Page:Manual of the Lodge.pdf/109





HE symbolism of the second degree essentially differs from that of the first. If the first degree was typical of the period of youth, the second is emblematic of the stage of manhood. Here new duties and increased obligations to their performance press upon the individual. The lessons of wisdom and virtue which he has received in youth, are now to produce their active fruits; the talent which was lent, is now to be returned with usury. Hence, as the Fellow Craft's degree is intended to represent this thinking and working period of life, it necessarily assumes a more important position in the Masonic scale, and is invested with a more dignified ritual, and a more extensive series of instructions. Here it is that the preparatory lessons which were obtained in the first degree are to be enlarged and enforced. As labor is the divinely appointed lot of man, in this degree the rewards of industry are set forth in emblematic forms, and the recipient is taught the exercise of diligence and industry, that by the faithful performance of his task he may, in due time, be entitled to the wages for which he has wrought.

But man was not intended for physical labor only. There are more exalted tasks to which the possession of mind has called him. Endowed by his Creator with the possession of reason and intellect, it is his duty, and should be his pleasure, to direct the vigor and energy of his mannood to the cultivation of his reasoning faculties and the improvement of his intellectual powers.

Hence, the Fellow Craft's degree, as a type of this state of manhood, is particularly devoted to science. The mind of the