Page 23 - WM Manual Guide and Monitor 2024 - 2025

The variety of these interpretations tends to confuse one, especially a beginner in
symbolism, who is tempted to believe that where so many meanings are found
there cannot be any meaning at all; it must be remembered that a symbol by its
very nature says many things at once, things often the most diverse, a function
which is not the least of its many advantages. Almost all great and simple words—
love, patriotism, friendship, immortality, God, etc.,—are similarly prolific of
meanings, and so are symbols or symbolical actions in every-day use, such as a
flag, the wave of a hand, or the tipping of one's hat.
IV

To my own mind the candidate is as a child struggling for release from narrow
environments and external restraints in order to enter into the larger life of liberty
and self-direction. The cable tow about his neck symbolizes all those external
checks and restraints, such as conventionality, fear of the world, fear of the adverse
opinions or displeasure of men, and of the control of teachers and parents on which
a child naturally depends but which must be thrown off when one has reached full
responsibility as a man "of mature age." The removal of the noose symbolizes the
attainment of inward light, judgment and the power of self-direction—in other
words, real manhood, which has its center and support in an inward power that is
stronger than any pressure from without. Dr. Buck whom I have already quoted (I
am not in agreement with him in his interpretation of Masonry as a whole) has
given us in words of admirable simplicity a noble exposition of the true
significance of this symbol:

"He [the candidate] is restrained now [after the removal of the cable tow] by the
voluntary obligations taken, all of which indicate the necessity of constant
vigilance and self-control. In place of the former command—'thou shalt not'—
comes the voluntary pledge—'I will.' The result is to replace outer constraint by
inward restraint, without annulling or altering a single moral precept. The slave
who formerly obeyed a Master through fear, now voluntarily serves a Master
through love. The difference is that between a bondman and a freeman, and the
result to the candidate can hardly be put in words when it is once realized." (New
Age, Vol. vii, page 159.)

The homely practical truth and usefulness of all this interpretation may be made
instantly discernible by a simple example. In human society in general, law,
written or unwritten, is the cable tow that holds fast every man. The good man
cannot escape from it any more than a bad man, and he who walks about his own
yard, a free and respectable citizen, is quite as much held fast by the law as he who
sits sullenly in a prison cell, denied the right of seeing the sun or of walking upon
the grass. But while these two men are equally held by law, the manner in which
law holds them is as different as day is from night; for whereas the prisoner is held
by it against his own will, the free man obeys it of his own choice. The hope of the
world depends upon those who "have the law in their inward parts" and keep it