Short Talk Bulletin Vol 08 No 01

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SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.VIII   January, 1930   No.1 

THE SWORD IN THE CRAFT 

by: Unknown 

Before the door of all lodges stands a Tiler (Tyler) “with a drawn  
sword in his hand.” 
Customarily it is a straight blade; such a shining shaft of steel as  
was carried by Knights of olden times.  According to Mackey it should  
have a snake-like shape.  Formerly such swords were the badge of  
office of the Tiler, so made in allusion to the “Flaming Sword which  
was placed at the East of the Garden of Eden which turned every way  
to keep the way of the tree of life.” 
Properly no Tiler’s sword is ever carried in a scabbard; it’s  
symbolism requires it to be ever ready at hand to “keep off cowans  
and eavesdroppers.” 
Our lectures refer to the sword but twice; we are taught of “the Book  
of Constitutions Guarded by the Tiler’s Sword,” and we learn also of  
the “Sword Pointing to a Naked Heart.” 
“The Book of Constitutions, Guarded by the Tiler’s Sword,” is a  
comparatively modern symbol; its introduction has been traced to  
Webb, about 1800.  Its symbolism is rather obscure, the more so that  
it seems so obvious. 
We are told that it “Admonishes us to be ever watchful and guarded in  
our words and actions, particularly before the enemies of Masonry,  
ever bearing in remembrance those truly Masonic virtues, silence and  
circumspection.”  But the Book of Constitutions is not, in any sense  
of the word, a secret work.  It was first ordered printed by the  
Mother Grand Lodge, and a few original copies as well as uncounted  
reprints of the Old Charges and the General Regulations of 1723 are  
in existence, to be seen by Mason and profane alike. 
Obviously, then, it is not the secrecy of the Book of Constitutions  
which the Tiler’s sword guards; neither silence nor circumspection  
regarding that particular Masonic volume is necessary. 
Some have read into Webb’s symbol the thought that it was intended to  
express the guardianship of civil liberties (a constitutional  
government) by the Masonic Fraternity, but this seems rather far  
fetched.  It is a principle of science never to formulate a difficult  
hypothesis when a simple one explains the facts.  Surely it is easier  
to think that the Tiler’s sword admonishes us to brook no changes in  
our Ancient Landmarks, to be guarded lest our words and actions bring  
the foundation book of Masonic law into disrepute before the enemies  
of Masonry, applying the Book of Constitutions as well as to the  
secrets of Freemasonry “those truly Masonic virtues, silence and  
circumspection. 
“The sword pointing to the naked heart” is a symbolical adaptation of  
an old ceremony not peculiar to Masonry, but used by many orders and  
secret societies, in which the initiate taking his vows is surrounded  
by swords with their points resting against his body, ready to pierce  
him upon the instant if he refuses obedience.  The sword is so used  
at the present time in some of the “higher Degrees” of freemasonry  
and contemporary engravings of the eighteenth century show swords  
were once used in some English and many Continental lodges.  How this  
comparatively modern symbol became associated with the “All-Seeing  
Eye” - which is one of the most ancient symbols know to man, and  
borrowed by Freemasonry from ancient Egyptian ceremonies - is too  
long and difficult a study for any but the Masonic student with  
plenty of time and Masonic sources at hand. 
The sword appears in the Grand Lodge as the implement of the Grand  
Sword Bearer, an officer found in most, if not all Grand Lodges.  It  
comes, undoubtedly from the ancient “Sword of State,” which seems to  
have begun in Rome when the lictor carried - as a symbol of authority  
and power to punish the evil doer - his bundle of rods with an axe  
inserted.  In the middle ages the rods and axe metamorphosed into the  
naked sword, carried in ceremonial processions before the sovereign  
as a symbol of his authority and his power over life and death; and  
his dispensation of swift justice.  The custom in England was known  
at least as early as 1236 when a pointless sword (emblematical of  
mercy) was carried at the coronation of Henry III. 
The second edition of Anderson’s Constitutions sets forth, that in  
1731 the Grand Master, the Duke of Norfolk, presented to the Grand  
Lodge of England “The Old Trusty Sword of Gustavus Adolphus, King of  
Sweden, that was worn next by his successor in war, the brave  
Bernard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, with both their names on the blade,  
which the Grand Master had ordered Brother George Moody (The King’s  
sword cutler) to adorn richly with the arms of Norfolk in silver on  
the scabbard, in order to be the Grand Master’s sword of state in the  
future.” 
Brother Moody was later appointed Grand Sword Bearer, so the office  
has the respectability of an antiquity almost coincident with the  
formation of the Mother Grand Lodge. 
The idea the Grand Sword Bearer carries his implement to protect the  
Grand Master from enemies seems entirely fanciful; the sword is  
merely the emblem of his power, the evidence that he is supreme  
within the Masonic state over which he rules. 
Early prints of lodge meetings on the Continent show the sword in use  
in the ceremonies; in this country the sword was never brought into  
the lodge room even during that era when a sword was as much a  
necessary article of a gentleman’s dress as shoes or gloves.  It was  
then deemed, as now, incompatible with that “Meeting Upon the Level”  
which is so integral a part of all lodge communications; the sword,  
either as a weapon, which made its possessor stronger than he who was  
unarmed, or as a badge of rank or distinction; was held to have no  
place in the lodge.  From this development the almost universal  
custom of the Tiler requesting all military men in uniform to leave  
their swords without the lodge before entering. 
This rule, or custom, comparatively little known in this country  
because few military men in times of peace go to lodge in full  
uniform, was often broken during the recent war when soldiers clanked  
up and down lodge rooms with the arms of their profession at their  
sides.  But it is as Masonically inconsistent to wear a sword in  
lodge as to appear therein without an Apron. 
It goes without saying that the Tiler’s Sword is wholly symbolic;  
whether it was always so or not is a matter lost in the mists which  
shroud ancient history.  In the operative days of Masonry the workmen  
upon a Cathedral held meetings in the house erected for their  
convenience - the lodge.  Operative Masons possessed secrets of real  
value to the craftsmen; the Master knew the geometrical method of  
“trying the square;” all those who had submitted their Master’s  
Pieces and satisfied the Master’s of the Craft as to their  
proficiency received the “Mason’s Word,” which enabled them to  
satisfy others, in “foreign countries” (which might be the next town  
as well as the adjacent nation) of their proficiency as builders.   
When the beginnings of Speculative Masonry made their appearance,  
they added, those secrets which only Masons possessed.  
Naturally, many desired to obtain those secrets.  These were divided  
into two classes; the “eavesdropper,” who listened under the eaves of  
a building and therefore received the droppings from the roof, and  
the “cowan,” or, partially instructed Mason.  As early as 1589 (Schaw  
Manuscript) appears this passage:  “That no Master or Fellow of the  
Craft shall receive any cowans to work in his society or company. nor  
send none of his servants to work with cowans.” 
Mackey traces the word to Scotland.  In Scott’s Rob Roy, Allan  
Inverach says:  “She does not value a Cawmil mair as a cowan.” 
Scottish usage of “cowan,’ a term of contempt, an uninstructed Mason;  
a Mason who builds dry walls, without mortar, a “dry-diker.”  But  
there are other possible derivations of the word; for instance, it  
may have come from an old Swedish word “kujon” meaning a silly  
fellow, or the French, “conyon,” meaning a coward, a base man. 
The Tiler of the operative lodge may well have been armed with a  
sword for actual defense of himself, or the lodge in which his  
fellows were meeting, from the encroachment of the cowans who wanted  
the word and the secret of the square without the necessity of  
serving a long period as an apprentice and of laboring to produce a  
satisfactory Master’s Piece. 
The modern tiler keeps off the cowan and eavesdropper by the simple  
process of refusing to admit those he does not know; if they still  
desire to enter the tiled door, they must either be vouched form or  
request a committee.  The Tiler’s sword is but the emblem of his  
authority, as the Gavel is the symbol of that possessed by the  
Master. 
Occasionally a lodge member is a little hurt, perhaps offended, if  
the Tiler does not know him and demands that some one vouch for him  
before he is permitted to enter. 
“Why, I’ve been a member of this lodge for fifteen years!” he may  
say.  “Here’s my good standing card.  You ought to know me!” 
It is possible that the Tiler “ought to know him.”  But Tilers - even  
the very best and most experienced Tilers - are just human beings  
with all the faults of memory which beset us all.  Many of us are  
sure that we know a face and are yet unable to say that we have seen  
it in a lodge.  How much more true this may be of the Tiler, who must  
see and memorize so many faces! 
To be offended or hurt because a Tiler does his duty is merely to  
say, in effect, “Id rather you didn’t do what you are supposed to  
than hurt my vanity by failing to remember me!” 
Not very long ago a Grand Master paid a surprise visit, all  
unaccompanied, to a small lodge.  Their Tiler did not know him.  The  
Master, sent for, to vouch for the distinguished visitor, was highly  
mortified and said so in lodge.  The Grand Master stopped him.  “You  
must not be mortified, my brother,” he said.  “You are to be  
congratulated on having a Tiler who knows his duty and does it so  
well.  I commend him to the brethren.” 
All of which was a graceful little speech, which carried a wholesome  
lesson on the reality of the authority and the duty represented by  
the shining blade which no Tiler is supposed to put down while on  
duty. 
No symbol in all Freemasonry but is less than the idea symbolized.   
The Volume of the Sacred Law, the letter “G,” the Square, the  
Compasses; all symbolize ideas infinitely great than paper and ink, a  
letter formed of electric lights, or carved from wood, a working tool  
of metal.  Consequently the Tiler’s sword (like the sword of state of  
the Grand Sword Bearer) has a much greater significance, not only to  
the Tiler but to all Masons, than its use as a tool of defense  
against an invasion of privacy. 
As not all cowans which may beset a lodge come through the Tiler’s  
door, every Master Mason should be, to some extent, a Tiler of his  
lodge and wear a symbolic Tiler’s Sword when on the important task  
assigned to the committee on petitions. 
Some “cowans” slip through the West Gate, are duly and truly  
prepared,  properly initiated, passed and raised; yet, never become  
real Master Masons.  This happens when members of the committee have  
not heeded the symbolism of the Tiler’s sword.  All of us know of  
some members who might better have been left among the profane.  They  
represent the mistaken judgment, first of the committee, then the  
lodge.  Had all used their symbolic Tiler’s sword - made as accurate  
an investigation of the petitioner as the Tiler makes of the would-be  
entrant through his door - these real “cowans” would not be a drag  
upon the lodge and the Fraternity. 
The “eavesdropper” from without is longer feared.  Our lodge rooms  
are seldom so built that any one may listen to what goes on within.   
The real “eavesdropper” is the innocent profane who is told more than  
he should hear, by the too enthusiastic Mason.  In the monitorial  
charge to the entered Apprentice we hear: “Neither are you to suffer  
your zeal for the institution to lead you into argument with those  
who, through ignorance, may ridicule it.”  The admonition of the  
emblem of the “Book of Constitutions Guarded by the Tiler’s Sword”  
applies here - we must “be ever watchful and guarded of our words and  
actions, particularly before the enemies of Masonry.”   
Constructively, if not actively, every profane who learns more than  
he should of esoteric Masonic work is a possible enemy. 
Let us all wear a Tiler’s sword in our hearts; let us set the zeal of  
silence and circumspection upon our tongues; let us guard the West  
Gate from the cowan as loyally as the Tiler guards his door.	 
Only by doing so may the integrity of our beloved Order be preserved,  
and “the honor, glory and reputation of the Fraternity may be firmly  
established and the world at large convinced of its good effects.” 
For only by such use of the sword do we carry out its Masonic  
symbolism.  To Masonry the sword is an emblem of power and authority,  
never of blood or wounds or battle or death.  Only when thought of in  
this way is it consistent with the rest of the symbols of our gentle  
Craft and wins obedience to the mandates of the Tiler by brotherly  
love, an infinitely stronger power than strength of arm, point of  
weapon or bright and glittering steel!