Annals of the Four Masters

“ From those who have the eyes to see, nothing is concealed; to those who have the right to know, all things are open books. The true Word of the three Grand Masters has never been concealed from those who have the right to know it nor has it ever been revealed to those who have not prepared a worthy shrine to contain it. The Master knows, for he is a Temple Builder. Within the setting of his own bodies, the Philosopher's Stone is placed; for in truth it is the heart of the Phoenix, that strange bird which rises with renewed youth from the ashes of its burned body. ”

“ The time is coming when, in place of your one master, you will have a thousand masters—masters of duty, of business, of pleasure, and of grief—giving you harder lessons, each one of them, than any of your Fluxions. ”

“ Ye shall ordain the wisest to be Master of the work; and neither for love nor lineage, riches nor favor, set one over the work [19] who hath but little knowledge, whereby the Master would be evil served, and ye ashamed. ”

“ When the master is present, scholars mind their books, keep their place, and run not over the forms to play with one another; and the master’s eye keeps an idle servant to his work, that otherwise would be gazing at every straw, and prating to every passenger. ”

“ Master, not of enterprises and institutions, but of the living souls of things which they rudely symbolise; as the Poet is Master, not of words and verses, but of the thing obscurely hidden in them; as the Musician is Master, not of notes and harmonies, but of the soul made audible in them, like an invisible gossamer thread revealed in dew: He teaches by destroying. The history of Man is the history of the Master’s contempt for lies. ”

“ To us 'Master' means Master of Knowledge, a source of knowledge, or one who has mastered the temptations of the flesh. We—I told him—prefer the word Guru, or Adept. For no Master, as we know the word, would ever seek to influence a student nor to impose his own opinions. In the West certain little groups and cults there are who think that they alone have the key to the Heavenly Fields. ”

“ Interrogation of Elwar Forell, native of Planet 3-G3-9/4871.
"My Masters, I did mean no harm, but only good. I have long known that my master was possessed of power denied to most men. When I was apprenticed to him five years ago, I thought I would one day learn some of the dark secrets of the hidden worlds, but never did my master mention aught of those secrets he so surely knew. ”

“ The young man to whom he spoke, and into whose eyes he had turned to look, lowered his lids as if abashed or aggrieved, and just perceptibly shrugged his shoulders.
“Master,” he said, presuming on the Master’s tolerance, “is it not the mystery of original sin in them which baffles you? And where on this earth are eyes to lack that riddle? You are too old, Master, by near fifteen hundred years to find the model you seek. There was never but one in all the world.” ”

“ They are business-like, direct, and sensible; not unfrequently they acquire considerable historical interest, and every now and then there is one by an old master born out of due time—who probably wist not so much as even that there were old masters. ”

“ The names of the masters at the head of each department of science, art, or function are often little known to the world, but are always known to the adepts; as Robert Brown in botany, and Gauss in mathematics. Often the master is a hidden man, but not to the true student; invisible to all the rest, resplendent to him. All his own work and culture form the eye to see the master. ”

“ Now a tinker is his own master, a scholar is not. Let us suppose the best of scholars, a schoolmaster for example, for I suppose you will admit that no one can be higher in scholarship than a schoolmaster ”

“ So the author of the Annals, who, as will be hereafter shown, lived in the fifteenth century, could not possibly write many books of ancient Roman History without, every now and then doing or saying something that was attended with dreadful fatality to his fraud; for he could not write them without palpable blunders; and some are so clumsy as to surpass conception what bungling can do. ”

“ In another sense mastership is referred in a general sense to any kind of subject; and in this sense even he who has the office of governing and directing free men, can be called a master. In the state of innocence man could have been a master of men, not in the former but in the latter sense. ”

“ Each time you do something great and brave, the Master comes a step nearer. When you become your soul, the Master comes all the way down the hill and tells your brain which way to go—tells you the path, the way home. ”

“ For the opinion of a Master, or even of one of his higher pupils, upon any subject is that of a man whose opportunity of judging accurately is out of all proportion to ours.
His position and his extended faculties are in reality the heritage of all mankind, and, far though we may now be from those grand powers, they will none the less certainly be ours one day. ”

“ The brethren rise. Master. If the great light is the token of the dawn of day, and we are all Secret Masters, it is time to begin our labors; give notice that I am about to open a Lodge of Secret Masters by the mysterious number. The Inspector obeys. The signs of the degrees from Entered Apprentice to Royal Arch, inclusive, are given with that of silence, which belongs to this degree. The Master places the two forefingers of his right hand on his lips. This is answered by the brethren with the two forefingers of the left. All clap hands seven times. ”

“ It ought not, therefore, to be without a respectful admiration that we find the masters of the fourteenth century dwelling on moments of the most subdued and tender feeling, and leaving the spectator to trace the under-currents of thought which link them with future events of mightier interest, and fill with a prophetic power and mystery scenes in themselves so simple as the meeting of a master with his herdsmen among the hills, or the return of a betrothed virgin to her house. ”

“ That among the Doctors, Masters of this Order, cultivating the Sciences of Mathematics, Astronomy, and other Studies, a mutual interchange of doctrine and light was maintained, which led to the practice of electing out of those who were already Elect Masters, one in particular, who, as excelling the rest, should be venerated as Supreme Elect Master or Patriarch. ”

“ This master is still the most humble and diligent of scholars. Of Art, his mistress, he is always an eager, reverent pupil. In his calling, in yours, in mine, industry and humility will help and comfort us. ”

“ The servant in many cases knew his master and his master's interests as well as the master himself, or even better, and must act by the light of his own knowledge in cases where his master was ignorant or misinformed. ”

“ Do you bring him here, that he may confront the Evil One. Then I will do my part. When the Master is full of dealing with the power that is Holy, he will have no time to watch me. At that sainted moment, I shall strike with every fiber of my being! From behind, I shall kick the Master's skull into bloody fragments. I will do it, though my poor life will surely be forfeit for the deed before the blood dries.
And I beg thee, gentle reader, do you intercede for my soul with your God, for I know Him not, neither can I speak. Beg from Him my salvation from the fires the Master speaks so often of. ”

“ When the oath was accepted the Master took a fee for that which he was going to communicate, and he never advanced any novice from degree to degree, till he saw that the man had assimilated to the utmost everything taught him. ”

“ The true Master knows that those who go out can never find the secret trust. He alone can find it who goes within. The true Master Builder has never lost the Word but has cherished it in the spiritual locket of his own being. ”

“ Like timid children, we have peered into the schoolhouse--afraid of the unknown master. If we will but enter we shall find that the Master is our Father, and that he has fitted up this house, out of his own infinite wisdom, skill, and love, that we may be like him in wisdom and power as well as in love. ”

“ CHAPTER XV. THE MASTERY And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame, And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame, But each for the joy of working, and each, in his separate star, Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are. —KIPLING
JUNE time in the Walnut Valley, and commencement time at Sunrise on the limestone ridge! Nor pen nor brush can show the glory of the radiant prairies, and the deep blue of the “unscarred heavens,” and the bright gleams from rippling waters. ”

“ Dost thou not know who controlled thee, and made thee obedient? He is thy Master. The mind that controls others, is the Master of those whom it controls, while those who are controlled by him, are servants to obey his will. The Master is as the servant, and the servant as the Master in the work required of thee. We may not be controlled as slaves are controlled, nor yet as slaves are worked; for our Master is not a tyrant, but a co-worker with us in the good of all. He rules with attraction, as the sun rules the planets. He rules with wisdom, as he has received wisdom. ”

“ The master is a man of years, and one might study arithmetic, or at least a sum of addition from the accumulated wrinkles in his face. One little culprit has been called to take his place, but his recitation is doubtless as weak as his knees, or he may be in the act of contrition "bowed down with weight of woe." ”

“ We trust that the many students to whom we now offer this little work will derive as much benefit from the study of its pages as have the many who have gone on before, treading the same Path to Mastery throughout the centuries that have passed since the times of HERMES TRISMEGISTUS—the Master of Masters—the Great-Great. ”

“ The masters, to tell their story, had at call all the talent and genius that wealth and influence could command. They have had their full day in court. Literature, theology, philosophy, law and learning have come willingly to their service, and, if condemned, they have not been condemned unheard. ”

“ I will be called by no human name, not even if it be an inspired one: my name shall not be derived from the servant, but from the Master himself. I will remember his command: “Call no man Master, on earth; for one is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.” ”

“ The most unlikely number of people have discerned that the Master is "well written." It has had the highest success of honour that the English-reading public can now confer; where it has failed (the success, save that it hasn't failed at all!) ”

“ What is the work of these Masters in the religions of the world, and why is it that this thought of the Masters has been so revived in the modern world, and made so much more living, in a sense, than it has been for many a long year? ”

“ But some works can only be performed by the Master, while other works require the assistance of the companions. It is the Master’s work to preserve the true philosophy, but the help of the companions is needed to rediscover and promulgate it. ”

“ I arrived in Paris a simple apprentice; a few months after my arrival I became companion and master; the last is certainly the highest degree in Freemasonry, for all the other degrees which I took afterwards are only pleasing inventions, which, although symbolical, add nothing to the dignity of master.
No one in this world can obtain a knowledge of everything, but every man who feels himself endowed with faculties, and can realize the extent of his moral strength, should endeavour to obtain the greatest possible amount of knowledge. ”

“ From him I gathered a good many anecdotes of his former master, of which the following partly bears upon the present subject, and gives rather a good illustration of a class of persons not unfrequently met with, who occasionally support most extraordinary pretensions by methods still more extraordinary, claiming to be proficients in all the forgotten lore of past ages, and even in their rags hinting at powers, the possession of which would be rather enviable. ”

“ He was a criminal, differing only in degree from his master, yet he adhered to the fiction of master and servant even when there was no other person present.
The master, having read the last of the newspapers, ordered the servant to admit a man who waited outside. ”

“ But if you gape open-mouthed at externals, you must needs be tossed up and down according to the will of your master. And who is your master? He who has authority over any of the things upon which you set your heart or which you wish to avoid. ”

“ If these were all the qualifications required for discipleship, each Master might have thousands of pupils, and His whole time would be taken up in endeavouring to bring into shape those few thousands of people, with all their petty little faults on the astral and physical planes, and in the meantime the Master's splendid work with the egos on the higher levels would have to be entirely neglected.
First of all then, to be a pupil of a Master means that one must look upon life as the Master looks upon it, solely from the point of view of what is best for the progress of the world. ”

“ That he was a good and kind master, is proved by the numerous scholars he reared, and still more by the pride which the most eminent and best of them took, by introducing him more than once in his works, to perpetuate with his own gratitude the memory of his master. ”

“ Like many another great man of the Thirteenth Century he was a doer and not a writer, and, but for the casual mention of him by others, the records of his deeds would only be found in certain ecclesiastical records, and his work would now be known to the Master alone, for whom it was so unselfishly done. ”

“ It has already been said that out of the comparatively small number of adepts who retain Their physical bodies and fill the offices connected with the administration of the world under the Great Hierarchy, there is a still smaller number who accept pupils, and to whom therefore we give the name of Masters. ”