ism here is still further extended, and the candidate, representing one who is about to enter upon the pilgrimage of life, and all its dangers and temptations, first is supposed to lay down upon his trestle-board the designs of labor, of honest ambition, or of virtuous pleasure upon which he is about to enter, and then to invoke the protection and blessing of the Grand Architect of the Universe upon his future career. For the Temple Builder is, in the Masonic system, the symbol of humanity developed here and in the life to come; and as the Temple is the visible symbol of the world, its architect becomes the mythical symbol of man, the dweller and worker in the world, and his progress by the gates is the allegory of man's pilgrimage through youth, manhood, and old age, to the final triumph of death and the grave.
The number 12 was celebrated as a mystical number in the ancient systems of sun-worship, of which it has already been said that Masonry is a philosophical development. The number there referred to the twelve signs of the zodiac, and in those Masonic rites in which the Builder is made the symbol of the sun, the twelve F∴ C∴ refer to the twelve signs in which alone the sun is to be sought for. But in the York rite this symbolism is lost, because Hiram there represents man, and not the sun. But the ancient number has still been preserved. Portal says the number twelve was a perfect and complete number. The number thirteen indicated the commencement of a new course of life, and thence it became the emblem of death. The
