in an essay on temple symbolism only.

We now reach the third degree, the Master Masons of the modern science,
and the Epopts, or beholders of the sacred things in the ancient
Mysteries.

In the third degree the symbolic allusions to the temple of Solomon, and
the implements of Masonry employed in its construction, are extended and
fully completed. At the building of that edifice, we have already seen
that one class of the workmen was employed in the preparation of the
materials, while another was engaged in placing those materials in their
proper position. But there was a third and higher class,--the master
workmen,--whose duty it was to superintend the two other classes, and to
see that the stones were not only duly prepared, but that the most exact
accuracy had been observed in giving to them their true juxtaposition in
the edifice. It was then only that the last and finishing labor[63] was
performed, and the cement was applied by these skilful workmen, to secure
the materials in their appropriate places, and to unite the building in
one enduring and connected mass. Hence the _trowel_, we are informed, was
the most important, though of course not the only, implement in use among
the master builders. They did not permit this last, indelible operation to
be performed by any hands less skilful than their own. They required that
the craftsmen should prove the correctness of their work by the square,
level, and plumb, and test, by these unerring instruments, the accuracy of
their joints; and, when satisfied of the just arrangement of every part,
the cement, which was to give an unchangeable union to the whole, was then
applied by themselves.

Hence, in speculative Masonry, the trowel has been assigned to the third
degree as its proper implement, and the symbolic meaning which accompanies