The Universal Language of Freemasonry - ArchiMeD - Johannes ...

Chapter 4 - Signs & Symbols 149
level, and part upon the square." The working tools play an important part both
in ritualistic and in ordinary metaphorical Masonic language. Sometimes, the
tools appear in pairs, as the compass and the square, or the square and the level.
The plumb is the working tool of the Fellow Craft, together with the square
and the level. In the Fellow Craft Degree, the Bible is opened at Amos, vii., 7, 8,
wherein the following passage is contained: "and behold the Lord stood upon a
wall made by a plumb-line, with a plumb-line in his hand. And the Lord said
unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumb-line. Then said the Lord,
Behold, I will set a plumb-line in the midst of my people Israel; I will not again
pass by them any more." 423 When the Fellow Craft at the end of the Ceremony of
Passing is presented with his working tools, he receives the following
instruction:
The Plumb is an instrument made use of by Operative Masons, to try
perpendiculars; the Square, to square their work, and the Level to prove
horizontals, but we, as Free and Accepted Masons, are taught to make
use of them for more noble and glorious purposes; the Plumb
admonishes us to walk uprightly in our several stations before God and
man, squaring our actions by the Square of Virtue, and ever
remembering that we are traveling upon the Level of Time, to 'that
undiscovered country, from whose bourne [sic] no traveler returns.' 424
The following extract from a poem on the level and the square plays on the
words "to level s.b. up or down" and employs the Masonic saying "we meet upon
the level." This final meeting on the level denotes death, the point on which all
people are alike before their creator.
The Level's a jewel when it levels men up,
But not so if it levels them down;
And the Mason who levels his life by its gauge,
Will be laureled at last with a Crown. [...]
Our symbol - the Level - teaches plainly this truth:
Men are equal when they all do the right;
It exacts from us all, from old age down to youth,
A pledge to be just day and night. [...]
On the Level, at last, all Masons must meet,
And surrender their trust to the King;
Though weary their limbs and tired their feet,
To their Ancient, Grand Craft they should cling. [...] 425
423 Quoted from the Bible by Simons, p. 59.
424 Simons, p. 60.
425 By George W. Atkinson, Grand Secretary, Past Grand Master, held at the Annual Session of the
Grand Lodge of Connecticut at Fair Haven, January, 1897. Quoted in Myler, p. 28.