Ever the Quest goes on, though it is permitted some of us to believe that the Lost Word has been found, in the only way in which it can ever be found--even in the life of Him who was "the Word made flesh," who dwelt among us and whose grace and beauty we know. Of this Quest Masonry is an aspect, continuing the high tradition of humanity, asking men to unite in the search for the thing most worth finding, that each may share the faith of all. Apart from its rites, there is no mystery in Masonry, save the mystery of all great and simple things. So far from being hidden or occult, its glory lies in its openness, and its emphasis upon the realities which are to the human world what light and air are to nature. Its mystery is of so great a kind that it is easily overlooked; its secret almost too simple to be found out. FOOTNOTES: [47] Matt. 13:10, 11. [48] _Unwritten Sayings of Our Lord_, David Smith, vii. [49] By occultism is meant the belief in, and the claim to be able to use, a certain range of forces neither natural, nor, technically, supernatural, but more properly to be called preternatural--often, though by no means always, for evil or selfish ends. Some extend the term occultism to cover mysticism and the spiritual life generally, but that is not a legitimate use of either word. Occultism seeks to get; mysticism to give. The one is audacious and seclusive, the other humble and open; and if we are not to end in blunderland we must not confound the two (_Mysticism_, by E. Underhill, part i, chap. vii). [50] Much time would have been saved, and not a little confusion avoided, had this obvious fact been kept in mind. Even so charming a book as _Jesus, the Last Great Initiate_, by Schure--not to speak of _The Great Work_ and _Mystic Masonry_--is clearly, though not intentionally, misleading. Of a piece with this is the effort, apparently deliberate and concerted, to rob the Hebrew race of all spiritual originality, as witness so able a work as _Our Own Religion in Persia_, by Mills, to name no other. Our own religion? Assuredly, if by that is meant the one great, universal religion of humanity. But the sundering difference between the Bible and any other book that speaks to mankind about God and Life and Death, sets the Hebrew race apart as supreme in its religious genius, as the Greeks were in philosophical acumen and artistic power, and the Romans in executive skill. Leaving all theories of inspiration out of account, facts are facts, and the Bible has no peer in the literature of mankind.