Albert Mackey

“ To work out well the task that is set before us is our highest duty, and should constitute our greatest happiness. All men, then, must have their trestle boards; for the principles that guide us in the discharge of our duty--the schemes that we devise--the plans that we propose--are but the trestle board, whose designs we follow, for good or for evil, in our labor of life. ”

“ Therefore to every Freemason who rightly comprehends his art, this construction of a living temple is his labor.
"Labor," says Gadicke, the German masonic lexicographer, "is an important word in Masonry; indeed, we might say the most important. For this, and this alone, does a man become a Freemason. Every other object is secondary or incidental. Labor is the accustomed design of every lodge meeting. ”

“ And therefore, when we view the history of the Order as thus developed in its origin and its design, we are justified in saying that, in all times past, its members have been recognized as men of labor, and that their labor has been temple building.
But our ancient brethren wrought in both operative and speculative Masonry, while we work only in speculative. They worked with the hand; we work with the brain. They dealt in the material; we in the spiritual. They used in their labor wood and stones; we use thoughts, and feelings, and affections. ”

“ Again we have Reinhold telling us, in true Teutonic expansiveness of expression, that "by the mystical Solomonic temple we are to understand the high ideal or archetype of humanity in the best possible condition of social improvement, wherein every evil inclination is overcome, every passion is resolved into the spirit of love, and wherein each for all, and all for each, kindly strive to work." ”

“ And thus, too, at last, we can understand the saying of the old monks that "labor is worship;" and as Masons we labor in our lodge, labor to make ourselves a perfect building, without blemish, working hopefully for the consummation, when the house of our earthly tabernacle shall be finished, when the LOST WORD of divine truth shall at last be discovered, and when we shall be found by our own efforts at perfection to have done God service. ”

“ That when the speculative science took the place of the operative art, the modern Masons, working no longer at material temples, but holding still to the sacred thought, the reverential idea, of a holy temple, a Lord's house to be built, began to labor at living temples, and to make man, the true house of the Lord, the tabernacle for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. ”

“ He knows that he has done his labor. And so must the Freemason labor. His labor must be visible to himself and to his brethren, or, at least, it must conduce to his own internal satisfaction. As we build neither a visible Solomonic temple nor an Egyptian pyramid, our industry must become visible in works that are imperishable, so that when we vanish from the eyes of mortals it may be said of us that our labor was well done. ”

“ It sees in the Supreme God that it worships, not a "numen divinum," a divine power, nor a "moderator rerum omnium," a controller of all things, as the old philosophers designated him, but a Grand Architect of the Universe. The masonic idea of God refers to Him as the Mighty Builder of this terrestrial globe, and all the countless worlds that surround it. ”

“ It should be our pearl of price set round with walls and enclosures, even as was the Jewish temple, and the impure, the vicious, the guilty, and the profane be banished from even its outer courts. A faithful sentinel should be placed at every gate, a watchman on every wall, and the first approach of a cowan and eavesdropper be promptly met and resisted. ”

“ Teachings like this are now so common that every American Mason who has studied the symbolism of his Order believes, with Carlyle, that "there is but one temple in the world, and that is the body of man." ”

“ If the speculative system had been founded solely on philosophical or ethical principles, if it had been derived from some ancient or modern sect of philosophers,--from the Stoics, the Epicureans, or the Platonists of the heathen world, or from any of the many divisions of the scholastics of the middle ages,--this origin would most certainly have affected its interior organization as well as its external form, and we should have seen our modern masonic reunions assuming the style of academies or schools. ”

“ But in the organization of Freemasonry, as it now presents itself to us, we see an entirely different appearance. Its degrees are expressive, not of advancement in philosophic attainments, but of progress in a purely mechanical pursuit. Its highest grade is that of Master of the Work. Its places of meeting are not schools, but lodges, places where the workmen formerly lodged, in the neighborhood of the building on whose construction they were engaged. It does not form theories, but builds temples. ”

“ And remembering what the apostle has said, that we are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in us, we know that our labor is so to build that temple that it shall become worthy of its divine Dweller. ”

“ So that we come back at last to the proposition with which I had commenced, namely: that temple building was the original occupation of our ancient brethren. And to this is added the fact, that after a long lapse of centuries, a body of men is found in the middle ages who were universally recognized as Freemasons, and who directed their attention and their skill to the same pursuit, and were engaged in the construction of cathedrals, abbeys, and other sacred edifices, these being the Christian substitute for the heathen or the Jewish temple. ”

“ Thus Ragon, one of the most learned of the French historians of Freemasonry, in his lecture to the Apprentice, says that the founders of our Order "called themselves Masons, and proclaimed that they were building a temple to truth and virtue." [8] And subsequently he addresses the candidate who has received the Master's degree in the following language:--
"Profit by all that has been revealed to you. Improve your heart and your mind. Direct your passions to the general good; combat your prejudices; watch over your thoughts and your actions; love, enlighten, and assist your brethren ”

“ Like Onuphrius, who lived threescore years and ten in the desert, without human voice or human sympathy to cheer him, because he had not learned that man was made for man, those old ascetics went into the wilderness, and built cells, and occupied themselves in solitary meditation and profitless thought. ”

“ When the lodge is engaged in reading petitions, hearing reports, debating financial matters, it is said to be occupied in business; but when it is engaged in the form and ceremony of initiation into any of the degrees, it is said to be at work. Initiation is masonic labor. ”

“ But does such meeting always furnish evidence of industry? The labor of an operative mason will be visible, and he will receive his reward for it, even though the building he has constructed may, in the next hour, be overthrown by a tempest. ”