The Lost Key: An Explanation of Masonic Symbols

90The Lost Keythe penalties of law are but a memory. For he is a Law untohimself and that one Law is the Law of Love and Love is themoving power of the Universe for it is of the very Nature of God.267. Yet we are told that the Working Tools of the Third Degreeare all the implements of Masonry indiscriminately, and that istrue, for not at once do we learn the transcendent lesson of theTrowel. It must be studied and pondered and thought over forlong and long before we can reach the point where it will becomethe dominating and impelling power in our lives. And so all theWorking Tools of Masonry belong to the Master Mason, the Toolsof Self-Criticism, the Tools of Education and the Eradication ofFaults, the Tools which teach Humility and Industry and all theother lessons which have been taught to you as you went throughthe Degrees. These you must use and re-use until you becomeproficient and adept in the work for we must remember that theMason is always going through the Chairs and, in the Lodge of hisown inner nature, he may not only be occupying all the chairs atonce but he is also the candidate as weIl.268. And then, when he has been given this apparently simple butreally tremendous implement, the Trowel, the candidate is finishedwith the first course of lessons. The lessons of the clothing and ofthe shoes, the lessons of the control of mind and life and action,the Working Tools by which he is to mould his life and character,all these have been given to him. Yet he is not through with hisinstruction. He has been taught the Operative part of SpeculativeMasonry, but there yet remains another series of lessons, lessons sodeep and so profound, so wise and so comprehensive that but feware ready to consider them in the proper light in which they werefirst devised. The first course of lessons gives him instruction inthe great Moral Laws which govern human growth. The nextinstruction gives him a sort of bird’s-eye view of the course ofhuman development and shows him the Purpose of the great