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The Master Mason Degree is the climax and goal of initiation, the mountain top, like the summit of Mt. Moriah, to which the candidate's path has been making its winding ascent. Once it is gained he finds himself at last a Master Mason, a Brother in the full sense of the word, and eligible to share in the privileges and responsibilities of a regular Lodge.

Within the Craft's own economy it holds a position of similar importance. Every Lodge must both open and close in it for the transaction of any business that may come before it. No man is eligible to hold office, either in the Lodge or in Grand Lodge, except he be a Master Mason, nor is any other entitled to Masonic burial, or to relief, or to walk in public procession, or to visit in a Lodge of Master Masons.

In the eyes of the outside world the Third Degree is deemed the emblem or characteristic expression of Freemasonry, so much so that the whole Fraternity is interpreted in terms of it. Many of its words, phrases and idioms have passed into the general language, notably "Third Degree," as the name for a typical ordeal; and it has been accepted as the inevitable formula for all initiation, upon which the hundreds of fraternities organized in imitation of, or from the inspiration received from, our own Fraternity, directly or indirectly, have patterned their own rites.

Masons themselves find in it a greater interest than in any other one activity of the Lodge, a fact evidenced by the number who attend its conferral. Something within it, often they know not what, stirs them strangely, moves powerfully across their emotions, starts their minds on a journey of reflection, as if in its lights and half-lights, and often in its dark obscurities, they discover more than one revealing hint about the profoundest mysteries of life. That which moves at the center of it seems to move infinitely, like a fountain never ceasing, and though a man may witness the Degree or participate in it a thousand times, its appeal is not dulled by repetition, nor is it ever brought into contempt by familiarity.

Of only the supreme achievements of human genius can such things be said, and it is only with those supreme achievements that it can be compared. In the sublimity and haunting beauty of its language it moves at times on the inaccessible levels of the King James translation of the Bible; the drama of Hiram Abiff plumbs the depths of tragedy as profoundly as Shakespeare's "Hamlet" or the loftier plays of ~Aeschylus, the ancient Greek dramatist. Its great teaching is that it is in the loss of the soul, and not in death, that man encounters the ultimate evil; in that teaching it is as true and as profound as the utterances of the seers in the Bibles of the world; in its solution of the problem, which is found in the secret of regeneration, it stands at one with the spiritual experience of the race. Bro. Edwin Booth, who understood the inner nature of moral tragedy as few men have, stated sober fact rather than eulogy when he wrote of the Third Degree:

"In all my research and study, in all my close analysis of the masterpieces of Shakespeare, in my earnest determination to make those plays appear real on the mimic stage, I have never and nowhere, met tragedy so real, so sublime, so magnificent, as the legend of Hiram. It is substance without shadow--the manifest destiny of life which requires no picture and scarcely a word to make a lasting impression on all who can understand. To be a Worshipful Master, and to throw my whole soul into that work, with the candidate for my audience and the Lodge for my stage, would be a greater personal distinction than to receive the plaudits of people in the theatres of the world."

For these reasons we are not surprised to discover than in Masonic literature more has been written about the Third Degree than about any other single subject in all the realms of Freemasonry, whether as history, philosophy, exposition, essay, poem, drama, or song, from the pens of genius, from the pens of learning, or from the pens of humbler writers. To trace it to its origin has inspired the researches of hundreds of historians, to expound its symbolism has led countless Brethren into the Interpreter's House. A candidate, if he be wise, will follow after them to learn the secrets of that Royal Secret which Freemasonry has hidden away in its heart.

His search will lead him far. How old Freemasonry is nobody knows; it is certain that some elements in it are comparatively modern, and that many others do not transcend the medieval period; but it is equally certain that other of its elements are older than civilization, survivals of ancient times, echoes from the morning of the world. Of these the oldest of all lie at the center of the Third Degree, and the path of initiation which leads through that center has been trodden by human feet through numberless generations. Nor is this merely a curious fact, like a relic in a museum; it is rather a testimony to the eternal truthfulness of the Hiram Abiff drama, and counsels a candidate to accept in complete faith its light and leading, fearing nothing, nor entertaining the misgivings that he may be misled.

Since it has so much to offer him no Mason will begrudge the time or effort to understand it. Why should he? There is no easy or royal road to the treasures most worth having. The Third Degree does not carry its heart on its sleeve. Something of its historical backgrounds must be learned; the clue to its type of symbolism must be found; how it stands related to the First and Second Degrees must be understood; its central ideas must be comprehended. This work calls for reading and for study; certainly it requires much reflection and effort at accurate observation.

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