy sight centuries are but as days; to whose omniscience the past and the future are but as one eternal present; look down upon Thy children, who still wander among the delusions of time--who still tremble with dread of dissolution, and shudder at the mysteries of the future; look down, we beseech Thee, from Thy glorious and eternal day into the dark night of our error and presumption, and suffer a ray of Thy divine light to penetrate into our hearts, that in them may awaken and bloom the certainty of life, reliance upon Thy promises, and a.s.surance of a place at Thy right hand.
Amen.
Response: So mote it be!
The following, or some other appropriate Ode may here be sung:
Ode.
Tune--Bradford, C. M.
O brother, thou art gone to rest; We will not weep for thee; For thou art nowhere, oft on earth, Thy spirit longed to be.
O brother, thou art gone to rest; Thy toils and cares are o"er; And sorrow, pain, and suffering now Shall ne"er distress thee more.
O brother, thou art gone to rest, And this shall be our prayer: That, when we reach our journey"s end, Thy glory we shall share.
The Worshipful Master (taking the skull in his hand) will then say:
Brethren: In the midst of life we are in death, and the wisest cannot know what a day may bring forth. We live but to see those we love pa.s.sing away into the silent land.
Behold this emblem of mortality, once the abode of a spirit like our own; beneath this mouldering canopy once shone the bright and busy eye; within this hollow cavern once played the ready, swift, and tuneful tongue; and now, sightless and mute, it is eloquent only in the lessons it teaches us.
Think of those brethren, who, but a few days since, were among us in all the pride and power of life; bring to your minds the remembrance of their wisdom, their strength, and their beauty; and then reflect that "to this complexion have they come at last;" think of yourselves, thus will you be when the lamp of your brief existence has burned out. Think how soon death, for you, will be a reality. Man"s life is like a flower, which blooms today, and tomorrow is faded, cast aside, and trodden under foot. The most of us, my brethren, are fast approaching, or have already pa.s.sed the meridian of life; our sun is setting in the West; and oh! how much more swift is the pa.s.sage of our declining years than when we started upon the journey, and believed--as the young are too apt to believe--that the roseate hues of the rising sun of our existence were always to be continued. When we look back upon the happy days of our childhood, when the dawning intellect first began to exercise its powers of thought, it seems as but yesterday, and that, by a simple effort of the will, we could put aside our manhood, and seek again the loving caresses of a mother, or be happy in the possession of a bauble; and could we now realize the idea that our last hour had come, our whole earthly life would seem but as the s.p.a.ce of time from yesterday until today. Centuries upon centuries have rolled away behind us; before us stretches out an eternity of years to come; and on the narrow boundary between the past and the present flickers the puny taper we term our life. When we came into the world, we knew naught of what had been before us; but, as we grew up to manhood, we learned of the past; we saw the flowers bloom as they had bloomed for centuries; we beheld the orbs of day and night pursuing their endless course among the stars, as they had pursued it from the birth of light; we learned what men had thought, and said, and done, from the beginning of the world to our day; but only through the eye of faith can we behold what is to come hereafter, and only through a firm reliance upon the Divine promises can we satisfy the yearnings of an immortal soul. The cradle speaks to us of remembrance--the coffin, of hope, of a blessed trust in a never-ending existence beyond the gloomy portals of the tomb.
Let these reflections convince us how vain are all the wranglings and bitterness engendered by the collisions of the world; how little in dignity above the puny wranglings of ants over a morsel of food, or for the possession of a square inch of soil.
What shall survive us? Not, let us hope, the petty strifes and bickerings, the jealousies and heart-burnings, the small triumphs and mean advantages we have gained, but rather the n.o.ble thoughts, the words of truth, the works of mercy and justice, that enn.o.ble and light up the existence of every honest man, however humble, and live for good when his body, like this remnant of mortality, is mouldering in its parent dust.
Let the proud and the vain consider how soon the gaps are filled that are made in society by those who die around them; and how soon time heals the wounds that death inflicts upon the loving heart; and from this let them learn humility, and that they are but drops in the great ocean of humanity.
And when G.o.d sends his angel to us with the scroll of death, let us look upon it as an act of mercy, to prevent many sins and many calamities of a longer life; and lay down our heads softly and go to sleep, without wrangling like froward children. For this at least man gets by death, that his calamities are not immortal. To bear grief honorably and temperately, and to die willingly and n.o.bly, are the duties of a good man and true Mason.
Ode.
Tune--Naomi. C. M.
When those we love are s.n.a.t.c.hed away, By Death"s relentless hand, Our hearts the mournful tribute pay, That friendship must demand.
While pity prompts the rising sigh, With awful power imprest; May this dread truth, "I too must die,"
Sink deep in every breast.
Let this vain world allure no more; Behold the opening tomb!
It bids us use the present hour; Tomorrow death may come.
The voice of this instructive scene May every heart obey; Nor be the faithful warning vain Which calls to watch and pray.