Beginning at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem and running northward through the Judean mountains, an ancient highway, sometimes called the Highway of the Patriarchs, winds its way through the Holy Land to Damascus in Syria and around the Fertile Crescent to the Mesopotamian Valley in Iraq. One beautiful Saturday morning, the Sabbath in Israel, in late October, we traveled that ancient highway on our way to Galilee.

About 23 miles north of Jerusalem, the bus stopped without warning. After we followed our guide off the bus, we gathered around him as he pointed out an ancient stone landmark beside the highway. It indicated that Shiloh was a little over a mile and a half to the east. That brought to mind the Biblical description of the location of Shiloh "which is north of Bethel, on the east of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah" (Judges 21:19).

From time immemorial, landmarks have been erected in that part of the world. Those landmarks, usually made of stone and often elaborately inscribed by master craftsmen, marked boundaries between fields, districts, and nations. An early reference indicating the antiquity of such landmarks is found in the Old Testament (Genesis 31:45–50) when, almost four thousand years ago, Laban and Jacob set up a marker called Mizpah, or the heap of witness, between their property. It was the function of such landmarks to determine boundaries and set limits.

In general usage, the word landmark has taken on a wider meaning. It is frequently used to designate an event, document, legislation, or something else of major significance that is considered to be a high point or a turning point that establishes boundaries and sets limits.

Masons are familiar with this usage of "landmark," for the "ancient landmarks" are mentioned frequently in Masonic rituals. These twenty-five landmarks—"of higher antiquity than memory or history can reach," universally accepted and unrepealable—are the basic principles and customs upon which the Craft is established.

In everyday usage, the word landmark is used to draw attention to significant documents, decisions, and legislation. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount are landmark statements that determine boundaries and set limits in that tradition. In American culture, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, to which was added the Bill of Rights, are landmark documents which established boundaries in our nation and set limits for a free people who, at the risk of life and sacred honor, determined to govern themselves.

In ancient times, it was considered a serious crime to remove landmarks. Mosaic Law decreed, "You shall not remove your neighbor's landmark, which the men of old have set" (Deuteronomy 19:14), and 2,500 years ago, it had become proverbial: "Remove not the ancient landmarks which your fathers have set" (Proverbs 22:28). This, along with the Masonic principle that landmarks may not be changed, is a poignant reminder that those ancient landmarks, dear to all good American citizens, which have marked boundaries and set limits for our society, ought to be taken seriously and not changed readily either by legal amendment or by our attitude toward them.

W. Howard Coop is a retired United Methodist Minister and has been a Mason since 1952. He is a Past Master of Lancaster Lodge No. 104, currently serving as Chaplain and member of Lancaster Chapter No. 56 R.A.M. and the Scottish Rite Bodies of Louisville, Kentucky.