Page 35 - Ashlar January - March 2025

N A L G R
I O
G E AND LODGE
The Ashlar R Vol. XIX Issue III
degree is providing a separate, but parallel agreed upon in the Act of Union between the
narrative to the first part. In the first part, the Premier and Antients Grand Lodges in 1813 -
candidate sees the Overseers, as it appears at the front of the Book of
representatives of our reasoning faculties, Constitutions of the United Grand Lodge of
rejecting the keystone that they should have England. It is a declaration that “Pure Antient
accepted – illustrating the difficulty of Masonry consists of three degrees and no
internalizing spiritual discovery – and seeing more, namely, those of the Entered
the Officers mistakenly reject the keystone. In Apprentice, the Fellow Craft, and the Master
the second part, it is the candidate who errs, Mason, including the Supreme Order of the
by improperly seeking wages that were not Holy Royal Arch”.
his due. The attempt to receive wages that The fact that a second Grand Lodge (the
were not due teaches us an important lesson “Antients”) emerged in 1751 was largely
of Masonry – just as the candidate found because of a disagreement over ritual
himself with the keystone in the first part of the content. It is therefore hardly surprising that,
degree, without having any explanation for eventually, in order to achieve harmony a
why, so too must we await our spiritual wages considerable amount of ground had to be
rather than seek them out. The candidate is conceded by both parties. The Premier (or
an impostor in this part of the degree in the “Moderns”) Grand Lodge did not recognise
sense that he is seeking wages rather than the Royal Arch, or even the Installation
receiving them. After the candidate is spared Ceremony, as part of pure Masonry – so they
the punishment of the JW, he is brought to the evidently conceded much to the Antients in
WM to explain his circumstances. This is order to achieve the Union. Against this
followed by the traditional lecture and background the Mark and other Masonic
communication of the secrets and working Orders were left in limbo. We had in fact a
tools of the degree. In the conclusion of the good old English compromise that left many
degree, the candidate once again walks in brethren discontented.
procession with the other craftsmen to So, what was emerging as a closely related
receive his wages. This time, the other set of “Solomonic” degrees, i.e. symbolism
craftsmen are upset not because the based on KST (or, in the case of the Royal
candidate is an impostor, but instead because Arch, on the building of the Second Temple)
he has received the same wage that they became split. Mark was no longer to be
have. At this point, one of the more important considered by the Craft as part of pure Antient
lectures of the degree is given, where the Masonry. After 1813 the Mark Degree
brethren are exhorted to receive their wages continued to grow in popularity and was
with gratitude, and told that the Grand worked, unofficially, in Craft Lodges and
Geometrician pays his wages based on our Royal Arch Chapters – a very unsatisfactory
actions as Masons rather than the length of state of affairs. The eventual establishment of
our Masonic experience, further reinforcing a separate English Grand Lodge of Mark
the lesson to all members of the Mark Master Masters Masons in 1856 came after a very
Mason Lodge that we should on the one hand intriguing period, involving encounters with
open ourselves up to receiving divine or the Grand Chapter of Scotland and much else
spiritual inspiration, but that at the same time besides. But this is a subject for a much longer
to accept that spiritual progress is something paper.
that comes to us rather than something we For the present purpose it will suffice to note
seek out. that a resolution to include the Mark Degree
The Relationship between the Mark and as an integral part of English Freemasonry
the Craft appeared in the minutes of the Quarterly
There is a well-known statement that was Communication of Grand Lodge in March

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