nvestiture with the gloves is very closely connected with the
investiture with the apron, and the consideration of the symbolism of the
one naturally follows the consideration of the symbolism of the other.

In the continental rites of Masonry, as practised in France, in Germany,
and in other countries of Europe, it is an invariable custom to present
the newly-initiated candidate not only, as we do, with a white leather
apron, but also with two pairs of white kid gloves, one a man's pair for
himself, and the other a woman's, to be presented by him in turn to his
wife or his betrothed, according to the custom of the German masons, or,
according to the French, to the female whom he most esteems, which,
indeed, amounts, or should amount, to the same thing.

There is in this, of course, as there is in everything else which pertains
to Freemasonry, a symbolism. The gloves given to the candidate for himself
are intended to teach him that the acts of a mason should be as pure and
spotless as the gloves now given to him. In the German lodges, the word
used for _acts_ is of course _handlungen_, or _handlings_, "the works of
his hands," which makes the symbolic idea more impressive.

Dr. Robert Plott--no friend of Masonry, but still an historian of much
research--says, in his "Natural History of Staffordshire," that the
Society of Freemasons, in his time (and he wrote in 1660), presented their
candidates with gloves for themselves and their wives. This shows that the
custom still preserved on the continent of Europe was formerly practised
in England, although there as well as in America, it is discontinued,
which is, perhaps, to be regretted.

But although the presentation of the gloves to the candidate is no longer
practised as a ceremony in England or America, yet the use of them as a
part of the proper professional clothing of a mason in the duties of the
lodge, or in processions, is still retained, and in many well-regulated
lodges the members are almost as regularly clothed in their white gloves
as in their white aprons.

The symbolism of the gloves, it will be admitted, is, in fact, but a
modification of that of the apron. They both signify the same thing; both
are allusive to a purification of life. "Who shall ascend," says the
Psalmist, "into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy
place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart." The apron may be said
to refer to the "pure heart," the gloves to the "clea