The Book of Marshall: Chapter 1

1. I Marshall, having been born to righteous parents who raised me in the true church and taught me the doctrine have had a testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel and a love for the Savior at least since I was but three years of age.

2. Having been taught in the learning of my father and mother and having partaken of the rites of the Holy Temple and the rites of Freemasonry and also the York Rite have come to a knowledge and understanding of reality and have attained a personal relationship with God my Heavenly Father.

3. Having suffered exceedingly, yea, I have suffered physical and emotional pain more severe than the finite mind can comprehend, have been brought to a knowledge of the full furry of Hell. I know of the suffering that awaits the wicked in Outer Darkness, which suffering is so great that only those who experience it can know it.

4. Nevertheless: I have to glorify and praise God in his infinite wisdom and mercy for blessing me with such great trials. I join with the prophet Alma in declaring the great and marvelous joy that has come upon me.

5. I was racked with that pains of a damned soul, condemned by illness to lay in bed weeping in utter torment. An now, this was the fate I was inescapably condemned to suffer all of my days. The best doctors in the land wept a my plight because they knew there was no power in all the world to ease my pains or comfort me. Yet in my moment of great despair, when the tangible forces of darkness from an unseen realm to combine to crush me my strength spent, I did turn my heart unto the Lord for redemption.

6. As I turned my heart in full to the Lord I felt such wonderful peace and redeeming light as to exceed my pains and they did leave me and I remember them no more.

7. Yea, like the prophet Alma was I comforted and now my hearts desire is to spread forth the glorious message of hope unto the world, that every child of God would partake of his goodness and mercy.

8. And it came to pass that on the eighteenth day of the third month of the year of our Lord twelve and twenty I was reading in the forth verse of the first chapter of the Book of Mormon that the Spirit of the Lord did reveal unto me that it was the desire of God that I should keep a record of my testimony and of my people engraven upon electro-magnetic plates to be copied and stored in many locations that they might not be lost and would stand as a light and a hope to the people of God and stand as a witness against the blood and sins of my generation.

9. Behold, I knew not what to engrave upon the plates but it is revealed unto me what I should write according to my faithfulness and my diligence in obeying the commands of God.

10. And now behold, these are the words given unto me:

11. Wo wo wo unto this generation! Your hearts are set upon the things of the world. Ye are lovers of your own selves more than lovers of God or his fellow man. Every man seeks advantage over his neighbor by the laying of traps and snares. Behold: In days of past the King of Tyrus, the Grand Master Mahan did reveal many things of wickedness unto a few who joined the Order of Lemech, that is the Order that was first established by Lemech.

12. This Order after Lemech did work priestcraft of darkness in secret. Yea, they sought every man of them his own power alone by harming any man not a brother of the secret oath.

13. And now there have been many secret combinations established by Lucifer the fire-barer that wickedness would spread abroad in the land.

14. Wo wo wo unto this generation! Ye do work dark priestcrafts in the light of day and do glory in it and sign praises of darkness from the rooftops. Once, the dark arts had needs be worked in secret because if the darkness was known abroad the land the people would have destroyed them from off the face of the earth.

15. Wo wo wo unto this generation! Because your hearts are so inclined to do evil and offend God and your fellow man, yea, ye seek only the welfare of your own creature, the enemy of your souls doth openly work in the light among you.

16. Yeah, there are many black wizards who peep after the Order of Lemech among you, yea, among your leaders. (Now these wizards did not come to a knowledge of that order by searching the records because they scorn such things and are blind and dumb. Rather, that Grand Master Mahan by cunning artifice did reveal it unto them in ways pleasing unto them.) Because ye have black wizards who peep among the people working darkness a sore curse has befallen the land.

17. Yea, your money has been cursed with a sore curse because ye rejected your God, the God of mercy, success and happiness and went a whoring after the gods of money, pleasure and vanity.

18. Because ye have loved treasure more than God it has been taken from you. It is slippery unto you, if a man should try to hold it it should slip easily out of his hands and if a man lays up treasure in a secure place behold on the morrow it has vanished from among the world of men and is no more.

19. Yet still the Lord extends his hands forth unto you if ye will but turn to Him. Though many do persist in scorning God and despising his faithful children, there is salvation sufficient for all who have faith in Christ.

20. And if ye will surrender your life into the hands of the Lord and love Him and trust in Him will it ever be a blessing to thee. God is the source of all happiness. Unhappiness is the result of trying to be happy, happiness is the result of trying to make others happy. This is Charity, the pure love of Christ. If ye will take the name of Christ upon you and become like unto him ye shall find everlasting happiness.

21. Now this is the testimony which is in me and this testimony is true. Through great faith I have gained a relationship with God the Father and this is the cause of great happiness in me. 22. If thy faith is lacking. pray unto the Father for more faith.

23. If thy prayers are lacking, desire to pray for faith.

24. If thy desires are lacking, wish for the desire to pray for faith.

25. If thy wishes are lacking, ask help of another to pray for thee to wish for the desire to pray for faith.

26. In all things and in all trials the answer is always found in the correct application of Gospel principals. If thy application of the Gospel is insufficient, increase thy understanding of the Gospel.

27. If thy understanding of the Gospel is lacking, invite the Holy Ghost to remind you of the Gospel.

28. If thy invitation of the Holy Ghost is lacking, pray for the Holy Ghost.

29. If thy prayers are lacking, ponder these things in your heart.

30. If thy ponderings are lacking, read the scriptures.

31. If thy scripture reading is lacking, have faith.

32. If thy faith is lacking, pray for increased faith.

33. If thy prayers for faith are lacking, desire more faith.

34. If thy desires are lacking, seek help from one who knows God.

35. Ye can accomplish all things through Christ. Pray always that ye may come off Conquer.

36. God be with you.

Freemasons

To clarify, I am not a mason but I have done quite a bit of research on the topic. I think I know Freemasonry about as well as you can from the outside. In large part it's just a fraternity-a private club for men that you have to be invited into. Freemasonry definitely has a charter, specific goals they are working towards. The exact wording is confidential but you can get a pretty good idea from examining its roots.

How far back proto-freemasonry goes back is unknown. There is evidence that some form of it existed in the Middle Ages among stone masons who eventually started including the nobles they worked for. Modern Freemasonry traces its origins to the 1600s when local lodges opened up and was officially founded in London in 1717 with the first Grand Lodge of England. I think that we want to understand Freemasonry today the best thing to do is understand the climate it was born in. The 1600s was one of the worst centuries in Europe due to the Wars of Religion. Catholics and Protestants did not freaking get along. Off the top of my head you had the 30 Years War, the 80 Years War, the English Civil War, the Bishops War, the Three Kingdoms War and the Commonwealth, (technically the bit between wars and not an actual war not because there wasn't heavy religious persecution, but because it was one sided) and the persecution of the Huguenots (there was some fighting but mostly it was a one way blood bath.) Somewhere around half the population of Europe was killed fighting over religion.

The Enlightenment was also getting going about this time and people began to realize that we needed to stop using religion to divide us and use it to bring us together for the betterment of mankind. Out of this came concepts of democracy and freedom of religion that is reflected in our own Constitution. Both of those concepts are also very important to Masonry and are things they want to see spread around the world.

I became close friends with a Mason while working in Kentucky on oil rigs. Brother Jim was the baptist minister for some of my coworkers and I began to attend his sermons after I had finished my own meetings. Baptist services were run very differently than the LDS ones I grew with and the teachings were also different. The differences between the two theologies are to numerous to list but there was clear common ground. In the morning when I went to the LDS branch are heard of Jesus Christ's love and was encouraged to love my fellow man. When I went to the Baptist sermon I heard of Jesus's love and was encouraged to share that love with my fellow man. I was timid at first about talking to the minister because I have been warned about the counter-productivity of "bible bashing" with other faiths whole life. As I started to talk to Brother Jim we began to discuss a variety of religious topics and recognized that although we differed on most of the particulars we were both good Christian men trying our best to follow Him. I was shocked at how well we got along considering we both held some views the other considered wrong.

My employment in Kentucky ended abruptly when I found myself in the local ICU. It was about 10pm when I called my Bishop to ask for a Priesthood blessing. In addition to the late hour there was a tornado warning that caused every part of the hospital except the ICU to be relocated to shelter. I was 2000 miles from home, lucky to be alive but alone so I called Brother Jim for words of comfort. His words of comfort to me were "I am 45 minutes away so I'll be there in an hour." It was interesting because we had talked about the different notions of Priesthood our two faiths held. Most Christians believe in the "Priesthood of all believers" that originated with Martin Luther and I, as a Mormon, believe in a direct line of power and authority from Jesus Christ through Joseph Smith. I believe that the (Mormon) Melchizedek Priesthood has actual power to preform miracles. When Brother Jim got to me he frankly admitted that the best he could do was pray for me and ask Jesus Christ to use his power to heal me. Though not the same as the Priesthood blessing I would later receive I was truly grateful for Brother Jim's prayer. The last night we were together he told me he was a Mason and everything about him made sense. His attitude about focusing on similarities rather than differences was part of what he believed as a Mason.

But the greatest example of Freemasonry comes out of Nazi Germany. At a time when all Germany praised Hitler as the new Messiah (even though he despised Christianity) the Masons opposed him because they recognized his evil from the beginning. They stood against the persecution of the Jews and for their troubles were rounded up and sent to concentration camps alongside the Jews. When a nation cast aside its principals Masons stood firm.

There is a lot about the inner workings of Masonry I don't know (as it should be) but how bad can an organization that stood alone against Hitler be?