Aid and Assistance

Aid and Assistance. There are several provisions, expressed in a variety of language in the Ancient Charges, relating to aid, assistance, relief of distress, and employment for traveling Masons. Aid and assistance as there used referred to the instruction and help which a more proficient Mason should offer to another for the general profit and standing of the Craft and for the benefit of the owner of the work. Relief referred more to what we call charity or alms. Separate from both ideas was the very positive injunction that a sojourning Mason should be employed if there were work available; otherwise to be helped to the next lodge. The Regius MS. directs that no Master shall supplant another or disparage his work but help him to correct his mistakes; and the Craftsman must help and instruct those deficient in knowledge and skill.

In the speculative Charges of a Free-Mason in the Constitutions of 1723, the above ideas are expressed thus: ”You are to salute one another in a courteous manner... freely giving mutual Instruction.” The principal tenets of the speculative Society became Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth, and the duty of Relief was thus expressed in the lectures of William Preston introduced about 1772: ”To relieve the distressed is a duty incumbent on all men, but particularly on Freemasons, who are linked together by an indissoluble chain of sincere affection.”

There has been some disposition on the part of Masonic writers and orators to exaggerate on this subject and carry us into the higher realms of Christian love and sacrifice for the benefit of all mankind, as if a Masonic lodge were almost a monastery of friars sworn to poverty and universal benevolence. Such is harmful in opening the Fraternity to charges of hypocrisy. In recent times, the Fraternity has been forced to realize that the Masonic duty of aid, assistance, and relief is due Masons only and, for practical reasons cannot be extended to outsiders. Of course, Freemasons are members of the general society and may be members of charitable organizations or may undertake to administer alms individually, but for Masonic lodges to assume that duty would extend their obligations beyond their means. As early as 1887, the Grand Master of California ruled: ”That charity which extends to all mankind is individual.”

During the past three decades Freemasonry, through its lodges, Grand Lodges, and numerous appendant bodies have drastically increased its contributions to those without and within the Craft. In 1990 it was conservatively estimated that Freemasonry contributed more than two million dollars a day to the welfare of individuals.

Macoy Collector's Note: Coil provides a masterful, grounded explanation of Masonic charity, dispelling the myth that the Fraternity was designed as a universal public charity, and reaffirming its core historical function as a mutual relief society.