SECOND DEGREE. "They that be Labouring Men, or Craftsmen, do it truly." Antient Charges, MS. ADDRESS TO A BROTHER ON HIS BEING CRAFTED. WE have now endeavoured, BROTHer, to reward your diligence by conferring on you a higher rank in the scale of Masonry; making to you new and interesting discoveries; and assigning you work in an elevated apartment of the temple. IN behalf of the brethren, I congratulate your preferment. I assure you that the step you have taken is a safe one; and with a single eye you may see that your stagings are firm, your situation secure, and your prospects brightened. You will now be instructed in the use of tools of a more artful and ingenious con struction. Be not regardless of their symbolic application. By them you will learn to reduce rude matter into form, and rude manners into the more polished shape of moral and religious rectitude; becoming thereby, yourself, a more symmetical part of the structure of human society. By the square of justice, learn to measure your actions. To the level of humility and condescension, reduce your disposition and demeanor: And by the plumb line of rectitude regulate all your moral conduct. THE grade to which you are now advanced has its appropriate services and duties. It demands the exercise of strength, intellectual and moral; and it calls for the extension of relief to your brethren, according to your ability and their exigence. WHILE invincible as a Mason, and brave as a man; be sure to display the benignity of the friend, and the kindness of the brother. You are to learn, now, to encounter trials with unyielding stability; and to endure tribulation with submissive patience. And you will find that Masonry prevents the pusilanimity of dejection, and silences the murmurs of discontent, by encouragements and supports peculiar to itself. But should a lot be your's in life, as we fervently hope, exempt from the pains of affliction and the pressure of adversity, let the lessons you are now acquiring teach you to help and relieve all your destitute and distressed brethren to the best of your power. Be willing to distribute to the necessitous a portion of those bounties your prosperity can spare ; and ready to communicate to the afflicted some of those precious consolations which sympathy prepares and kindness administers. And your's be all the blessings promised the merciful by the Gob of mercy! BROTHER, WE have seen with pleasure your improvement in our art; and are convinced that your industry and perseverance will soon lead you to the acquirement of greater knowledge and entitle you to greater honours. * "Maconnes teach the skylle of becommynge gudge and parfyghte, withoughten the holpynges of fere and hope." MS. BODL. THIRD DEGREE. "Every one shall answere these three questions; How hast thou entered? How hast thou wrought? How hast thou lived? And if he he can assoile these, and hath laud therein, he may be raised and honoured and rewarded." ANTIENT MS. ADDRESS TO A BROTHER AT HIS RAISING. BROTHER, THE arcana of our craft are imparted gradually to it members, according to their improvement. As you have acquitted yourself well as an expert and ingenious craftsman, in reward for your diligence and ingenuity we now admit you to our most confidential communications, and exalt you to the sublime degree of MASTER MASON. : THIS, brother, is a privilege which but few obtain and must be more grateful to you as the badges with which you are now invested, are conferred only on the worthy and the wise. |