Conscience is an unrelenting, unassailable master without a thought

Intrusions. It seems, despite ideology and power cultures around the world are unable to slip fully out of the grip of conscience.  Fears turn to anger. Anger turns to danger.  History becomes a pawn to be used and abused to justify unconscionable acts.  Natural law should be so kind to humanity.  When we speak of the corpus, we ask repeatedly ' have we progressed'?  Piques and quarrels tend to contort the ego- unable to control emotion allow us to glibly opine that we have not.  And then we have what I consider the embodiment of conscience-  beyond our practical illusions, even outside our design- the presence  of natural law becomes our teacher, our mentor, our guide.  Somehow thinking in terms of black and white might be the antithesis of masonry.   Masonry is a debate, in which ethics and principles measure who we are and who we seem to be- internally and externally. We adorn ourselves with symbols.  Even our quite private gathering places challenge us to achieve harmony and balance.  Surely we must tell our apprentices that the true mason begins in a mind that lacks understanding. We begin with approximations of lofty principles;  temperance, truth, authenticity, honour, dignity, self-sacrifice, charity.  But we are not uniform in our construction. We are the hoi polloi; a cacophony of talent, desire and opinion. Masons are that sense the embodiment of intrusions. By today's standard, modesty and discretion are not what our grandfathers experienced. Less afraid to expose abuses of power- whether in the home or through the estates (first to fifth).  We share opinion and ideas freely, in a free fall threat to despotism, demagoguery, and superstition. And we stand in silent oration, an embodiment of harsh unequivocal truths. Humble. Frail . Audacious.