Some continental writers have supposed that it was a symbol of the downfall of the Order of Templars, and its hoped-for restoration.  In some of the high philosophical degrees it is supposed to be a symbol of the sufferings, death, and resurrection Christ.  Hutchinson thought it a symbol of the decadence of the Jewish religion, and the rise of the Christian on its ruins.  Oliver says that it symbolically refers to the murder of Abel, the death of our race through Adam, and its restoration through Christ.

Ragon thinks that it is a symbol of the sun shorn of its vigor by the three winter months, and restored to generative power by the spring.  And lastly, Des Etangs says that it is a symbol of eternal reason, whose enemies are the vices that deprave and finally destroy humanity.

But none of these interpretations, except the first, can be sustained.

LETTUCE.  The sacred plant of the Mysteries of Adonis; a symbol of immortality, and the analogue of the acacia.

LEVEL.  One of the working tools of a Fellow Craft.  It is a symbol of the equality of station of all men before God.

LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES.  In the seventh century, all learning was limited to the seven liberal arts and sciences; their introduction into Freemasonry, referring to this theory, is a symbol of the completion of human learning.

LIGHT.  It denotes truth and knowledge, and is so explained in all the ancient systems; in initiation, it is not material but intellectual light that is sought.

It is predominant as a symbol in all the ancient initiations.

There it was revered because it was an emanation trom the sun, the common object of worship; but the theory advanced by some writers, that the veneration of light originally proceeded from its physical qualities, is not correct.

Pythagoras called it the good principle in nature; and the Cabalists taught that eternal light filled all space before the creation, and that after creation it retired to a central spot, and became the instrument of the Divine Mind in creating matter.

It is the symbol of the autopsy, or the full perfection and fruition of initiation.

It is therefore a fundamental symbol in Freemasonry, and contains within itself the very essence of the speculative science.

LINGAM.  The phallus was so called by the Indian nations of the East.  See Phallus.

LODGE.  The place where Freemasons meet, and also the congregation of masons so met.  The word is derived from the lodges occupied by the travelling Freemasons of the middle ages.

It is a symbol of the world, or universe.

Its form, an oblong square, is symbolic of the supposed oblong form of the world as known to the ancients.

LOST WORD.  There is a masonic myth that there was a certain word which was lost and afterwards recovered.

It is not material what the word was, nor how lost, nor when recovered:  the symbolism refers only to the abstract idea of a loss and a recovery.