As the Entered Apprentice Degree as a whole is symbolic of infancy and youth, a period of learning fundamentals, a beginning, so the Fellowcraft Degree is emblematic of manhood.

But it is manhood of continued schooling; of renewed research; of further instruction. The Fellowcraft has passed his early Masonic youth, but he lacks the wisdom of age which he can attain only by use of the teachings of his first degree, broadened, strengthened, added to, by those experiences which come to men as distinguished from children.

Of the many symbols of this degree three stand out beyond all others as most beautiful and most important. They are the brazen pillars; the flight of Winding Stairs as a means of reaching the Middle Chamber by the teachings of the three, the five, and the seven steps; and the Letter "G" and all that it means to Freemason.

The Fellowcraft wears it so that it may be an aid to his journey; by it a brother may assist him on his way. He also learns in this degree that a cable tow is more than a rope; it is at once a tie and measurement.

How long is a cable tow? Thousands have asked and but a few have attempted to reply. In much older days it was generally considered to be three miles; that was when a brother was expected to attend lodge whether he wanted to or not if within the length of his cable tow.

Now we have learned that there is no merit in attendance, which comes from fear of fines or other compulsion. The very rare but occasionally necessary summons may come to any Fellowcraft. When it comes, he must attend. But Freemasonry is not unreasonable. She does not demand the impossible, and she knows that what is easy for one is hard for another. To one brother ten miles away a summons may mean a call, which he can answer only with great difficulty. To another several hundred miles away who has an airplane at his command it may mean no inconvenience.

The working tools of a Fellowcraft are the Plumb, the Square, and the Level. The Entered Apprentice has learned of them as the Immovable Jewel, but in the Fellowcraft’s Degree they have a double significance. They are still the Jewels of the three principal officers, still immovably fixed in the East, the West, and the South, but they are also given into the hands of the Fellowcraft with instructions the more impressive for their brevity.

The tools represent an advance in knowledge. The Entered Apprentice received a Twenty-four Inch Gauge and a Common Gavel with which to measure and lay out a rough ashlar and chip off its edges to fit a stone ready for the builders’ use.

The Fellowcraft uses the Plumb, the Square, and the Level. With the Square he tests the work of the Apprentice; with the Level he lays the courses of the wall he builds; with the Plumb he raises perpendicular columns. If he uses his tools right he demonstrates that he is worthy to be a Fellow of the Craft and no Apprentice; that he can lay a wall and build a tower, which will stand.

Hence the symbolism of the three tools as taught in the monitorial work. The Plumb admonishes us to walk uprightly; that is not leaning over, not awry with the world or ourselves, but straight and square with the base of life on which we tread. We are to square our actions by the square of virtue. Every man has a conscience, be it ever so dead; every Freemasons is expected to carry the conscience of a Fellowcraft’s Square of Virtue in his breast.

The operative Fellowcraft build his wall course-by-course, each level and straight. We build upon the level of time, a fearsome level indeed. The Fellowcraft whose wall stands not true on a physical level may take down his stones, retemper his mortar and try again. But the Freemason can never inbuilt that which is erected on the level of time; once gone, the opportunity is gone forever. Therefore it behooves the Fellowcraft to build on his level of time with a true Plumb and a right square.

Thus he shewed me; and behold the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, a plumb line. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.

This passage from the Great Light is as much a part of the ritual of the Fellowcraft’s Degree as the 133^rd Psalm is of the Entered Apprentice’s Degree, and has the same intimate connection with the teachings of this ceremony.

The vital and important part is this: the Lord set a plumb line in the midst of his people Israel. He did not propose to judge them by a plumb line afrar off in another land, in high heaven, but here – here in the midst of them.

This is of intense interest to the Fellowcraft Mason, since it teaches him how he should judge his own work – and, more important, how he should judge the work of others.

Presumably plumb lines hang alike. Presumably all plumbs, like all squares and all levels, are equally accurate. Yet a man may use a tool thinking it accurate which to another is not true. If the tool of building and the tool of judging be not alike either consideration the tool by which the work was done.

By the touch system, a blind man may learn to write upon a typewriter. If a loosened type drops from the type bar when the blind man strikes the letter "e" he will make but a little black smudge upon the paper. It is perfectly legible; in this sentence every "e" but one has been smudge. Would you criticize the blind man for imperfect work? He has no means of knowing that his tool is faulty. If you found the smudges, which stand for the letter "e" in the right places, showing that he had used his imperfect machine perfectly, would you not consider that he had done perfect work? Aye, because you would judge by a plumb line "in the midst" of the man and his work. If, however, the paper with the smudge letters "e" were judged by one who knew nothing of the workman’s blindness, nothing of his typewriter, one who saw only a poor piece of typing, doubtless he would judge it as imperfect.

The Fellowcraft learns to judge his work by his own plumb line, not by another’s; if he erects that which is good work, true work, square work by his own working tools – in other words, by his own standards – he does well. Only when a Fellowcraft is false to his own conscience is he building other than fair and straight.

The wages, which our ancient brethren received for their labors in the building of King Solomon’s Temple, are paid no more. We use them only as symbol, save in the dedication, constitution, and consecration of a new lodge and in the laying of cornerstones, when once again the fruit of the land, the brew of the grape and the essence of the Oliver are poured to launch a new unit of brotherhood into the fellowship of lodges; to begin a new structure dedicated to public or Masonic use.

In the Great Light are many references to these particular forms of wealth. In ancient days the grapes in the vineyard, the olives in the grove and the grain of the field were not only wealth but also the measure of trade; so many skins of wine, so many cruses of oil, so many bushels of corn were then as are dollars and cents to day. Thus when our ancient brethren received wages in corn, wine, and oil they were paid for their labors in coin of the realm.

The oil pressed from the olive was as important to the Jews in Palestine as butter and other fats are among Occidentals. Because it was so necessary and hence so valuable it became an important part of sacrificial rites.

Oil was also used not only as a food but also for lighting purposes within the house, not in the open air where the touch was more effective. Oil was also an article of the toilet; mixed with perfume it was used in the ceremonies of anointment and in preparation for ceremonial appearances. The "precious ointment, which ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard" was doubtless made of olive oil suitably mixed with such perfumes and spices as myrrh, cinnamon, galbanum and frankincense. Probably oil was also used as a surgical dressing; nomadic peoples, subject to injuries, could bardly avoid knowledge of the value of soothing oil.

The corn of the Old Testament is not the corn we know. In the majority of the uses of the word a more understandable translation would be "grain." The principal grains of the Old Testament days were barley and wheat and "corn" represents not only both of these but all the grains which the Jews cultivated.

An ear of grain has been an emblem of plenty since the mists of antiquity shrouded the beginnings of mythology. Ceres, goddess of abundance, survives to – day in our cereals. The Greeks called her Demeter, a corruption of Geometer, our mother earth. She wore a garland of grain and carried ears of grain in her hand.

The Hebrew shibboleth means both an ear of corn and a flood of water. Both are symbols of abundance, plenty, wealth.

Thus corn, wine, and oil were the wages of a Fellowcraft in the days of King Solomon. Freemasons receive no material wages for their labors, but if the work done in a lodge is paid for only in coin of the heart such wages are no less real. They may sustain, as does the grain, refresh, as does the wine, give joy and gladness as does the oil. How much we receive, what we do with our wages, depends entirely on our Masonic work. Our ancient brethren were paid for their physical labors. Whether their wages were paid for work performed upon the mountains and in the quarries, or whether they received corn, wine, and oil because they labored in the fields and vineyards, it was true then and it is true now that only "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." To receive the Masonic equivalent of the ancient corn, wine, and oil, a brother must labor. He must till the fields of his own heart or build the temple of his own house not made with hands. He must give labor to his neighbor or carry stones for his brother’s temple.

If he stand and wait and watch and wonder, he will not be able to ascend into the Middle Chamber where our ancient brethren received their wages. If he works for the joy of working, does his part in his lodge work, takes his place among the laborers of Freemasonry, he will receive corn, wine, and oil in measures pressed down and running over and know a fraternal joy as substantial in fact as it is ethereal in quality; as real in his heart as it is intangible to the profane world.

And Kink Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of Tyre. He was a widow’s son of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass; and he was filled with wisdom, and understanding, and cunning to work all works in brass. And he came to King Solomon, and wrought all his work. For he cast two pillars of brass, of eighteen cubits high apiece; and a line of twelve cubits did compass either of them about. And he set up the pillars in the porach of the temple; and he set up the right pillar, and called the name thereof Jachin; and he set up the left pillar, and called the name thereof Boaz. And upon the top of the pillars was lily work; so was the work of the pillars finished. (I Kings Vii, 13-22.)

Also he made before the house two pillars of thirty and five cubits high, and the chapiter that was on the top of each of them was five cubits. And he made chains, as in the oracle, and put them on the heads of the pillars and made an hundred pomegranates and put them on the chains. (II Chronicles iii, 15-16).

What seemed strange is the variation in the dimensions given in Kings and Chronicles; a discrepancy, which is explained by the theory that Kings gives the height of one and Chronicles of both pillars together.

Of the ritualistic explanation of the two brazen pillars it is not necessary to speak at length, since the Middle Chamber lecture is quite satisfyingly explicit regarding their ancient use and purpose. But their inner symbolic significance is not touched upon in the ritual; it is one of the hidden beauties of Freemasonry left for each brother to hunt down for himself.

The Entered Apprentice in process of being passed to the degree of Fellowcraft passes between the pillars. No hint is given that he should pass nearer to one than to the other; no suggestion is made that either may work a greater influence than the other. He merely passes between.

A deep significance is in this very omission. Masons refer to the promise of God unto David; the interested may read Chapter Vii of II Samuel for themselves, and gather that the establishment promised by the Lord was that of a house, a family, a descent of blood from David unto his children and his children’s children.

The pillars were named by Hiram Abif; those names have many translations. Strength and establishment are but two; power, and wisdom or control, fit the meaning of the words as well.

Freemasonry passes the brother in process of becoming a Fellowcraft between the pillar of strength – power; and the pilliar of establishment – choice or control. He is a man now and no minor or infant. He has grown up Masonically.

Like any other – temporal or physical, religious or spiritual – Freemasonry can be used well or ill. Here is the lesson set before the Fellowcraft; if he like David would have his kingdom of Masonic manhood established in strength he must pass between the pillars with understanding that power without control is useless, and control without power, futile. Each is a complement of the other; in the passage between the pillars the Fellowcraft not only has his feet set upon the Winding Stairs but is given – so he has eyes to see and ears to hear. Instructions as to how he shall climb those stairs that he may, indeed, reach the Middle Chamber. He shall climb by strength, but directed by wisdom, he shall progress by power, but guided by control; he shall rise by the might that is in him, but arrive by the wisdom of his heart.

Like so much else in Freemasonry in the Middle Chamber is wholly symbolic. It seems obvious that Solomon the wise would not have permitted any practice so time wasting and uneconomic as sending many thousand workmen up a flight of stairs to a small Middle Chamber to receive corn, wine, and oil which had to be brought up in advance, only to be carried down in small lots by each workman as he received his wages.

If we are to accept the Scriptural account of the Temple as accurate, there actually were winding stairs. "And they went up winding stairs into the middle chamber" is stated in I Kings. That the stairs had the three, five and seven steps by which we raise is not stated in the Scriptures. Only in this country have the Winding Stairs fifteen steps. In older days the stairs had but five, sometimes seven steps.

The stairs as a whole are a representation of life; not the physical life of eating, drinking, sleeping and working, but the mental and spiritual life, of both the lodge and the world without; of learning, studying, enlarging mental horizons, increasing the spiritual outlook. Freemasons divide the fifteen steps into three, referring to the officers of a lodge; five, and seven, the Liberal Arts and Sciences.