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

More eloquent, if possible, was the Pillar uplifted, like the pillars
of the gods upholding the heavens. Whatever may have been the origin
of pillars, and there is more than one theory, Evans has shown that
they were everywhere worshiped as gods.[18] Indeed, the gods
themselves were pillars of Light and Power, as in Egypt Horus and Sut
were the twin-builders and supporters of heaven; and Bacchus among the
Thebans. At the entrance of the temple of Amenta, at the door of the
house of Ptah--as, later, in the porch of the temple of Solomon--stood
two pillars. Still further back, in the old solar myths, at the
gateway of eternity stood two pillars--Strength and Wisdom. In India,
and among the Mayas and Incas, there were three pillars at the portals
of the earthly and skyey temple--Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty. When
man set up a pillar, he became a fellow-worker with Him whom the old
sages of China used to call "the first Builder." Also, pillars were
set up to mark the holy places of vision and Divine deliverance, as
when Jacob erected a pillar at Bethel, Joshua at Gilgal, and Samuel at
Mizpeh and Shen. Always they were symbols of stability, of what the
Egyptians described as "the place of establishing forever,"--emblems
of the faith "that the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and He
hath set the world upon them."[19]
Long before our era we find the working tools of the Mason used as
emblems of the very truths which they teach today. In the oldest
classic of China, _The Book of History_, dating back to the twentieth
century before Christ, we read the instruction: "Ye officers of the
Government, apply the compasses." Even if we begin where _The Book of
History_ ends, we find many such allusions more than seven hundred
years before the Christian era. For example, in the famous canonical
work, called _The Great Learning_, which has been referred to the
fifth century B.C., we read, that a man should abstain from doing unto
others what he would not they should do to him; "and this," the writer
adds, "is called the principle of acting on the square." So also
Confucius and his great follower, Mencius. In the writings of Mencius
it is taught that men should apply the square and compasses morally to
their lives, and the level and the marking line besides, if they would
walk in the straight and even paths of wisdom, and keep themselves
within the bounds of honor and virtue.[20] In the sixth book of his
philosophy we find these words:
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A Master Mason, in teaching apprentices, makes use of the
compasses and the square. Ye who are engaged in the pursuit
of wisdom must also make use of the compass and square.[21]
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There are even evidences, in the earliest historic records of China,
of the existence of a system of faith expressed in allegoric form, and
illustrated by the symbols of building. The secrets of this faith seem
to have been orally transmitted, the leaders alone pretending to have
full knowledge of them. Oddly enough, it seems to have gathered about
a symbolical temple put up in the desert, that the various officers of
the faith were distinguished by symbolic jewels, and that at its rites
they wore leather aprons.[22] From such records as we have it is not
possible to say whether the builders themselves used their tools as
emblems, or whether it was the thinkers who first used them to teach
moral truths. In any case, they were understood; and the point here is
that, thus early, the tools of the builder were teachers of wise and