The working tool of a master mason

Becoming a Freemason is a lifelong study in learning to become a better man. Freemasonry is structured around symbols and lessons derived from the medieval stonemasons , intended to arm each Brother with the knowledge to build themselves into a man of integrity. The core theme Grand Master Richard A. The below physical Masonic working tools not only hold practical power, but meaningful symbolism that Masons must carry through their everyday practice.

A prospective Freemason must complete three lessons called degrees before fully entering the brotherhood and becoming a Master Mason. When a man embarks on his Masonic journey, he is unformed, rough, and lacks the knowledge of an expert craftsman.

The first stage of becoming a Freemason is completing the first degree of the Entered Apprentice. In this degree, the candidate is inexperienced and lacking knowledge of the craft, like the rough stone from the quarry that needs to be shaped and polished before it can be used in the building. He is handed a common gavel, the tool workmen use to shape the stone or rough ashlar, and instructed that it is one of the working tools of the Entered Apprentice.

He is challenged to strike off the vices and distractions in his life which may lead him astray, away from what is truly important to living a meaningful and satisfying life. The twenty-four-inch gauge represents time and is one of the first lessons for the initiate. As an Entered Apprentice you were presented with the 24 inch gauge and the common gavel, and instructed in their use.

These working tools were not given to you as a mere part of the ritual to be memorized and then forgotten as you passed to the next degree. Have you really given 8 hours to the service of God and a distressed worthy Brother? Have you given 1 hour or even 5 minutes? Have you taken 1 minute to bring relief to an unfortunate Brother or console someone in sorrow?

Have you stopped to wipe the tears from the eyes of a little child grieving over some trifle, which to its tended imagination seemed the greatest disaster? The Plumb is an instrument made use of by operative masons to raise perpendiculars, the Square to square their work, and the Level to lay horizontals; but we, as Free and Accepted Masons, are taught to make use of them for more noble and glorious purposes; the Plumb admonishes us to walk uprightly in our several stations before God and man, squaring our actions by the Square of Virtue, and remembering that we are traveling upon the Level of Time, to "that undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveler returns.

The Trowel is an instrument made use of by operative Masons to spread the cement which unites a building in one common mass; but we, as Free and Accepted Masons, are taught to make use of it for the more noble and glorious purpose of spreading the cement of brotherly love and affection; that cement which unites us into one sacred band, or society of friends and brothers, among whom no contention should ever exist, but that noble contention, or rather emulation, of who can best work and best agree.

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