So that we come back at last to the proposition with which I had commenced, namely:  that temple building was the original occupation of our ancient brethren.  And to this is added the fact, that after a long lapse of centuries, a body of men is found in the middle ages who were universally recognized as Freemasons, and who directed their attention and their skill to the same pursuit, and were engaged in the construction of cathedrals, abbeys, and other sacred edifices, these being the Christian substitute for the heathen or the Jewish temple.

And therefore, when we view the history of the Order as thus developed in its origin and its design, we are justified in saying that, in all times past, its members have been recognized as men of labor, and that their labor has been temple building.

But our ancient brethren wrought in both operative and speculative Masonry, while we work only in speculative.  They worked with the hand; we work with the brain.  They dealt in the material; we in the spiritual.  They used in their labor wood and stones; we use thoughts, and feelings, and affections.  We both devote ourselves to labor, but the object of the labor and the mode of the labor are different.

The French rituals have given us the key-note to the explanation of what is masonic labor when they say that “Freemasons erect temples for virtue and dungeons for vice.”

The modern Freemasons, like the Masons of old, are engaged in the construction of a temple;—­but with this difference:  that the temple of the latter was material, that of the former spiritual.  When the operative art was the predominant characteristic of the Order, Masons were engaged in the construction of material and earthly temples.  But when the operative art ceased, and the speculative science took its place, then the Freemasons symbolized the labors of their predecessors by engaging in the construction of a spiritual temple in their hearts, which was to be made so pure that it might become the dwelling-place of Him who is all purity.  It was to be “a house not made with hands,” where the hewn stone was to be a purified heart.

This symbolism, which represents man as a temple, a house, a sacred building in which God is to dwell, is not new, nor peculiar to the masonic science.  It was known to the Jewish, and is still recognized by the Christian, system.  The Talmudists had a saying that the threefold repetition of the words “Temple of Jehovah,” in the seventh chapter and fourth verse of the book of Jeremiah, was intended to allude to the existence of three temples; and hence in one of their treatises it is said, “Two temples have been destroyed, but the third will endure forever,” in which it is manifest that they referred to the temple of the immortal soul in man.

By a similar allusion, which, however, the Jews chose wilfully to misunderstand, Christ declared, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  And the beloved disciple, who records the conversation, does not allow us to doubt of the Saviour’s meaning.