The trestle-board becomes, therefore, one of our elementary symbols.  For in the masonic ritual the speculative Mason is reminded that, as the operative artist erects his temporal building, in accordance with the rules and designs laid down on the trestle-board of the master-workman, so should he erect that spiritual building, of which the material is a type, in obedience to the rules and designs, the precepts and commands, laid down by the grand Architect of the universe, in those great books of nature and revelation, which constitute the spiritual trestle-board of every Freemason.

The trestle-board is, then, the symbol of the natural and moral law.  Like every other symbol of the order, it is universal and tolerant in its application; and while, as Christian Masons, we cling with unfaltering integrity to that explanation which makes the Scriptures of both dispensations our trestle-board, we permit our Jewish and Mohammedan brethren to content themselves with the books of the Old Testament, or the Koran.  Masonry does not interfere with the peculiar form or development of any one’s religious faith.  All that it asks is, that the interpretation of the symbol shall be according to what each one supposes to be the revealed will of his Creator.  But so rigidly exacting is it that the symbol shall be preserved, and, in some rational way, interpreted, that it peremptorily excludes the Atheist from its communion, because, believing in no Supreme Being, no divine Architect, he must necessarily be without a spiritual trestle-board on which the designs of that Being may be inscribed for his direction.

But the operative mason required materials wherewith to construct his temple.  There was, for instance, the rough ashlar—­the stone in its rude and natural state—­unformed and unpolished, as it had been lying in the quarries of Tyre from the foundation of the earth.  This stone was to be hewed and squared, to be fitted and adjusted, by simple, but appropriate implements, until it became a perfect ashlar, or well-finished stone, ready to take its destined place in the building.

Here, then, again, in these materials do we find other elementary symbols.  The rough and unpolished stone is a symbol of man’s natural state—­ignorant, uncultivated, and, as the Roman historian expresses it, “grovelling to the earth, like the beasts of the field, and obedient to every sordid appetite;” [56] but when education has exerted its salutary influences in expanding his intellect, in restraining his hitherto unruly passions, and purifying his life, he is then represented by the perfect ashlar, or finished stone, which, under the skilful hands of the workman, has been smoothed, and squared, and fitted for its appropriate place in the building.

Here an interesting circumstance in the history of the preparation of these materials has been seized and beautifully appropriated by our symbolic science.  We learn from the account of the temple, contained in the First Book of Kings, that “The house, when it was in building, was built of stone, made ready before it was brought thither, so that there was neither hammer nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in the house while it was in building.” [57]