The Symbolism of Labor.
It is one of the most beautiful features of the Masonic Institution, that
it teaches not only the necessity, but the nobility, of labor. Among the
earliest of the implements in whose emblematic use it instructs its
neophytes is the Trestle Board, the acknowledged symbol of the Divine Law,
in accordance with whose decree[199] labor was originally instituted as
the common lot of all; and therefore the important lesson that is closely
connected with this symbol is, that to labor well and truly, to labor
honestly and persistently, is the object and the chief end of all
humanity.
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.
Earth works with every coming spring, and within its prolific bosom
designs the bursting seed, the tender plant, and the finished tree, upon
its trestle board.
Old ocean works forever--restless and murmuring--but still bravely
working; and storms and tempests, the purifiers of stagnant nature, are
inscribed upon its trestle board.
And God himself, the Grand Architect, the Master Builder of the world, has
labored from eternity; and working by his omnipotent will, he inscribes
his plans upon illimitable space, for the universe is his trestle board.
There was a saying of the monks of old which is well worth meditation.
They taught that "_laborare est orare_"--labor is worship. They did not,
it is true, always practise the wise precept. They did not always make
labor a part of their religion. 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. They prayed much, but they did
no work. And thus they passed their lives, giving no pity, aid, or
consolation to their fellow-men, adding no mite to the treasury of human
knowledge, and leaving the world, when their selfish pilgrimage was
finished, without a single contribution, in labor of mind or body, to its
welfare.[200]
And men, seeing the uselessness of these ascetic lives, shrink now from
their example, and fall back upon that wiser teaching, that he best does
God's will who best does God's work. The world now knows that heaven is
not served by man's idleness--that the "_dolce far niente_," though it
might suit an Italian lazzaroni, is not fit for a brave Christian man,
and that they who would do rightly, and act well their part, must take
this distich for their motto:--
"With this hand work, and with the other pray,
And God will bless them both from day to day."
Now, this doctrine, that labor is worship, is the very doctrine that has
been advanced and maintained, from time immemorial, as a leading dogma of
the Order of Freemasonry. There is no other human institution under the
sun which has set forth this great principle in such bold relief. We hear
constantly of Freemasonry as an institution that inculcates morality, that
fosters the social feeling, that teaches brotherly love; and all this is
well, because it is true; but we must never forget that from its
foundation-stone to its pinnacle, all over its vast temple, is inscribed,
in symbols of living light, the great truth that _labor is worship_.
It has been supposed that, because we speak of Freemasonry as a
speculative system, it has nothing to do with the practical. But this is a
most grievous error. Freemasonry is, it is true, a speculative science,
but it is a speculative science based upon an operative art. All its
symbols and allegories refer to this connection. Its very language is
borrowed from the art, and it is singularly suggestive that the initiation
of a candidate into its mysteries is called, in its peculiar phraseology,
_work_.
I repeat that this expression is singularly suggestive. 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. This phraseology at once suggests
the connection of our speculative system with an operative art that
preceded it, and upon which it has been founded. This operative art must
have given it form and features and organization. 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. Its
technical language--for, like every institution isolated from the ordinary
and general pursuits of mankind, it would have had its own technical
dialect--would have been borrowed from, and would be easily traced to, the
peculiar phraseology of the philosophic sects which had given it birth.
There would have been the _sophists_ and the _philosophers_; the
_grammatists_ and the _grammarians_; the _scholars_, the _masters_, and
the _doctors_. It would have had its _trivial_ and its _quadrivial_
schools; its occupation would have been research, experiment, or
investigation; in a word, its whole features would have been colored by a
grammatical, a rhetorical, or a mathematical cast, accordingly as it
should have been derived from a sect in which any one of these three
characteristics was the predominating influence.
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. It knows
nothing of the rules of the dialecticians,--of the syllogism, the dilemma,
the enthymeme, or the sorites,--but it recurs to the homely implements of
its operative parent for its methods of instruction, and with the
plumb-line it inculcates rectitude of conduct, and draws lessons of
morality from the workman's square. 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. He is not the _ens entium_, or _to
theion_, or any other of the thousand titles with which ancient and modern
speculation has invested him, but simply the Architect,--as the Greeks
have it, the ἀρχὸς, the chief workman,--under whom we are all workmen
also;[201] and hence our labor is his worship.
This idea, then, of masonic labor, is closely connected with the history
of the organization of the institution. When we say "the lodge is at
work," we recognize that it is in the legitimate practice of that
occupation for which it was originally intended. The Masons that are in it
are not occupied in thinking, or speculating, or reasoning, but simply
and emphatically in working. The duty of a Mason as such, in his lodge, is
to work. Thereby he accomplishes the destiny of his Order. Thereby he best
fulfils his obligation to the Grand Architect, for with the Mason
_laborare est orare_--labor is worship.
The importance of masonic labor being thus demonstrated, the question next
arises as to the nature of that labor. What is the work that a Mason is
called upon to perform?
Temple building was the original occupation of our ancient brethren.
Leaving out of view that system of ethics and of religious philosophy,
that search after truth, those doctrines of the unity of God and the
immortality of the soul, which alike distinguish the ancient Mysteries and
the masonic institution, and which both must have derived from a common
origin,--most probably from some priesthood of the olden time,--let our
attention be exclusively directed, for the present, to that period, so
familiar to every Mason, when, under the supposed Grand Mastership of
King Solomon, Freemasonry first assumed "a local habitation and a name" in
the holy city of Jerusalem. There the labor of the Israelites and the
skill of the Tyrians were occupied in the construction of that noble
temple whose splendor and magnificence of decoration made it one of the
wonders of the world.
Here, then, we see the two united nations directing their attention, with
surprising harmony, to the task of temple building. The Tyrian workmen,
coming immediately from the bosom of the mystical society of Dionysian
artificers, whose sole employment was the erection of sacred edifices
throughout all Asia Minor, indoctrinated the Jews with a part of their
architectural skill, and bestowed upon them also a knowledge of those
sacred Mysteries which they had practised at Tyre, and from which the
present interior form of Freemasonry is said to be derived.
Now, if there be any so incredulous as to refuse their assent to the
universally received masonic tradition on this subject, if there be any
who would deny all connection of King Solomon with the origin of
Freemasonry, except it be in a mythical or symbolical sense, such
incredulity will, not at all affect the chain of argument which I am
disposed to use. For it will not be denied that the corporations of
builders in the middle ages, those men who were known as "Travelling
Freemasons," were substantial and corporeal, and that the cathedrals,
abbeys, and palaces, whose ruins are still objects of admiration to all
observers, bear conclusive testimony that their existence was nothing like
a myth, and that their labors were not apocryphal. But these Travelling
Freemasons, whether led into the error, if error it be, by a mistaken
reading of history, or by a superstitious reverence for tradition, always
esteemed King Solomon as the founder of their Order. So that the first
absolutely historical details that we have of the masonic institution,
connect it with the idea of a temple. And it is only for this idea that I
contend, for it proves that the first Freemasons of whom we have authentic
record, whether they were at Jerusalem or in Europe, and whether they
flourished a thousand years before or a thousand years after the birth of
Christ, always supposed that temple building was the peculiar specialty of
their craft, and that their labor was to be the erection of temples in
ancient times, and cathedrals and churches in the Christian age.
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.
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. We both devote ourselves to labor, but the object of the
labor and the mode of the labor are different.
The French rituals have given us the key-note to the explanation of what
is masonic labor when they say that "Freemasons erect temples for virtue
and dungeons for vice."
The modern Freemasons, like the Masons of old, are engaged in the
construction of a temple;--but with this difference: that the temple of
the latter was material, that of the former spiritual. When the operative
art was the predominant characteristic of the Order, Masons were engaged
in the construction of material and earthly temples. But when the
operative art ceased, and the speculative science took its place, then the
Freemasons symbolized the labors of their predecessors by engaging in the
construction of a spiritual temple in their hearts, which was to be made
so pure that it might become the dwelling-place of Him who is all purity.
It was to be "a house not made with hands," where the hewn stone was to be
a purified heart.
This symbolism, which represents man as a temple, a house, a sacred
building in which God is to dwell, is not new, nor peculiar to the masonic
science. It was known to the Jewish, and is still recognized by the
Christian, system. The Talmudists had a saying that the threefold
repetition of the words "Temple of Jehovah," in the seventh chapter and
fourth verse of the book of Jeremiah, was intended to allude to the
existence of three temples; and hence in one of their treatises it is
said, "Two temples have been destroyed, but the third will endure
forever," in which it is manifest that they referred to the temple of the
immortal soul in man.
By a similar allusion, which, however, the Jews chose wilfully to
misunderstand, Christ declared, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I
will raise it up." And the beloved disciple, who records the conversation,
does not allow us to doubt of the Saviour's meaning.
"Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and
wilt thou rear it up in three days?
"But he spake of the temple of his body." [202]
In more than one place the apostle Paul has fondly dwelt upon this
metaphor. Thus he tells the Corinthians that they are "God's building,"
and he calls himself the "wise master builder," who was to lay the
foundation in his truthful doctrine, upon which they were to erect the
edifice.[203] And he says to them immediately afterwards, "Know ye not
that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in
you?"
In consequence of these teachings of the apostles, the idea that the body
was a temple has pervaded, from the earliest times to the present day, the
system of Christian or theological symbolism. Indeed, it has sometimes
been carried to an almost too fanciful excess. Thus Samuel Lee, in that
curious and rare old work, "_The Temple of Solomon, pourtrayed by
Scripture Light_," thus dilates on this symbolism of the temple:--
"The _foundation_ of this temple may be laid in humility and contrition of
spirit, wherein the inhabiter of eternity delighteth to dwell; we may
refer the _porch_ to the mouth of a saint, wherein every holy Jacob erects
the _pillars_ of God's praise, calling upon and blessing his name for
received mercies; when songs of deliverance are uttered from the _doors_
of his lips. The _holy place_ is the renewed mind, and the _windows_
therein may denote divine illumination from above, cautioning a saint lest
they be darkened with the smoke of anger, the mist of grief, the dust of
vain-glory, or the filthy mire of worldly cares. The _golden
candlesticks_, the infused habits of divine knowledge resting within the
soul. The _shew-bread_, the word of grace exhibited in the promises for
the preservation of a Christian's life and glory. The _golden altar_ of
odors, the breathings, sufferings, and groanings after God, ready to break
forth into Abba, Father. The _veiles_, the righteousness of Christ. The
_holy of holies_ may relate to the conscience purified from dead works and
brought into a heavenly frame." [204] And thus he proceeds, symbolizing
every part and utensil of the temple as alluding to some emotion or
affection of man, but in language too tedious for quotation.
In a similar vein has the celebrated John Bunyan, the author of the
"_Pilgrim's Progress_" proceeded in his "_Temple of Solomon
Spiritualized_" to refer every part of that building to a symbolic
meaning, selecting, however, the church, or congregation of good men,
rather than the individual man, as the object of the symbolism.
In the middle ages the Hermetic philosophers seem to have given the same
interpretation of the temple, and Swedenborg, in his mystical writings,
adopts the idea.
Hitchcock, who has written an admirable little work on Swedenborg
considered as a Hermetic Philosopher, thus alludes to this subject, and
his language, as that of a learned and shrewd investigator, is well worthy
of quotation:--
"With, perhaps, the majority of readers, the Tabernacle of Moses and the
Temple of Solomon were mere buildings; very magnificent indeed, but still
mere buildings for the worship of God. But some are struck with many
portions of the account of their erection, admitting a moral
interpretation; and while the buildings are allowed to stand (or to have
stood once) visible objects, these interpreters are delighted to meet with
indications that Moses and Solomon, in building the temples, were wise in
the knowledge of God and of man; from which point it is not difficult to
pass on to the moral meaning altogether, and to affirm that the building
which was erected without 'the noise of a hammer or axe, or any tool of
iron,' was altogether a moral building--a building of God, not made with
hands: in short, many see in the story of Solomon's temple a symbolical
representation of MAN as the temple of God, with its _holy of holies_
deep-seated in the centre of the human heart." [205]
The French Masons have not been inattentive to this symbolism. Their
already quoted expression that the "Freemasons build temples for virtue
and dungeons for vice," has very clearly a reference to it, and their most
distinguished writers never lose sight of it.
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." [206] 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; and you will have perfected that _temple_ of which you are
at once the _architect_, the _material_, and the _workman_." [207]
Rebold, another French historian of great erudition, says, "If Freemasonry
has ceased to erect temples, and by the aid of its architectural designs
to elevate all hearts to the Deity, and all eyes and hopes to heaven, it
has not therefore desisted from its work of moral and intellectual
building;" and he thinks that the success of the institution has justified
this change of purpose and the disruption of the speculative from the
operative character of the Order.[208]
Eliphas Levi, who has written abstrusely and mystically on Freemasonry and
its collateral sciences, sees very clearly an allegorical and a real
design in the institution, the former being the rebuilding of the temple
of Solomon, and the latter the improvement of the human race by a
reconstruction of its social and religious elements.[209]
The Masons of Germany have elaborated this idea with all the
exhaustiveness that is peculiar to the German mind, and the masonic
literature of that country abounds in essays, lectures, and treatises, in
which the prominent topic is this building of the Solomonic temple as
referring to the construction of a moral temple.