THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

also, in requiring that no one should approach the sacred things who
was
not pure and uncorrupt.
The pure, unspotted lamb-skin apron is, then, in Masonry, symbolic of
that
perfection of body and purity of mind which are essential
qualifications
in all who would participate in its sacred mysteries.
XX.
The Symbolism of the Gloves.
The investiture with the gloves is very closely connected with the
investiture with the apron, and the consideration of the symbolism of
the
one naturally follows the consideration of the symbolism of the other.
In the continental rites of Masonry, as practised in France, in
Germany,
and in other countries of Europe, it is an invariable custom to present
the newly-initiated candidate not only, as we do, with a white leather
apron, but also with two pairs of white kid gloves, one a man's pair
for
himself, and the other a woman's, to be presented by him in turn to his
wife or his betrothed, according to the custom of the German masons,
or,
according to the French, to the female whom he most esteems, which,
indeed, amounts, or should amount, to the same thing.
There is in this, of course, as there is in everything else which
pertains
to Freemasonry, a symbolism. The gloves given to the candidate for
himself
are intended to teach him that the acts of a mason should be as pure
and
spotless as the gloves now given to him. In the German lodges, the word
used for _acts_ is of course _handlungen_, or _handlings_, "the works
of
his hands," which makes the symbolic idea more impressive.
Dr. Robert Plott--no friend of Masonry, but still an historian of much
research--says, in his "Natural History of Staffordshire," that the
Society of Freemasons, in his time (and he wrote in 1660), presented
their
candidates with gloves for themselves and their wives. This shows that
the
custom still preserved on the continent of Europe was formerly
practised
in England, although there as well as in America, it is discontinued,
which is, perhaps, to be regretted.