The Entered Apprentice;

An Interpretation

The Masonic lodge room is represented in the Ritual as a symbol of the world. The particular form in which this symbol is cast harks back to early times when men believed the earth to be square and the sky a solid dome; but while this no longer represents our idea of the physical shape of the world, the significance remains the same.

The world thus represented is the world of Masonry; the Masonic career, from beginning to end, including all that lies in between. The west gate through which the candidate is ushered into Masonic life; the old life with all its accessories, has dropped from him completely. He now enters on a new life in a new world.

Masonry is systematic, well proportioned, balanced. Duties and work are supervised and regulated, controlled through laws written and unwritten, expressed through Landmarks, traditions, usages, Constitutions and By-laws, guided and directed through officers vested with power and authority; when he follows his guide and fears not what man can do, he expresses his trust in, and loyalty to, the Fraternity.

The new world is a lawful world in which caprice and arbitrariness have no part. It has a definite nature, is devoted to specified purposes, committed to well-defined aims and ideals. Its members cannot make it over to suit their own whims or to conform to their own purposes; they must make themselves over to conform to it’s requirements. One should not become a Master Mason in order to become a lodge member; he should become a member in order to become a real Master Mason. Among the first requirements of the apprentice is that he shall offer himself as a rough stone to be shaped under Masonic laws and influences for a place in the temple of Masonry.

This world of Masonry is dedicated to Brotherhood. Unless the Apprentice is willing and qualified to lead the brotherly life he will never master the Royal Art. Unless he is willing, in all sincerity, to abide by his obligations and the laws, which define, regulate, and control the brotherly life, he will be out of harmony with the Fraternity, unable to find a foothold in the world he seeks to enter. All of our Ritual, symbols, emblems, allegories and ceremonies, in the richness and variety of their meaning, point in the same direction. Unless an Apprentice understands and accepts them, he will fail to comprehend Masonic teaching.

In his first degree, an Apprentice takes his first step into this, and leaves the darkness, destitution and helplessness of the profane world for the light and warmth of this new existence. This is the great meaning of this degree; it is not an idle formality, but a genuine experience, the beginning of a new career in which duties, rights and privileges are real. If a candidate is not to be an Apprentice in name only, he must stand ready to do the work upon his own nature that will make him a different man. Members are called craftsmen because they are workmen; Lodges are quarries because they are scenes of toil. Freemasonry offers no privileges or rewards except to those who earn them; it places Working Tools, not playthings, in the hands of its members.

To become a Mason is a solemn and serious undertaking. Once the step is taken, it may well change the course of a man’s life.

Excerpted from “The Masonic Scholar: A Manual of Masonic Education for Candidates”

Printed by the Grand Lodge F.&A.M. of California.