Joseph Fort Newton
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Quoted by Joseph Fort Newton in his chapter The Square in his 1924 book Brothers and Builders, which was also an uncredited Short Talk Bulletin that same year. Whether he was the original author is unclear, but seems likely.
from The Builder Magazine, April 1916.
Every so often the question comes up, why is it that we have so little really great Masonic poetry? Several Brethren have raised it of late in their letters to us, pointing out that while we have verse a plenty, and much of it very good indeed, it very rarely rises above the level of verse until the Brother who wrote it dies as in the story the verse of the little girl was called poetry after she had gone away. They are puzzled to know why this should be so. Masonry is a Chamber of Imagery, rich in suggestion, many of its Degrees acted poems, and they cannot understand why, with such a wealth of types, allegories, emblems and sentiment we do not have more and better Masonic poetry.
The late Robert Morris, so widely known and well beloved among us, for many years the Poet Laureate of the Order, often pondered this very same question. In the preface to the last edition of his volume of "The Poetry of Freemasonry" he returned to it for the last time, not long before he went away
"To that far land, far beyond storm and cloud
To that bright land, where sun doth never set
To that life land which has nor tomb nor shroud
And Brothers meet again who oft have met."
But he did not solve the mystery. He names a number of men who in his day, and earlier, had written distinctively Masonic poetry, such as Mackay, Percival, George Morris, Yates, Vinton, and he might have added Pike and Boutelle. He praises their poems, some of which he reproduces in his volume none of them, we venture to think, equal to his own melodious lines. But what puzzles him most is why great poets like Scott, Lamartine, Moore, Cowper, Hogg, Burns, Prentice and others, all members of the Order he might have added Pope, Byron, Lessing - did not write Masonic poetry. Then he asks the question:
"And why is this? Does not the subiect of Freemasonry suggest to the
noetic mind a flight skyward?
If religion constitutes so favorable a theme for poets because of its extraordinary array of imagery,
does not Freemasonry abound even more in such things? The very nature and purpose of our Order is to teach
one thing by means of another to suggest an inward truth by an outward emblem. Robert Burns found in the
murmur of a brook and the warbling of a bird the voice of his mistress. Walter Scott saw through the outlines
of a rusty lancehead or a broken pair of sours the imagery of a well-fought field. Thomas Moore drew from
the twang of a ricketty lute wails of lamentation for the decadence of his green old Ireland.
All this in the nature of suggestion, the very essence of poetry. Yet these men could look coldly upon the
most pregnant images of Freemasonry; they could listen to a rehearsal of the Masonic covenants without once
considering the inexhaustible mine of poetic thought of which these were only the surface. As compared with
any other theme, I would give the preference to Symbolical Masonry as the richest in poetic thought,
and I can only hope that the day is not distant when a great poet will arise to be to Freemasonry what Scott
was to chivalry, Moore to patriotism, Burns to rustic love."
Oddly enough he does not name Goethe, who did write distinctively Masonic poetry and, of course, Kipling came later but Morris himself was the Masonic poet of his own day; not a great poet, perhaps, but a noble and sweet singer, and one of the best interpreters of Masonry in any day. Few have ever used our emblems with more insight and skill, as in his poems on the Square, the Trowel, the Level, the Apron, and many an eloquent melody. But must we limit Masonic poetry to verse which weaves our symbols and emblems into its lines? Surely not. That is too narrow a conception of Masonic poetry, and when we put it aside there is no problem left to solve, no question to discuss. Usually, if we make a few exceptions such, for example, as the Kipling poems on The Palace and the Mother Lodge the finest Masonic poetry makes scant use of our familiar emblems. Instead, it sets the soul, the spirit, the genius, the truth of Masonry to high and haunting song and that is real Masonic poetry.
When was Robert Burns most truly a Masonic poet? When he wrote of the Apron, or when he sang in notes almost divine of the rights of man, the dignity of the soul, the kinship of all living things, and the coming of love and pity? Markham seldom, if ever, makes use of Masonic emblems, but who else in our day has set the soul of Masonry to more authentic music? Of those who have sung of the deeper meanings of Masonry, and its place in the mystical quest of the soul for God, there is no one like Edward Waite, no one near him. Susan Coleridge was not a Mason, but her lines called Soul Builders are truly Masonic, and so is that unforgetable poem by Margaret Wood, The Builders a vision of the grey old Abbey of England, of "ye builders of old" who lifted it heavenward, and of the mighty dead who sleep there.
Let us always remember that Poetry is as free as a "sweet bird of dawn singing the long epic of the world," and is not tied to any one system of symbolism. To its vivid soul all nature is an infinite parable, and life the very breath of the Eternal. It is a priest to us all of the strange and solemn wonder of the world, the daughter of the Voice of God telling us, in tales and golden histories, that the race must become partner with the mighty Father-Soul in His labors of love and beauty, "if its heart of rhythm and soul of fire are to stand fully revealed."
Condensed from a Short Talk Bulletin by Allen E. Roberts, which had been originally printed in "The Altar Light" Mar./May 1979.
The story of Joseph begins with his father, Lee Newton (for other than the obvious reasons). During the closing days of the American Civil War, Lee was taken prisoner and sent to a camp in Rockford, Illinois. He had earlier been made a Mason in a Confederate Military Lodge. While in the camp he became deathly ill. Somehow the commander of the camp learned Lee was a Mason, so he took him into his own home and nursed him back to health. When the war ended, the commander gave Lee money and a gun, then saw him safely on his way to Texas.
It might be said that Freemasonry gave birth to Joseph, who was born in Decatur, Texas on July 21, 1880. If a Brother Mason hadn't saved the life of the father there would have been no son.
The young Newton learned of this kind act from his father. This impressed him so much he petitioned Freemasonry as soon as he was old enough to do so; and on May 28, 1902, Joseph became a Master Mason in Friendship Lodge No. 7, Dixon, Illinois, where he was serving as a pastor.
H. L. Haywood, who as a young man talked with Joseph Fort Newton on several occasions, wrote of him after his death: "He was a Texan always, down to the marrow in his bones. He was ordained to the ministry in that State in 1893, and his first pastorate was of a Baptist Church in Paris, Texas. ... In those early years Newton had no difficulty about religion. He was born to be a religious man, always was, and never once did he falter for so much as a moment. Religion was not his second nature, but his first. But he had, and always had, a great deal of difficulty with theology."
Joseph was an ordained Baptist Minister who had already served in several pastorates before he graduated from Coe College in Iowa in 1912: in 1918 he graduated from Tufts College: in 1929, from Temple University.
He left Illinois in 1908 and became the pastor of a church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. There he would remain until 1916, when, with "The Great War" raging, he accepted a call to take over The City Temple in London, England. In 1919 he became the minister of a church in New York City. From 1925 to 1930 and again in 1938 he was with churches in Philadelphia.
While Newton was in Iowa, at the urging of the then Grand Master and Grand Secretary, he wrote a little book entitled The Builders. It was first published in 1914. This remarkable book would continue on the "best seller" list of Masonic books until the present day. And shortly before his death, Newton completed his final revision, and a chapter was added entitled "The Unknown Builders."
Requests for other books from the poetic pen of Newton were answered. He wrote The Men's House, The Religion of Masonry, Short Talks on Masonry, and others, including his autobiography, River of Years.
What made Joseph Fort Newton the great Mason and greater Minister he turned out to be? If one word had to be used it would be enthusiasm. Without question he enthusiastically loved his fellow man. His writings prove it beyond a doubt.
In his capacity as Educational Director of the MSA, Newton was urged to be "more militant." He answered this: "It has always been in my heart to use Masonry as a wand of blessing and never as a weapon of battle. It is intended to make men friends, to bring men of all types of temperament, antecedents, and training together, to defend their Brotherhood and make them builders of a purer world. The temptation is very great, sometimes, by members of our Fraternity, good men and true, to use Masonry as a weapon of battle. We can never do it. I refuse to do it. It is too great. It is too beautiful. It is too holy." Beautiful phraseology! Beautiful sentiments! In this short statement he covered the deep-seated meaning of Freemasonry.
Newton joined his Grand Architect on January 24, 1950. But he left a legacy that will never die. And it will never be equalled. There will be, and have been, Masons who have written more books about Freemasonry. None of these contain, or ever will, the poetic prose only Newton could write.