The Fellowcraft

The Fellowcraft Degree is a symbol of manhood.

Allen Roberts wrote, "When you received and learned as an Entered Apprentice is symbolic of youth. The ceremonies you pass through, and what you wil learn as a Fellowcraft will be symbolic of manhood. It will be a manhood of continuing education." (The Craft and Its Symbols, page 41)

"Fellowcraft; 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 his life, his pathway lighted by the rays of the shining 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 in the quarries. The description is suggestive, for it is by men in the Fellow Craft period in 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 form 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 though seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting – 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. Were we to 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 form another, ignorant of the secrets and arts 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 symbols, 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 and adequate (Wisdom). (Excerpted from "The Masonic Scholar: A Manual of Masonic Education for Candidates" Printed by the Grand Lodge F.&A.M. of California)

"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 stair and at last entered the Middle Chamber where our ancient Brethren received their wages of Corn, Wine and Oil. During certain stages of thisallegorical 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 life a lottery prize; they cannot come at all expect thought 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 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 18thcentury, but since that time it has come to have a double interpretation: first, as being the first letter of our name for that Deity in whose existence all Masons have professed belief, the continued expression of which is symbolized by 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.
(Excerpted from "The Masonic Scholar: A Manual of Masonic Education for Candidates" Printed by the Grand Lodge F.&A.M. of California)


July 27, 2007