Part I]I—Interpretation

WHAT IS MASONRY
I am afraid you may not consider it an alto- gether substantial concern. It has to be seen ina certain way, under certain conditions. Some people never see it at all. You must understand, this is no dead pile of stones and unmeaning tim- ber. It is a LIVING thing.
When you enter it you hear a sound — a sound as of some mighty poem chanted. Listen long enough, and you will learn that it 1s made up of the beating of human hearts, of the nameless music of men’s souls — that is, if you have ears to hear. If you have eyes, you will presently see the church itself —a looming mystery of many shapes and shadows, leaping sheer from floor to dome. The work of no ordinary builder!
The pillars of it go up like the brawny trunks of heroes; the sweet flesh of men and women is molded about its bulwarks, strong, impregnable; the faces of little children laugh out from every corner stone; the terrible spans and arches of it are the joined hands of comrades; and up in the heights and spaces are inscribed the numberless musings of all the dreamers of the world. It is yet building — building and built upon.
Sometimes the work goes on in deep darkness ; sometimes in blinding light; now under the bur- den of unutterable anguish; now to the tune of great laughter and heroic shoutings like the cry of thunder. Sometimes, in the silence of the night-time, one may hear the tiny hammerings of the comrades at work up in the dome — the com- rades that have climbed ahead.
—C. R. Kennepy, The Servant in the House