more firmly together when the law cements them, so are stones also,
whose forms may already fit together, united far better by these binding
forces. It is not seemly to be idle among the working, and here you will
not refuse to be our fellow-laborer;" with these words he reached the
trowel to Charlotte, who threw mortar with it under the stone--several
of the others were then desired to do the same, and then it was at once
let fall. Upon which the hammer was placed next in Charlotte's, and then
in the others' hands, to strike three times with it, and conclude, in
this expression, the wedlock of the stone with the earth.

"The work of the mason," went on the speaker, "now under the free sky as
we are, if it be not done in concealment, yet must pass into
concealment--the soil will be laid smoothly in, and thrown over this
stone, and with the walls which we rear into the daylight we in the end
are seldom remembered. The works of the stone-cutter and the carver
remain under the eyes; but for us it is not to complain when the
plasterer blots out the last trace of our hands, and appropriates our
work to himself; when he overlays it, and smooths it, and colors it.

"Not from regard for the opinion of others, but from respect for
himself, the mason will be faithful in his calling. There is none who
has more need to feel in himself the consciousness of what he is. When
the house is finished, when the soil is smoothed, the surface plastered
over, and the outside all overwrought with ornament, he can even
penetrate through all disguises and still recognize those exact and
careful adjustments to which the whole is indebted for its being and for
its persistence.

"But as the man who commits some evil deed has to fear, that,
notwithstanding all precautions, it will one day come to light--so too