SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.I    October, 1923    No.10 
MASTER'S PIECE 
 
by: Unknown 
 
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, legitimate 
birth, of sound body and good repute to even 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 charac-ter 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 honor 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 women 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 alehouse, 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 t 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, saying, "Behold ny experience!"  By which 
he meant the sum of his experiments.  He had spoiled many a bit of stone.  
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 honored," 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 "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 a rite or ritual, if any, accompanied the making of a Master in the 
old operative lodges is still a mater 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 today, 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 never 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 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.  Today 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 
evening shadows fall and the Eternal World and its unknown adventure draw 
near. 
 
What then, for each of us today. 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 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.  Williams James went so far as to say that just as 
the stubs remain in the checkbook 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 in 
religion is the forgiveness of God, which erases the past and gives us 
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 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 influence each of us is making his Master's Piece.  God is all 
the time refining, polishing, strokes now tender, now terrible.  That is 
the meaning of pain, sorrow and 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!" 
 

