BROTHERS and BUILDERS:
The Basis and Spirit of Freemasonry.
BY JOSEPH FORT NEWTON (Litt.D.)

CHAPTER VI.

THE MASTER'S PIECE.

IN the olden time it was no easy matter for a man to become 
a Freemason. He had to win the right by hard work, technical 
skill, and personal worth. Then, as now, he had to prove 
himself a freeman of lawful age and legitimate birth, of sound 
body and good repute, to be eligible at all. Also, he had to 
bind himself to serve under rigid rules for seven years, his 
service being at once a test of his character and a training 
for his work. If he proved incompetent or unworthy, he was 
sent away.

In all operative Lodges of the Middle Ages, as in the guilds of 
skilled artisans of the same period, young men entered as 
Apprentices, vowing absolute obedience, for the Lodge was 
a school of the seven sciences, as well as of the art of 
building. At first the Apprentice was little more than a 
servant, doing the most Menial work, and if he proved 
himself trustworthy and proficient his wages were increased; 
but the rules were never relaxed, "except at Christmastime," 
as the Old Charges tell us, when there was a period of 
freedom duly celebrated with feast and frolic.

The rules by which an Apprentice pledged himself to live, as 
we find them recorded in the Old Charges, were very strict. 
He had first to confess his faith in God, vowing to honour the 
Church, the State and the Master under whom he served, 
agreeing not to absent himself from the service of the Order 
save with the license of the Master. He must be honest and 
upright, faithful in keeping the secrets of the Craft and the 
confidence of his fellows. He must not only be chaste, but 
must not marry or contract himself to any woman during the 
term of his apprenticeship. He must be obedient to the 
Master without argument or murmuring, respectful to all 
Freemasons, avoiding uncivil speech, free from slander and 
dispute. He must not frequent any tavern or ale-house, 
except it be upon an errand of the Master, or with his 
consent.

Such was the severe rule under which an Apprentice learned 
the art and secrets of the Craft. After seven years of study 
and discipline, either in the Lodge or at the Annual Assembly 
(where awards were usually made), he presented his 
"Masterpiece," some bit of stone or metal carefully carved, 
for the inspection of the Master, saving, "Behold my 
experience!" By which he meant the sum of his experiments. 
He had spoiled many a hit of stone. He had dulled the edge 
of many a tool. He had spent laborious nights and days, and 
the whole was in that tiny bit of work. His masterpiece was 
carefully examined by the Masters assembled and if it was 
approved he was made a Master Mason, entitled to take his 
kit of tools and go out as a workman, a Master and Fellow of 
his Craft. Not, however, until he had selected a Mark by 
which his work could be identified, and renewed his Vows to 
the Order in which he was now a Fellow.

The old order was first Apprentice, then Master, then Fellow 
- mastership being, in the early time, not a degree conferred, 
but a reward of skill as a workman and of merit as a man. 
The reversal of the order today is due, no doubt, to the 
custom of the German Guilds, where a Fellow Craft was 
required to serve two additional years as a journeyman 
before becoming a Master. No such custom was known in 
England. Indeed, the reverse was true, and it was the 
Apprentice who prepared his masterpiece, and if it was 
accepted, he became a Master. Having won his mastership, 
he was entitled to become a Fellow - that is, a peer and 
Fellow of the Craft which hitherto he had only served. 
Hence, all through the Old Charges, the order is "Masters 
and Fellows," but there are signs to show that a distinction 
was made according to ability and skill.

For example, in the Matthew Cooke MS. we read that it had 
been "ordained that they who were passing of cunning 
should be passing honoured," and those less skilled were 
commanded to call the more skilled "Masters." Then it is 
added, "They that were less of wit should not be called 
servant nor subject, but Fellow, for nobility of their gentle 
blood." After this manner our ancient Brethren faced the fact 
of human inequality of ability and initiative. Those who were 
of greater skill held a higher position and were called 
Masters, while the masses of the Craft were called Fellows. 
A further distinction must be made between a "Master" and a 
"Master of the Work," now represented by the Master of the 
Lodge. Between a Master and the Master of the Work there 
was no difference, of course, except an accidental one; they 
were both Masters and Fellows. Any Master could become a 
Master of the Work provided he was of sufficient skill and 
had the fortune to be chosen as such either by the employer 
or the Lodge, or both.

What rite or ritual, if any, accompanied the making of a 
Master in the old operative Lodges is still a matter of 
discussion. In an age devoted to ceremonial it is hard to 
imagine such an important event without its appropriate 
ceremony, but the details are obscure. But this is plain 
enough: all the materials out of which the degrees were later 
developed existed, if not in drama, at least in legend. 
Elaborate drama would not be necessary in an operative 
Lodge. Even to-day, much of what is acted out in an 
American Lodge, is merely recited in an English Lodge. 
Students seem pretty well agreed that from a very early time 
there were two ceremonies, or degrees, although, no doubt, 
in a much less elaborate form than now practiced. As the 
Order, after the close of the cathedral-building period, 
passed into its speculative character, there would naturally 
be many changes and much that was routine in an operative 
Lodge became ritual in a speculative Lodge.

This is not the time to discuss the origin and development of 
the Third Degree, except to say that those who imagine that 
it was an invention fabricated by Anderson and others at the 
time of the revival of Masonry, in 1717, are clearly wrong. 
Such a degree could have been invented by anyone familiar 
with the ancient Mystery Religions; but it could never have 
been imposed upon the Craft, unless it harmonized with 
some previous ceremony, or, at least, with ideas, traditions 
and legends familiar and common to the members of the 
Craft. That such ideas and traditions did exist in the Craft we 
have ample evidence. Long before 1717 we hear hints of 
"The Master's Part," and those hints increase as the office of 
Master of the Work lost its practical aspect after the 
cathedral-building period. What was the Master's Part? 
Unfortunately we cannot discuss it in print; but nothing is 
plainer than that we do not have to go outside of Masonry 
itself to find the materials out of which all three degrees, as 
they now exist, were developed.

Masonry was not invented; it grew. To-day it unfolds its wise 
and good and beautiful truth in three noble and impressive 
degrees, and no man can take them to heart and not be 
ennobled and enriched by their dignity and beauty. The first 
lays emphasis upon that fundamental righteousness without 
which a man is not a man, but a medley of warring passions 
- that purification of heart which is the basis alike of life and 
religion. The Second lays stress upon the culture of the 
mind, the training of its faculties in the quest of knowledge, 
without which man remains a child. The Third seeks to 
initiate us, symbolically, into the eternal life, making us 
victors over death before it arrives. The First is the Degree of 
Youth, the Second the Degree of Manhood, the Third the 
consolation and conquest of Old Age, when the evening 
shadows fall and the Eternal World and its unknown 
adventure draw near.

What, then, for each of us to-day, is meant by the Master's 
Piece? Is it simply a quaint custom handed down from our 
ancient Brethren, in which we learn how an Apprentice was 
made a Master of his Craft? It is that indeed, but much more. 
Unless we have eyes to see a double meaning everywhere 
in Masonry, a moral application and a spiritual suggestion, 
we see little or nothing. But if we have eyes to see it is 
always a parable, an allegory, a symbol, and the Master's 
Piece of olden time becomes an emblem of that upon which 
every man is working all the time and everywhere, whether 
he is aware of it or not-his character, his personality, by 
which he will be tested and tried at last. Character, as the 
word means, is something carved, something wrought out of 
the raw stuff and hard material of life. All we do, all we think, 
goes into the making of it. Every passion, every aspiration 
has to do with it. If we are selfish, it is ugly. If we are hateful, 
it is hideous. William James went so far as to say that just as 
the stubs remain in the check book, to register the 
transaction when the check is removed, so every mental act, 
every deed becomes a part of our being and character. Such 
a fact makes a man ponder and consider what he is making 
out of his life, and what it will look like at the end.

Like the Masons of old, apprenticed in the school of life, we 
work for "a penny a day." We never receive a large sum all 
at once, but the little reward of daily duties. The scholar, the 
man of science, attains truth, not in a day, but slowly, little by 
little, fact by fact. In the same way, day by day, act by act, 
we make our character, by which we shall stand judged 
before the Master of all Good Work. Often enough men 
make such a bad botch of it that they have to begin all over 
again. The greatest truth taught by religion is the forgiveness 
of God, which erases the past and gives another chance. All 
of us have spoiled enough material, dulled enough tools and 
made enough mistakes to teach us that life without charity is 
cruel and bitter.

Goethe, a great Mason, said that talent may develop in 
solitude, but character is created in society. It is the fruit of 
fellowship. Genius may shine aloof and alone, like a star, but 
goodness is social, and it takes two men and God to make a 
brother. In the Holy Book which lies open on our altar we 
read: "No man liveth unto himself; no man dieth unto 
himself." We are tied together, seeking that truth which none 
may learn for another, and none may learn alone. If evil men 
can drag us down, good men can lift us up. No one of us is 
strong enough not to need the companionship of good men 
and the consecration of great ideals. Here lies, perhaps, the 
deepest meaning and value of Masonry; it is a fellowship of 
men seeking goodness, and to yield ourselves to its 
influence, to be drawn into its spirit and quest, is to be made 
better than ourselves.

Amid such influences each of us is making his Master's 
Piece. God is all the time refining, polishing, with strokes 
now tender, now terrible. That is the meaning of pain, 
sorrow, death. It is the chisel of the Master cutting the rough 
stone. How hard the mallet strikes, but the stone becomes a 
pillar, an arch, perhaps an altar emblem. "Him that 
overcometh, I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. " 
The masterpiece of life, at once the best service to man and 
the fairest offering to God, is a pure, faithful, heroic, beautiful 
Character.

"Oh! the Cedars of Lebanon grow at our door,
And the quarry is sunk at our gate;
And the ships out of Ophir, with golden ore,
For our summoning mandate wait;
And the word of a Master Mason
May the house of our soul create!

"While the day hath light let the light be used,
For no man shall the night control!
Or ever the silver cord be loosed, Or broken the golden 
bowl, May we build King Solomon's Temple
In the true Masonic Soul!"