Lodge Southern Cross #44 AF & AM
Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon

The Ante-Room 1

by M.W.Bro. J. J. Miller

With some Masons it is quite an accepted fact that the ritualistic work is paramount; that the conferring of degrees and the word-perfect rendition of the ritual are the very essence of Freemasonry. It is right and proper that the degrees should be conferred with precision and impressive ceremonial and that the work should be correctly done. But the seeker for knowledge and fellowship is looking for something further than the ritualistic ceremonial. It is right that it should be so, and it is right that this class of man should be welcomed warmly into our ranks. Facilities for acquiring a Masonic education are greater today than at any period in the history of the Craft. Books and magazines are available; lectures and addresses are given. So it is only the careless or indifferent Mason who does not know or does not care to know the why and wherefore of Freemasonry.

But the ritual, books and lectures are only means to an end. So, in like manner, is the ante-room, that most valuable adjunct to a lodge. Yet how lamentably some lodges fail to utilize this great auxiliary!

It is here, in the ante-room, that many Masonic friendships are formed and the ties of brotherhood strengthened. It is the best "get-together" agency of the Craft. I have noticed how welcome always is the call from "Labour to Refreshment", even for the space of ten minutes. This is the very ten minutes that scores of the brethren have been hungry for. It may not be actual material "refreshment", but it is refreshing all the same. It affords fraternal refreshment, even intellectual refreshment, a refreshment born of fraternal fellowship. Listen to the brethren as they chat and swap stories. You wou1d hardly recognize in them the solemn, morose, bored crowd you had just seen lining the walls of the lodge room inside.

The call from "Labour to Refreshment" is an ancient Masonic practice, and the very best should at all times be got out of it. In these days of rush and hustle, little opportunity is given for fellowship in the ante-room. There is, a rush to get to lodge just before it opens; there is an unseemly crush about the Porch Book. In the lodge room, some brethren listen attentively to the ritual so often heard before; some keep awake with difficulty, some actually slumber. It is generally late when at last the work is completed, and there

is a rush for the cloak room and home. The next meeting night it is the same, and the next, and the next. Bye and bye, brethren who have been regular in their attendance cease to come. New members take their places and pass through the same experiences. There is an unexpressed disappointment in the hearts of men who joined the Order for a fellowship they believed it held for them, They do not openly complain, but their absence or their intermittent attendance at meetings speaks for them.

Often I have sat in the ante-room listening to the hub-bub of voices about me, catching sentences of brotherly conversation, amused by some humorous anecdote, listening to introductions being made, to a strange brother making himself known and being welcomed by the members of the lodge, watching a young member propounding some perplexing question to one of the veterans. To me, all of this was indicative of a fraternal development, a social activity that needs far more encouragement than it gets usually in our city lodges today.

I do not mean that the opening of the lodge should be delayed, or the regular routine of business unduly broken, for the purposes of ante-room fraternisation. I do mean that advantage can and should be taken of the great benefits derivable from the anteroom, by the early assembly of the brethren. The officers might arrive half an hour before lodge opens, and they might encourage the other brethren to come early too, with the object of getting better acquainted, and for the promotion of friendship and fellowship. I think that long sessions of lodge work might profitably be broken by the call from "Labour to Refreshment". A well-planned, comfortable ante-room is as essential to the business of the Craft as a well appointed lodge room. A Worshipful Master's room is also essential. If a suitable room is provided for the master in connection with the ante-room, he should he in his room at least half an hour before the time of opening the lodge, to meet his brethren who have matters to discuss with him. It may be that here, in the Master's room, misunderstandings could be straightened out, points not understood explained, the abuse of the black ball mitigated, eligibility of petitioners canvassed. In a hundred ways, the accessibility of the Master is of material value to the brethren, as it is of advantage to the Craft.

The ante-room, judiciously utilised, can do much to remove from some lodges the stigma that a member does not know one-half of his fellow members. A lodge proclaims itself a weak agency for the promotion of brotherly love and fellowship when a member remains a stranger in his own lodge.

The success of the multidinous extraneous social orders built up on the Masonic qualification on the American continent may be directly attributed to the failure of Craft lodges to feed the hungry Masonic soul with the food of brotherly intercourse, which is so lavishly provided in these other sideshows.

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1 "The Square", R.J. Templeton, editor. p. 15-17

© 2006-2008, Lodge Southern Cross No. 44, BC&Y
Last Updated: 28 Dec, 2007/TMC