RUDYARD KIPLING - A MAN AND A MASON Can I start with a poem that we probably all are familiar with? IF you can keep your head when all

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1 RUDYARD KIPLING - A MAN AND A MASON Can I start with a poem that we probably all are familiar with? IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream and not make dreams your master; If you can think and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on"; If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And which is more you'll be a Man my son! 1

2 The Lodge of Hope and Perseverance, No. 782, English Constitution in Lahore, Punjab, India was seeking a Secretary. The year was 1885 and there was a new resident, a young man, not yet of legal age, employed as an assistant editor of the provincial newspaper. His father was a Freemason, a notable artist, and Curator of the Lahore Museum. It was suggested that the son was eminently suited for the vacant office, and thus, at twenty years and six months, Rudyard Kipling became a Freemason and Lodge Secretary in a Masonic connection that influenced his life and writings through many years. As Secretary he even recorded his own raising on 6 December Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India on December 30, 1865, the son of John Lockwood and Alice MacDonald Kipling. His father had gone to India to accept the post of Principal of the newly founded Sir Jamjetjee Jejeebhoy School of Art. His parents were gifted persons; his mother, Alice, sparkling and elegant. One of her sisters was the mother of Stanley Baldwin. At five years of age, Rudyard was brought, by his parents, to England and spent five unhappy years with a foster family in Southsea, an experience he later drew on in Baa, Baa, Black Sheep (1888). He then went on to the United Services College, Westward Ho!, near Bideford in North Devon where he remained until his school years were over and he returned to India to become a member of the editorial staff of the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore. Here he rediscovered the land of his birth and developed the flair for writing that had already marked his school years at Westward Ho! It is recorded that after the paper had been put to bed in the sultry Indian midnight, he would find his way into the old walled city to sense the mystic atmosphere of that colourful land and its ancient people, and to exercise a talent for absorbing background and for storing in his memory impressions and incidents which provided material for a half century of literary production. In the bazaars, from all sorts and conditions of natives, from police officers, and from service people, he gathered copy that was to be the basis of many poems and stories. His biographer says that one of the channels by which he penetrated the underworld was Freemasonry he was fascinated by the mysterious bond that overcame class rules. Freemasonry was a cult that transcended caste and sects. It was the only ground in a caste ridden country on which adherents of different religions could meet on the level. In his twenty first year he began to produce the verse and stories that were to make him famous and which attracted attention from the outset. His stay in India was terminated in 1889, when he returned to England. 2

3 Among his new friends, he was especially drawn to an American publisher from Vermont, Wolcott Balestier, whose sister Caroline he married on January 18, 1892 shortly after Wolcott¹s untimely death. Carrie and Rudyard took up residence, from 1892 to 1896, in Brattleboro, Vermont. They had a large home built to their own specifications on the outskirts of Brattleboro where their two daughters were born and where they made many friends and were noted for their hospitality. Kipling accomplished much writing here, including the Jungle Book and Captains Courageous. He also wrotewee Willie Winkie, Just So Stories,The man who would be king, Gunga Din Unhappily a family quarrel developed with Carrie s brother Beatty and the outcome was a return to England in The Kipling home still stands in Vermont and has been preserved as a historical landmark. He was the first English writer to be awarded a Nobel prize for literature in Financial success, public acclaim, and personal sorrows marked the years until death on January 18, 1936 and Kipling s funereal service in Westminster Abbey. His eldest daughter, Josephine, caught pneumonia in February 1899 during a trip to New York and never recovered, dead at age 6! His only son, John, was killed at the Battle of Loos in Belgium, on September 27, 1915 just six weeks after his eighteenth birthday! The first Christmas Day message by a British monarch was in 1932, when King George V broadcast live from Sandringham. In the speech, which was written by Rudyard Kipling, the King celebrated the power of the wireless to unite all the people of the Empire, and wished them a Happy Christmas. Kipling gave unstintingly of his time and effort as a member of the Imperial War Graves Commission and is credited with the authorship of the inscription seen in every cemetery Their Name Liveth for Evermore Kipling wrote: In 1885, I was made a Freemason by dispensation (being under age) in The Lodge of Hope and Perseverance 782 E.C. because the Lodge hoped for a good Secretary. They did not get him, but I helped, and got Father to advise me in decorating the bare walls of the Masonic Hall with hangings after the prescription of King Solomon s Temple. Here I met Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, members of the Araya and Brahmo Samaj, and a Jewish Tyler, who was a priest and butcher to his little community in the city. So yet another world was opened to me which I needed. We get a little more detail in a letter Kipling wrote in the London Times, dated March 28, 1935: In reply to your letter I was Secretary for some years of the Lodge of Hope and Perseverance No. 782, English Constitution which included 3

4 Brethren of at least four different creeds. I was entered by a member of the Brahmo Samaj (a Hindu), passed by a Mohammedan, and raised by an Englishman. Our Tyler was an Indian Jew. We met, of course, on the level and the only difference that anyone would notice was that at our banquets some of the Brethren, who were debarred by caste rules from eating food not ceremoniously prepared, sat over empty plates. I had the good fortune to be able to arrange a series of informal lectures by Brethren of various faiths, on baptismal ceremonies of their religions. Kipling, becoming a Freemason at an impressionable age, and lecturing, as be did, to his Lodge on the origin and principles of Freemasonry, at the age of 22 years, received a broadening influence from Freemasonry. Toleration is a first principle of Freemasonry, and Kipling is an exponent of toleration. In "Kim" he concedes the better knowledge of and broader view of human nature Kipling also received the Mark Master degree in a Lahore Mark Lodge and affiliated with a Craft Lodge in Allahabad, Bengal. Later, in England he affiliated as an honorary member of the Motherland Lodge, No in London. He was also a memberof the Authors Lodge, No. 3456, and a founder - member of the Lodge Builders of the Silent Cities, No. 4948, which was connected with the War Graves Commission and which was so named at Kipling s suggestion. Another Masonic association was formed when he became Poet Laureate of the famous Canongate Kilwinning, No. 2 in Edinburgh, the Lodge of which Robert Burns is said to have served in the same office. There seems to have been some quality deep within his nature to which Freemasonry appealed. The idea of a secret bond, of a sense of community, and of high principles among men sworn to a common purpose, fitted his concept of a social order. In 1925 he uttered one more reiteration of Masonic principles. "Our sane attitude towards each other must be that of good- will - a good- will just a little more persistent, just a little more indefatigable than the ill- will which is being fabricated elsewhere. For if good- will can once more be made normal, with it must return that will to work which is the trade mark of established health in a people. If the will to work be too long delayed, then, all that our race has made and stands for must pass into the hand of whatever nation first 4

5 recovers that will." In conclusion, some lines by Kipling reflect on modern freemasonry THE MOTHER LODGE There was Rundle, Station Master, An' Beazeley of the Rail, An' 'Ackman, Commissariat, An' Donkin' o' the Jail; An' Blake, ConductorSargent, Our Master twice was 'e, With 'im that kept the Europeshop, Old Framjee Eduljee. We'd Bola Nath, Accountant, An' Saul the Aden Jew, An' Din Mohammed, draughtsman Of the Survey Office too; There was Babu Chuckerbutty, An' Amir Singh the Sikh, An' Castro from the fittin'sheds, The Roman Catholick! We 'adn't good regalia, An' our Lodge was old an' bare, But we knew the Ancient Landmarks, An' we kep' 'em to a hair; An' lookin' on it backwards It often strikes me thus, There ain't such things as infidels, Excep', per'aps, it's us. 5

6 For monthly, after Labour, We'd all sit down and smoke (We dursn't give no banquits, Lest a Brother's caste were broke), An' man on man got talkin' Religion an' the rest, An' every man comparin' Of the God 'e knew the best. So man on man got talkin', An' not a Brother stirred Till mornin' waked the parrots An' that dam' brainfeverbird; We'd say 'twas 'ighly curious, An' we'd all ride 'ome to bed, With Mo'ammed, God, an' Shiva Changin' pickets in our 'ead. 'arm.we met upon the Level an' we parted on the Square, An' I was Junior Full oft on Guv'ment service This rovin' foot 'ath pressed, An' bore fraternal greetin's To the Lodges east an' west, Accordin' as commanded From Kohat to Singapore, But I wish that I might see them In my MotherLodge once more! 'arm.we met upon the Level an' we parted on the Square, An' I was Junior I wish that I might see them, My Brethren black an' brown, With the trichies smellin' pleasant An' the hogdarn passin' down; [Cigarlighter.] An' the old khansamah snorin' [Butler.] On the bottlekhana floor, [Pantry.] Like a Master in good standing With my Mother Lodge once more! 6