symbol, but which is really and truly the most important and significant one in masonic science, we have a beautiful suggestion of all the mysteries of life and death, of time and eternity, of the present and of the future.  Thus read (and thus all our symbols should be read), Masonry proves something more to its disciples than a mere social society or a charitable association.  It becomes a “lamp to our feet,” whose spiritual light shines on the darkness of the deathbed, and dissipates the gloomy shadows of the grave.

XXIX.

The Symbolism of Labor.

It is one of the most beautiful features of the Masonic Institution, that it teaches not only the necessity, but the nobility, of labor.  Among the earliest of the implements in whose emblematic use it instructs its neophytes is the Trestle Board, the acknowledged symbol of the Divine Law, in accordance with whose decree[199] labor was originally instituted as the common lot of all; and therefore the important lesson that is closely connected with this symbol is, that to labor well and truly, to labor honestly and persistently, is the object and the chief end of all humanity.

To work out well the task that is set before us is our highest duty, and should constitute our greatest happiness.  All men, then, must have their trestle boards; for the principles that guide us in the discharge of our duty—­the schemes that we devise—­the plans that we propose—­are but the trestle board, whose designs we follow, for good or for evil, in our labor of life.

Earth works with every coming spring, and within its prolific bosom designs the bursting seed, the tender plant, and the finished tree, upon its trestle board.

Old ocean works forever—­restless and murmuring—­but still bravely working; and storms and tempests, the purifiers of stagnant nature, are inscribed upon its trestle board.

And God himself, the Grand Architect, the Master Builder of the world, has labored from eternity; and working by his omnipotent will, he inscribes his plans upon illimitable space, for the universe is his trestle board.

There was a saying of the monks of old which is well worth meditation.  They taught that “laborare est orare”—­labor is worship.  They did not, it is true, always practise the wise precept.  They did not always make labor a part of their religion.  Like Onuphrius, who lived threescore years and ten in the desert, without human voice or human sympathy to cheer him, because he had not learned that man was made for man, those old ascetics went into the wilderness, and built cells, and occupied themselves in solitary meditation and profitless thought.  They prayed much, but they did no work.  And thus they passed their lives, giving no pity, aid, or consolation to their fellow-men, adding no mite to the treasury of human knowledge, and leaving the world, when their selfish pilgrimage was finished, without a single contribution, in labor of mind or body, to its welfare.[200]