and accordingly a greater amount of skill and knowledge was required of those to whom these labors were intrusted.  The stones, having been prepared by the Apprentices[60] (for hereafter, in speaking of the workmen of the temple, I shall use the equivalent appellations of the more modern Masons), were now to be deposited in their destined places in the building, and the massive walls were to be erected.  For these purposes implements of a higher and more complicated character than the gauge and gavel were necessary.  The square was required to fit the joints with sufficient accuracy, the level to run the courses in a horizontal line, and the plumb to erect the whole with due regard to perfect perpendicularity.  This portion of the labor finds its symbolism in the second degree of the speculative science, and in applying this symbolism we still continue to refer to the idea of erecting a spiritual temple in the heart.

The necessary preparations, then, having been made in the first degree, the lessons having been received by which the aspirant is taught to commence the labor of life with the purification of the heart, as a Fellow Craft he continues the task by cultivating those virtues which give form and impression to the character, as well adapted stones give shape and stability to the building.  And hence the “working tools” of the Fellow Craft are referred, in their symbolic application, to those virtues.  In the alphabet of symbolism, we find the square, the level, and the plumb appropriated to this second degree.  The square is a symbol denoting morality.  It teaches us to apply the unerring principles of moral science to every action of our lives, to see that all the motives and results of our conduct shall coincide with the dictates of divine justice, and that all our thoughts, words, and deeds shall harmoniously conspire, like the well-adjusted and rightly-squared joints of an edifice, to produce a smooth, unbroken life of virtue.

The plumb is a symbol of rectitude of conduct, and inculcates that integrity of life and undeviating course of moral uprightness which can alone distinguish the good and just man.  As the operative workman erects his temporal building with strict observance of that plumb-line, which will not permit him to deviate a hair’s breadth to the right or to the left, so the speculative Mason, guided by the unerring principles of right and truth inculcated in the symbolic teachings of the same implement, is steadfast in the pursuit of truth, neither bending beneath the frowns of adversity nor yielding to the seductions of prosperity.[61]

The level, the last of the three working tools of the operative craftsman, is a symbol of equality of station.  Not that equality of civil or social position which is to be found only in the vain dreams of the anarchist or the Utopian, but that great moral and physical equality which affects the whole human race as the children of one common Father, who causes his sun to shine and his rain to fall on all alike, and who has so appointed the universal lot of humanity, that death, the leveller of all human greatness, is made to visit with equal pace the prince’s palace and the peasant’s hut.[62]