The Three Ruffians stand within the Temple of Man.

Ignorance darkens the inner chamber, until the soul forgets the design by which it was made. Ambition seizes the tools of labour and turns them from service to dominion. Fanaticism strikes the final blow, hardening zeal into violence and calling its own blindness holy.

Thus Hiram Abif is slain whenever the higher faculties are betrayed by the lower nature. Wisdom is silenced. Beauty is defaced. Strength is used against ‘self’. The virtuous desire, which would raise the mind toward the East, is dragged down into the dust of appetite, vanity, and rage.

The tragedy of the Master Builder is therefore enacted in every age and in every breast. The temple falls first within and afterward upon the earth. When men enthrone ignorance as opinion, ambition as greatness and fanaticism as truth, the ruffians are no longer fugitives. They become rulers.

Modernity has given them vast instruments: voices without wisdom, power without proportion, conviction without light. Their dominion spreads wherever the soul refuses discipline.

The work remains what it has always been: to recover the lost Word within the ruins of ourselves and to raise again the slain principle by purity of heart, rectitude of conduct and fidelity to the Light.