GMRoy
Contents
THOMAS S. ROY 1884-1980
Deputy Grand Master, 1943
Grand Master, 1951-1953
TERM
SPEECHES
From Proceedings, Page 1972-470, at the Feast of St. John:
Thank you, Most Worshipful Grand Master, for the great honor of being invited to speak here tonight, and for the high privilege of addressing one of the finest Masonic audiences in the world.
In one sense I find it strange to be here. Sixty-two years ago next June I was ordained as a clergyman. One of the parts of that ceremony was a charge to the candidate by one of the clergymen present. Among other things he said to me: "Now, whatever you do, don't join the Masons, or any other secret order." In order to find out why I should not join the Masons I joined them, for within the year I became a member of King Solomon Lodge of Masons in Digby, Nova Scotia. I spoke at the banquet of the Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia at their Annual Communication last June, and the Grand Master presented me with their sixty year medal, which I wear with great pride.
I hope that no person thinks that I was taking in too much territory when I referred to this audience as one of the finest Masonic audiences in the world. Many years ago I heard the late Dr. Allen Stockton tell of a party of different nationalities being shown the crater of Mt. Vesuvius. As they stood there, awestruck, an American was the first to find his tongue, and he blurted out: "Would you look at that, doesn't that beat hell!" An Englishman looked at him in surprise and said: "My word, you Yankees have been everywhere, haven't you!" I have not been everywhere, but I have been around enough to appreciate the high quality of this audience, augmented of course by the presence of so many distinguished visitors.
The Feast of Saint John the Evangelist was celebrated first in Massachusetts in 1733. If it had been celebrated annually since then this would be the two hundred and fortieth celebration. The addresses on this occasion have been printed in the proceedings only ninety-one years. One of the most interesting experiences I had in writing the history of the Grand Lodge was reading those addresses. Some of them I found amusing. There was the story told by Most Worshipful Melvin M. Johnson about his visit to an historic church and cemetery in Hingham. The clergyman, conducting him through the cemetery, paused at a stone with the inscription: "Here lies a lawyer and an honest man." The clergyman then told Dr. Johnson that he was conducting an Englishman through the cemetery one day, and when they came to that stone the Englishman read it and said: "What a curious custom you have over here, burying two men in one grave." Dr. Johnson was a lawyer, and did not like it. They went into the old church and Dr. Johnson noticed that there was a sounding board over the pulpit. Pretending ignorance he said to the clergyman, "What's that?" The clergyman said: "That is a sounding board; when the minister preaches it throws the sound out so the people can hear." Dr. Johnson replied: "It has been my experience when listening to preachers that when you throw out the sound there is nothing left."
Then there was the address given by Most Worshipful Herschel Rose, Grand Master of West Virginia, when our distinguished and well-beloved senior Past Grand Master, Most Worshipful Joseph Earl Perry was Grand Master. Referring to our Grand Master he said: "He and I were attending the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, and were being convoyed about the historic Shrine of Valley Forge. As we trod the hallowed soil your Grand Master was suddenly seized with an overwhelming inspiration. He said, "I have a most sublime idea. On March 9th next I must address my Grand Lodge. I am going to inspect the archives of this place, and see what happened here on March the ninth, 1778, and make that incident the text of my address." He found the book, and as one handling holy things he turned its pages until he found the record of March ninth. Then he read: 'It is the order of the Commanding General that every soldier who has not been inoculated shall this day receive one gill of either rum or whisky.' That is all. The Grand Master sent me a copy of his address - a magnificent paper, but he did not use this text."
And it was a magnificent paper, for I went back again in the Proceedings to March 9, 1938, and read that address on The Masonic Way of Life, a masterpiece in thought and expression which you can read in his book of that title. Incidentally Most Worshipful Brother Perry is not often caught without a reply. He was asking me one day about my grandsons. I told him that my oldest grandson was a physician, and on the way to a career in anaesthesiology, He said: "Isn't that interesting. He will be doing the same thing as his grandfather, putting people to sleep."
I am going back to the first degree tonight, for the theme of this address, and I am going to take two words out of that degree that crystallize the importance of Freemasonry in the life of the individual and the world. You will never be able to get away from these words the longest day that you live, and they may help to recall whatever may be worth recalling of what I say.
I. LIGHT
The first word is light. This word symbolizes the goal of the Freemason. FIe becomes, and figuratively at least, will remain through life a seeker of the light. There is more than usual significance in the fact of the emphasis upon light at the very beginning of the degrees. Whether by accident or design the men who' put the ritual together conform to the creative process as revealed in the Great Light in Freemasonry. For it reads: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light: and there was light." That was the first act in the creative process, and figuratively the first creative act in Freemasonry.
There was a brilliant black poet named James Weldon Johnson, who wrote a book of folk sermons by black preachers. One of them tells of the coming of the light: "And God stepped out on space, and he looked around and said: I'm lonely - I'll make me a world. And far as the eye of God could see darkness covered everything, blacker than a hundred midnights down in a cypress swamp. And God smiled, and the light broke, and the darkness rolled up on one side, and the light stood shining on the other, and God said: That's good."
Light is a fascinating subject from any angle. What is light? I go to one dictionary and am told that light "is electromagnetic radiation to which the organ of sight reacts." Another tells me that "light is that natural agent or influence, which, emanating from the sun and various other sources evokes the functional activities of the organ of sight." It is difficult to follow the intricacies of definition formulated by the physicists. We can be glad that we do not have to give a definition of light in order to enjoy it and use it. Time magazine recently had as the head of a column the words: "More light on light," in which we were told that more exact measurements have proved that light travels at one hundred and forty-four miles per second less than the one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second that we have been led to believe. This is of tremendous significance to the scientists, but means nothing to us in our enjoyment of the light.
It is its symbolic implications that make the quest for light so significant. It represents man's persistent outreach towards perfection, and his thrust into the unknown. It fairly shouts at us that we can't sit down; that there may be a place to start, but there is no place to stop in our quest for the light. Ages ago, countries on the western edge of Europe inscribed on their coins the words, ne plus ultra, "nothing more beyond." That was the end of the world for them. But there came the day when the Atlantic, the great barrier to their progress, became a thoroughfare on a new adventure to a new world. Our late brother, Rudyard Kipling, voiced what I am talking about in his poem, "The Explorer."
"There's no sense in going further -
it's the edge of cultivation."
So they said, and I believed it
broke my land and sowed my crop -
Built my barns and strung my fences
in the little border station
Tucked away below the foothills
where the trails run out and stop.
"Till a voice as bad as conscience,
rang interminable changes
On one everlasting Whisper day and
night repeated-so:
"Something hidden. Go and find it.
Go and look behind the ranges -
Something lost behind the ranges.
Lost and waiting for you. Go!"
Always the quest for the light leads us behind the ranges. One cannot contemplate the world in which we live today, with its confusion, its conflicts, its abhorrent and shocking barbarities, without acknowledging how great our need is for the light.
We need light on how to manage our educational system so that the major emphasis will be upon the development of character as the first consideration. For the future of our country will not depend upon oui scientific advance, and our ability to put a man on Mars, or Venus, if such were physically possible; It will not depend upon our control of ecology so that the earth will be a more livable planet, important as that is; it will not depend upon a political realism that will enable us to choose our political leaders without periodically transforming our country into a boiling cauldron of hate; it will depend upon the high quality of character we can produce. For, as I have repeated so often, no country is strong if character be weak, and no country is weak if character be strong. We need light on how to control the power we possess, so that it shall be used constructively, and not to bring death and destruction.
We need more light on family development. How can we make the home the dynamic force that will inspire children not only with a love for country deeper than that proclaimed in a salute to the flag, but induce a passion for integrity that will hold society together with ribs of steel. In truth it can be said that the' future of humanity - the reaching of "that far off divine event to which the whole creation moves" depends upon those who persistently seek for more light.
II. WORK
One of the things I admire most in Freemasonry is the consistency of its concepts - the way its teachings link with one another. If the first "word "light" symbolizes that which Freemasonry affirms is a universal in life, then the second word is "work," suggested and symbolized by the working tools of the Craft. I rcalize that work is not a popular subject to introduce. Jerome K. Jerome once wrote what many of us feel: "Work fascinates me, I could sit and look at it for hours." As light is the symbol of progress, so work symbolizes the means by which progress is made.
There is nothing more tragic in life than to have ends without means; to have a goal in life but no means by which to reach it; to know in general what ought to be done, but with no sense of the particular imperatives that can bring it to pass; to affirm the ultimate ends we want to see realized, but with no recognition or acceptance of the immediate urgencies involved in the realization of those ends. Freemasonry symbolizes the imperative of means in presenting the working tools. Again, let me say, that as light is the symbol of progress, so. the working tools symbolize the means by which progress is made.
I could spend a long time on the subject of work and its necessity, not only for production to sustain our economy, but its necessity for life development, which is more important. What I want to emphasize is the fact and importance of the recognition and acceptance of an absolute in life, as symbolized in the working tools.
It is interesting to note that the first tools given to the Mason, were in some form the original working tools used by man. When primitive man began to build he needed an implement with which to measure, and an implement with which to hammer. Go down the line with our working tools and you must conclude that without them there can be no material construction whatever. But much more important they symbolize the fact that unless the absolutes they imply are accepted in life there can be no development in the life of a man or a civilization. For they speak to a condition in life today that constitutes one of the most dangerous trends in our civilization. It is represented by one of the words most commonly used today, the word permissiveness. Anything goes! There are no absolutes any more. Everything is relative.
There is a story to the effect that Albert Einstein, the author of the theory of relativity was attending a meeting one night, and a man who recognized him wrote these words on a slip of paper, and passed them to him: "my theory of relativity: there is no hitching post any-where, right?" Einstein wrote the word, "Right" on the paper, and passed it back to him. It may be that in the rarefied intellectual atmosphere where Einstein, and those who could understand him lived, there is theoretically no absolute. But where you and I live, two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time; parallel lines never do meet; men predict the coming of an eclipse and it arrives, within a fraction of a second of the time predicted; men can travel to the moon, or send a satellite spinning for months about Mars because of the dependability of absolute laws. There are physical laws in the universe that can be depended upon to the last degree of probability, and we deny this, or defy it, at our peril.
Our symbols can have no meaning if they do not insist that what is true in the erection of a building is just as true in the building of a life or a civilization, namely, that in building there can be no permissiveness; that we are governed by laws just as infallible, and just as inexorable as in the physical realm. It is a slander upon the wisdom of The Great Architect of The Universe to say that he has created the physical world to be ruled by law, but has left the life of the moral world to chance. Rather it condemns the permissiveness of the present as the most dangerous delusion that has ever taken possession of the mind of man.
One of the most common expressions heard in our attempt to ease the minds of ourselves or others on occasion is this: "Don't worry, everything will come out all right." It assumes that life is like a great hopper, into which you can fire every sort of word, or act, or experience, indiscriminately, with the self-assurance that some divine alembic will take over, and transmute all that is unworthy into the gold of material success or character achievement. Freemasonry says it is not so; that things will come out right only when we have created the conditions that will make them come out right. There is not a probIem that faces us today, whether it is a war in Vietnam, or the racial struggle in America but has been caused by a violation of the laws that are part of the structure of the universe. Sometimes we try to find a scapegoat when we say: "Why does God permit this to happenl" God does not permit it to happen, we do. He has given us laws to live by and we disobey them. Nor is what happens punishment for our derelictions, as we sometimes insist. Realistically there is no such thing as punishment for sin, there is only consequence of the disobedience we are not willing to acknowledge. Nor is it necessary that we should cry out to the ultimate power in the universe to intervene in some way, and save us from the consequence of our mistakes.
An interesting incident has been recorded as occurring in the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Things had not been going well. There had been a great deal of discussion, with many differences, and little progress. One day, Benjamin Franklin asked the President of the Convention if he might speak. In his soft, low hesitant voice he read a statement in which he deplored the "small progress" that was being made, and said: "How has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings. In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain we had daily prayer in this room for divine protection - our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered And have we now forgotten that powerful friend! Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistancel I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth-that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aidl" He then read a resolution asking that daily prayers be offered in the Convention. I have heard Masonic speakers refer to this incident as the turning point in the Convention, and attribute it to the power of prayer. As a matter of fact the resolution was never voted upon and the matter was dropped. The Constitutional Convention went through from beginning to end without the benefit of prayer. The success that has come through the Constitution and its amendments, has not been because of prayer, but because it was, and is, based upon the principles of Justice and the rights of man, without which no prayer would have saved it. It succeeded because the representatives of twelve sovereign States, for Rhode Island was not represented at all during the Convention, were willing to sacrifice some of their sovereignty, in vital particulars, in the interest of a united nation. You don't have to pray to get God on your side when you act in obedience to his laws for He is already there; and no amount of prayer can win his approval if you disobey those laws. That is not a pious platitude, it is immutable and inexorable law, written into the universe, and as the biblical writer expressed it: "written by the finger of God."
There they are, light and working tools, symbolizing what Freemasonry wants to do, not with men, but for men. There is a fundamental reason for our unwritten law against asking a man to become a Mason. If we solicited members we would be using men to build an organization. When they come of their own free will and accord we are using an organization to build men. I have tried to indicate how it can be done; by constantly seeking for more light, the dedication of ourselves to the realization of desirable ends, and by working in obedience to immutable laws to achieve those ends. Can we be such Masons!
Edmond Rostand, distinguished French dramatist, wrote a play called L'Aiglon, or "The Eaglet." It is a story of the ambition of Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt, born of an Austrian princess, and brought up in the Austrian court. He wanted to return to France and become Emperor as his father had been. One night he left a hat that belonged to his father on a table in a room adjoining his bedroom. Metternich, the Austrian political leader came into the room, saw the hat, picked it up, and in an apostrophe to Napoleon expressed the hatred he had for him as he said: "Conquering hero, I hated you then. Now you are broken I hate you still, because you were taller than other men when you measured your height on History's wall, I hate you! I hate your unconquered will."
"Because you were taller than other men when you measured your height on History's wall." How is it with us when we measure our height on the wall of our community! Do we stand taller than other men in the eyes of the community because we are Masons? This is our challenge. And it has been expressed in another way by Edwin Markham, home-spun poet, and a New York Mason who wrote some lines that might have been intended for Masons:
"'We men of Earth have here the stuff
Of Paradise - we have enough!
We need no other stones to build
The Temple of the Unfulfilled -
No other ivory for the doors -
No other marble for the floors -
No other cedar for the beam
And dome of man's immortal dream.
"Here on the paths of every day -
Here on the common human way
Is all the stuff the gods would take
to build a Heaven, to mold and make
New Edens. Ours the task sublime
To build eternity in time!
(Standing applause)
MEMORIAL
Image courtesy of the Museum of Our National Heritage
From Proceedings, starting on Page 1980-82:
Most Worshipful Herbert H. Jaynes read the following Memorial:
Born in New Castle, New Brunswick, August 31, 1884; died at Worcester, Massachusetts, March 21, 1980. His long life with God is ended.
At the Memorial Service for Thomas Sherrard Roy in the First Baptist Church of Worcester, Massachusetts on March 25, 1980, the Reverend Doctor Gordon M. Torgersen, president of Andover-Newton Theological School and successor to Dr. Roy as minister of the church, began his tribute by saying:
"In the very beginning of the Bible, a writer is describing the distant past and those who had done so much, saying There were giants in the earth in those days. No doubt an exaggeration," he said, adding, "If the words were written today about Dr. Roy, there would be no exaggeration at all. Without question he has been a giant in his day. He was an absolute master in the pulpit."
This very rare and very real man has left us and we feel a deep loss.
After a lingering illness, Dr. Roy died peacefully and willingly in his sleep in Hahnemann Hospital, Worcester, Massachusetts. He was the hfth of eight children born to Jerome and Nancy (Sherrard) Roy, he a Roman Catholic and she a Protestant; all the children were baptized in the father's faith.
At sixteen years, however, he began to attend the Baptist Church of which his mother was a member and soon was attending both morning and evening services, culminating in baptism in the Mirimachi River 'on a cool night in June.' "School," he said, "was a dull experience for me. " And so, he became a tailor's apprentice for four years, his pay to be room and board, plus a $160.00 for the total term. Later he worked on the railroad and spent a winter in the lumber camps. Not until 1905 at age twenty-one did he resume his education.
It was then that something happened in his life, he tells us "strange and exalting, that in religion is called conversion. There was born in me a consuming desire to enter the ministry." In that year, he enrolled in Horton Academy, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, operated by the Maritime Baptist Convention. He was graduated in 1907 and entered Acadia College, also in Wolfville, that fall; was graduated in 1911 and received his M.A. Degree in 1912.
He was ordained in 1911 in the United Baptist Church, Digby, Nova Scotia and soon thereafter married Mary Richard Evans. In 1913, he came to Massachusetts and entered the Newton Theological School, graduating in 1915.
After the pastorates in West Newton, Massachusetts; London, Ontario, and Brockton, Massachusetts, he became minister of the First Baptist Church in Worcester, Massachusetts on January 1, 1929, a ministry he held until 1951, and which he left to become Grand Master of Masons in Massachusetts. Our Past Grand Master was a community leader: The first President of Worcester Civic Music Association in 1930 and continued as such for six years; President of the Worcester Kiwanis Club in 1937 and of the Worcester Economic Club in 1941. At other times he was president of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, the Worcester Mechanics Association and the Bohemians Club of Worcester.
Dr. Roy was a trustee of Worcester Academy for twenty-five years, ex-officio trustee of Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a trustee of Newton Theological Institute from 1927. He received the "Good Neighbor Award" from the Brotherhood of Beth Israel Synagogue in 1967. Honorary degrees were conferred upon him by: Acadia University, D.D.: Colby College, D.D.: Clark University, L.H.D. and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, D.Sc. Dr. Roy was made a Master Mason in King Solomon's Lodge, No. 54 in Digby, Nova Scotia on March 5, 1912, while studying in Acadia College. He affiliated with other Lodges as he moved from pastorate to pastorate, lastly with Montacute Lodge in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1929.
He became its Worshipful Master in 1936; District Deputy Grand Master in 1942; Deputy Grand Master in 1943 and was Grand Master of Masons in Massachusetts in 1951-52-53. He was Executive Secretary of the Conference of Grand Masters in North America for three years and Chairman and later Secretary for ten years of its Commission on Information for Recognition. While Secretary, he edited three books for the Commission. He is the author of Dare We Be Masons?, a collection of addresses delivered in various Grand Lodges in North and South America, and Stalwart Builders, a chronological history of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts.
Most Worshipful Brother Roy was a membei of all the Scottish Rite Bodies in Worcester and a Past Most Wise Master of Lawrence Chapter of Rose Croix in that Valley. He was a member of Massachusetts Consistory in the Valley of Boston. He was created a Sovereign Grand Inspector General, 33°, Honorary Member of the Supreme Council of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction on September 26, 1945 and was its Associate Grand Prior for many years.
In York Rite Masonry he was Exalted in Newton Royal Arch Chapter in 1919; he affiliated with Satucket Royal Arch Chapter in Brockton in 1924; Greeted in Hiram Council in Worcester, 1943; Knighted in Bay State Commandery No. 38 in Brockton, 1924. The Paul Revere Medal of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter was conferred upon him in 1953.
Officiating at Dr. Roy's Memorial Service were Rev. Dr. Gordon M. Togersen, Rev. James T. Begley, Rev. Suzanne Nelson and Most Worshipful Whitfield W. Johnson. Dr. Roy's body was cremated at Rural Cemetery in Worcester. His ashes will be deposited in the family lot in Cambellton, New Brunswick, where those of his wife, Mary, who died in 1975, presently rest.
We, in Massachusetts Masonry, are grateful for the gift ot his life and for his presence among us. This memorial ends with the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson with which Dr. Roy began Stalwart Builders. "There is properly no history, only biography. An institution is the lengthened shadow of a man."
May we continue to live in the shadow of his giant of a man to the increasing glory of his and our beloved Fraternity.
Respectfully submitted,
Norman A. Ray
Charles A. Cross
Herbert H. Jaynes
Committee
NOTES
CHARTERS GRANTED
- 06/11/1952 Dover, Dover
- 09/10/1952 Canaan, Everett
- 12/10/1952 Ezra, Taunton
- 12/10/1952 Level, Worcester
- 03/11/1953 Shawmont, Springfield
RULINGS
