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JOSEPH EARL PERRY 1884-1983

JosephEarlPerry1938.jpg

Deputy Grand Master, 1936
Grand Master, 1938-1940


TERM

1938 1939 1940

NOTES

MEMORIAL

From Proceedings, Page 1983-209:

Most Worshipful Joseph Earl Perry was born in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts on December30, 1884, and died at Shelburne Falls on November 3, 1983 in his ninety-ninth year, after a long and outstanding career as an educator, banker, and attorney.

A direct descendant of Francis Cook of the Mayflower, he was the son of Joseph Charles Perry and Miriam Holbrook (Packard) Perry. He married Bessie Luella Stanford on June 24, 1911 and had three children: Miriam Elizabeth (Mrs. Bennett D. Ball), Joseph Earl, Jr., and Walter Stanford Perry. Following the death of Mrs. Perry in 1968, he married Mrs. Florence S. Kuhn on May 24, 1969.

He was graduated from Arms Academy at Shelburne Falls in 1902, received the Bachelor of Arts degree from Williams College in 1906, the Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from Harvard Law School in 1909 and the Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Boston University in 1922. While at Williams College, he was president of the Y.M.C.A. and his senior class, and a member of Gargoyle (senior honorary society) and Phi Beta Kappa. Admitted to the Massachusetts State Bar in 1908, he became a member of the Boston, Middlesex, Massachusetts and American Bar Associations. As a resident of Belmont, Massachusetts for many years, he continued his active association with the legal profession in the Boston area until 1977 when he retired from the firm of Perry, Saunders and Cheney.

In addition to his practice of law, Dr. Perry took an active interest in the field of education, particularly with reference to law, banking and taxation. He served as a member of the faculty at Boston University, Northeastern University, Rutgers University Graduate School of Banking and as a member of the Council of the Harvard Law School Association. other academic positions held include trustee, member of the executive committee and treasurer of Boston University and trustee of International College Beirut, Lebanon. ln 1943 he declined the offer of the presidency of Middlesex University.

As a lawyer, he spent many years as a bank conveyancer and in behalf of the Massachusetts Bankers Association he carried to a successful conclusion in the Supreme Court a landmark case relating to bank taxation. He was an incorporator of the Belmont Savings Bank, a director of the Belmont Trust Company and director, counsel, vice-president and acting president of the Waverly Cooperative Bank. In 1940 he was appointed Massachusetts Commissioner of Banks and. served also as Chairman of the Board of Bank Incorporation. In 1944, he resigned as Commissioner of Banks to become president of the Newton Savings Bank (now Mutual Bank for Savings).

His civic activities also included service as Massachusetts Income Tax Attorney in the Department of Corporations and Taxation, and as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives where he was Chairman of the Committees on Constitutional Law and on Taxation. During World War I he served with the First Corps of Cadets, Professional and Business Men's Training School, Company F, 11th Regiment, Massachusetts State Guard. Throughout his long and distinguished career he served as an officer or director of many educational, legal, banking, community, and charitable associations.

The following is a summary of Most Worshipful Brother Perry's impressive and unique Masonic record:

  • Mountain Lodge Shelburne Falls - Initiated, Passed and Raised, 1909
  • Belmont Lodge Belmont - Affiliated 1919, Worshipful Master, 1929
  • Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts:
    • District Deputy Grand Master, Brighton Fifth Masonic District, 1933-1934
    • Deputy Grand Master, 1936
    • Judge Advocate, 1937
    • Most Worshipful Grand Master, 1938, 1939, 1940
    • Grand Representative of South Carolina, 1938-1967
    • Board of Directors, 194l-1972
    • Board of Trial Commissioners, 1950-1960
    • Trustee, Masonic Education and Charity Trust, 1951-1972
    • Grand Representative of lreland, 1967-1983
    • He received the Fifty-Year Veteran's Medal and the Henry Price Medal from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts and was an Honorary Member of many Lodges and Grand Lodges in the United States and abroad.
  • York Rite:
    • Belmont Royal Arch Chapter, Belmont - Exalted 1921
    • Adoniram Council, Royal & Select Masters, Waltham - Greeted 1937
    • Boston Commandery No. 2, K.T., Boston - Knighted 1924
  • Scottish Rite:
  • Received the degrees from the Fourth to the Thirty-Second in the four Bodies in the Valley of Boston - 1937
  • Created an Honorary Member of the Supreme Council, Thirty-third degree - 1939

He was a noted Masonic author, and in addition to his numerous articles on law and banking, published many pamphlets and brochures on Freemasonry. His book, The Masonic Way of Life, printed in 1968, is a collection of his Grand Lodge and other Masonic addresses and is widely known for its depth in Masonic history and philosophy. In the Foreword to this volume Brother Perry, following a review of the highlights of his professional career and other diverse activities, closes with: "The point of relevancy arises from the fact that in each of these fields I found that the teachings of Freemasonry were fundamental to the practical, everyday problems of successful operation. So, also, in my lifelong experience as a lawyer and in my observation of business clients I have found the teachings of Freemasonry to be no mere theoretical philosophy but a very practical formula for the best type of successful living. And why not, since they are the findings of one of the oldest and largest human laboratories for the mastery of the art of living."

Most Worshipful Brother Perry is survived by his wife and three children and by several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A memorial service for this distinguished lawyer, banker, humanitarian and Mason was held at Shelburne Falls on Sunday, November 6, 1983.

Fraternally submitted,
Whitfield W. Johnson
Manson H. Carter
Peter J. Cornell
Committee

SPEECHES

IMMORTALITY

Presented at the 75th Anniversary of the Lodge of Eleusis, 03/21/1940.

Your historian has just told you that The Lodge of Eleusis was named for the city of Eleusis in Ancient Greece. This city at one time was a close rival with Athens for pre-eminence. Its name was chosen for your Lodge because it was the home of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

These Eleusinian Mysteries were part of what we now call the Ancient Mysteries, references to which are found in the history and legends of nearly every ancient civilization. It is believed that every race and every age has had organizations which were somewhat similar to modern Freemasonry and which in that sense, were our Masonic ancestors. Because of lack of records and because so much of their organization and work were purposely shrouded in mystery we have but little detailed information about them but there appears to be enough reliable data tojustify the belief that most of them had many points of similarity to our Order.

The Eleusinian Mysteries had rigid requirements for admission, such as insistence on personal purity, good character and physical fitness. Their ceremonies were largely symbolical but were predominantly religious. Because this is the second day of spring and the third day before Easter, let us give some consideration to the thought of immortality which was apparently the climax of the Eleusinian Mysteries as it is, Iikewise, the climactic teaching of our Third Degree.

Is it not strangely significant that this theme of immortality is to be found woven into the very heart of all these Ancient Mysteries, of all mystic orders, ancient and modern, and of all the religions of all times and places? Under whatever circumstances men have given serious consideration to the mystery of life they seem intuitively to have felt that death is not the final chapter. Is it not strange that such a feeling should exist through the ages in spite of the fact that all the external appearances are against it and in spite of the knowledge that, in the very nature of things, no positive testimony can be produced in its behalf?

But the lack of direct evidence is by no means fatal to belief. Most of the things which we believe are unsupported by direct evidence. No individual can see more than a small portion of the earth's surface at any given time yet we all believe in the existence of cities and continents and oceans which at the moment we cannot see and which we never expect to see. At any given time we can be in the presence of but few of our acquaintances, yet we believe in the existence of the hundreds of others that are not actuallv with us. Every bit of earlier history and nearly all contemporary events we know only by hearsay. Future events all rest in faith though we say we know there will be tomorrows and an endless cycle of seasons. Belief in things of the past, the present, or the future is not dependent on direct evidence.

All who have stood by an open grave, all whose span of life is lengthening toward the sunset, all of every age who think into the future come face to face with the great problem of immortality. Many there are who feel that they have direct, positive proof of immortality. For them no additional assurance is necessary for they are certain the matter is settled beyond the need of further proof. But there are others who lack such assurance and earnestly yearn for it. As to them, in spite of the lack of direct evidence, is it possible to create a rational belief as well grounded as their belief in the existence of some country they have never seen or some dawn still in the future I Obviously, grounds for belief in immortality must be different from the evidence of eye witnesses, or maps of foreign countries, or scientific forecasts of future sunsets. But our human beliefs are based on endless varieties of evidence which we have come to accept as credible.

What then are some of the things in our experience which indicate the likelihood of life after death?

First off, do we not all believe in the indestructibility of matter and of energy? We believe, do we not, that although matter and energy may change their form they cannot be destroyed? We believe that the laws of nature are eternal and indestructible. We believe in the law of cause and effect even when applied to human acts and infuence. At least so far as our intellect can grasp the subject, we believe in the endlessness of time. Man finds himself in a world all of whose laws, forces and materials, in spite of constant transformations, have a deathless, indestructible existence through unending time. Is it not more difficult to believe that Life is the one exception to this universal plan than it is to believe that it, too, is eternal? Have not these few propositions already shifted the burden of credibility in favor of some form of immortality and against the belief that death is the ultimate endl Whether by some such reasoning or by mere intuition all men of all times have had a yearning toward immortality and the overwhelming majority have had a belief in it.

There are some forms of immortality that seem indisputable. From the experience of the last several miilions of years we know that life has long existed in the mass even though the life span of every single living unit is comparatively brief. From that experience we may well believe that there will be human beings on this earth fifty thousand years hence or even millions of years in the future. And if not human life as we now know it, at least we can believe there will be life in some form. Even if no individual blade survives a single winter there will always be fields of waving grass. Life in the aggregate goes on in spite of individual death.

Biological experiments demonstrate the probability that living animal tissue may, under proper surroundings, be capable of eternal life independent of the body from which it was severed. Conversely, human personality may continue even if individual organs or limbs are amputated.

But this perpetuity bf impersonal life in the human tissues, or of race life in the aggregate, is not the kind of personal immortality for which men yearn for themselves and their loved ones. Is there any analogy to give a clue as to whether or not actual personality survives? Let us search our own lives.

Let us think back by varying numbers of years to the time when each of us was but a year old. Have you today anything in common with the infant you then were? Have you a single thought, a single attitude, a single element of personality, that you then had? Have you a single cell in your entire body that was yours then ? Can we not say that the body, the mind, the personality, of that baby have vanished from the earth? As a present entity that baby is as dead as if it had died in the flesh and returned to dust. Similarly, where is the boy you were at five, at ten, at twenty? Coming closer to the present, how much of the man who dropped off to sleep last night awoke this morning? To what extent has the man you were an hour ago vanished never to return ? How much of what you now are will have been supplanted by the you of next year?

These successive personalities have all died, yet you still live. The transitions have been wholly natural and so gradual as to be imperceptible and not unwelcome. As you close your eyes in sleep this night it is without regret or apprehension that you realize that the personality that will awake tomorrow morning will, to some extent, be a different one and that during the night some portion of the old will have died and gone forever. You view the prospect without concern because you believe that it will still be you who will greet the morn. Your nearest friend will likewise awake a somewhat different person yet you have no sorrow for you believe he will still be your friend. What a comfort if we could view death with that same assurance as to ourselves and our loved ones. And why not? At most your friend is with you in person but a brief portion of any day. Yet you summon him into your presence, you commune with his soul, whenever you think of him, even if his physical body be absent, and regardless of whether or not he is even living in the flesh. For you he is immortal so long as he lives in your mind. For himself he may be as much alive, though you think him dead, as though he had fallen asleep and awakened in another day. And for yourself, need death be any more the ultimate end than the close of a single day? Need the future be less real, less certain, than that unending sunrise which sweeps westward round the globe to greet us on our daily awakening?

In our experience we are familiar with most of the separate elements that could combine to prove immortality. It may be there is some missing element we do not yet sense, some letter we have not yet found to complete the word. It may be that we already have all the letters but do not yet know how to arrange them to spell out the mystery. We have a world of indestructible and eternal materials and forces and laws. With each recurring spring we have the survival of vegetable life after apparent death. We have the perpetuity of life in the mass in spite of the death of each particular unit. We have the survival of tissue even when separated from personality. We have the survival of personality even when separated from its constituent tissues. We have the survival of personality in spite of a continuous succession of momentary deaths that commence at birth and never cease. We have an age-old and world-wide intuitive hunger for immortality.

The tendrils of the plant seek the sun, the homing pigeon seeks its nest, the human seeks mmortality. Each is as inexplicable and yet as certain as the other.

True, we do not know the precise nature of our future. Are we, for instance, like drops of water sweeping down a stream with other fellow drops - meeting, jostling, parting - until eventually we shall be lifted and transformed into clouds to drift through the skies and fall again as drops in some future stream of life? Or, will these particular aggregations of molecules which now live as individual personalities be again quickened to live, in some future age, as the same identical, physical personalities? Is our mortal frame, thus, like a single bulb in an electric sign where the moving current spells out successive words in a travelling message? The electric impulse entering the bulb makes it glow with momentary radiance and then leaves it dark and cold. Does the life impulse, Iikewise, enter the inert materials of our frame, make us to glow as human personalities, and then leave us dark and cold? But if so, shall our bodies again be warmed with life even as the recurring current again and again illumines the darkened bulb?

And does it really matter which of these is the Divine Plan or whether it resembles either of them? A rational belief in the possibility or feasibility of eternal life should not be defeated by mere uncertainty as to the precise method of its accomplishment.

The solitary bulb in the electric sign cannot know what part its little light may play in the completed message. No more can we, with our limited perspective, comprehend the complete story which Life is using our little lives to tell. But each of us is essential to that Message. Each must faithfully perform his appointed part.

Is there, can there be, any comfort to help assuage the sorrow of parting even though that parting be not foreverl Yes, human experience has evolved many things that ease the poignancy of such suffering. Religion, human sympathy, engrossing activity, service to others, consciously rising above the depths of sorrow - these are but some of them. There is another, perhaps less often tried, which can be developed by exercise in the case, even, of living friends. Try in the solitude of thought to summon your friend. Let all irritating shortcomings disappear, all reserves and diffidence yield to perfect understanding until only the fine and noble prevail. Mistakes are forgiven, regrets dissolved. The best of you communes with the best of him. Such a meeting can be more real and vivid and satisfying than even an actual visit, and that kind of meeting is equally possible with loved ones who have preceded us into the great beyond. No earthly power, except our own forgetfulness, can prevent that kind of immortality. In that form of immortality all regrets for unkind words or deeds, or unsaid words or omitted deeds, can be washed away, leaving only the comfort of perfect understanding, perfect companionship, perfect love. And that, likewise, is a worthwhile preparation for reconciiiation with living friends who have become estranged.

Our knowledge and experience are based on the past. No part of the future can be known - not even the next instant. All our planning, all our doing, are acts of faith in the future based on our experience in the past. Though the future is veiled, though we constantly make use of machines and inventions and principles which we do not fully understand, nevertheless we have faith which amounts to justifiable certainty. Because we never yet have known the law of gravitation to fail we confidently believe the ball tossed in the air will eventually fall when its upward force is spent. Not only our planning and our doing, but all our believing, look to a future consistent with the principles which all past experience has shown to be universal and unchanging. The materials out of which our universe is builded and the forces which control its action are not temporal but eternal. All our planning, all our acting, all our believing, are based on that foundation. On that same foundation rests the belief in the indestructibility of life.

Our Eleusinian Brethren believed in some form of immortality, but they lived before the age of science. Since their day incredible amounts of scientific research have measured and analyzed and classified the materials and forces of the universe. Many mysteries have been solved. Many, like immortality, await scientific demonstration, but the evidence of the ages tends to confirm rather than to disprove man's universal, inner conviction that somehow, somewhere, sometime, he will yet live, and live, and live; and that this life is but a present phase of a life eternal. As that conviction is the climax of life, so it was the climax of the teaching of Eleusinian Mysteries, and so it comes as a climax to the teachings of Freemasonry. But with Freemasonry it is no mere philosophical abstraction, for Freemasonry goes further and teaches immortal men that here and now they should treat their immortal fellows in accordance with the eternal principles of truth and justice and brotherly love, and that they should meet the vicissitudes of their own lives with the poise and serenity of those who are no mere transients in this life but are, instead, at one with eternity.

CHARTERS GRANTED

None.

RULINGS



Grand Masters