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

e taught, that in this life--gloomy and dark, earthly and carnal--pure
truth has no abiding place; and contented with a substitute, and to
that
_second temple_ of eternal life, for that true Word, that divine Truth,
which will teach us all that we shall ever learn of God and his
emanation,
the human soul.
So, the Master Mason, receiving this substitute for the lost Word,
waits
with patience for the time when it shall be found, and perfect wisdom
shall be attained.
But, work as we will, this symbolic Word--this knowledge of divine
Truth--is never thoroughly attained in this life, or in its symbol, the
Master Mason's lodge. The corruptions of mortality, which encumber and
cloud the human intellect, hide it, as with a thick veil, from mortal
eyes. It is only, as I have just said, beyond the tomb, and when
released
from the earthly burden of life, that man is capable of fully receiving
and appreciating the revelation. Hence, then, when we speak of the
recovery of the Word, in that higher degree which is a supplement to
Ancient Craft Masonry, we intimate that that sublime portion of the
masonic system is a symbolic representation of the state after death.
For
it is only after the decay and fall of this temple of life, which, as
masons, we have been building, that from its ruins, deep beneath its
foundations, and in the profound abyss of the grave, we find that
divine
truth, in the search for which life was spent, if not in vain, at least
without success, and the mystic key to which death only could supply.
And now we know by this symbolism what is meant by masonic _labor_,
which,
too, is itself but another form of the same symbol. The search for the
Word--to find divine Truth--this, and this only, is a mason's work, and
the WORD is his reward.
Labor, said the old monks, is worship--_laborare est orare_; and thus
in
our lodges do we worship, working for the Word, working for the Truth,
ever looking forward, casting no glance behind, but cheerily hoping for
the consummation and the reward of our labor in the knowledge which is
promised to him who plays no laggard's part.
Goethe, himself a mason and a poet, knew and felt all this symbolism of
a
mason's life and work, when he wrote that beautiful poem, which Carlyle
has thus thrown into his own rough but impulsive language.
"The mason's ways are
A type of existence,--
And to his persistence
Is as the days are
Of men in this world.
"The future hides in it