Temple worship is in itself an ancient type of the religious sentiment in
its progress towards spiritual elevation. As soon as a nation emerged, in
the world's progress, out of Fetichism, or the worship of visible
objects,--the most degraded form of idolatry,--its people began to
establish a priesthood and to erect temples.[54] The Scandinavians, the
Celts, the Egyptians, and the Greeks, however much they may have differed
in the ritual and the objects of their polytheistic worship, all were
possessed of priests and temples. The Jews first constructed their
tabernacle, or portable temple, and then, when time and opportunity
permitted, transferred their monotheistic worship to that more permanent
edifice which is now the subject of our contemplation. The mosque of the
Mohammedan and the church or the chapel of the Christian are but
embodiments of the same idea of temple worship in a simpler form.

The adaptation, therefore, of the material temple to a science of
symbolism would be an easy, and by no means a novel task, to both the
Jewish and the Tyrian mind. Doubtless, at its original conception, the
idea was rude and unembellished, to be perfected and polished only by
future aggregations of succeeding intellects. And yet no biblical scholar
will venture to deny that there was, in the mode of building, and in all
the circumstances connected with the construction of King Solomon's
temple, an apparent design to establish a foundation for symbolism.[55]

I propose now to illustrate, by a few examples, the method in which the
speculative Masons have appropriated this design of King Solomon to their
own use.

To construct his earthly temple, the operative mason followed the
architectural designs laid down on the _trestle-board_, or tracing-board,