FELLOWCRAFT
MEANING OF THE
TERM "FELLOWCRAFT"
"Fellow Craft" is one of the large number of terms
which have a technical meaning peculiar to Freemasonry and are seldom found
elsewhere.
In Operative Masonry a "Craft" was an organization of
skilled workmen in some trade or calling, a "fellow" meant one who held
membership in such a craft, obligated to the same duties and allowed the same
privileges.
In Freemasonry it possesses two separate meanings, one of
which we may call the Operative meaning, and the other the Speculative.
In its Operative period Freemasons were skilled workmen
engaged as architects and builders; like other skilled workmen, they had an
organized craft of their own, the general form of which was called a " -Guild."
This guild had officers, laws, rules, regulations, and customs of its own,
rigorously binding on all members.
It divided its membership into two grades, the lower of which
composed of apprenticeship, was explained to you in our first meeting.
You have already learned the Operative meaning of Fellow
Craft; now that the Craft is no longer Operative the term possesses a very
different meaning, yet it is still used in its original sense in certain parts
of the Ritual, and, of course, it is frequently met with in the histories of the
Fraternity.
Operative Freemasonry began to decline at about the
time of the Reformation, when Lodges became few in number and small in
membership.
A few of these in England began to admit into membership
men with no intention of practicing Operative Masonry, but who were attracted by
the Craft's antiquity, and for social philosophical reasons.
These were called Speculative Masons.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century these
Speculatives so increased in numbers that they gained control, and during the
first quarter of that century completely transformed the Craft into the
Speculative Fraternity we now have.
Although they adhered as closely as possible to the old
customs, they made radical changes to fit the Society for its new purposes.
One of the most important of these was to abandon
the old rule of dividing the members into two grades, or degrees, and to adopt
the new rule of dividing them into three.
The second was called the Fellow Craft’s Degree,
the third the Master Mason's Degree.
The term Fellow Craft is now used as the name of one
who has received the Second Degree.
You are a Fellow Craft; you have passed through the
ceremonies, assumed the obligations of the Fellow Craft's Degree and are
registered as a Fellow Craft in the books of the Lodge.
You can sit in either a Lodge of Apprentices or of
Fellow Crafts, but not of Master Masons.
Your duties are to do and to be all that a Fellow
Craft's Lodge requires.
Freemasonry is too extensive to be exemplified in a
ritual or to be presented through initiation in one evening.
One Degree follows another and the members of each
stand on a different level of rights and duties; but this does not mean that the
Masonry presented in either the First or Second Degree, so far as its nature and
teachings are concerned, is less important, or less binding, than that presented
in the Third Degree.
All that is taught in the First and Second Degrees belongs
as vitally and permanently to Freemasonry as that which is taught in the Third;
there is a necessary subordination in the grades of membership but there is no
subordination of the Masonry presented in each grade.
Do not, therefore, be tempted to look upon the Fellow
Craft's Degree as a mere stepping-stone to the Third.
Freemasonry gave to you one part of itself in the
First, another portion in the Second, and in the Third it will give you yet
another, but it is always Freemasonry throughout.
Therefore, we urge on you the same studious
attention while you are a Fellow Craft that you doubtless expect to give when
you are a Master Mason.
In asking you to learn well the duties, privileges, and
limitations of an Entered Apprentice, we also urge you to conceive of
apprenticeship in the larger sense.
It is not particularly difficult for a worthy
candidate to become a member in name only, but we want your ambition to extend
far beyond that perfunctory stage.
We believe that you wish to become a Mason in
reality and that no idle desire for the honor of bearing the name has been your
motive for seeking our fellowship.
If this be true, we urgently advise you not to be
content with the letter and outward form in this your beginning period, but to
apply yourself with freedom, fervency and zeal to the sincere and thorough
mastering of our Royal Art.
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AN INTERPRETATION OF THE
RITUAL OF THE SECOND DEGREE
You are now a Fellow Craft.
Our purpose is to try to explain some of the
meanings of the Degree; a part only, as it would require many evenings to
explain it in full.
Many great ideas are embodied therein, which, if understood,
will lead to comprehension of others.
One of these is the idea of adulthood.
The Entered Apprentice represents youth standing at the
portals of life, his pathway lighted by the rays of the rising sun.
The Master Mason represents the man of years,
already on the farther slope of the hill with the setting sun in his eyes.
The Fellow Craft is a man in the prime of
life-experienced, strong, resourceful, able to bear the heat and burden of the
day.
Only in its narrowest sense can adulthood be described
in terms of years.
If and when he achieves it, a man discovers that the mere
fact that he is forty or fifty years of age has little to do with it.
Adulthood is rather a quality of mind and heart.
The man in his middle years carries the
responsibilities.
It is he upon whom a family depends for support; he is the
Atlas on whose shoulders rest the burdens of business; by his skill and
experience the arts are sustained; to his keeping are entrusted the destinies of
the State.
It is said that in the building of his Temple, King
Solomon employed eighty thousand Fellow Crafts, who labored in the mountains and
the quarries.
The description is suggestive, for it is by men in the
Fellow Craft period of life that the work is done, in the mountains and quarries
of human experience.
What does the Second Degree say to the Fellow Craft,
whether in Masonry or in the world at large?
The Answer brings us to the second great idea that
the Fellow Craft is so to equip himself that he will prove adequate to the tasks
which will be laid upon him.
What is that equipment?
The Degree gives us at least three answers.
The first is that the Fellow Craft must gain direct
experience from contact with the realities of existence.
You will recall what was said about the Five
Senses.
Needless to say, that portion of the Middle Chamber
Lecture was not intended as a dissertation on either physiology or psychology;
it is symbolism, and represents what a man learns through seeing, touching,
tasting, hearing and smelling-in short, immediate experience; and a man garners
such experience only with the passage of time.
The second answer is education.
The possibilities of an individual's experience are
limited.
Could we learn of life only that with which we are brought
in contact by our senses, we would be poorly equipped to deal with its
complexities and responsibilities.
To our store of hard-won experience we add the
experience of others, supplementing ours by the information of countless men
which is brought to us through many channels; our own knowledge must be made
more nearly complete by the accumulated knowledge of the race.
We have a picture of this in Freemasonry: . In the days
when Masons were builders of great and costly structures, the apprentice was a
mere boy, ten to fifteen years of age, scarcely knowing one tool from another,
ignorant of the secrets and art of the builders.
Yet, if worthy and skillful, after seven years he
was able to produce his Master's Piece and perform any task to which the Master
might appoint him.
How was all this accomplished?
Only by
the instruction, guidance and inspiration the Master was
able to give him as a result of long years of experience and development.
Such is education, symbolized in the Second Degree by
the Liberal Arts and Sciences.
No doubt you were surprised to hear what was said
about grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy, and
wondered what such schoolroom topics had to do with Masonry.
You understand now!
The explanation of these subjects was not intended
as an academic lecture.
Like so much else in the Degree, they are symbolism
signifying all that is meant by education.
The third answer is wisdom.
Experience gives us awareness of the world at points of
immediate contact; knowledge gives us competence for special tasks in the
activities of life.
But a man's life is not confined to his immediate
experience; nor is he day and night engaged in the same task; life is richer
than that!
Wisdom is that quality of judgment by which we are able to
adapt our experience and knowledge to a practical solution of our social
relations to others; wisdom to make our work conform to the plan of the Great
Architect.
The Middle Chamber, which is so conspicuous in the
Second Degree, is a symbol of wisdom.
Through the Five Senses (Experience), and through
knowledge of the Liberal
Arts and Sciences (Education), the candidate is called to
advance, as on Winding Stairs, to that maturity of life in which the senses,
emotions, intellect, character, work, deeds, habits and soul of a man are knit
together in unity, balanced, poised, adequate: Wisdom.
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SYMBOLS AND ALLEGORIES OF
THE SECOND DEGREE
Of
the allegories peculiar to this Degree the most striking
and important is that in which you acted the part of a man approaching King
Solomon's Temple; you came into its outer precincts; passed between the Two
Pillars, climbed a winding stairs and at last entered the Middle Chamber where
our ancient brethren received their wages of Corn, Wine, and Oil.
During certain stages of this allegorical journey
you listened to various parts of a discourse which Masonry calls the Middle
Chamber Lecture.
We gradually achieve a greater appreciation of the
great values of life; religion, which is man's quest for God; brotherhood, which
is a life of fellowship grounded in good will; art, by which we enjoy the
beautiful; citizenship, by which we enjoy the good of communal life; science, by
which we learn the nature of the world we live in; literature, by which we enter
into communion with the life of all mankind.
A good life is one in which all such things are
appreciated and enjoyed.
All this is commonplace, in the sense that it conforms
to the experience of wise men everywhere.
It is not commonplace in the sense that all men
understand it or follow it.
For many men do not understand it, or if they do, have not
the will to follow it.
Such men, when young, are so impatient, or indolent, or
conceited, that they refuse to submit to a long and painful apprenticeship, and
reach adult life with all its tasks and responsibilities, without training and
without knowledge, blindly trusting to their luck.
This belief that the good things of life come by chance
to the fortunate, is a fatal blunder.
The satisfying values of life, spiritual, moral,
intellectual, or physical, cannot be won like a lottery prize; they cannot come
at all except through patient, intelligent and sustained effort.
Your instructions relative to the wages of a Fellow
Craft, given in the place representing the Middle Chamber of King Solomon's
Temple, are by no means completed at this point, for, in common with all other
values of Freemasonry, they are a continuing experience.
The “wages" are the intangible but no less real
compensation for a faithful and intelligent use of the Working Tools, fidelity
to your obligations, and unflagging interest in and study of the structure
purpose, and possibilities of the Fraternity.
Such wages may be defined in terms of a deeper
understanding of Brotherhood, a clearer conception of ethical living, a broader
toleration, a sharper impatience with the mediocre and unworthy, and a more
resolute will to think justly, independently, and honestly.
You recall the prominence which was given the letter G.
It is doubtful if this symbol in its present form was of any Masonic
significance prior to the 18th century, but since that time it has come to have
a double interpretation: first, as being the first letter of our name for the
Deity in whose existence all Masons have professed belief, the continued
expression of which is symbolized by the presence of the Volume of the Sacred
Law upon our altar; second, as being the initial of Geometry, regarded as the
basic science of Operative Masonry, now symbolizing to Speculative Masons the
unchanging natural laws which govern the whole material universe.
Together they symbolize that attribute of God
revealed to us through Geometry: God as the great intelligence of the universe.
This is consistent, as the entire Degree makes its
appeal to the intellect.
Such are some of the meanings of your allegorical
entrance into Solomon's Temple as a candidate in the Second Degree.
Other symbols and allegories in the Degree may be
interpreted in the light of these definitions when the Degree as a whole becomes
a living influence upon our lives, not only in the Lodge room but in the world
of human experience of which the Lodge room is a symbol.
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DUTIES AND PRIVILEGES OF
A FELLOWCRAFT
The first and foremost duty of a Fellowcraft is to live
according to the obligations of the Degree; to be obedient to the officers of
the Lodge and to the rules, regulations, and laws of the Fraternity.
Also he must learn well the work in order to pass
his test for proficiency.
If he be earnest and sincere he will study the meaning of
the Degree as a preparation for his Masonic life in the future.
His limitations are equally plain.
He may sit in Lodge only when open on the Fellow
Craft or Entered Apprentice Degree.
He is not entitled to vote, to hold office, to have
a voice in the administration of the Lodge, nor would he be entitled to relief,
to join in public Masonic processions, or to Masonic burial.
He has a right to instruction whereby he may prove himself
proficient in open Lodge; and he can make himself known to other Fellow Crafts
by means of his modes of recognition.
A Mason remains a Fellow Craft, in a real sense, as
long as he lives.
Taking the First Degree is like drawing a circle; the
Second Degree is a circle drawn around the first; the Third Degree is a still
larger circle drawn around the other two, and containing both.
A portion of Freemasonry is contained within the
first; another part is in the second, still a third in the last.
Being a Master Mason includes being also an Entered
Apprentice and a Fellow Craft.
The Entered Apprentice's and Fellow Craft's Degrees
are not like stages left behind in a journey to be abandoned or forgotten;
rather are they preserved and incorporated in the Master Mason's Degree and form
the foundation on which it rests.
The ideas, the ideals, and the teachings of the Second
Degree as permanently belong to Freemasonry as the Third; the moral obligations
continue always to be binding.
A Master Mason is as much the Brother of Entered
Apprentices and Fellow Crafts as of Master Masons.
Freemasonry has many aspects.
The First Degree makes its appeal to the
conscience, and we are taught how necessary is obedience, apprenticeship and
industry if we would become good men and true.
The Second Degree exalts the intellectual, paying
its tribute alike to knowledge and wisdom.
In the Third Degree, as you will learn in due time,
is the Masonry of the soul.
Running through all three degrees is the Masonry of
fellowship, good will, kindness, loyalty, tolerance, brotherly love; we also
learn the Masonry of benevolence, expressed in relief and charity; again we have
Masonry as an institution, organized under laws and managed by responsible
officers; and yet again we have a Masonry that holds above and before us those
great ideals of truth, justice, courage and goodness, to which we can always
aspire.
The Operative builders gave the world among other
masterpieces, the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe.
Their art was one of the highest and the most
difficult practiced in their period.
The Masons were Masters of mathematics, which they
called Geometry, of engineering, of the principles of design, of carving, of
stained glass, and of mosaic.
Through all the changes of the Craft in after years,
through its transformation more than two hundred years ago into a Speculative
Fraternity, their great intellectual tradition has remained and stands today
embodied in the Second Degree, which teaches Masons to love the Liberal Arts and
Sciences, and apply them in daily living.
This Masonry of the mind develops one of the real
meanings of the Second Degree; it is what truly signified by our term
"Fellowcraft".
Whenever you prove yourself a friend of enlightenment,
whenever you become an enemy of bigotry or intolerance, and a champion of the
mind's right to be free, to do its work without check or hindrance, when you
support schools and colleges, and labor to translate into action the command
"let there be light", you live the teachings of the Fellowcraft Degree.
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Scriptures
You will recall that
during the conferral of the Fellowcraft Degree, a portion of the Holy Scriptures
was read to you. The reading was either from the Book of Amos, Chapter 7, verses
7 and 8 or may have been from the Book of Exodus, Chapter 20, verses 2 -7.
The Fellowcraft Degree is
one in which a great moral lesson is taught by the Plumb Line. In all languages
and in the experience of all builders the use of the plumb line in fundamental.
Builders depend upon the plumb line to erect perpendiculars; buildings straight
and true and upright. From the use of the plumb line, we get such words as
rectitude, just, true, rightness, straightness, integrity, honesty, and many
others.
"Thus he shewed
me;
And Behold the Lord stood
Upon a wall made by a plumb-line
With a plumb-line in His hand.
And the Lord said unto me:
'Amos, what seest thou?
And I said, 'A plumb-line.'
Then said the Lord,
'Behold, I will set a plumb-line
In the midst of my people Israel,
I will not again pass by them any more."
(Book of Amos, Chapter
7, verses 7 and 8)
The background of this
Scripture from Amos is interesting. Amos was an ordinary citizen of Judea who
was moved of God to go to the Northern Kingdom and point out the sins that were
bringing that nation to ruin.
He prophesied sometime
between 783 and 745 B.C. Israel was prosperous, too prosperous, for most of the
people had forgotten God and were living in a time when honor and justice were
forgotten virtues. There were the very rich and the very poor and a condition
wherein judges could be bought as bread or oil.
The nation was crooked
inside and out. God was disgusted with their evils and sins. Amos could see no
hope for Israel and felt that the only remedy God had was to destroy them
utterly. So this message was one of gloom and ruin.
If you read further, you
will find what God meant when He said that He would not "pass by them any more."
He meant that He would not visit them, He would ignore them, they would be
destroyed. "And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries
of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam
with the sword."
The plumb-line is an
instrument of testing. God had tested the morals of Israel and found them
crooked. God had tested the loyalty of Israel and found it covered with avarice,
greed, and sin. This is a lesson of judgment. We are continually being judged by
God's plumb-line......we as individuals, as a nation, as a world, even as
Masons.
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masonic glossary OF THE
SECOND DEGREE
| Admonish |
to caution advise or counsel against; to express
warning or disapproval; to give friendly, earnest advice and
encouragement
|
| Artificer |
a skilled or artistic worker or craftsman; one
who makes beautiful objects
|
| Beneficent |
doing or producing good
|
| Bourne |
boundaries; limits
|
| Brazen |
made of brass
|
| Candor |
freedom from bias, prejudice or malice; fairness;
impartiality
|
| Capital |
the uppermost part of a column
|
| Chapiter |
an alternate, and earlier, form of the word
capital
|
| Column |
a supporting pillar consisting of a base, a
cylindrical shaft and a capital
|
| Composite |
one of the five orders of architecture, combining
the Corinthian and Ionic styles
|
|
Conflagration |
fire, especially a large, disastrous fire
|
| Contemplate |
to look at attentively and thoughtfully; to
consider carefully
|
| Contrive |
to devise; to plan; to invent or build in an
artistic or ingenious manner
|
| Corinthian |
one of the three classical (Greek) orders of
architecture - the most ornamented of the three. Originated in the
City of Corinth in Greece
|
| Cubit |
an ancient unit of linear measure, approximately
18 inches in today's measure
|
| Depressed |
underneath; lower than its surroundings |
| Discerning |
showing
insight and understanding; excellent judgement |
| Dispersed |
scattered;
spread widely |
| Diurnal |
recurring
every day; having a daily cycle |
| Doric |
one of the
three classical (Greek) orders of architecture - the oldest and
simplest of the three, originated in an area of ancient Greece known
as Doris |
| Edifice |
a
building, especially one of imposing appearance or size |
| Ephraimites |
members of one of the twelve tribes
of Israel, descended from Ephraim, one
of the sons of
Jacob
|
| Homage |
respect or
reverence paid or rendered; expression of high regard |
| Injunction |
an order
or requirement placed upon someone by a superior |
|
Inundation |
to
overflow with water; a flood |
| Ionic |
one of the
three classical (Greek) orders of architecture, originated in an
area of ancient Greece known as Ionia |
| Judicious |
having,
exercising or characterized by sound judgement; discrete; wise |
| Naphtali |
one of the sons of Jacob, brother of
Joseph, and a founder of one of the
twelve tribes of
Israel
|
| Novitiate |
a
beginner; a novice |
| Palliate |
to try to
conceal the seriousness of an offense by excuses and apologies; to
moderate the intensity of; to reduce the seriousness of; to relieve
or lessen without curing |
| Pilaster |
an upright
architectural member that is rectangular in plan and is structurally
a pier, but is architecturally treated as a column; it usually
projects a third of its width or less from the wall |
| Pommel |
a ball or
knob |
| Reprehend |
to voice
disapproval of; to express an attitude of unhappiness and disgust |
| Salutary |
producing
a beneficial effect; remedial; promoting health; curative; wholesome |
| Severally |
one at a
time; each by itself; separately; independently |
| Summons |
a written
notice issued for an especially important meeting of a Lodge; the
written notice or requirement by authority to appear at a place
named |
| Superfice |
a
geometrical object which is of two dimensions and exists in a single
plane |
|
Superstructure |
anything
based on, or rising from, some foundation or basis; an entity,
concept or complex based on a more fundamental one |
| Tuscan |
one of the
five orders of architecture, originated in the Tuscany area of
southern Italy |
|
Undiscovered Country From Whose Bourne No Traveler Returns |
that which lies beyond death; the
afterlife
(Shakespeare, Hamlet: Act III, Scene 1)
|
|
Vicissitudes |
the
successive, alternating or changing phases or conditions of life or
fortune; ups and downs; the difficulties of life; difficulties or
hardships which are part of a way of life or career |
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