Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

OP FREE MASONRY. 289
' with black. In the middle is a coffin covered with a pall;
the brethren standing round it in attitudes denoting sorrow
and revenge.* When the new adept is admitted, the master
relates to him the following history or fable.
" Adoniramt presided over the payment of the workmen
who were building the temple by Solomon's orders. They
were three thousand workmen. That each one might receive
his due, Adoniram divided them into three classes,
apprentices, fellow-crafts, and masters. He intrusted each
class with a word, signs, and a grip, by which they might be
recognised. Each class was to preserve the greatest secrecy
as to these signs and words. Three of the fellowcrafts,
wishing to know the word, and by that means
obtain the salary of master, hid themselves in the temple,
and each posted himself at a different gate. At the
usual time, when Adoniram came to shut the gates of the
temple, the first of the three met him, and demanded the
word of the masters: Adoniram refused to give it, and received
a violent blow with a stick on his head. He flies to
another gate, is met, challenged, and treated in a similar
manner by the second : flying to the third door, he is killed
by the fellow-craft posted there, on his refusing to betray
the word. His assassins buried him under a heap of rubbish,
and marked the spot with a branch of Acacia.
" Adoniram's absence gave great uneasiness to Solomon
and the masters. He is sought for every where; at length
* This is not the manner of American lodges generally; but that is no
reason why it may not have been the manner of the French. The whole
strength of the degree lies In its effect on the mind of the candidate: the
room dressed in mourning would strengthen that which is weak at the best.
t The hasty spirit may be ready here to triumph in the error of the Abbe*;
but he was a shrewd man, and an observing Mason. It is not easy to find
him mistaken in a fact. The French lodges vary from ours in many particulars
; and the Abb* represents them as using this name in common
with that of Hiram, to exemplify the doctrines of the third degree. So
does Webb in the ineffable degrees.*—Free Masons''' Monitor, part ii. c. 1.
1802.
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