Page 26 - Jan 2019 MFM.indd

no matter how noble and true those things may be, The Nautilus and the Ammonite
the value and helpfulness of the lesson may be lost
because the teacher does not ring true.
You my brethren who are the leaders in Masonry in
the state of Montana. You are in a sense the Builders.
The character of the Order we love receives its
Hallmark here. Its the work that we are doing rings
true to the standard of excellence laid down by the
noblemen who have gone before us, we must, of
course, fi nd our own lives ringing true to that standard
— genuineness, honor, integrity, truth. When we point
out to the initiates the symbolic meaning of our Order,
let it win their approbation and their loyal devotion
because they see that we have learned those lessons
and that our lives are fi t patterns of what we wish them
to be.
Whose groves were palm, whose air was balm,
Re: 1927 Proceedings, Grand Lodge AF&AM of Montana
They saw them ride in their power and pride,
.
Right Reverend Herbert Henry Heywood Fox, D.D.
(11 March 1871 - 24 November 1943)
Bishop
Episcopal Diocese of Montana
and
Episcopal Diocese of Idaho
Grand Chaplain
Grand Lodge of Montana
1927-1931
Thus tempest-tossed, seek the loved, the lost,
Where heart meets heart, and no more they part
Page 26
The nautilus and the ammonite
Were launched in friendly strife,
Each sent to fl oat in its tiny boat
On the wide, wide sea of life.
For each could swim on the ocean's brim,
And, when wearied, its sail could furl,
And sink to sleep in the great sea-deep,
In its palace all of pearl.
And theirs was a bliss more fair than this
Which we taste in our colder clime;
For they were rife in a tropic life--
A brighter and better clime.
They swam 'mid isles whose summer smiles
Were dimmed by no alloy;
And life one only joy.
They sailed all day through creek and bay,
And traversed the ocean deep;
And at night they sank on a coral bank,
In its fairy bowers to sleep.
And the monsters vast of ages past
They beheld in their ocean caves;
And sink in their deep-sea graves.
And hand in hand, from strand to strand,
They sailed in mirth and glee;
These fairy shells, with their crystal cells,
Twin sisters of the sea.
And they came at last to a sea long past,
But as they reached its shore,
The Almighty's breath spoke out in death,
And the ammonite was no more.
So the nautilus now in its shelly prow,
As over the deep it strays,
Still seems to seek, in bay and creek,
Its companion of other days.
And alike do we, on life's stormy sea,
As we roam from shore to shore,
And fi nd them on earth no more.
Yet the hope how sweet, again to meet,
As we look to a distant strand,
Who meet in that better land.
- G F Richardson (1851)
Montana Freemason January 2019