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

morality from the workman's square. It sees in the Supreme God that it
worships, not a "_numen divinum_," a divine power, nor a "_moderator
rerum
omnium_," a controller of all things, as the old philosophers
designated
him, but a _Grand Architect of the Universe_. The masonic idea of God
refers to Him as the Mighty Builder of this terrestrial globe, and all
the
countless worlds that surround it. He is not the _ens entium_, or _to
theion_, or any other of the thousand titles with which ancient and
modern
speculation has invested him, but simply the Architect,--as the Greeks
have it, the [Greek: a)rcho\s], the chief workman,--under whom we are
all
workmen also;[201] and hence our labor is his worship.
This idea, then, of masonic labor, is closely connected with the
history
of the organization of the institution. When we say "the lodge is at
work," we recognize that it is in the legitimate practice of that
occupation for which it was originally intended. The Masons that are in
it
are not occupied in thinking, or speculating, or reasoning, but simply
and emphatically in working. The duty of a Mason as such, in his lodge,
is
to work. Thereby he accomplishes the destiny of his Order. Thereby he
best
fulfils his obligation to the Grand Architect, for with the Mason
_laborare est orare_--labor is worship.
The importance of masonic labor being thus demonstrated, the question
next
arises as to the nature of that labor. What is the work that a Mason is
called upon to perform?
Temple building was the original occupation of our ancient brethren.
Leaving out of view that system of ethics and of religious philosophy,
that search after truth, those doctrines of the unity of God and the
immortality of the soul, which alike distinguish the ancient Mysteries
and
the masonic institution, and which both must have derived from a common
origin,--most probably from some priesthood of the olden time,--let our
attention be exclusively directed, for the present, to that period, so
familiar to every Mason, when, under the supposed Grand Mastership of
King Solomon, Freemasonry first assumed "a local habitation and a name"
in
the holy city of Jerusalem. There the labor of the Israelites and the
skill of the Tyrians were occupied in the construction of that noble
temple whose splendor and magnificence of decoration made it one of the
wonders of the world.
Here, then, we see the two united nations directing their attention,
with
surprising harmony, to the task of temple building. The Tyrian workmen,
coming immediately from the bosom of the mystical society of Dionysian
artificers, whose sole employment was the erection of sacred edifices
throughout all Asia Minor, indoctrinated the Jews with a part of their