‘Scottish EA° Working Tools’

    

My lodge had the honor of initiating two candidates for the mysteries of Freemasonry Monday night. I’ve always enjoyed the variety shown in rituals around the Masonic world; the following example offers not only different language in defining the familiar Working Tools of the Entered Apprentice Mason, but also reveals a Working Tool unknown to lodges in the United States.

Under the Grand Lodge of Scotland, there is no single ritual promulgated by headquarters. Instead, lodges are free to customize the work. This doesn’t produce anarchy. Masons are responsible. It just means there isn’t a down-to-the-letter standardization of ritual.

What follows comes from The Scottish Ritual of the Three Degrees of St. John’s Masonry, printed by Lewis in London in 1895.

I now present to you the Working Tools of an Entered Apprentice Free Mason, which are, the Twenty-four inch Gauge, the Common Gavel, and the Chisel.

The Twenty-four inch Gauge is to measure our Work, the Common Gavel to knock off all superfluous knobs and excrescences, and the Chisel to further smooth and prepare the stone, and render it fit for the hands of the more expert Craftsman.

The Twenty-four inch Gauge is the first instrument placed in the hands of a workman, as it enables him to measure the work he is about to begin, so that he may estimate the time and labour it will cost.

The Gavel is an instrument of labour. Known to Artists under various appellations, it is still admitted by them all that no work of manual skill can be completed without its aid.

The Chisel is a small instrument, solid in its form, but of such exquisite sharpness as fully to compensate for the diminutiveness of its size. It is calculated to make impression on the hardest substances, and the loftiest structures are indebted to its aid.

But as we are not operative, but rather Free and Accepted, or Speculative Masons, we apply those Tools to our Morals.

In this sense the Twenty-four inch Gauge represents the twenty-four hours of the day,—part to be spent in Prayer to Almighty God; part in Labour, Refreshment, and Sleep; and part to serve a friend or Brother in time of need, that not being detrimental to ourselves or our connections.

The Common Gavel represents the force of conscience, which should keep down all vain and unbecoming thoughts, so that our words and actions may appear before the Throne of Grace pure and unpolluted.

The Chisel points out to us the advantages of Education and Perseverance, by which means alone we are rendered fit members of regularly organized Society. That the rude material can receive a fine polish from repeated efforts alone. From the whole we deduce this moral: That Knowledge, aided by Labour and prompted by Perseverance, will finally overcome all difficulties, raise ignorance from despair, and establish truth in the paths of Nature and Science.

I can’t locate this quotation, but it fits Aristotelian thought.