GMFerrell

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DUDLEY HAYS FERRELL 1879-1932

DudleyFerrell1932.jpg

Deputy Grand Master, 1922
Grand Master, 1923-1925.

TERM

1923 1924 1925

SPEECHES

FEAST OF ST. JOHN, DECEMBER 1920

From Proceedings, Page 1920-630:

Most Worshipful Grand Master and Brethren: Recognizing, even though I have no measure for it and merely sense it, the interest that you all must have in anything that pertains to a cultured society, I want to impose upon your attention for just a few minutes certain possibilities of life which have been revealed by the experience of the past and which are emphasized continually by the experience through which we are now passing. You will pardon a personal reference for just a moment. When I turned to the superior wisdom of our Most Worshipful Grand Master, after he made his request for assistance, and asked him for a suggestion as to the subject that I should present, he took refuge with perfect frankness and simplicity in that oft-repeated and childlike reply, which was perfectly honest, I know. When I said, "What shall I speak about?" He said, "Well, twenty minutes will be about enough." {Laughter.}

So, my Brethren, I cannot share the blame tonight if what I have to say proves soporific rather than stimulating in its effect. And yet, by the grace and graciousness with which he has presented me, I am indeed relieved of all bewilderment and of every particle of embarrassment. His introduction is vastly different from that which perhaps many of you read the other day. I think it was in the Saturday Evening Post. The toastmaster arose and said, "My friends, I have a story to tell you. There was an old farmer down South who drove into town with his mule. The noon hour came and he stopped in the street and gave the mule a feed of oats, a good feed. Then he went and obtained something for himself, while the mule stood there in the sunshine. Finally the farmer came out, hitched up the mule again and said to him, "I have fed you, durn you. Now get up." And then he turned to the next speaker. {Laughter.}

But I can assure you that it is a great help to be gently eased upon your attention, rather than violently thrust upon it, and for this I am indeed grateful, and ever remembering the courtesy of Masonic audiences, even when they are imposed upon by the prosy and the extensive, I am going to ask you to bear with me for a very few minutes; while we consider together the subject:

TRUSTEES OF CIVILIZATION.

This subject, in my opinion, is particularly pertinent to this occasion, because we must never forget that the significance of this festival is found in our remembrance of a great personality, which, if I may use the contradictory terms, was gently aggressive. The gentleness of St. John the Evangelist is clearly revealed to us in the passionate regard that he had for that which is, and was, the supreme virtue of human life; and the aggressiveness of that personality is revealed in his lack of hesitation to challenge the dominant philosophy of his time with the great principles of Christian idealism.

As we read the words of St. John the Evangelist, coming to us as they do across the space of the years, we discover that they were dictated by one who had a passionate regard for everything that was clean and everything that was honorable. They come from one who dreamed daringly of the time when the world would belong to the Grand Architect of the Universe, and, my Brethren, such personalities as his cannot die; for even though we are permitted nothing more than merely to conjecture their labors in the grander life of the tomorrow, yet their immortality here is assured "in lives made better by their presence, in deeds of daring rectitude," inspired by their memory and written across the pages of life's story, its inspiration and its explanation.

So, for this hour at least, the claims of reverent remembrance are too urgent to be denied, and we must together follow the guidance of such characters as this great Patron Saint of our Fraternity, and together take the far look. The tasks that occupy your minds during the days, whether the tasks are those of your business or your profession, are worthy of a certain amount of attention, but they are not so worthy that they ought to absorb you wholly. The things that you and I commonly perform in the midst of the day's work are things that safeguard our mere existence. There are other things that give us life. Man was not made for mere existence, any more than the printing press was made to exist. There it stands, a perfect piece of machinery, but it is absolutely useless, it takes up a certain space in the room and merely encumbers that space, until the power is applied. Then it lives and moves and has a being and justifies its place among the mechanical arrangements of the world by its production. Man is exactly of the same sort. A man merely encumbers the society of which he is a part until through the imperative of his spirit he begins to live.

We are continually talking about destiny. The only destiny that I know of is the destiny that is interpreted in a man's work, and that destiny is not fulfilled until his work is a contribution to the common welfare.

You remember what the Trestle Board says concerning dependence as one of the strongest bonds of society. "Mankind was made dependent on each other and he that will so demean himself as not to be endeavoring to add to the common stock of knowledge and understanding may be deemed a drone in the hive of industry; a useless member of society, and unworthy of our protection as Masons." Never did the authenticity of that affirmation have clearer demonstration than it has in this present year of life. "We have come to the discovery of one thing: that we are not only in this world, but we are of it. "We no longer forecast our achievements by our own ambitions, and according to our own skill. We take thought for the ambitions and the wants and the aspirations of our fellow-men and we begin to register anxiety for society even as we attempt to fulfill ourselves. What you and I do, whatever its character may be, is a contribution to that invisible force which plays upon the possibilities of our time and determines the character of the civilization in which we share.

So we are compelled to take the far look; we can't do anything else, because, while it is true that the average man finds it impossible to rise above the general level of his time, yet it is what the average man does, it is what you and I nurture in our souls as the purpose of life, it is what you and I hold within our hearts as the great desire of life that determines what that level of human resolve and accomplishment is going to be. When all is said and done, civilization is the one inevitable democracy. We all have a share in it whether we want to or whether we do not want to. It is not a question of your being willing to do something or unwilling. It is not because you are ready to be useful or useless. It is just because you are here that you have the power to determine what the quality of your life shall be. So civilization is not something in which we merely share. It is a thing that we assist in creating. It is not the intangible atmosphere that sustains endeavor to a certain point of accomplishment, but, in the last analysis, civilization is the soul that dwells within you, that moral and spiritual skill which determines what the extent of the accomplishment is to be. We as Masons, because of the fashion in which we invest our interest in things fundamental, because of our education in anticipating the adventures of wide relationship, ought to be particularly sensitive to this privilege, yes, to this duty of adding something to the common resources of the time in which we live. There are in our Fraternity certain media for the examination of universal association which are denied to men who are outside of Masonry, and unless you and I take advantage of this opportunity of examination, with consequent determining decisions, we are false to the true spirit of true Masonry.

As I look over you tonight, though I do not know you all, I feel, and in fact I know, that there is not a single man here but has some opinion with regard to the conditions of our time. Those opinions are varied, and yet, my Brethren, there is a certain element that is found in all those opinions which identifies them and enables us to gather them together and mass them in one particular category. Do you realize that oftentimes the complaints which we make with regard to the discrepancies of the age, and the pessimistic forecasts in which we delight too often to indulge, come simply because of what we think the present condition is going to do to us, of its promised effect upon the desires and the material advantages that are the mere safeguards of our existence. Do you realize that it is not the ornaments of civilization, it is not the nonessentials of civilization that are being attacked today, but the very fundamental resources of life itself which are in danger. It is not your personal resources interpreted in terms material, but the common privilege of progress that is being assailed by certain passions and tendencies, unrestrained, apparently, that are let loose in the midst of our society, and if you will only realize that, you will find yourselves face to face with one of the most illuminating precepts of experience, namely, that civilization is not self-sustaining. There is only one thing in this universe that is self-sustaining, and that is God. Yet you and I proceed upon the assumption that when society arrives at a certain level it is bound to stay there. We might as well expect a stick that you throw up into the air to remain at the high point of its flight. It will stay there, it is true, if you can destroy the law of the earth's attraction; and society and the well-being of society will sustain itself only when you take personal responsibility out of the scheme of things. That is the only time that civilization will be self-sustaining.

Let us turn to the record of history and there we shall find that we are not the only people nor the only generation that ever have boasted of civilization. There were men, now buried deep in the years that have been, who had an art equal to our own, and a philosophy that was just as searching. They attained a material achievement which even we have not yet surpassed, and yet they are gone. Their names are merely historic and their greatness is only a memory tonight, and we marvel at the decay that came. We wonder why it was that such greatness failed to realize itself and to continue. If we are the men that I think we are, we will consider the possibility of the same fate overtaking us. "If the ruthless hand of ignorance and the lapse of time" are thus able "to destroy so many valuable monuments of antiquity," why should we fail to consider the possibility of our inability to meet and sustain the pressure and strain of the suspicions and antagonisms of the times? If we are the men that I think we are, we will not look to the materials within our possession as the safeguard of cherished ideals and principles. For if the salvation of the age is to be assured, it will have to be found in those fundamental ideals, in that fundamental spirit which has ever been the foundation and the imperative of Freemasonry.

A few years ago there was published upon the front page of one of our lighter magazines a cartoon. I have often referred to this picture, and I shall often refer to it again, I know, because of the effect that it had upon me at the time. In that cartoon there was a great pile of shining golden coin. Halfway up the side a leg was sticking out, upon which I saw a red and white striped pant, bound under a decaying shoe by the cloth. A little further up on one side there was a bony hand sticking out of the golden pile. A little above that, and fallen to one side of a grinning skull that had once been the face of a man, there was an old gray high hat, and on the blue band of it could still be discerned the silver stars. Finally on the top of the pile there was a tattered, weather-beaten American flag, and beneath the picture was this quotation, Where wealth accumulates and men decay." In the background of that picture I seemed to see the faces of many generations, and upon those faces there was sorrow that once again a great people had made the mistake that had been made so often before, and had lost its heritage of greatness, selling it for a veritable mess of pottage. In that picture I read the story of civilization. There we have the record of what it is that destroys a people, of what it is that saves a people. We have there a revelation of the things that menace the life of man, and the things that safeguard life. For here is the great teaching. Civilization has never been destroyed from without, but always from within. That has become axiomatic.

We recall to ourselves the alien attacks that halted Grecian culture, that brought to a sudden end those artistic efforts which resulted in a dramatic and lyric poetry and a philosophy that even yet obtains the admiration of men. We recall the Gothic and Vandal invasions, the onward sweep of barbaric hordes, and there we find the power that brought decay to the prestige of Rome and destroyed her magnificence. We are wrong in our conclusions. Those alien attacks were the conclusion of the matter, but not the beginning. They were the actual effect, and not the cause. Long before those alien attacks came the canker of moral decay and material absorption had eaten away the spiritual fiber of the people and nothing was left to withstand these assaults upon ambition and notice.

In our own day, Prussian civilization, which sought world domination by practices magnificently ruthless, met the common fate of destruction not through the preponderance of the Allied arms, but because its own heart was decayed with the cancer of immoral ambitions and could not function when eternal right challenged the integrity of its purposes.

My Brethren in Masonry, if our cherished possessions, conceived and fostered in liberty, and giving to us that quality of association which is rightly called civilization— if our cherished possessions are ever to be lost, they will be lost not because some sudden power comes among us and takes them away, but because we ourselves give them away, having forgotten what it is that makes a people great. The dangers to individual culture, the enemies of national integrity, are not to be met by great armies or mighty fleets. The safety of any time and the continuance of any people are assured only when the soul of man clothes itself with eternal assurance and walks forth daringly amid the duties and responsibilities of time. {Applause.}

My Brethren, when I consider the place that America is bound to have among the determining forces of the world, when I vision for myself the authority of counsel to which she will be compelled by her own inherent desire to serve mankind, I would that I had the authority to summon every man of you, every man in this land of ours, to a new dedication of himself, for each one stands the custodian of the common welfare, protector of America's soul, the trustee of civilization.

As we attempt to discharge the duties of this position, we cannot afford to make the mistakes which the past so clearly demonstrates in the record of decay and disappearance. We should look upon the present disturbances of life with anxiety, but not with fear for, even as we may consent by our carelessness and extravagance to a disappearance of every cherished element of well-being so also, if we will it, we may preserve and increase every inherited and created factor that is essential to progress.

Here, then, is the vocation that should appeal to every man and to us especially. We are the inheritors of an honorable past, and it is our duty to match that past with a present that is just as honorable. "We may seek to strengthen the social structure by building into it an unusual measure of intellectuality, a remarkable accumulation of material achievement, but, if we close our endeavor there, we fail as men have failed before. The world was integrated intellectually and commercially to a greater extent than ever known when the world war came, but the danger of the situation was annulled only by the heroic crusade of man's soul. Therefore, my Brethren, the present duty demands no investment of anxiety in those attainments or achievements that have so often disappointed, but it requires once more the testing of our moral and spiritual faculties. These, alone, are the substance and safeguard of any civilization. They, alone, constitute the resource from which today's need can be met and furnish the inspiration of that accomplishment which will honor the time to come. Today is not alone in making a demand upon us. Out of the dim distance of all tomorrows, there stretch toward us the hands of those "who have not yet arrived upon the shores of being," appealing for that heritage of honor, truth, and justice which is ours to give, if we only will, and upon which they can rear the nobler structure of a better world. {Applause.}

AT 125TH ANNIVERSARY OF MONTGOMERY LODGE, SEPTEMBER 1922

AT 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF NORFOLK LODGE, MAY 1924

From Proceedings, Page 1924-74:

Worshipful Master, Members of the Grand Lodge, Members of Norfolk Lodge, and invited guests here represented:

Your Worshipful Master is in one sense an ideal Toast-master, in another he is no Toastmaster at all. When he was introduced, he began with a stereotyped phrase that he was not going to make an address. That showed the genius of a Toastmaster, and he immediately proceeded |o keep his word — that is not like a Toastmaster. I remember once when I was being presented to a body of people, in fact I was being welcomed to a community, and one of my brother ministers started off by saying something like that, and then he proceeded to tell for forty-five minutes the history of a certain portion of the human race. I know your Worshipful Master has all the graces of a Toastmaster. lie can take a small measure of the truth and make it look large. He has the delightful fashion of passing the complimentary remark in such a way that it is accepted at its face value, and for this I am extremely grateful to him.

This is indeed a happy occasion, and while I would like to have the opportunity of speaking at some length, I will leave that for some other occasion because there is more to follow me. If you survive this you may survive the rest, and in order to bring it to you as quickly as possible I am going to be brief.

We, who represent your Masonic Brothers, are particularly happy to be here. It is a joy to participate with a Lodge when it marks the completion of fifty years of its history. I have listened with a great deal of interest to that portion read by the historian recounting the formation of Norfolk Lodge and I hope sometime when the duties of Grand Master are sufficiently light to allow me the time, to read the whole record. But what was given was a remarkably human document. The historian said very little of the finances of the Lodge. He brought to the attention very little of the material things that have marked the fifty years' work of Norfolk Lodge, and in doing that he was very wise indeed; for in presenting the story he depicted to us the very essence of the history. He offered us that which has been vital in writing all history. It was the story of personal achievements.

r was impressed tonight as we stood around the table while the Chaplain invoked the Divine Blessing. I was impressed with the remarkable reverence for the Deity which Masons always display. It would be extremely difficult to find a group of this size anywhere else coming together from the day's work and with many interests occupying the mind, that would stand in the silence in which we all stood tonight before our dinner began while the Chaplain addressed the Throne of Divine Grace. I don't know whether you realize it or not, but that is one of the distinguishing characteristics of Freemasonry, that is one of the secrets of its continuance. The historian indirectly preferred to this when he read you the story of the beginning of this Lodge, when he told you how a little group came together, inspired with a desire for better acquaintance amongst themselves and the Brothers who would come to them. Now that which has distinguished the beginning of Norfolk Lodge is something that is proving the chief characteristic of our great Institution and when tonight you look back over fifty years as an organized body you will find that the explanation of all that has been accomplished, the interpretation and best definition of the quality of achievement that has marked the story of this Lodge.

I was startled when the Worshipful Master asked how many were here who were present twenty-five years ago to see how few there were. A very small percentage of those who are gathered here tonight were present twenty-five years ago — and yet twenty-five years is not a long time, especially in the history of Freemasonry. When you stop to consider, therefore, most of us are very young in the knowledge of the Craft. It takes more than a year, it takes more than ten, it takes more than a quarter of a century to learn all there is to know about Freemasonry.

And this gathering, too, should be an inspiration. It should represent a new and more forceful token. "What the historian has done has been to take from the past certain outstanding personalities and, mixing them together, he has spread them out over a background which Ave tonight can measure ourselves. The past does not mean anything of itself. There is no honor that belongs to you or to me because of a record that has been written, there is nothing in the thing itself, unless we can interpret it and obtain from it that which will constitute a present urge in a time when the world needs us most.

Brethren, the most unobservant, as he looks around him today, realizes that there is more or less of a tendency to depart from certain ancient landmarks of rectitude, to ignore certain signposts marked justice, friendliness, mutual consideration. Our society is troubled with a multitude of ills. Today there is confusion, there are mutual suspicions, there are actual deeds of violence being perpetrated. I do not say that this is true of society in general, but we have enough of this sort of thing to disturb us, and sometimes even the wise, sometimes even those who are most faithful to truth and to brotherliness become discouraged and they ask, "What is worth while? Why not take what you want? Let every man look out for himself." They doubt the reality of brotherhood. Those who make the laws themselves even have these suspicions of goodness and the best of people are sometimes more than disturbed.

[ know of no association in human society that is more able to render to the world today a vital and needed service than Freemasonry. (Applause.) Within our Lodges and the Craft in general is the great revelation of brotherhood, of just and honest dealing; and if we can live together in our Lodges in this spirit of friendliness it can be done anywhere.

It has been said, and I am glad to hear it said, that Norfolk Lodge has wielded a wonderful power in this town, not as a Lodge but through the individual members. That is the way Masonry can work today.

The story of this Lodge is an honorable story. The spirit of this Fraternity has gone out in this direction and ]that direction doing good; and that spirit tonight is your inheritance and mine. It explains the past, and the reality hi it must explain the present or we are not worthy to exist; in the truth of it you have the promise of the future. And I hope that in the days that are to come you will continue the success that you have already enjoyed, that you will be able by your own personality, by your own equipment to make personal contribution to Norfolk Lodge so that by every day that passes there will be added to the story a chapter that is worthy of a place in the record. I °Pe that your years will be many, and rich, not only in members but rich in that creation of service that will offer an example and inspiration to the distant years which are sure to come.

I bring you the greetings of the Brethren of Massachusetts and assure you that they rejoice with you in the satisfaction of achievement that has come to Norfolk Lodge.

INDEPENDENCE DAY, JULY 1924

FEAST OF ST. JOHN, DECEMBER 1928

From Proceedings, Page 1928-491:

Most Worshipful Grand Master and my Brethren:

The Most Worshipful Grand Master has already explained the significance of my entrance into the active service of the Craft in Massachusetts, and as they say in certain polite circles of entertainment, "that's that" and nothing further need be said.

I feel very humble tonight. For, when the conversation is concerning the "high lights" of the various administrations of those who have served as Grand Master, it seems to me that very little exists in the story of the three years of 1923 and 1925 inclusive which might be so designated. Realizing what your expectancy has been all the evening in respect to the address to which we are to listen, and sharing thai expectancy with you, I will deny myself a privilege which the Grand Master and Past Grand Masters prize most highly. I will confine myself to few words.

We are a modest group, we Past Grand Masters, but even we find the limit of humility. We can stand it when a man takes out his watch and looks at it while we are speaking, but we do object when after looking at it, he puts it to his ear to see if it is going. However, I must abide by your evident wish, but ask your permission to say one thing in the quietness of that retrospect which gives a measure to the service which one renders to a body. There is one thing that stands out most clearly in my mind, it is an accomplishment, and for it I cannot assume responsibility. I give credit rather to those who preceded me in office of Grand Master, and this is done gladly. They rendered a service which was distinctive. Each made a contribution according to his ability, a contribution of a particular character, and as a result of their efforts, there gradually developed in this Fraternity a certain unease. By this I do not mean restiveness, but rather a feeling of unrest which was indicative of a desire to make Freemasonry articulate. In the years which I particularly remember, I beheld the final awakening of this Craft to the realities of our profession to larger hopes. They evinced a new eagerness to do something and reveal the full substance of our Masonic philosophy. I remember with gratitude the Brethren of this Craft as always willing to do what they could to make a success of any helpful endeavor, the correctness of which bad been impressed upon their minds. This Craft displayed itself as being sensitive to every opportunity for service and ibis happy remembrance went far to strengthen one's faith in the dignity of man and to protect one's belief in the integrity of our Institution.

As the Most Worshipful Grand Master said earlier in the evening, it is true "that the attitude which characterizes Masons, determines more than anything else what accomplishment shall do."

I can testify, .Most Worshipful, to the quality of the attitude which our Brethren of this Jurisdiction have and do evince, and for the coming year your faith in it is wisely invested. There is not a Mason within this Commonwealth who will not gladly give you loyal support. There is not one of us in office or out of office who will not faithfully follow you wherever yon may need, when you say "this is well for the Craft."

It is our remembrance of the past that gives us hope for the future and that remembrance, one of the happiest of my life, is the remembrance of men faithful to their duty.

The happiness I have, therefore, tonight in recalling my years as Grand Master, is in the knowledge of the hope invested in men who took it and glorified ii with the substance of reality.

MEMORIAL

From Proceedings, Page 1932-202:

Brother Ferrell was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, January 29, 1879, and died at his home in Swampscott, September 15, 1932. Brother Ferrell was a graduate of Princeton University and of the Princeton Theological Seminary. Princeton gave him a Master of Arts degree in 1902. His first pastorate was in Slatington, Pa. His ministerial service was continuous from that time until his death except for the period from t927 to 1931, when he gave his whole time to the service of the Grand Lodge.

Brother Ferrell took his Masonic degrees in Paul Revere Lodge in 1906. He was a Charter member of Baalis Sanford Lodge and its first Master under Charter in 1918. He was Deputy Grand Master in 1922, and Grand Master in 1923,1924, and 1925. ln 1927, on the death of Most Worshipful John Albert Blake, he was chosen Relief Commissioner, assuming at the same time the charge of the departments of Masonic Service and Masonic Education. His service in this important post was of the greatest value to the Fraternity, and it was with great regret that the Grand Lodge released him when the call of his profession became too powerful to be longer resisted and he resigned to accept the very important pastorate of the Second Church in Boston. He was at the time of his death one of the Directors of the Grand Lodge.

Brother Ferrell was a member of Satucket Royal Arch Chapter, Brockton Council of Royal and Select Masters, Bay State Commandery of Knights Templar, and the Scottish Rite bodies in Boston. At the time of his death he was Most Wise Master of Mount Olivet Chapter of Rose Croix.

We mourn not only the loss of a valued and useful Grand Lodge officer but that of a friend whose qualities of mind and heart had endeared him to us all. I cannot do better than quote from the tribute of Dr. Charles E. Park at his funeral: "His was a heart filled with good cheer, a mouth filled with laughter, a tongue which always brought a message of cheer. No man was more able with the spirit. of good cheer to awaken a responsive cheer in the hearts of others."

Eloquent and persuasive in his preaching, he was not less so in his Masonic addresses. Breathing the true spirit of Masonry reinforced by his Masonic knowledge drawn from his experience in high Masonic office, they always inspired the Brethren to wider Masonic vision and more earnest Masonic effort.

From Proceedings, Page 1932-287:

Gone from us a familiar face, a cheery smile, the handclasp of a friend; but memory remains. Now and again, and yet again, upon the silver screen of memory, he lives with us day by day.

And it is not a silent screen. Memory brings back to us voice as well as feature. As we sit musing, we forgather with him again as Christian gentleman, clergyman and pastor; as Master of his Lodge, Deputy Grand Master, and Most Worshipful Grand Master of Masons in Massachusetts; as the newly installed Most Wise Master of Rose Croix; as Relief Commissioner; as Director of the Grand Lodge; as husband, father, and grandfather; as personal friend; and as Masonic Brother.

M.W. Bro. Ferrell was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, January 29, 1879. He entered the ministry in 1902 and held pastorates at the First Presbyterian Church, Slatington, Pennsylvania (1902-1904) ; Unitarian Church, Natick, Massachusetts (1904-1906); Church of the Unity, Brockton, Massachusetts (1906-1918); Church of the Messiah, MontréaI, Canada (1919-1920); Unitarian Church, Lynn, Massachusetts (1920-1927). At the time of his death he was pastor of the Second Church in Boston (Unitarian).

His Masonic record is as follows: Raised in Paul Revere Lodge, Brockton, Massachusetts, December 18, 1906. Charter Member of Baalis Sanford Lodge, of Brockton, March 13, 1918, and its first Worshipful Master under Charter. He served as Deputy Grand Master of Masons in 1922 and as Most Worshipful Grand Master of Masons in Massachusetts during the years 1923, 1924, and 1925. He was exalted in Satucket Royal Arch Chapter, of Brockton, in June, 1912, and was Grand Chaplain of the Grand Chapter of Massachusetts from December, 1926, until his death. He received the Cryptic Degrees in Brockton Council of Royal and Select Masters in 1913 and was knighted in Bay State Commandery No. 38, Knights Templar, of Brockton, the same year. The Scottish Rite degrees from the fourth to the thirty-second inclusive were received in the Boston bodies during 1912 and January 1913. After service in various offices in Mt. Olivet Chapter of Rose Croix, he was elected and installed its Most Wise Master on April 15,1932, and was serving in that capacity at the time of his death. On September 16, 1924, in Boston, he was coronetted a Sovereign Grand Inspector General 33d degree, Honorary Member of the Supreme Council.

Among his other outstanding services to the Craft were those as Relief Commissioner of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts from 1927 to 1931 and member of the Board of Directors of the Grand Lodge from 1927 until his death.

He died at his home in Swampscott, Massachusetts, on September 15, 1932, leaving a widow and one daughter, Mrs. Violet Blanchard, and three grandchildren, Virginia, Shirley, and Dudley Ferrell Blanchard.

Deeply and sincerely religious, Dudley Ferrell's God was not only the Grand Architect of the universe, but also a Father rather than a tyrant) and all the world his children. Consequently, Bro. Ferrell never became a hermit or an ascetic. He mingled with his fellowmen, shared in their experiences, understood them. It has been said that "He who would have friends must show himself friendly." Bro. Ferrell had a host of friends. He was the embodiment of friendliness. Gregarious, cordial, sympathetic, he ever carried about him an atmosphere of cheer and helpfulness.

As a ritualist he was superb; as Grand Master he was notably successful as Relief Commissioner he was kindly, sympathetic, and efficient; as a Director his judgment was sound; as a clergyman he was outstanding; as a friend, he was beloved. His death has brought to each of us not only a new recognition of his helpfulness but also a sense of personal loss. While our hearts are burdened with sorrow, it remains for us to turn to the faith of our fathers and his faith that we have not eternally parted.

"Nay, but as one layeth
His worn-out robes away
And taking new ones sayeth,
'These will I wear today,'
So putteth by the spirit
Lightly its garb of flesh
And passeth to inherit
A residence afresh."

Melvin M. Johnson
Harold W. Sprague
Robert G. Rae
Committee

NOTES

CHARTERS GRANTED

RULINGS


Grand Masters

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