I’d first like to say that in the midst of the Pandemic we are all going through, I hope this message finds you and your family safe and healthy. If there is anything that is needed, reach out to the relief committee and we will try to help as best we can.
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The Trestle-Board is defined to be the board upon which the Master inscribes the designs by which the Craft are to be directed in their labors.
What, then, is its true Symbolism in Speculative Freemasonry? To construct his
earthly Temple, the Operative Mason followed the architectural designs laid
down on the Trestle-Board, or book of plans of the architect. By these he hewed
and squared his materials; by these, he raised his walls; by these, he
constructed his arches; and by these, strength and durability, combined with
grace and beauty, were bestowed upon the edifice which he was constructing.
In the Masonic Ritual, the Speculative Freemason is reminded that, as the
Operative Artists 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. 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.
Before we go on a journey we plan our travels, our railway connections, our
stop-overs, and our destination. Before we undertake a project to erect a
building we are so careful to have a plan that often we pay an expert to make
one for us. It would be equally wise if each of us were to have a plan
similarly for his own life.
What is your Trestle-board?
Fraternally,
Worshipful Bro. Peter