My Brother, you are now a Master Mason. You have earned that right and privilege
to obediently sit with the craft in all their lawful Masonic workings. You have earned that
right and privilege by being a bearer of burden and a hewer of stone in the rock quarry.
By serving your apprenticeship well, you have now come to that coveted position in life
where you may become an overseer of the craft and travel in foreign countries where
you may practice your art and skill as a craftsman and receive the wages of a Master
Mason. It may be that in coming years you will travel afar, where noble deeds and
worthy efforts will be attributed to you work, even the laurel leaves of victory and the
honored purple of our fraternity may rest upon your head and shoulders. But it should
be remembered by you at all times that it was the Brothers of this Lodge that gave you
your working tools and taught you their Masonic uses.
By the twenty four-inch gauge you were taught how to divide your time. It being
divided into 24 equal parts was emblematic of the 24 hours in the day, which you were
taught to divide into three equal parts; whereby you found 8 hours for the service of God
and a distressed worthy Brother, 8 for your usual avocations, and 8 for refreshment and
sleep. They gave you the common gavel and taught you by its proper use you could
divest your heart and conscious of all the vices and superfluities of life, thereby fitting
your mind as a living stone, that when the appointed time should come that you should
cross over the river and be with Him that rules Supreme and that you would find your
place in that spiritual Temple, that house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens.
They gave you the plumb, square, and level and taught you by their proper uses you
could add virtues to morality. The plumb admonishing you to walk uprightly in your
several stations before God and Man, squaring your actions by the square of virtue, and
remembering that you are traveling upon the level of time to that undiscovered country,
from whose bourn no traveler returns.
And tonight, My Brother, they gave you the trowel and informed you that operative
Masons use such an instrument to spread the cement that unites a building into one
common mass, but we as free and accepted Masons are taught to make use of it for a
more noble and glorious purpose-- of spreading the cement of brotherly love and
friendship; that cement which has united us together as one of the greatest fraternities
the world has ever known, a Brotherhood extending from one corner of the globe to the
other.
But it now becomes my duty to inform you, My Brother, that there is one thing they
haven't given you as yet, and that is your set of plans; or better know in our Masonic
language as your trestle board. A trestle board being an instrument made use of by the
Masters of the craft to draw out designs upon, so that the entered apprentice and the
fellowcraft alike may go thereto to find out the course that they may pursue throughout
the day for a successful ending. So shall it be with the set of plans that I shall give you.
You can always go to it and find out the course that you may pursue, that you, too, may
come to a successful ending. And it now becomes my privilege and pleasure on behalf
of this Lodge to present you that set of plans--- And here it is:
Between the lids of this book contains one of the greatest set of plans that was ever
delivered unto man. It has the answers and solutions to every problem that has ever
arisen before man throughout the ages past, present, and will throughout the ages to
come. It will lead you through the darkest valleys and guide you to the greatest light. It
will be your strength in weakness. It will support you when you are strong. It will uphold
you in the hours of distress and comfort you in the hours of death. It has traveled more
highways, byways, and knocked on more doors and spoke to more people in its Mother
language than any other book on earth. But how you will choose to use it, My Brother,
is not for me to say. The great Apostle said, "Let everyman work out his own salvation
with fear and trembling."
You may find the answer to your problem in the Ten Commandments or somewhere
else in the Mosaic Law: (Exodus 20-3 "Thou shall have no other gods before me"),
in the Psalms of David, The singer of Israel (Psalms 1-1 "Blessed is the man that
walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly...") or the Proverbs of Solomon, the wise man
of many years ago (Proverbs 1-7 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.") or some of those great men
that followed after them, or perhaps you might find it by an example… That example laid
down some 2000 years ago by the most perfect life ever lived on the shores of time by
any man, by the humble carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth. (St. John 3 20-21 "For everyone
that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be
reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made
manifest, that they are wrought in God.") But let me assure you of one thing, My
Brother, whenever you have turned your Attention to this set of plans, it will
never fail you. You may fail it, but it will never, never fail you. And what can I say
further, My Brother, but take it and use it for the purpose which it was intended---for it
will guide you in your business, social, and family life, and when you shall stand before
the Great White Throne to be judged by Him that rules Supreme, may you not be found
wanting or lacking for the knowledge contained between the lids of this book. And now
in the name of Almighty God and this worshipful Lodge of ancient free and accepted
Masons, let me exhort you, My Brother, when you go out of this Lodge tonight to face
the world and the challenge that lies before you, face it, My Brother, as a man and a
Mason.
Author Unknown
Last edited:
