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SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.I     August, 1923    No.8 
 
BOOK OF CONSTITUTIONS  GUARDED BY THE TILER'S SWORD 
 
					by:  Unknown 
 
Let me introduce the speaker of the evening, although, as presiding 
officers so often say, he hardly needs an introduction.  I believe that 
most Masons know him well and, after I describe him, you will easily 
recognize him.  He is the Tiler of his Lodge and a very interesting man to 
meet.  You will find it worth while cultivating his acquaintance. 
 
I have met him wherever I have been privileged to visit lodge.  He is a man 
of uncertain age.  He is old in wisdom, in his knowledge of Masonic Lore, 
and in his understanding of human nature.  He is young with that spirit of 
eternal youth that comes with fulfillment of the sweet law of Brotherhood.  
He knows all the Brethren intimately and never misses a meeting of his 
lodge.  He has seen young men hesitatingly enter the preparation room for 
the first time; he has seen them passed and raised, watched their 
enthusiastic progress through the stations, served under them as they sat 
in the Oriental Chair, and walker with drawn sword at the head of the 
procession as they were carried to their last resting place. 
 
His name is legion but I prefer to call him Peters, because everybody calls 
him by his first name; and if your think tank is working tonight, you will 
recognize the appropriateness of calling him Peter. 
 
He does not get into the lodge room very often and would be particularly 
embarrassed if called upon to make a speech.  I have seen him come into the 
room on large meeting nights to help the deacons purge the lodge.  He will 
cast his eyes carelessly over the crowd and then confidently couch for 
every man in the room.  I have sometimes wondered whether he possesses 
uncanny wisdom or whether he is simply faking. 
 
But let us go out into his little room that is furnished with a cast-off 
table and some chairs that were  
used in the lodge room before it was remodeled; let us light the cigar, 
cigarette or pipe that Masonic custom denies us in the lodge, tilt our 
chairs back against the wall, lay our heads against that greasy spot left 
by many heads that have rested there before ours, and listen to this 
Masonic Philosopher. 
 
"I have often wondered," says Peter, "about these Masonic Symbols.  
Generally when you fellows are in there watching the work I am out here by 
myself, and so you see I have lots of time to think.  Sometimes I am 
puzzled by what the Ritual says in its explanation of these symbols.  Take 
for instance, those nine emblems of the Third Degree.  I suppose most of 
you fellows have forgotten all about them because you generally come 
streaming out here and throw your aprons in a pile for me to straighten out 
about the time the Master starts on his lecture.  The only time you stay is 
when the Master tells you there is going to be coffee and sandwiches after 
the work, and then you hang around during the lecture. 
 
"There is one of those emblems that has given me more trouble than anything 
else in Masonry; it is the one in which you see a book lying on a velvet 
pillow with a sword over the top.  The Masters tells you that it is the 
Book of Constitutions Guarded by the Tiler's Sword, and that it reminds us 
to be ever watchful and guarded in our thoughts, words, and actions, 
particularly when before the enemies of Masonry, ever bearing in mind those 
truly Masonic virtues,; silence and circumspection.  Now, that never seemed 
just right to me. 
 
"Those old boys who gave us this Ritual had pretty good ideas about 
symbolism, and the things they used as symbols generally meant just exactly 
what they told you about them.  It is funny how much meaning they could get 
out of such things as a trowel, a square or a level.  True symbolism, you 
know, isn't forced.  It just comes naturally.  The moment you hear the 
explanation, you say, 'Of Course!  Why didn't I think of that before?'  
That is why I could never see what there was about that book and sword to 
teach us to be watchful and guarded in our thoughts, words and actions. 
	 
"You know the Chinese with their three monkeys, one with his hands over his 
ears, the other with his hands over his eyes, and the third with his hands 
over his mouth made a much better symbol of being watchful and guarded than 
our book and sword, and the same thing holds true in regard to silence and 
circumspection.  If that is what we want to teach, we had better get rid of 
that book and sword and throw a picture of the three wise monkeys on the 
screen. 
 
"Some time ago I read a book written by a great man who had spent his life 
studying Masonry.  One thing that makes me want to study Masonry is that so 
many great men have found it worthy of such deep study.  This writer seemed 
to have the idea that Masonry didn't always say just exactly what it meant.  
He said something about the real truth of Masonry being hidden in the 
Ritual instead of being revealed by it; that you had to search out the real 
meaning of the Masonic Symbols for yourself.  That always stuck by me.  I 
was talking to one of the brethren about it and he agreed with this Masonic 
writer.  This brother said we don't sell the secrets of Freemasonry; when a 
man pays for his degrees, we only sell him the tools and he must use them 
to dig out the secrets for himself.  And so I dug away at the old book and 
sword trying to understand what it really meant until the other night when 
one of these Service association fellows came around and talked to us. 
 
"He showed us how much the Masons had to do with the founding of this 
government.  He told us how Paul Revere's ride was organized among Masons 
and how all the fellows that helped Paul Revere make that ride were his 
Brethren, while Paul Revere himself was Provincial Grand Master of Masons 
in Massachusetts.  He told us of the Boston Tea Party, and how the little 
affair was arranged at the Old Green Dragon Tavern, which was nothing more 
or less than a Masonic Temple.  He told us about John Hancock, Benjamin 
Franklin, Joseph Warren, Lafayette, and George Washington; and ever so many 
more of those early patriots who were all Masons, and how it was by working 
together as Masons that they carried out on the Revolutionary War, and then 
afterwards built this nation of ours.  he told us about the constitution of 
the United States.  You know the interesting thing about that is not that 
these men were Masons, many of our prominent citizens today are Masons, but 
that the same group of men who were leaders of our Fraternity were also 
leaders of the nation at that time.  And then he told us how, because our 
Brethren had laid the foundation of this nation and because that foundation 
was in accord with Masonic principles, it was our duty to build the rest of 
the Temple to Liberty in America, and to watch over it and guard it with 
our very lives. 
 
"So I got the thinking about that old Book and sword and it seemed to me 
that perhaps after all there was a real meaning behind it that was 
concealed rather than revealed in the Ritual, as that Masonic writer that I 
told you about said; and it seemed to me that Book of Constitutions, 
instead of being a symbol of silence and circumspection, was a symbol of 
constitutional government such as we have in this country.  Our Book of 
Constitutions, you know, is our Masonic fundamental law, just as the 
Constitution of the United States is the fundamental law of our nation.  So 
you see how naturally it becomes the symbol of constitutional government. 
 
"That Sword over the Book is this little old sword lying here on the table 
beside me.  You know, this sword isn't any good to hurt anybody with, but 
it is just a symbol by which Freemasonry protects itself against cowan's 
and evesdroppers.  So it is just a symbol of Masonry on guard and, as the 
Book of Constitutions is a symbol of constitutional government, the Tiler's 
Sword is a symbol of Masonry on guard.  Do you see what I'm getting at?  I 
believe the Book of Constitutions Guarded by the Tiler's Sword teaches us 
that Masonry should always be the Guardian of Constitutional Government. 
 
"I was telling another Brother about this the other night and he told me I 
was wrong because Masonry was older than the United States government and 
the symbol, he said, must be older than this country of ours.  So I got to 
thinking about that too and it came to me that much of this speculative 
Masonry that we have today comes to us from England.  Of course, I 
understand that Masonry as we know it has been gathered together from nay 
countries.  Some fellows say that we get it direct from the boys that 
worked on King Solomon's Temple but it may be that isn't quite right.  
Speculative Masonry, in its present form at least, did have its origin in 
England, and you know that a lot of the ideas about constitutional 
government that were accepted by us were first brought into practice back 
in England before the United States became a free country.  And so I 
thought it very likely that even back then in those days our English 
Brethren, just like our Revolutionary Brethren were fighting for 
constitutional government and maybe they had as much to do with getting it 
in England as George Washington, Paul Revere and the other boys had with 
getting it in this country. 
 
"But I'm inclined to agree with Brother Mackey, who believed that our 
monitorial definition of this emblem is a modern one, and was introduced by 
Brother Webb.  It does not appear in the first edition of Webb's Monitor, 
but I found it in the second edition, printed in 1802.  Mackey says, 'This 
interpretation of Webb is a very unsatisfactory one.  The Book of 
Constitutions is the Symbol of constituted law rather than of silence and 
circumspection, and when guarded by the Tiler's Sword it would seem 
properly to symbolize regard for and obedience to law, a prominent Masonic 
duty.' 
 
"So, until somebody shows me that I am wrong, I am going to believe every 
time I see that book and sword on the screen that the book is the 
Constitution of the United States and the sword is Freemasonry on guard; 
and instead of teaching me to be watchful and guarded in all my thoughts, 
words and actions; it is going to teach me to be ever watchful and guarded 
against the enemies of my nation and its Constitution, so that when I get 
up into the Grand Lodge above those old boys up there that built this 
nation are going to meet me with the Lion's Paw, and vouch for me when the 
Supreme Grand Master of the Universe takes the Pass." 
 
That is Peter's story of the Book of Constitutions Guarded by the Tiler's 
Sword.  You may take it or leave it, but somehow or other I think he is 
right.  At least, ever since I heard tell that story I have had a new 
thrill while listening to the Master explaining the nine Masonic Emblems in 
the Third Degree; and I say to myself, "Well, that is all right for the 
candidate.  We can't give him all the light at once, because he would 
simply be blinded by its brilliance.  But, for myself, I have been out in 
the anteroom with Peters using our working tools in a search for further 
Masonic light, and I know that sword and book mean that it is up to me to 
fight the enemies of constitutional government and to protect our 
Constitution from  those seeking to destroy it.  And with the help of the 
Great Architect of the Universe, and my nearly three million Brethren, I am 
going to do that little job! 
						 
Copyright 1923 by The Masonic Service Association of the United States.  
The contents of this Bulletin must not be reproduced, in whole or in part, 
without permission. Published monthly by the Masonic Service Association of 
the United States under the auspices of its Member Grand Jurisdictions.