SOME DEEPER ASPECTS OF MASONIC SYMBOLISM (Annotated) (Waite Sries Book 1)

THE subject which I am about to approach is one having certain
obvious difficulties, because it is outside the usual horizon of
Masonic literature, and requires, therefore, to be put with
considerable care, as well as with reasonable prudence. Moreover,
it is not easy to do it full justice within the limits of a single
lecture. I must ask my Brethren to make allowance beforehand for
the fact that I am speaking in good faith, and where the evidence
for what I shall affirm does not appear in its fullness, and
sometimes scarcely at all, they must believe that I can produce it
at need, should the opportunity occur. As a matter of fact, some
part of it has appeared in my published writings.

I will introduce the question in hand by a citation which is
familiar to us all, as it so happens that it forms a good point of
departure:- "But as we are not all operative Masons, but rather
Free and Accepted or speculative, we apply these tools to our
morals." With certain variations, these words occur in each of the
Craft Degrees, and their analogies are to be found in a few
subsidiary Degrees which may be said to arise out of the Craft-
as, for example, the Honorable Degree of Mark Master Mason. That
which is applied more specially to the working implements of
Masonry belongs to our entire building symbolism, whether it is
concerned with the erection by the Candidate in his own
personality of an edifice or "superstructure perfect in its parts
and honorable to the builder, " or, in the Mark Degree, with a
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, or again with
Solomon's Temple spiritualized in the Legend of the Master Degree.