And thus, too, at last, we can understand the saying of the old monks that “labor is worship;” and as Masons we labor in our lodge, labor to make ourselves a perfect building, without blemish, working hopefully for the consummation, when the house of our earthly tabernacle shall be finished, when the LOST WORD of divine truth shall at last be discovered, and when we shall be found by our own efforts at perfection to have done God service.  For so truly is the meaning of those noble words—­LABOR IS WORSHIP.

XXX.

The Stone of Foundation.[216]

The Stone of Foundation constitutes one of the most important and abstruse of all the symbols of Freemasonry.  It is referred to in numerous legends and traditions, not only of the Freemasons, but also of the Jewish Rabbins, the Talmudic writers, and even the Mussulman doctors.  Many of these, it must be confessed, are apparently puerile and absurd; but some of them, and especially the masonic ones, are deeply interesting in their allegorical signification.

The Stone of Foundation is, properly speaking, a symbol of the higher degrees.  It makes its first appearance in the Royal Arch, and forms, indeed, the most important symbol of that degree.  But it is so intimately connected, in its legendary history, with the construction of the Solomonic temple, that it must be considered as a part of Ancient Craft Masonry, although he who confines the range of his investigations to the first three degrees, will have no means, within that narrow limit, of properly appreciating the symbolism of the Stone of Foundation.

As preliminary to the inquiry which is about to be instituted, it is necessary to distinguish the Stone of Foundation, both in its symbolism and in its legendary history, from other stones which play an important part in the masonic ritual, but which are entirely distinct from it.  Such are the corner-stone, which was always placed in the north-east corner of the building about to be erected, and to which such a beautiful reference is made in the ceremonies of the first degree; or the keystone, which constitutes an interesting part of the Mark Master’s degree; or, lastly, the cape-stone, upon which all the ritual of the Most Excellent Master’s degree is founded.  These are all, in their proper places, highly interesting and instructive symbols, but have no connection whatever with the Stone of Foundation or its symbolism.  Nor, although the Stone of Foundation is said, for peculiar reasons, to have been of a cubical form, must it be confounded with that stone called by the continental Masons the cubical stone—­the pierre cubique of the French, and the cubik stein of the German Masons, but which in the English system is known as the perfect ashlar.

The Stone of Foundation has a legendary history and a symbolic signification which are peculiar to itself, and which differ from the history and meaning which belong to these other stones.