FREEMASONRY AT NAUVOO

There has been much comment-favorable and unfavorable-regarding the connection of Joseph Smith and others with Masonry in Nauvoo. There has, however, been some misunderstanding or lack of understanding in regard to just what was done.

The following article taken from History of the Grand Lodge of Iowa, by Mr. Joseph E. Marcombe, will be read with interest. By this we learn the reasons for and the extent of the opposition to Nauvoo lodges from the grand lodge of Illinois, as well as some local lodges.

We especially invite attention to one reason, namely, the fear that "Mormon" Masons would become so numerous as to control the grand lodge of Illinois. The author of the book from which we quote, in a private letter to the Editor of the JOURNAL OF HISTORY makes the following significant remarks:

March 10, 1910.

HEMAN C. SMITH,

Lamoni, Iowa.

Dear Mr. Smith: I write to express my sincere appreciation of your kindness in sending me copy jubilee edition of the Saints Herald. To one who has from an outsider's standpoint given considerable attention to the early history of your church, this issue has great interest.

I was very early in my investigations convinced that historians have been unfair to the purposes of the Nauvoo community and that the character of Joseph Smith had been either misinterpreted or grossly maligned, or both. To me the founder of the Saints' church was a man whose social plans if allowed free working out might have solved some of our present problems. I am not competent to judge of his religious ideas, but I certainly would not let prejudice blind me or ignorance lead me to condemnation.

The Saints' Herald says that Joseph Smith does not appear as a Mason. I showed beyond a peradventure a few years ago that Joseph and Hyrum Smith were both "made Masons" on sight (as President Taft was a few months ago in Cincinnati) by the grand master of Illinois. The fact is established beyond dispute that the lodge of Nauvoo, while it took in members at a rate beyond precedent, did not violate the regulations of Masonry in proportion beyond other lodges of the time. All lodges were slipshod in their methods, at least in the newer communities. But the

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fear arose and was voiced by the lodges at Quincy and Warsaw, that the Nauvoo lodge, with its offshoots at Montrose and Keokuk, might control the grand lodge of Illinois.

(To be continued.)

To thine own self be true;

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Our lives are songs; God writes the words,

And we set them to music at pleasure,

And the song grows glad, or sweet, or sad

As we choose to fashion the measure.

We must write the music, whatever the song,

Whatever its rhyme or meter,

And if it is glad we may make it sad,

Or if sweet we may make it sweeter.

How often is our path

Crossed by some being whose bright spirit sheds

A passing gladness o'er it; but whose course

Leads down another current, never more

To blend with ours! yet far within our soul,

Amidst the rushing of the busy world,

Dwells many a secret thought, which lingers still

Around that image.

Heaven is not gained by a single bound,

But we build the ladder by which we rise;

From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,

And we mount to the summit, round by round.

So should we live that every hour,

May die as dies the natural flower;

That every word and every deed

May bear within itself the seed

of future good, for future need.

Count that day lost, whose low descending sun

Views from thy hand no worthy action done.

Whene'er the clouds of sorrow roll,

And trials whelm the mind,

When faint with grief thy wearied soul

No joys on earth can find,

Then lift thy voice to God on high,

Dry up the trembling tear,

And hush the low complaining sigh,

Fear not, thy God is near.