Masonry's Emblems And Symbols.

MASONRY'S EMBLEMS AND SYMBOLS .

By James Byron Murray , of New York . THE teachings of Masonry taken from the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature find their centre and strength in God , their Author and Creator , their sure sustaining power . Like the spokes of a majestic wheel , they radiate from that centre to the circumference , symbols of the everlasting . This wheel , only less

grand than that the prophet saw , is full of knowledge , of zeal , of confidence and hope . Its . spokes are encircled by truth , and held steadfastly by that centre , and supported in all the ways toward which they point , leaving the wheel to turn with unerring movement and balance , and accomplishes its work by displaying those exalted principles to the world which make the Fraternity a necessary part of the higher education of society .

That wheel as it revolves shows us symbols and the service of symbols . Emblems and symbols- are an unalterable form of education in Freemasonry ; acted history , shrines of thought . Man has not yet passed beyond their use , evenan alt the greatness of his intellectual progress . It is true that many symbols have passed away , but they were only those which embodied unsightly

and grotesque things , or contained no ideas which would enlarge the mind or give culture to the moral nature . Even religion , that supreme gift of God , which has changed human nature , and which points out still more marvellous attainments for humanity , uses symbols as the mode of entrance to its temples of faith , as emblems of the food which nurtures the immortal spirit . God himself communicated with man by symbols , and as out of a bush

of : flame spoke to him , and yet did not consume him to whom He spoke by the fires of His majesty . Minds gifted with creative power have sought utterance in emblems , symbols , figures which would impress their ideas with stupendous force upon the reason of those who could mentally hear and see . In their divine and human origin , symbols , became ties which have bound mind to mind from generation to generation .

Man is surrounded by symbols , in order that he may . reach forth and take their treasures for his intellectual , advancement pr for pleasure . The world on which he treads is strewed with them as . with ; flqwers ; the worlds on which he looks are starred with them as with drops of shiniDg silver . He is taught the truths of chemistry , mathematics , navigation , beauty , order , in the grain of

sand on the shore , in the waves of the sea , in the conflicts of nature , in the calm , the image of a serene unwearied peace . Not alone the philosophy which ascends to the firmament of worlds , or descends into the deeps of the earth , but the philosophy which ascends to the heights of man ' s being , and penetrates the profounder deeps of the mind , uses symbols to express the results

of its humble or splendid researches . Even art itself , whether it manifests its glory in the pillared temple , or in the marble likeness of . mankind , owes to them much of its laws and its preservation . They have become almost living teachers , speaking as it were , with mute lips , pointing with still hand to the verities taken from the intellect , from recesses of the outward worlds placed there by the finger of God for man ' s investigation .

Symbols have in them the majestic or the simple , the sweet or entrancing figures , and so have moved side by side with man in his work , and have cast their burdens of knowledge or science , of wisdom and poetry before him , and made the way of him who would search into the material , moral and the intellectual nature , beautiful as a land tranquil and golden-hazed as with the riches of summer .

Symbols are to the Mason what nature is to the poet or painter . It is not their outward form , but the spirit within them , the unheard voices which find an echo , an answer , a correspondence in the mind . The first symbol which that majestic wheel shows us in its revolutions , is one , very slowly but of intense meaning as we reach

its inner , special purpose . Naturally and wisely , the trowel has been chosen by the Order as a symbol of high significance . It . is not only an emblem of material labour , but it is the symbol of ever progressing mental work ; because Freemasonry is the unceasing toil of the building of the unseen but most superb architeetuie of the faculties of man into a temple or tabernacle

to merge into a temple immortal . In the familiar and constant teaching of the Order , we are told that in the great work on itbe Temples of Judea , it was used only by master hands . They who used it proclaimed at once that in all grand works it could only be employed by these skilled and perfect in their art . As in the building of the house of stone , it placed the substance which

joined the many ashlars into one solid body , so in the inner building of man ' s moral nature , it is the emblem wielded by a master hand to spread that substance which unites the grander human ashlars , adjusted and squared , into one Household of fellowship , one Mansion of rich iueals and splendid thought , one Home of noble and social power .

Again that wheel shows the ladder which the patriarch saw in that nightly vision on the lonely plain . This has been so often mentioned , that familiarity may have worn the bloom from its

Masonry's Emblems And Symbols.

special teaching . And yob its teaching is really great , for that ladder in its historic meaning passes back to the distant past , and in the truths it unfolds , reaches onward to the uttermost future . As the Mason advances to ascend it , he is taught that the first step is faith in God . Belief in Jehovah elevated Israel to a high

position , and made it a chosen nation . That the belief m God is the first law in Masonry—a law which elevates and glorifies the Fraternity , and leaves with each member the command , that , as a citizen of a royal kingdom , he must render personal obedience and loyalty to God , the Eternal Head and Supreme Euler of all kingdoms .

Faith reaches forward to grasp the invisible and make it most really its own . With majestic steps , a travelled pilgrim , it ascends through all firmaments , until it attains the unalterable conviction , that there is a living , personal God . For that ladder , though it seemed to rest upon the earth , came out of the open door of the heavens , resting its top at the feet of Him who stood

there in glory , to manifect to men , that as Lord of heaven and earth , He was the Author , Inspirer and the Rewarder of faith . Its mystic rounds were illumined by angels as they bore their messages to the patriarchal dreamer , foreshadowing by that vision , that they should be the bearers of the divine messages to man . And in the person of the redeeming one of Bethlehem , the ladder which joins the world above and the world below , they

serve , and from the door He opened in the Heavens , they descend in sacred ministry ; and then as in fulfilment of their mission , they ascend , and in their hands bear up the faith of the human spirit to its God . Doubtless , again , when the soul upborne by holy aspiration , rises to lay its burdens of trust and confidence , of love and repentance on the altar of the everlasting temple to be accepted by the Father , their choirs break forth into songs of joy , music celestial and divinely sweet .

Faith is the energy of the mind ; the outgoing of tireless force ; the journey of the soul to a great consummation ; the stimulus to royal endeavour and the promise of recompense for every sacred deed . It has been an achieving force in all the centuries ; shaped destinies ; transformed governments ; directed kingdoms and republics , and written history as an inspiration to man for still more triumphant work than that he has yet achieved .

The next step in the ladder is Hope . This is something more glorious than , science , or ietters , . or invention . It has been a supreme source of comfort in the ages . In the old Grecian fable , when the ills of humanity ' or the gifts of the gods escaped from Pandora ' s box , Hope alone remained . It is the shining sunbeam which warms the heart , and keeps the weary life from falling into unutterable despair . Quickened by the Spirit of the Highest , it

is an inspiring force which sends forth every power of the soul in zealous ministry to fit it for a life that never ends . It is the joyous voice which proclaims that this world is but the vestibule to another world , where the stupendous longings of man shall be satisfied , and he himself , radiant with the lustres of the heavens , shall be girt about with the immortalities of the life divine .

Faith and Hope read out the meaning of our being . Charity , with which they are combined , transfigures life with colours of richer tint than those of that covenant of promise which bridges the sunray and the rain . Charity takes within its range all the powers of the soul and makes them minister to human good .

And as it came from heaven in the form of personal love to find an altar in the heart of man , and burn there in unseen fire , that so it may at length ascend as incense to the God of all , and wreath the powers of the spirit in flames of affection about the steps of His everlasting throne .

In another and beautiful sense , Charity is the service of humanity . It is the sweet and patient figure vestured with the milder radiancy of the heavens which moves among the army of the suffering and neglected . It lays a finger of cooling touch on the burning brow of sickness ; places the cup of refreshing water

to the thirsting lip ; fills the outstretched hands of hunger with satisfying bread ; clothes the trembling body with the warmth of its compassions ; heals the wound of the sorrowing heart with gentliest healing , and says in words of uttermost kindness to every condition of need or weariness , as it bestows and blesses .

Charity , in Masonry , is the moral chivalry which goes forth to meet the wrong and redress it ; the unconquerable force which , in the midst of mockery and contempt , lifts the fallen brother to manliness and joy . It is the voice of sympathy which is heard by the sad and tried , clear amid the clangour of the unheeding world , and as entrancing as the finer undertones which sound so sweetly above the triumphal notes which break from the instruments of the stateliest composers of man ' s most exultant music . — " American Tyler . "

The mission of the Mason is to help his Brother in all laudable undertakings , and not to let private piques interfere with his judgment . —Matthew Kyle .