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SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.III   June, 1925   No.6

THE LEVEL AND THE PLUMB

by:  Unknown

Before you could become a Fellowcraft it was demanded of you that you 
become proficient in the work of the First Degree; that you learn "by 
heart" a certain portion of the Ritual, and make yourself competent 
to "stand and deliver" it on occasion.

Such a memorization is the sole survival of that ancient custom of 
Operative Masonry of demanding from the Apprentice, who had served 
the legal time (usually seven years), a Master's Piece; and example 
of ability in Masonry by which his fellows could judge whether or no 
he had made good use of his time and was fit to be "passed" from the 
state of being but an Apprentice, to that of being a Fellow (or 
companion) of the Craft.

Alas, that our modern Master's Piece is so modest in its required 
effort!  For it takes no one very long, nor does it make much of a 
drain upon time or patience, to "learn the words" by heart.  Lucky is 
he whose instructor is not content with teaching him just the words 
and their order, but who insists upon in-structing as to their 
meaning and their history.

The modern Fellowcraft Degree is, as a whole, emblematical of 
manhood; to attain is to be grown up, Masonically speaking.  As the 
entered Apprentice Degree speaks of birth and babyhood, of first 
beginnings and first principles, so does the degree of Fellowcraft 
speak of growth, of strength and of virility to those who have inward 
and spiritual ears with which to hear.  No thoughtful man can avoid 
the impression that this degree is an attempt to emphasize the vital 
need of knowledge; to encourage study and research, to bring out the 
beauty of wisdom.  It is true that the liberal education which the 
degree was once sup-posed to outline and encourage is no longer 
either liberal or educational in fact; but it is still symbolical of 
all that a good Mason should learn.

To understand the degree and what it attempts to do, one must have 
some knowledge of its history, and of William Preston, who brought 
the vigor of a trained mind to bear upon the often hasty and ill 
considered lectures with which it progenitors were given.  He turned 
these lectures into the elaborate exposition of the five senses, the 
seven liberal arts and sciences which we now have.  In Preston's day 
such an exposition of knowledge was all inclusive; it is not 
Preston's fault that he knew nothing of science as we know it; that 
he knew nothing of medicine or biology or archeology or criticism, or 
electricity or astronomy in the modern sense.  There are those who 
would substitute for the Prestonian Lectures and the Prestonian-Webb 
form of the degree, wholly modern exposition of the obtaining of 
knowledge.  With such as these we have nothing to do; our Fellowcraft 
Degree is hallowed with age, and it is a lovely thing to do as have 
all those good brothers and fellows who have gone this way before us.
But there is nothing to prevent us from reading the degrees 
symbolically.  We do not have to accept it as literal, any more than 
we have to accept the first verse of the seventh chapter of 
Revelations:

"And after these things I saw four Angels standing on the four 
corners of the earth . . ."

as proof that the earth is square and not round.  We can consider the 
meaning of the degree, and govern ourselves accordingly.  And if we 
do so, we will start now, at once, to make ourselves earnest students 
not only of Masonic knowledge, but of knowledge in general.  For of 
knowledge and its obtaining, this degree is most certainly a teacher; 
from the time of entry through the West Gate until the finish of the 
lecture, the entered Apprentice in the process of being "passed" is 
instructed, taught, given knowledge and urged that only by knowledge 
can he hope to obtain complete growth and the final glory of Masonry 
and of life, the Sublime degree of Master Mason.

The most outstanding symbol in the degree of Fellowcraft is the 
Flight of Winding Stairs.  In the Book of Kings we find; 
"They Went up With Winding Stairs into the Middle Chamber."  We go up 
"with winding stairs" into "The Middle Chamber of King Solomon's 
Temple."  Also we travel up a winding stairs of life, and arrive, if 
we climb steadfastly, at the middle chamber of existence, which is 
removed from birth, babyhood and youth by the steps of knowledge and 
experience, but which is not so high above the ground that we are not 
as yet of the earth, earthy; not so high that we can justifiably 
regard it as more than a Stepping Off Place from which we may, 
perhaps, ascend to the Sanctum Sanctorum; that Holy of Holies, in 
which our troubled spirits find rest, our ignorance finds knowledge, 
and our eyes see God.

There is a symbolism in the fact that the stairway "Winds." 
A straight stairway is not as easy to climb as a winding one, which, 
because of the fact that it does wind, ascends by easier stages than 
one which climbs as a ladder.  But, also, a straight stair has the 
goal in sight constantly, and while it may be more difficult in the 
effort and strength required, it is easier because one can see where 
one is going.  There is no faith needed in climbing a ladder; one can 
visualize the top and have its inspiration constantly before one as 
one rises rung after rung.

But the winding stairway is one which tries a man's soul.  
He must "Believe," or he cannot reach the top.  Nothing is clear 
before him but the next step.  He must take it on faith that there is 
a top, that if he but climb long enough he will, indeed, reach a 
middle chamber, a goal, a place of light.  In such a way are the 
Winding Stairs and the Middle Chamber symbols of life and manhood.  
No man knows what he will become; as a boy he may have a goal, but 
many reach other Middle Chambers than those they visualized as they 
started the ascent.  No man knows whether he will ever climb all the 
stairs; the Angel of Death may stand but around the corner on the 
next step.  Yet, in spite of a lack of knowledge of what is at the 
top of the stairs, in spite of the fact that a Flaming Sword may bar 
his ascent, man climbs.  He climbs in faith that there is a goal and 
that he shall reach it; and no good Mason doubts but that for those 
who never see the glory of the Middle Chamber in this life, a lamp is 
set that they may see still farther in another, better one.

We are taught that we should use that which God gave us, the five 
senses, to climb the remaining seven steps of the stairway, which are 
the seven liberal arts and sciences.  Again we must remember that 
William Preston, who put such a practical interpre-tation upon these 
steps, lived in an age when these did indeed represent all of 
knowledge.  But we must not refuse to grow because the ritual has not 
grown with modern discovery.  When we rise by Grammar and Rhetoric, 
we must consider that they mean not only language but all methods of 
communication.  The step of logic means a knowledge not only of all 
methods of reasoning, but of all reasoning which logicians have 
accomplished.  When we ascend by Arithmetic and Geometry, we must 
visualize all science; since science is but measurement, and all 
measurement in the true mathematical sense, it requires no great 
stretch of the imagination  to read into these two steps all that 
science may teach.  The step denominated Music means not only sweet 
and harmonious sounds, but all beauty; poetry, art, nature, loveli-
ness of whatever kind.  Not to familiarize himself with the beauty 
which nature provides is to be, by so much, less a man; to stunt, by 
so much, a striving soul.  As for the seventh step of astronomy, 
surely it means not only the study of the solar system and the stars, 
as it did in William Preston;s day, but also the study of all that is 
beyond the earth; of spirit and the world of spirit, of ethics, 
philosophy, the abstract . . .of deity.

Preston builded better than he knew; his seven steps are both logical 
in arrangement and suggestive in their order; the true Fellowcraft 
will see in them a guide to the making of a man rich in mind and 
spirit, by which, and only by which riches, can the truest 
brotherhood be obtained and practiced.

The Fellowcraft Degree is one of action.  Recall, if you will, where 
you wore your Cable-Tow; but think not that it confines action; it 
urges it.  A great authority has stated that the words come from the 
Hebrew, and mean, effect "his pledge."  Here, then "His Pledge" is 
for action, for a doing, a girding up, an effort to be made.  What 
effort?  To climb, to rise!  How?  By the use of the five senses to 
take in and make Knowledge a part of the mind and heart.  What 
Knowledge?  All Knowledge!

Conceived thus, the Fellowcraft Degree, from being a mere ceremony, a 
stepping stone from the Apprentice Degree to that of the Master, 
becomes something sublime; it is emblematic of the struggle of life, 
not materially, but spiritually, and it is a symbol with high hope 
and encouragement constantly held forth.  There "is" a Middle 
Chamber; the steps "do" lead somewhere; man "can" climb them if he 
will.  Not for the drone, the laggard, the journeyer by the easy 
paths upon the level, but for the fighter, the adventurer, the man 
with courage. for that which is not worth working for and fighting 
for is not worth having.  It is no easy journey that we make through 
life, and it is no easy journey that we make through the mazes of 
this degree.  In its Middle Chamber lecture are profound 
philosophies, deep truths, great facts concealed.  He who is a true 
Fellowcraft will study these for himself; he will not be content with 
the Prestonian lecture as an end; it will be to him but a means.

For thousands of years men saw the rainbow and the best they could do 
was call it a promise of God.  So, indeed, it may be to us all, but 
it is also a manifestation of beauty in nature, it is caused by the 
operation of well-understood laws, and when artifi-cially produced in 
the spectroscope, it is the key with which we unlocked the mysteries 
of the heavens.  For as long as man has lived upon this earth the 
lightning has flashed and the thunder roared to no end but terror and 
beauty.  In the last few hundred years man has read the first part of 
the mysterious story of electricity and taken for himself the power 
God put in nature.  Had man been content merely with what he saw and 
heard he would still be as ignorant as the beasts of the field.

So should the mysteries of the Fellowcraft be to you, my brother.  It 
is but a great symbol, given in one evening, of all that a man may 
make of his life.  It is a lamp to guide your feet; not, as Preston 
would have had it, both the feet and the path.  Preston and his 
brethren were Speculative Masons, indeed, but we are enlightened as 
he never was; so that if we fail to use the light he lit, or see by 
its radiance a greater Stairway and a higher climb than ever he 
visualized, the fault is within us, and not in our opportunity.

There are thousands who pass through this degree who see in it only a 
ceremony, just as there are thousands who see in a rainbow only the 
color in the sky, thousands who see a lightening flash only as a 
portent of danger.  Be you not one of these!  Do you see the Winding 
Star an invitation, an urge to climb, to learn, to know, to reach 
that Middle Chamber of your life from which you can look back on an 
effort well made, a life well spent, a goal well won; and then 
forward . . . to what awaits you in the final degree?  For the 
Sublime Degree of Master Mason, to which you aspire and which one day 
may be granted you, is a symb-ol, too . . . perhaps the greatest 
symbol man has ever made for himself to point a way up a yet greater 
Winding Stair to a more vaulted Upmost Chamber, where the real Master 
Mason, raised from a Fellowcraft, may reach up as a little child, and 
touch the hand of God!