ral and moral law. Like
every other symbol of the order, it is universal and tolerant in its
application; and while, as Christian Masons, we cling with unfaltering
integrity to that explanation which makes the Scriptures of both
dispensations our trestle-board, we permit our Jewish and Mohammedan
brethren to content themselves with the books of the Old Testament, or the
Koran. Masonry does not interfere with the peculiar form or development of
any one's religious faith. All that it asks is, that the interpretation
of the symbol shall be according to what each one supposes to be the
revealed will of his Creator. But so rigidly exacting is it that the
symbol shall be preserved, and, in some rational way, interpreted, that it
peremptorily excludes the Atheist from its communion, because, believing
in no Supreme Being, no divine Architect, he must necessarily be without a
spiritual trestle-board on which the designs of that Being may be
inscribed for his direction.

But the operative mason required materials wherewith to construct his
temple. There was, for instance, the _rough ashlar_--the stone in its rude
and natural state--unformed and unpolished, as it had been lying in the
quarries of Tyre from the foundation of the earth. This stone was to be
hewed and squared, to be fitted and adjusted, by simple, but appropriate
implements, until it became a _perfect ashlar_, or well-finished stone,
ready to take its destined place in the building.

Here, then, again, in these materials do we find other elementary symbols.
The rough and unpolished stone is a symbol of man's natural
state--ignorant, uncultivated, and, as the Roman historian expresses it,
"grovelling to the earth, like the beasts of the field, and obedient to
every sordid appetite;" [56] but when education has exerted its salutary
influences in expanding his intellect, in restraining his hitherto unruly
passions, and purifying his life, he is then represented by the perfect
ashlar, or finished stone, which, under the skilful hands of the workman,
has been smoothed, and squared, and fitted for its appropriate place in
the building.

Here an interesting circumstance in the history of the preparation of
these materials has been seized and beautifully appropriated by our
symbolic science. We learn from the account of the temple, contained in
the First Book of Kings, that "The house, when it was in building, was
built of stone, made ready before it was brought thither,