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Other charitable projects include research in rheumatic fever and dementia praecox, an extensive hospital-visitation program. U.S. Masonry in 1948 spent more than $9,000,000 on various philanthropies (the figures are incomplete since the order does not advertise its charities).
For what overall purpose does Masonry exist? In the high words of Roscoe Pound, onetime dean of the Harvard Law School and ex-Deputy Grand Master of the Massachusetts Masonic Grand Lodge, its end is "to preserve, to develop and transmit to posterity the civilization we have inherited . . . Wherever in the world there is a lodge of Masons, there should be a focus of civilization, a center of the idea of universality, radiating reason . . ."
God & Geometry. It began radiating officially some 230 years ago—a development from guilds of masons who built England's cathedrals. In 1717, guildsmen got together for a feast in the Goose & Gridiron tavern in London and the modern Masonic fraternity was born.
England was in spiritual chaos after its revolt from the Church of Rome, and men were attracted to a moral code which was based on such undeviating symbols as the level, the compass and the plumb. The Masons conceived of God as "The Great Architect of the Universe." The "G" in Masonic emblems can stand for God and/or Geometry. Euclid and Pythagoras became the order's patron saints.
It was the Age of Reason, and Masonry's doctrine of fraternity, equality and enlightenment had a wide appeal. Frederick the Great became a member. Russian aristocrats took it up. English traders distributed charters for new lodges overseas. George Washington and Paul Revere were ardent brethren. So was Benjamin Franklin, deist and moralizer, who helped initiate Voltaire into the rites.
Seeds & Secrets. Because its members were dynamic, practical men and forces in the community, Masonry became a quiet but dynamic force in history. It carried 18th Century Protestant civilization into the frontiers of North America. It helped sow the seeds of the French Revolution—and thereby contributed to the destruction of the enlightened French noblemen who had taken it up.
As it grew, it encountered opposition. Plump Maria Theresa of Austria, a doting and jealous wife, had her husband's Masonic lodge raided because she was sure that her philandering Francis was up to no good. More effective opposition came from the Catholic Church. Pope Clement XII, in 1738, issued a papal edict denouncing Masonry as a trespass on the church's spiritual and moral domain. Rome's opposition to Masonry has been unceasing. The church, which excommunicated all Communists last week, has been excommunicating Masons for 200 years.
The order's air of secrecy aroused violent political hostility in the U.S. When a ne'er-do-well ex-Mason named William Morgan wrote an "exposure" of its secrets, then disappeared, Masonry found itself fighting for its life. It was charged that Morgan, who had indeed been kidnaped in 1826, had also been slain. His body never turned up.