The perfect ashlar is a stone made ready by the hands of the workmen, to be adjusted by the working tools of the fellow-craft. The trestle-board is for the master workman to draw his designs upon.
By the rough ashlar we are reminded of our rude and imperfect state by nature; by the perfect ashlar, that state of perfection at which we hope to arrive by a virtuous education, our own endeavors, and the blessing of God; and by the trestle-board we are also reminded that, as the operative workman erects his temporal building agreeably to the rules and designs laid down by the master on his trestle-board, so should we, both operative and speculative, endeavor to erect our spiritual building agreeably to the rules and designs laid down by the Supreme Architect of the Universe, in the great books of nature and revelation, which are our spiritual, moral, and masonic trestle-board.
To every Mason, whatever may be his peculiar religious creed, that revelation of the Deity which is recognized by his religion becomes his trestle-board. Thus, the trestle-board of the Jewish Mason is the Old Testament; of the Christian, the Old and the New; of the Mohammedan, the Koran. But as no operative mason can work without a trestle-board, where the designs and instructions of his master for his conduct in the building on which he is engaged may be delineated, so no speculative mason can labor truly and profitably in the great work of life without a trestle-board which may contain the delineation of the designs and will of his Eternal Master. And thus it is that, as the atheist acknowledges no such Master, and can therefore have no such trestle board, he is not permitted to unite with us in our "moral, spiritual, and masonic" labor. And this is really the reason of the law which forbids the initiation of atheists.
