NEED FOR BENEVOLENCE

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 280, 26 November 1931, Page 20

NEED FOR BENEVOLENCE

APPEAL TO FREEMASONS.

SPIRIT OF BROTHERHOOD.

ADDRESS BY LORD BLEDISLOE

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, Wednesday.

The Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, was reinstalled Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge of New Zealand at a ceremony in the Town Hall this evening. The Grand Master, in an address after his installation, dealt with the bearing of various principles of Masonic ethics upon the everyday life of members of the craft. He pleaded with those whose means would permit it not to abate by a jot their almsgiving when its continuance might save any brother or brother's dependents from want. He earnestly besought the continuance of the past generous and self-sacrificing support of the Widows, Orphans and Aged Masons Fund, the calls upon which were great. In this connection he expressed a profound admiration and gratitude for the generous response to the appeal which he had made for the assistance of those members, who, as well as their lodges, had suffered in the Hawke's Bay earthquake, and he cited it as most gratifying evidence of the power of fraternal benevolence. Freemasons should do all in their power with the binding influence of fraternal effort to add strength, individually and collectively, to all that was unstable and unstabilising in our environment. The world was faced to-day with a condition of economic chaos and social upheaval threatening the fabric of civilisation and bordering upon a condition of disruption. What contribution, lie asked, was the ancient craft in these southern seas prepared to make to the salvago of the wreck of hopes and homes of helpless human beings so mercilessly wrought by the Great War, and of which they were now experiencing a c>uel aftermath.

Stability and fraternity had ever been the worthy principles and objectives of the order. He urged the Freemasons of New Zealand to emulate the good Samaritan and each contribute his definite quota to the remedial treatment of the world's malady and avoid doing or saying anything that might aggravate or intensify it. They should make the craft a solid nucleus of fraternal effort and inoculate others with the inspiring spirit of brotherhood and the consciousness that all were members one of the other. Thus could. they not only develop greater mutual sympathy and helpfulness, but also help in breaking down antagonisms, suspicions and prejudices. The practice of prudent philanthropy according to one's means and opportunity might prove to be a veritable golden bridge in spanning one of life's most perilous swamps and thus enable the exhausted traveller to reach, under more settled conditions, the firm shore of revived and progressive prosperity.