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The first step in that work of interpretation is to see, and never afterwards to forget, that the whole of the Degree is symbolical--using that word in its largest sense. Some few facts borrowed from history are used in it, but not many, and in each case not for the sake of history. Ritual cares for neither time nor place, takes its materials where it finds them, works them over to suit its own purposes; it moves in a timeless, spaceless region, makes its appeal to the mind through the imagination, and has as its sole purpose to make effective in the experience of a man certain realities of the moral and spiritual life. If therefore no such record is found in the Books of Kings and Chronicles as the Degree's story of Hiram Abiff, or if it is found that the historical facts given in it are at variance with the records of the Sacred Writings, or if they appear to contradict them outright, the fact need occasion no uneasiness. The history, such as there is of it, is fluid, freely reshaped for the ritualistic purposes, as Shakespeare reshaped the annals of the English Kings in his historical dramas, or as Milton worked over with a free hand the materials from the Book of Genesis in'his "Paradise Lost."

The symbolical material takes many forms during the progress of the Degree; now it is some single symbol, from which flashes a revealing ray of truth; again, it is an emblem, which is a truth in picture form; yet again, it may be an acted allegory, as in the Search for That Which Was Lost; or a drama, like the whole of the second section; or a legend, like the story of the three builders of the Temple; or a tragedy, as in the manner in which the builder was slain. Seldom is the teaching given in a set form of words, always the candidate is challenged to discover it for himself, in his own way, according to the habits of his mind.

The symbolism of the First Degree is almost wholly based on the arts and practices or architecture; that of the Second continues to be of the same type, except that in the Middle Chamber Lecture it introduces a set of symbols borrowed from the Liberal Arts and Sciences; in the Third Degree this architectural symbolism retreats into the background to give way to symbolism of another type, one more appropriate to a drama of the soul. Its central symbol is that of a Dying and a Rising Again, a Loss and a Recovery, the theme about which all the Ancient Mysteries were built, and one that stands in this form or that, at the center of all the redemptive religions. In the bare externals of its outward form it harks back to the ancient representations of the retreat of the sun in winter, leaving darkness and death behind him, and his return in the spring, with healing on his wings, to bestow more light and a new life; but in its inner essence it is neither ancient nor modern, but eternal, revealing as it does the way in which the soul recovers itself from the tragedies of its own failures or misfortunes.

The First Degree sets forth the Masonic life as a work of art, and teaches the candidate that it is only through a long apprenticeship in obedience to his guides and superiors that he can learn it--likening him to a youth learning the builder's trade. The Second Degree interprets the Masonic life in the terms of knowledge and wisdom, and sets before the candidate the picture of a man in middle life who must possess both knowledge and skill if he is to carry his responsibilities through the heat and burden of the day.

The Third Degree cuts to the core of the Masonic life by conducting the candidate through a vicarious experience of tragedy to enable him to discover that the man of evil within a man can be neither trained nor educated out of existence but must die, to the end that the good man in the man shall live. The evil will must perish utterly if ever the good will is to triumph. As a man in old age must lay down his natural life so must the candidate, if ever he is to become a Master Mason in reality, lay down the life of ignorance, of passions, and of the.desire to do evil. This is the way of redemption--and the way of redemption is the central theme of the Degree.

A Master Mason is one who has learned to become the master of himself. When is a man not master of himself?. When his will is divided against itself; when the lower man proves more powerful than the higher man; when what he would he cannot do, and what he does he would not do. As long as this inner rebellion obtains, the mastership of one's self is impossible, and the state of such a man is like a nation surrendered into the hands of its enemies; power is lost because sovereignty is gone. The one way out--and it is a way of blood and tears--is for the rebelling self to die. He who is master of himself, is not a divided self.

How this works out in detail will become apparent from a study of the more significant symbols of the Degree, but before that can be undertaken it is necessary first to become familiar with the historical backgrounds of the Master Mason ceremony as a whole. Here, as elsewhere, much must remain in darkness until the light which comes from the past is thrown upon it.

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