Ancient Masonic Lecture Rediscovered 4/18/08

INSTALLATION LECTURE FOR THE GRAND TROWEL WIELDER

My Brother, I now present you with the working tool of the Grand Trowel Wielder, and shall teach you its use.

The instrument of the Grand Trowel Wielder is the Spanking Trowel.
The Spanking Trowel precisely resembles the ordinary Master’s Trowel in every respect save its dimensions. Whereas the Master’s Trowel can be contained in a small repository with all the other instruments of Operative or Speculative Masonry, the Spanking Trowel is of sufficient size and weight as to require a specific Officer of the Lodge to bear it from place to place and to exercise its implementation when ordered by the Lodge. From this ancient practice, my Brother, your peculiar office derives its title and its duties.

The Spanking Trowel was used by our ancient operative Brethren to flail about their heads whilst at their various labors, in order that they might be the better enabled to ward off all fowles or insects of the air that did there assail their persons. In like manner did the ancient Fellow Crafts, laboring in the forests and quarries, use the Spanking Trowel to defend themselves from the wild and loathsome beasts that did therein lurk and lower.

More, my Brother: these our ancient Brethren, when sore pressed by wife or child, did wield the Spanking Trowel that they might preserve the peace and amity that prevailed within their abodes, and when thus used, we are informed by the ancient Constitutions and Landmarks of our Order that the Spanking Trowel was used in love and great respect, and never in wrath.
There are additional reports that the Spanking Trowel was employed by the Profane as an instrument of enticement, tittilation, or pleasure, but from the earliest times these uses have been condemned and declared by the Craft to be illegal and clandestine.

But we, as Speculative Masons, are taught to make use of it for the more noble and glorious purpose of reprimanding our recalcitrant and wayward Brethren when they have stepped aside from the tenets of their profession, and, when thus adjudged by the Craft, it shall be your office to wield it in the presence of the assembled Brethren and in the body of a just and lawfully constituted Lodge of Master Masons, that all there present may behold the wages of being foresworn.

Into your capable hands, my Brother, I now place the Spanking Trowel of your office, to be used by you at the command of the Craft, and only the Craft, to reprehend with justice any Brother whom they shall find guilty of egregious transgression against the spirit as well as the letter of the Constitution and Laws of this Grand Lodge, or of the recognized Landmarks of Freemasonry, including the central tenets thereof.

Use it well, my Brother, and only with the greatest respect for its ancient usage and symbolism, and for the persons of those Brethren whom you may, from time to time, be ordered thus to reprehend in the presence of their fellows.

Thanks to John Klaus for his indefatigable work in researching the ancient archives to find this valuable lecture.