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

which he lived--of the mystical meaning of the temple; and later
writers
have improved upon his crude views. It must, however, be acknowledged
that
neither Hutchinson nor Oliver, nor any other of the distinguished
masonic
writers of England, has dwelt on this peculiar symbolism of a moral
temple
with that earnest appreciation of the idea that is to be found in the
works of the French and German Masons. But although the allusions are
rather casual and incidental, yet the symbolic theory is evidently
recognized.[213]
Our own country has produced many students of Masonic symbolism, who
have
thoroughly grasped this noble thought, and treated it with eloquence
and
erudition.
Fifty years ago Salem Towne wrote thus: "Speculative Masonry, according
to
present acceptation, has an ultimate reference to that spiritual
building
erected by virtue in the heart, and summarily implies the arrangement
and
perfection of those holy and sublime principles by which the soul is
fitted for a meet temple of God in a world of immortality." [214]
Charles Scott has devoted one of the lectures in his "Analogy of
Ancient
Craft Masonry to Natural and Revealed Religion" to a thorough
consideration of this subject. The language is too long for quotation,
but
the symbol has been well interpreted by him.[215]
Still more recently, Bro. John A. Loclor has treated the topic in an
essay, which I regret has not had a larger circulation. A single and
brief
passage may show the spirit of the production, and how completely it
sustains the idea of this symbolism.
"We may disguise it as we will," says Bro. Lodor, "we may evade a
scrutiny
of it; but our character, as it is, with its faults and blemishes, its
weaknesses and infirmities, its vices and its stains, together with its
redeeming traits, its better parts, is our speculative temple." And he
goes on to extend the symbolic idea: "Like the exemplar temple on Mount
Moriah, it should be preserved as a hallowed shrine, and guarded with
the
same vigilant care. It should be our pearl of price set round with
walls
and enclosures, even as was the Jewish temple, and the impure, the
vicious, the guilty, and the profane be banished from even its outer
courts. A faithful sentinel should be placed at every gate, a watchman
on
every wall, and the first approach of a cowan and eavesdropper be
promptly met and resisted."