Square and Compasses Mantle
Clock
This
clock was hand made by a master clockmaker who is now retired and lives in
Alabama. It is all hand made from various pieces of brass flat stock. When
this clock was made this gentleman was curator of the clock museum owned by S.
LaRose in Greensboro, N. C.
The Square is one of the most important and
significant symbols in Freemasonry. As such, it is proper that its true form
should be preserved. French Freemasons have almost universally given it with
one leg longer than the other thus making it a carpenter's square. American
Freemasons, following the incorrect delineations of Brother Jeremy L. Cross,
have, while generally preserving the equality of length in the legs,
unnecessarily marked its surface with inches; thus making it an instrument for
measuring length and breadth, which it is not. It is simply the trying
square of a stone-mason, and has a plain surface; the sides or legs
embracing an angle of ninety degrees, and is intended only to test the
accuracy of the sides of a stone, and to see that its edges subtend the same
angle. In Freemasonry, the square is a symbol of morality. This is its
general signification, and applied in various ways: 1. It presents itself to
the neophyte as one of the Three Great Lights. 2. To the Fellow Craft as one
of his Working-tools. 3. To the Master Mason as the official emblem of the
Master of the Lodge. Everywhere, however, it inculcates the same lesson of
morality, of truthfulness, of honesty. So universally accepted is this
symbolism, that it has gone outside of the Order, and has been found in
colloquial language communicating the same idea. The Square, says Halliwell,
Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, means honest, equitable,
as in "square dealing." To play upon the square is
proverbial for to play honestly. In this sense the word is found in
the old writers. As a Masonic symbol, it is of very ancient date, and was
familiar to the Operative Masons. In the year 1830, the architect, in
rebuilding a very ancient bridge called Baal Bridge, near Limerick, in
Ireland, found under the foundation-stone an old brass square, much eaten
away, containing on its two side surfaces the following inscription, the U
being read as V: I. WILL STRIUE. TO. LIUE.--WITH. LOUE. & CARE.--UPON. THE
LEUL.--BY. THE. SQUARE., and the date 1517. The modern Speculative Freemason
will recognize the idea of living on the level and by the square.
This discovery proves, if proof were necessary, that the familiar idea was
borrowed from our Operative Brethren of former days. The square, as a symbol
in Speculative Freemasonry, has therefore presented itself from the very
beginning of the revival period. In the very earliest catechism of the
eighteenth century, of the date of 1725, we find the answer to the question,
"How many make a Lodge?" is "God and the Square, with five or seven right or
perfect Masons." God and the Square, religion and morality, must be present
in every Lodge as governing principles. Signs at the early period were to be
made by squares, and the Furniture of the Lodge was declared to be
the Bible, Compasses, and Square. In all rites and in all languages where
Freemasonry has penetrated, the square has preserved its primitive
signification as a symbol of morality.
As in Operative Freemasonry, the compasses
are used for the admeasurements of the architect's plans, and to enable him to
give those just proportions which will ensure beauty as well as stability to
his work; so, in Speculative Freemasonry, is this important implement symbolic
of that even tenor of deportment, that true standard of rectitude which alone
can bestow happiness here and felicity hereafter. Hence are the compasses the
most prominent emblem of virtue, the true and only measure of a Freemason's
life and conduct. As the Bible gives us Light on our duties
to God, and the square illustrates our duties to our neighborhood and
Brother, so the compasses give that additional light which
is to instruct us in the duty we owe to ourselves--the great, imperative duty
of circumscribing our passions, and keeping our desires within due bounds.
"It is ordained," says the philosophic Burke, "in the eternal constitution of
things, that men of intemperate passions cannot be free; their passions forge
their fetters." Those Brethren who delight to trace our emblems to an
astronomical origin, find in the compasses a symbol of the sun, the
circular pivot representing the body of the luminary, and the diverging legs
his rays. In the earliest rituals of the eighteenth century, the
compasses are described as a part of the furniture of the Lodge, and are
said to belong to the Master. Some change will be found in this respect in
the ritual of the present day. The word is sometimes spelled and pronounced
compass, which is more usually applied to the magnetic needle and
circular dial or card of the mariner from which he directs his course over the
seas, or the similar guide of the airman when seeking his destination across
unknown territory.
A special "Thanks" to
Dewey Misenheimer for
submitting the pictures and description of this beautiful clock.
