"The Patriarchs: Joseph Fort Newton and the Contemplation of Wisdom in a ‘New Age'"

From the Sept/Oct 2023 edition of The Scottish Rite Journal.  Any accompanying photographs or citations for this article can be found in the corresponding print edition.


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to a special edition of the Scottish Right Journal,
podcast and audio presentation of the Scottish Right Journal, brought
to you by the Supreme Council of the Scottish Right
Southern Jurisdiction Mother Supreme Council of the World. This week's
article is from the pages of Amicus Illuminism, the Patriarchs,
Joseph Fort Newton and the Contemplation of Wisdom in a

(00:23):
New Age by Brother Andrew Hammer, thirty second degree kcch
and read by Brother Hank Griffin, thirty second degree, and
comes from the September October twenty twenty three issue of
the Scottish Right Journal.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Living as he did at the end of one monumental
century and at the beginning of another, Joseph Fort Newton
eighteen eighty to nineteen fifty has much to teach us
today as we settle into our own century. Newton's most
prominent work, The Bill Builders, A Story and Study of Masonry,

(01:03):
was published in nineteen fourteen, that faithful first year of
World War One, whose impact would not be felt directly
in America for a few years, but which marked the
true end of one era and the beginning of another.

(01:23):
Much has been said in recent years about generational issues
in relation to Masonry, as Masons try to understand membership
numbers in terms of generational appeal or the supposed lack thereof. Yet,
what Newton first puts forth in his remarks is that

(01:44):
every stage of life has its advantages and disadvantages. The
Builders would go on to become a seminal work in
Masonic literature, touching the minds of innumerable Masons through the years.
Newton was an aspirational writer, carrying in his words the

(02:07):
vision of optimism so common to the twentieth century. Indeed,
the very name of the Scottish Rights Southern Jurisdictions Periodical itself,
The New Age hints at a sense of possibility for
things ahead. The article we are looking at in this
reprise is entitled the Patriarchs and is taken from a

(02:32):
speech given by Brother Newton at a banquet for aged
Masons on October twelfth, nineteen fourteen, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
and published in the December nineteen fourteen New Age. Here,
Newton addresses the topics of age, aging and the emergence

(02:53):
of wisdom in the older Mason. Newton begins with a
historical truism as to the reverence Masonry has for its
senior brethren, but then comes swiftly to his main proposition,
When a man is old, and what does age teach

(03:13):
a man who is willing to use it to build wisdom?
Using anecdotal and rhetorical examples from history, he expands deftly
upon the notion that one one is only as old
as he feels, and two how one uses life and
the lessons time teaches determines not only the true age

(03:35):
of a man, but the value of his life. The
purpose of Newton's remarks is to extol the benefits of age.
Newton writes in his article youth seeks very high for
what age finds nearby. It is when we grow older
that the simple things of life begin to unfold their

(03:58):
wonder and open life long vistas of meditation. Youth knows
more than old age because it knows so many things
that are not so yet. The author also devotes time
to the notion of waste, specifically the waste of years
that evidences itself in so many men, who, despite having

(04:23):
been presented with opportunities to learn and grow, cast such
lessons to one side, as if nothing has happened in
their long lives that would teach them anything. Much has
been said in recent years about generational issues in relation
to Masonry, as Masons try to understand membership numbers in

(04:47):
terms of generational appeal or the supposed lack thereof. Yet,
what Newton puts forth in his remarks to his audience
in nineteen fourteen is that every age of life has
its advantages and disadvantages. Each individual must determine his course.

(05:07):
He must choose to be receptive to the wisdom that
time and experience can bring. And if a man is
not willing to be open to that possibility, he may,
even in his youth, be more prone to the infirmities
of age than a brother in his closing years. I
thought that arises in the mind of the present author

(05:29):
is that new Masons are neither necessarily young nor old men.
Newton's remarks perhaps speak to the way in which an
older man may arguably bring a more receptive vessel to
the craft, precisely because of what else is or may
have been contained within this vessel over the length of

(05:51):
his years before he knocked on the door of a lodge.
The second emphasis of his remarks is in some sense
a celebration of what aging means and the inevitable encroachment
of that ultimate moment we must all face. Telling Lee
Newton quotes Robert Browning's well known poem grow Old along

(06:17):
with Me as a virtue as well as a blessing,
and he ends his speech with a few stanzas from
the poet Anne Mason Edwin Markham's The Homing Heart, each
of which addressed death and the immortality of the soul, respectively.
In the examination of the latter poem, however, a couple

(06:40):
of stanzas farther down, not quoted by Newton catch one's eye.
We will hear some word of the final meeting as
we meet at last by the love loud trees hush
with the wonder of life, and leaning over the marveling
seas a strangely, then will the heart be shaken or

(07:04):
something starry will touch the hour, and the mystic wind
of the world's will waken, steering the soul's tallflower. As
stated earlier, Newton is delivering these thoughts only a few
months after the beginning of World War One, a cataclysm

(07:25):
that would steal the optimism away from previously hopeful generations
who might have seen man as the measure of all things,
until both that creature and its measuring tools would prove
to be deeply flawed. One who sees these comments in
the context of history cannot escape the sense of foreboding

(07:46):
that overhangs in the mind whilst reading the kinds of
sentiments that call back to that which is romantic rather
than what is reckoning in the human experience. The years
immediately following these comments would call all interpretations of life
into question and challenge the faith of men. In search

(08:09):
of either a better world or a better understanding of deity,
we still, in this new century of our own, seek
some word of final meaning. The steering of the soul's
tall flower. Joseph Fort Newton's observations are a poignant appreciation

(08:31):
of the wisdom accumulated with age, the ability afforded by
age to appreciate life differently in light of the nuances
timecasts opponent. It is not so much that the mind
changes in its capacity, although for so many that is
but inevitable, nor that the heart reverses itself in its concern. Rather,

(08:58):
it is that sperience changes the nature of how things
are understood how one concerns oneself with a thing in itself.
The message is it wants truly Masonic as well as
deeply philosophical.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Like and share this article and don't forget to subscribe
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one and as a reminder, hit the notifications bell. Any
accompanying photographs or citations for this article can be found
in the corresponding print edition. The Scottish Right Journal is
published by the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction,
Mother Supreme Council of the World. Mark Dreisenstock, thirty third

(09:42):
degree Managing Editor. I'm your host, Matt Bauers