so that there
was neither hammer nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in the house while
it was in building." [57]

Now, this mode of construction, undoubtedly adopted to avoid confusion and
discord among so many thousand workmen,[58] has been selected as an
elementary symbol of concord and harmony--virtues which are not more
essential to the preservation and perpetuity of our own society than they
are to that of every human association.

The perfect ashlar, therefore,--the stone thus fitted for its appropriate
position in the temple,--becomes not only a symbol of human perfection (in
itself, of course, only a comparative term), but also, when we refer to
the mode in which it was prepared, of that species of perfection which
results from the concord and union of men in society. It is, in fact, a
symbol of the social character of the institution.

There are other elementary symbols, to which I may hereafter have occasion
to revert; the three, however, already described,--the rough ashlar, the
perfect ashlar, and the trestle-board,--and which, from their importance,
have received the name of "jewels," will be sufficient to give some idea
of the nature of what may be called the "symbolic alphabet" of Masonry.
Let us now proceed to a brief consideration of the method in which this
alphabet of the science is applied to the more elevated and abstruser
portions of the system, and which, as the temple constitutes its most
important type, I have chosen to call the "Temple Symbolism of Masonry."

Both Scripture and tradition inform us that, at the building of King
Solomon's temple, the masons were divided into different classes, each
engaged in different tasks. We learn, from the Second Book of Chronicles,
that these classes were the bearers of burdens, the hewers of stones, and
the overseers, called by the old masonic writers the _Ish sabal_, the _Ish
chotzeb_, and the _Menatzchim_. Now, without pretending to say that the
modern institution has preserved precisely the same system of regulations
as that which was observed at the temple, we shall certainly find a
similarity in these divisions to the Apprentices, Fellow Crafts and Master
Masons of our own day. At all events, the three divisions made by King
Solomon, in the workmen at Jerusalem, have been adopted as the types of
the three degrees now practised in speculative Masonry; and as such we
are, therefore, to consider them. The mode in which these three divisions
of workm