In the symbolic alphabet of Freemasonry, therefore, the twenty-four inch
gauge is a symbol of time well employed; the common gavel, of the
purification of the heart.

Here we may pause for a moment to refer to one of the coincidences between
Freemasonry and those _Mysteries_[59] which formed so important a part of
the ancient religions, and which coincidences have led the writers on this
subject to the formation of a well-supported theory that there was a
common connection between them. The coincidence to which I at present
allude is this: in all these Mysteries--the incipient ceremony of
initiation--the first step taken by the candidate was a lustration or
purification. The aspirant was not permitted to enter the sacred
vestibule, or take any part in the secret formula of initiation, until, by
water or by fire, he was emblematically purified from the corruptions of
the world which he was about to leave behind. I need not, after this, do
more than suggest the similarity of this formula, in principle, to a
corresponding one in Freemasonry, where the first symbols presented to the
apprentice are those which inculcate a purification of the heart, of which
the purification of the body in the ancient Mysteries was symbolic.

We no longer use the bath or the fountain, because in our philosophical
system the symbolization is more abstract, if I may use the term; but we
present the aspirant with the _lamb-skin apron_, the _gauge_, and the
_gavel_, as symbols of a spiritual purification. The design is the same,
but the mode in which it is accomplished is different.

Let us now resume the connected series of temple symbolism.

At the building of the temple, the stones having been thus prepared by the
workmen of the lowest degree (the Apprentices, as we now call them, the