In your experience with the Ritual and your meetings with us, you have learned that every phrase, event and other detail in the ceremonies of initiation is full of meaning. No item is merely for effect or ornament. In the Third Degree are the deepest secrets and profoundest teachings of our Fraternity. At this time we can give you but a few hints, in the hope that they might inspire you to study the degree for yourself.

The symbolism of the First and Second Degree centers around the art of architecture; their purpose is to teach you, in the First to be a builder of yourself; in the second, a builder of society. In the Third Degree, the symbolism takes another form. Although its background continues to be architecture, and its action takes place in and about a Temple, it is a spiritual symbolism of life and death. Its principle teaching is immortality.

Frequent references are made to King Solomon’s Temple. This great temple, reflecting majesty, magnitude and magnificence, after standing for 420 years, was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar of the Chaldees Its successor, erected by Zerubbabel, stood nearly 500 years, when it was reconstructed by Herod – The Temple of Herod – which was destroyed by the Romans under Titus. The Mosque of Omar, occupying the original site, has stood for twelve centuries. These thirty centuries have produced great changes but the foundations remain unmoved. Each stone, immense and artistic, may be identified by the private mark of the quarryman and still defies the ravages of time.

So with Masonry, its foundation, composed of the grandest principles ever communicated from God to man, stand unmoved. The temple of Freemasonry symbolizes the Temple of the Soul. Just as the Temple of King Solomon was then considered the finest ever erected by the hand of man, so the Great Architect intends that we shall develop the finest and most nearly perfect characters. As certain working tools were employed to erect that greatest of temporal buildings, so in Speculative Masonry we must choose as our working tools in life those moral lessons that build character. S may the rough ashlar, become in time, the perfect ashlar.

The working tools of the degree are all the implements of Masonry, but more especially the Trowel, by which we spread the cement of Brotherly Love. But Brotherly Love itself has its source and seat in the soul. To love a man above his sins, to cherish him in spite of his faults, to forgive him in all sincerity, to bear with him and to forbear, is possible only as we feel the influence of the spiritual, and have divested ourselves of selfishness.

The tragedy of Hiram Abiff is the climax of the degree. Next in importance, and in many ways equal in interest, is the allegorical Search For That Which Was Lost. This has a historical background. To the early Jewish people, a name was something peculiarly identified with a person, and held in reverence. Sometime it was secret, and substitute name was used in daily life.

All this appears in our ritual in the form of an allegory. A Word was possessed; a Word was lost.

Like all symbols, this means many things. One of its more profound meanings is that if a man has lost the ideals and standards of his youth, his character, his faith in truth and goodness, he must, if he is to live the Masonic life, go in search of that which was lost, and continue searching until he finds it.

You may wonder why the Ritual does not explain fully and clearly the meaning of this symbolism, why it leaves the candidate to find the meanings for himself. There are at east three reasons for this silence, apparently so strange. First, lack of sufficient time. Second, the Masonic life grows by what we do for ourselves. Third, the method of the Ritual is to bring us into the presence of the greater truths of life knowing that their mere presence will have a deep influence over us; each man is left to work them out in detail according to his own needs.

Of the Emblems of the Third Degree, one after another is set before us, apparently in no given order, and each with only a hint of what it signifies. Yet each of them stands for some great idea or ideal. Each of them is a master truth.

In the Three Pillars we have the three great ideas – wisdom, strength, and beauty. The three steps remind us of how Youth, Manhood, and Old Age is each a unity in itself, each possessing its own duties and problems, each calling for its own philosophy. The Pot of Incense teaches that, of all forms of worship, to be pure and blameless in our inner lives is more acceptable to God than anything else, because that which a man really is, is of vastly greater importance that that which he appears to be. The book of Constitutions is the emblem of law, and that our moral and spiritual character is grounded in law and order as much as is government and nature. It teaches that no man can live a satisfactory life who lives lawlessly.

The Sword pointing to the Naked Heart discovers that one of the most rigorous of these laws is justice, and that if a man be unjust in his heart, the inevitable results of injustice will find him out. The All-Seeing Eye shows that we live and move and have our being in God; that we are constantly in His Presence, wherever or whatever we are doing. The Anchor and Ark stand for that sense of security and stability of life grounded in truth and faith, without which sense there can be no happiness. The Forty-Seventh Problem of Euclid is an emblem of the arts and sciences; by them we are reminded that next to sinfulness, the most dangerous enemy of life is ignorance. In the Hour Glass we have the emblem of the fleeting quality of life. The Scythe reminds us that passing time will end our lives as well as our work, and if ever we are to become what we ought to be, we must not delay.