THE BUILDER MAY 1919
STUDIES IN BLUE LODGE SYMBOLISM

BY BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD, IOWA

What are symbols? The simplest answer is to say that they are the
storehouses in which wise men of the past have accumulated their
wisdom. The assemblage of many symbols in our fraternity means that
the fraternity is in itself a storehouse of the wisdom of many wise
men. Wisdom can never be learned or taught by one man working
alone; it is only when many men join their knowledge together that
the truth is found. Many men in the past have wrought to discover
truth; they have embodied their truths in symbols; in our Order
these symbols are assembled together so that the wisdom of many
wise men has been placed at our disposal; is not that a great
privilege? is it not a fine opportunity for those who desire to
learn?

What do these symbols teach? It is not curious lore; it is not
occultism; it is not information; it is the wisdom how to live; the
purpose of Masonry as a whole is to teach men how to live and to
help them to live and to learn how to live more and more. Each one
of us needs to learn how to live; therefore Masonry has much to
give to each one of us; we can help each other to learn how to
live, therefore Masonry helps us to help each other. The symbols
give us their wisdom, their light, their truth; we can receive this
wisdom from them and we can then teach it to others. We can
transform the dead symbol into life; that is the highest way to
learn.

Why did the wise men of the past store their wisdom in symbols?
Because, so we believe, symbols are forms of expression that never
die. Language grows old and passes away; truth embodied in a
language may become buried in the tomb in which the dead language
lies. Books are not for the many; one cannot carry a book about
with him in his mind. Institutions grow old and die; moreover, they
cannot always be carried from country to country; truth embodied in
institutions may become dead or lost to many. The teachers
themselves have died and they could not themselves bring us their
truth. There are many that cannot understand learned language; they
need something very simple; they need to think in pictures; to
think in pictures helps us all, because the mind seems to work that
way. Symbols live on long after languages have died; symbols
survive the wreck of institutions; they survive the teachers who
have poured wisdom into them; they bring the truth to us in
pictures so that all can conceive it; symbols are a deathless and
universal language, the easiest to learn of all forms of language,
the hardest to forget, the most packed with meaning. In teaching
through symbols our Fraternity reveals itself as a very wise
teacher. If the meaning of a symbol is often hidden from us that is
to stimulate us to hunt for its meaning; hunting for its meaning
develops our faculties; and the development of our faculties is one
of the purposes and aims of wisdom.

To the man who has neither the eyes to see nor the will to work,
Masonry seems to offer little; to him who will take the trouble to
learn it has much to offer. Masonry holds rich gifts in its hands;
are you willing to receive those gifts? You may if you are willing
to study, to work, to develop. We have only that which we strive
for; we possess only that which we earn; when truth is poured into
a passive mind it is soon lost from that mind; when it is won by an
active mind it becomes a part of that mind; when truth has become
a part of the mind then is the mind truly cultured, for culture is
that wisdom which has become a part of ourselves. Masonry helps to
culture us by stimulating us to apply our mental powers to the
study of those symbols in which many wise men have hidden truths so
profound, so illuminating, so helpful, so packed with life. We
ourselves, in this present hour, can best understand what symbols
mean and how their meaning is to be discovered if we will turn to
a few of them. Our selection may appear arbitrary, at first glance,
but the meanings we shall win will fit themselves together into one
lesson, into a truth that is one truth, the truth that wisdom is
the learning how best to live, and that God helps each of us how
best to live.

The beginning of wisdom is to develop ourselves; most of us have
never discovered what are the possibilities of our own minds; we
live poorly and meanly because we permit the highest powers to lie
dormant; one is learning the wisdom of life when he strives to
develop each power of himself to the uttermost. Of this the apron
is the symbol. It means work; not manual work alone, but mental,
and spiritual, and moral work also. The divinity of work; the
divine necessity of work; the divine results of work; this is the
truth taught us- through the apron. We are told that it is an older
and nobler symbol than the Star, the Garter, the Roman Eagle. It
is. God has been working from the beginning; to work is to do what
God does; to do what God does is life. The apron teaches us one of
the secrets of the divine life. It is not fame; it is not
possessions; it is not pride, or lust for place or power; it is
none of these things that deserve to stand as that which is the
highest. The apron is higher than the symbols of these things
because it is the symbol of the effort to develop ourselves; we can
work on ourselves; we can work through ourselves; while we are
working on and through ourselves we are then working to help
others; to help others is God-like because God is always helping
others. God Himself, in a certain deep sense, evermore wears the
apron because He evermore works, works to help us, works to give us
more and more life for evermore. What we make of ourselves is more
important than what others make of us; how we use and develop
ourselves is more important than what we possess or what reputation
we may have. To work; to make the mind work, to make the body work,
to make all things work together to give us life and to give others
life, that is according to the will of God and the will of God is
our life and our peace. He who wears the apron on his heart will
become God-like because God's own heart is filled with labor on the
behalf of all His worlds and all His children.

Many times our work asks of us that we sacrifice our ease, our
pleasure, our place, or our money; he who is not willing to
sacrifice the lesser for the sake of the greater has not yet
learned wisdom; he does not yet know to live. Sacrifice is not to
lessen our lives; it is to increase our lives; it surrenders the
petty things in order that the greater things may more completely
possess us; he who has become willing to give up the lower in order
that the higher may be in him has learned wisdom, for wisdom is to
learn how best to live.

The cross which appears so often through our ritual and in so many
different forms has many different degrees of meaning but the one
meaning running through all forms of the cross is that he who would
learn to live must learn to surrender willingly the things that
hinder life. Sacrifice, if we will but learn it, is our friend; it
gives us more life and what gives us more life gives us more love
and love is in itself friendship. The cross sometimes breaks the
body in order that the soul may have its way; the cross sometimes
bruises the mind in order that the spirit may more richly live; the
cross helps while it seems to hinder; it heals when it seems to
hurt. To learn to know when to sacrifice, how to sacrifice, what to
sacrifice, and for what to sacrifice, that is wisdom, and wisdom is
to know to live.

But life is not complete in any one of us; life lives in all men
and each needs the life of all; when we share with others our life
we are helping them to live; when we help others to live we become
God-like because God continually gives life to all. Friendship is
just the habit of giving our life to others; when we give our life
away we possess more of it; the more we give the more we receive.
This is the meaning of the clasped-hands, one of the most divine
and beautiful of all our symbols. The life in me clasps hands with
the life in you; my life joins its forces with your life; that
makes more life. Brotherhood is the enrichment of life not for
one's self alone but for all; brotherhood is God-like because God
is the Great Brother of all men. His hands are clasped with ours
and neither disaster nor death can break that clasp. When we clasp
our brother's hand we clasp God's hand because God lives and works
through our brother; when he clasps our hands he clasps God's hands
because God lives and works through us. Brotherhood makes life
rich, beautiful, and divine; brotherhood is the clearest revelation
of God that we have. Brotherhood is love expressed toward our
fellows; it is therefore divine because God is love.

Our system of symbols would be very incomplete if they did not give
us this highest wisdom that God is love. The All-Seeing Eye reminds
us that God sees far into the most secret depths of each of us;
this means that God lives in us a part of our very selves else He
could not know what is in us; God is love because He lives in each
one of us. The altar reminds us that we can always and everywhere
meet with God; He is never away from our hearts; He is never away
from home; the human soul is His home. While we work, while we
play, while we think, above all while we love, we are with Him;
each moment can have its own altar; each place may have its shrine;
the whole world is a meeting place between man and God; the whole
earth may become an altar. The raising of the master in our third
degree reminds us, depicts for us in an unforgettable symbol, that
God is also eternal life; the master went into the grave but God
went in after Him; we never die; there is no death; there is only
change; we go on from life to life, ever and forever, and God ever
helps us to go on from life to life. To know that God lives in us
and that God is love helps us to lose all fears, the fear of
disaster, of disgrace, of death; for where love is fear cannot be.
The same eternal life which lived in the slain master lives also in
us; God is continually willing to raise each of us from all our
graves; from the grave of sloth, the grave of selfishness, the
grave of hatred, of fear, of sorrow, of death. "Now have we eternal
life"; always will we have eternal life. God is life and God is
eternal. God is our life; therefore we are eternal.

Can there be, could there be, a teaching more wonderfully beautiful
than this? Can you anywhere find a higher wisdom than this? This is
the highest wisdom that we know how to live; God is our Life; to
learn to live is to love God. Masonry teaches us that God is love;
it teaches us how to love God. Masonry as a whole is one great
symbol of men dwelling with God and God dwelling with men.

