Thus writes Bro.  Rhode, of Berlin:—­

“So soon as any one has received the consecration of our Order, we say to him that we are building a mystical temple;” and he adds that “this temple which we Masons are building is nothing else than that which will conduce to the greatest possible happiness of mankind.” [210]

And another German brother, Von Wedekind, asserts that “we only labor in our temple when we make man our predominating object, when we unite goodness of heart with polished manners, truth with beauty, virtue with grace.” [211]

Again we have Reinhold telling us, in true Teutonic expansiveness of expression, that “by the mystical Solomonic temple we are to understand the high ideal or archetype of humanity in the best possible condition of social improvement, wherein every evil inclination is overcome, every passion is resolved into the spirit of love, and wherein each for all, and all for each, kindly strive to work.” [212]

And thus the German Masons call this striving for an almost millennial result labor in the temple.

The English Masons, although they have not treated the symbolism of the Order with the same abstruse investigation that has distinguished those of Germany and France, still have not been insensible to this idea that the building of the Solomonic temple is intended to indicate a cultivation of the human character.  Thus Hutchinson, one of the earliest of the symbolic writers of England, shows a very competent conception—­for the age in which he lived—­of the mystical meaning of the temple; and later writers have improved upon his crude views.  It must, however, be acknowledged that neither Hutchinson nor Oliver, nor any other of the distinguished masonic writers of England, has dwelt on this peculiar symbolism of a moral temple with that earnest appreciation of the idea that is to be found in the works of the French and German Masons.  But although the allusions are rather casual and incidental, yet the symbolic theory is evidently recognized.[213]

Our own country has produced many students of Masonic symbolism, who have thoroughly grasped this noble thought, and treated it with eloquence and erudition.

Fifty years ago Salem Towne wrote thus:  “Speculative Masonry, according to present acceptation, has an ultimate reference to that spiritual building erected by virtue in the heart, and summarily implies the arrangement and perfection of those holy and sublime principles by which the soul is fitted for a meet temple of God in a world of immortality.” [214]

Charles Scott has devoted one of the lectures in his “Analogy of Ancient Craft Masonry to Natural and Revealed Religion” to a thorough consideration of this subject.  The language is too long for quotation, but the symbol has been well interpreted by him.[215]

Still more recently, Bro.  John A. Loclor has treated the topic in an essay, which I regret has not had a larger circulation.  A single and brief passage may show the spirit of the production, and how completely it sustains the idea of this symbolism.