Your virtue, honor, and reputation are concerned in supporting with dignity the character you now bear. Let no motive, there-fore, make you swerve from your duty, violate your vows, or betray your trust; but be true and faithful, and imitate the example of that celebrated artist whom you this evening represent. Thus you will render yourself deserving of the honor which we have conferred, and merit the confidence we have reposed.
W. M.–Brother Gabe, you will now take your seat in this Lodge as a Master Mason, after stepping to the Secretary’s desk,
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and signing your name to the constitution and by-laws–which will then make you a member of this Lodge.
There is a lecture to this Degree, as well as in the other Degrees, but it is not generally given by the Master to the candidate on the night of his “raising.” The candidate generally gets this from some of the brethren who are well posted in the work. This Degree is very lengthy, and to give the lecture at an initiation would take up too much of the night; but if there is time, the Master and Senior Warden usually go through with the first section before closing the Lodge, so that the candidate and brethren may become conversant with it. The lecture is as follows:
FIRST SECTION.
Q. Are you a Master Mason?
A. I am.
Q. What induced you to become a Master Mason?
A. In order that I might travel in foreign countries, work and receive Master’s wages, being better enabled to support myself and family, and contribute to the relief of worthy distressed Master Masons, their widows and orphans.
Q. What makes you a Master Mason?
A. My obligation.
Q. Where were you made a Master Mason?
A. In a regularly constituted Lodge of Masons.
Q. How were you prepared?
A. By being divested of all metals, neither naked nor clothed, barefoot nor shod, hoodwinked, with a cable-tow three times around my body, in which condition I was conducted to the door of the Lodge by a brother.
Q. Why had you a cable-tow three times around your body?
A. To signify that my duties and obligations become more and more binding as I advance in Masonry.
Q. How gained you admission?
A. By three distinct knocks.
Q. To what do they allude?
A. To the three jewels of a Master Mason, which are friend-ship, morality, and brotherly love.
Q. What was said to you from within?
A. Who comes here?
Q. Your answer?
A. Brother A. B., who has been regularly initiated Entered Apprentice, passed to the Degree of Fellow Craft, and now wishes
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further light in Masonry, by being raised to the sublime Degree of a Master Mason.
Q. What were you then asked?
A. If it was of my own free-will and accord, if I was worthy and well qualified, duly and truly prepared, had made suitable proficiency in the preceding Degree, and was properly vouched for; all which being answered in the affirmative, I was asked by what further right or benefit I expected to gain admission.
Q. What followed?
A. I was directed to wait with patience until the Worshipful Master should be informed of my request, and his answer returned.
Q. What answer did he return?
A. Let him enter, and be received in due form.
Q. How were you received?
A. On both points of the compasses, extending from my naked left to my right breast, which was to teach me that, as the most vital parts of man are contained within the breast, so the most excellent tenets of our institution are contained between the points of the compasses, which are, friendship, morality, and brotherly love.
Q. How were you then disposed of?
A. I was conducted three times around the Lodge, to the Junior Warden in the south, where the same questions were asked, and like answers returned as at the door.
Q. How did the Junior Warden dispose of you?
A. He directed me to the Senior Warden in the west, and he to the Worshipful Master in the east, where the same questions were asked, and like answers returned as before.
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
