Page:Manual of the Lodge.pdf/80

Rh The Common Gavel is an instrument made use of by operative masons to break off the corners of rough stones, the better to fit them for the builder's use; but we, as Free and Accepted Masons, are taught to make use of it for the more noble and glorious purpose of divesting our hearts and consciences of all the vices and superfluities of life; thereby fitting our minds as living stones for that spiritual building, that house "not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

This presentation of the working tools of a stone-mason to the candidate must necessarily attract his attention to the fact that there is a connection between the operative art and the speculative science, which connection simply consists in this, that speculative Masonry is the application and sanctification of the working tools and implements, the rules and principles of operative masonry, to the veneration of God and the purification of the heart.

The Operative Masons at Jerusalem, from whom we date our origin, were occupied in the construction of an earthly and material temple, to be dedicated to the service and worship of God—a house in which the mighty Jehovah was to dwell visibly by his Shekinah, and whence he was, by Urim and Thummin, to send forth his oracles for the government and direction of his chosen people.

The Speculative Mason is engaged in the construction of a spiritual temple in his heart, pure and spotless, fit for the dwelling-place of Him who is the author of purity; where God is to be worshiped in spirit and in truth, and whence every evil thought and unruly passion are to be banished, as the sinner and the Gentile were excluded from the sanctuary of the Jewish Temple.

In the symbolic language of Masonry, therefore, the twenty-four-inch guage is a symbol of time well employed; the common gavel, of the purification of the heart.

In the Ancient Mysteries, the first step taken by the candidate