Rudyard Kipling

If

by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired of waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal with lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings --nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And --which is more-- you'll be a Man, my son!

Born in Bombay India, 12-30-1865. His father, John L. Kipling was an artist and was able to send his young son to England for his education. He received his learning at United Services College at Westward Ho, North Devon. By 1880, he returned to Lahore, India where he began writing as a sub-editor for "The Civil and Military Gazette". He was just seventeen.

In 1892, he married an American, Caroline Starr Batestier with whom he became acquainted with notable American authors of the day. He received an honorary degree from Oxford University in 1907 along with one of his contemporaries, Mark Twain. During the same year he was granted the Nobel prize for literature, the first British writer so honoured.

Rudyard Kipling was also a Mason, a very devoted and active Mason indeed.His writing contain many allusions and references to the Masonic experience. He was made a Mason at Hope and Perseverance Lodge No.782 at Lahore Punjab, India. It was an English Constitution Lodge. His work required special dispensation, because he was only twenty-years/six months at the time. The same evening that he was raised, he was elected secretary of his Lodge so that he recorded his own initiation in the minutes of his Lodge.

A few months later, he delivered a lecture to his brethren "On the Origins of Masonry and the First Degree in Particular."

He became a Mark Master in Mark Lodge "Fidelity"on 4-12-1887 and received his Mark Mariners degree in Lodge "Mt. Ararat"at Lahore on 4-17-1888. He also affiliated with Philanthropy Lodge No.391 at Allahabad, Bengal. There were never restrictions on dual or plural membership in English Constitution lodges.

When he returned to England, he further affiliated with "Mother Lodge No.3861"in London as well as two others, "Author's lodge No.3456" and "Lodge Builders Lodge of the Silent Cities No.4948." In 1905, Canongate-Kilwinning Lodge No.2, Edinburgh, Scotland chose him as poet laureate as a previous Brother, Robbie Burns had the pleasure.

In 1925, he wrote in the London "Freemason", "I was Secretary for some years of Hope and Perseverance Lodge No.782, E.C. Lahore which included Brethren of at least four creeds. I was entered by a member of Bramo Somaj, a Hindu; passed by a Mohammedan, and raised by an Englishman. Our Tyler was an Indian Jew. We met, of course, on the level, and the only difference anyone would notice was that at our banquets, some of the Brethren, who were debarred by caste from eating food not ceremonially prepared, sat over empty plates."

To the natives of Lahore, the Lodge was known as a "house of magic." They believed that nothing but magic could bring together so many men of different classes and castes, and so many men of different religions.
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For more information, pick up the Short Talk Bulletin Vol. XLII, October 1964 No.10 from the Masonic Service Association, 700-10th Street N.W. Washington D.C. USA