Many Masons arrive at an estimate of Freemasonry purely from their knowledge of the Ritual. Never having interested themselves in a study of the circumstances and events which led to the formation of the society, they have accepted the symbolism and esoteric revelations as literal fact, and have arrived at an incorrect idea of the commencement of the fraternity.

Practically nothing is known of the ritual of the old operative guilds to which Freemasonry undoubtedly owes its origin. It is not even known that these craft organizations had a ritual. If they did, it was brief and crude, consisting mainly of an obligation to secrecy as well as obedience to the rules of the society with perhaps some sort of a charge or explanation of the purposes of the assembly. Some writers claim that in the instruction given candidates, there were certain legends imparted which have since formed the basis of some of the degrees of our various Rites. With the formation of the. Grand Lodge of England in 1717, there began the evolution of the Masonic Ritual. The introduction into the fraternity of educated men and the society being in a process of development, great opportunity was offered for the participation of ritualistic genius and as a result, the ritual commenced to receive much attention. It must not be forgotten that all the so called work of which Freemasonry today boasts is purely modern. It is the product of ritual builders of the Nineteenth Century.

When the Grand Lodge of England was formed, whatever ritual may have been employed was simply based upon the customs and practices of the old operative Craft as they had come to the Masons of that period. It is most natural that the elementary principles of those old societies should have been made the basis of ritualistic projection, and later have culminated in the remarkable system of the present day. To understand that the ritual of Freemasonry is purely modern and the work of later day idealists, we have only to note the radical difference in the work and lectures of the several jurisdictions in the United States.

In the early days of the fraternity immediately following the year 1717, there was but one degree - that of Entered Apprentice. - Fellowcraft was a term applied to those who had served an Apprenticeship. Master Mason was an appellation given to one who occupied the position of overseer or presiding officer of a lodge. As late as eighty years after the organization of the Grand Lodge of England, the ceremonials of the society were very crude. The learned Dr. Oliver who was made a Mason in 1801, described the arrangement of the lodge when he was initiated to have consisted of "a long table extended from one end of the room to the other, covered with a green cloth, on which were placed duplicates of the ornaments, furniture, and jewels, intermixed with Masonic glasses for refreshment. At one end of this table was placed the Master's pedestal and at the other that of the Senior Warden, while about the middle of the table-in the south-the Junior Warden was placed, and the brethren sat round as at a common ordinary. When there was an initiation the candidate was paraded outside the whole, and on such occasion, after he had been safely deposited in the northeast angle of the Lodge, a very short explanation of the design of Freemasonry, or a brief portion of the lecture, was considered sufficient before the Lodge was called from labour to refreshment. The song, the toast and sentiment went merrily round, and it was not until the brethren were tolerable satiated that the Lodge was resumed and the routine business transacted before closing."

Just when the three degrees came into existence, no one is able to determine. They were undoubtedly the result of evolution and growth. How much of the old one degree ceremonial is contained in the present system of three degrees, none knows and never will know, for it is not possible to secure an authentic ritual of the one degree system as practiced ill 1717 nor of the three degrees which cane into vogue in the early part of the Eighteenth Century. The Masonic student, in his search for information oil this subject, is compelled to rely upon manuscripts and such other scattered data as is available. There is no authentic minute of any lodge prior to 1717 and no minute of any lodge of that period which states that more than one ceremony was ever employed or that apprentices and craftsmen were requested to retire from the lodge while other ceremonies were being performed. But the fact is clearly established that all members of the Society were privileged to attend the ceremony commonly known as the Communication of the "Mason Word."

There is no mention of the three degrees in any lodge minutes in Scotland until 1735. The old lodge records at Melrose, dating from 1678, and even the lodge of Edinburgh with records from 1599 make no reference, whatsoever to three degrees. William J. Hughan of Torkay, England, an eminent authority on the early history of Freemasonry and who has given the subject of the degrees of Masonry much consideration, has the following to say upon this subject: "The third degree was not generally known to the Scottish Lodges until the latter half of the last century, Craftsmen being allowed to take office in the lodge and even to have seats in the Grand Lodge. Some old lodges never worked the three degrees at all, whilst others only did so a century ago. On June 18, 1754, Bro. Vernon tells us the ancient Lodge of Kelso (with records from 1701) discovered "a most essential defect of their constitution," viz., "that this lodge had attained only to the two degrees of Apprentice and Fellow Craft, and knew nothing of the Master's part." This defect was there and then remedied by a Master's Lodge being held. As a great proportion of the members in the old lodges never took the j third degree, under the Scottish system, I should think that the "working" generally of such lodges must have partaken to a great extent of the old system of the Craft, prior to the modern degrees, so it was easy for ancient lodges to visit those under the Grand Lodge, both being really followers (for a time) of the older system. As time rolled on, and the Grand Lodge became more powerful, matters were changed, and the possession of the three degrees became a sine qua non, for lodge office and visitation."

Apprentices, Fellow Crafts, and Masters existed for a long period prior to the year 1717, yet there were no Masonic degrees in existence by those names. These terms were used to distinguish grades of standing in the Craft, for so far as the secrets of the fraternity were concerned, all members were equal. It was a law of the old operative guilds that whenever new members were admitted, so many apprentices had to be present at the ceremony. There were then three classes of members and not three separate degrees with special ceremonials and esoteric signs and secrets.

The religious life of England undoubtedly exerted its influence upon the Masons of the Seventeenth Century, for they were Trinitarian, prior to 1717, as is clearly proven from their charges. But when the old operative society changed to a speculative system the fraternity became cosmopolitan and took for its religious creed the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. Findel, the historian, is authority for the statement that in the early part of the Seventeenth Century a movement became apparent in England known as English Deism, which rejected all religious dogma and accepted nothing but reason. This movement became very popular, and soon attracted men from all walks of life from peer to artisan. "It must," says Findel, "have exercised a very important bearing upon the society of Freemasons and may have been a large contributing factor in its passing from an operative to a universal speculative society."

Fifty years ago, Freemasons as a rule, believed that the ceremonies, secrets, and degrees of the Craft as now understood and practiced had existed for hundreds of years dating from the building of King Solomon's Temple. Whenever a Mason was bold enough to ask for the documentary evidence upon which this assumption was based, he was always met with the response that the old records were lost and therefore it was impossible to prove the long descent of the fraternity and for that reason it should not be questioned. But within the last forty years, some very distinguished and capable men in the person of William J. Hughan and Robert F. Gould of England, made it their business to inquire into many of the claims set up by Masonic enthusiasts with the result that they discovered numbers of old records, lodge minutes, and charges which threw much light upon the early and formulative period of the fraternity and proved the falseness of many of the modern claims of the society.

The first hooks written upon Freemasonry and which, for a long time served to guide the Craft, have no historical value whatsoever. They were simply the result of ambitious Masonic historians who knew little of the real development of the fraternity and who relied solely upon their imagination to create a fiction which they panned off as the legitimate history of the Craft.

The oldest Masonic record of the third degree yet discovered is dated 1725, and is in connection with the society to which only Master Masons were eligible. Kilwinning Lodge styled by some the Mother Lodge of Scotland seems to have had no Master's degree until 1737, when it acquired a knowledge of this degree as a result of a visit received from some brethren of London. It must be recalled that in this period of the world there were no telephone, telegraph, wireless apparatus, or daily newspaper. As a result, information traveled very slowly and particularly in the matter of Masonry it would he several years before a practice adopted by one group of Masons became known to another group fifty miles away.

It is now the opinion of the very ablest Masonic students that the division of the Masonic degrees was the work of the Revivalists in the early part of the Eighteenth Century and before that period there was but one degree and one initiation which served for all.

In the year 1717, the whole body of the fraternity consisted of Entered Apprentices only. In the old charges collected by Anderson and approved in 1722, Fellow Craft is introduced as being a necessary qualification as used in the line "no brother can be a Grand Master unless he has been a Fellow Craft before his election." Laurence Dermott, a writer of the period, explains "they were called Fellow Crafts because the Masons of old time never gave any man the title of Master Mason until he had first passed the chair."

Between 1721 and 1738, the system of degrees was undoubtedly worked out. Anderson who in the latter year published his second book of Constitutions changed the wording and phraseology of the old charges to suit the new order of affairs and said "A prentice, when of age and expert, may become an Entered Apprentice or a Freemason of the lowest degree, and upon his due improvement, a Fellow Craft and a Master Mason. The drama of Hiram Abiff as we find it in the modern third degree was invented or adapted about the year 1723, and was related as a legend or story.

In the now famous Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, is a beautiful and original pillar, known as the Prentice Pillar. There is a fiction that the Master Mason who was in charge of the erection of the Chapel not understanding the drawings for this column, returned to Rome, Italy, whence he had come, to consult the architect or to see some similar pillar. During his absence, an apprentice conceived the idea that he could chisel the design and complete the pillar, which he did, and in due time it was set in place at the entrance to the Crypt. On the return of the Master, he was shown the beautiful pillar and at once became envious. Inquiry was made among the workmen to know who had executed that particular piece of work, and when he learned that it had been wrought by an apprentice, he became so angry that, picking up a mallet, lie struck the craftsman on the forehead and killed him instantly. This atrocious deed caused the workmen great indignation, and the evidence of their wrath was made a matter of record in several heads carved in stone, one of them with a deep scar on the right temple. These are located in different places in the walls and under the roof of the chapel, and said to be commemorative of the skilled but unfortunate apprentice.

This story, in connection with the Prentice Pillar, would seem to indicate the existence of a legend which may have been taken up and incorporated into the Masonic ritual in its early evolution, and which later developed into the Hiramic legend with which all members of the fraternity are familiar.

The conclusions then are that the division of Masonry into three degrees grew tip somewhere between the formation of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717 and the year 1730. But so gradual was the change and so slight were the additions made from time to time that it is impossible to arrive at any definite period as to just exactly when the separation took place. This is one of the most forcible evidences that Freemasonry is the product of an evolution.

No degrees beyond that of Master Mason were recognized until the year 1813, when for the sake of harmony and union, it was agreed to adopt the Royal Arch as a concluding part of the third degree. This was done to satisfy the seceders or Atholl Masons who had evolved the Royal Arch degree as a part of their Masonic system and had added it as a separate or fourth degree. However, the old Grand Lodge of England refused to recognize the Royal Arch as a separate degree but in order to restore harmony in the then disturbed condition of Masonry, and to bring the seceders back into the Masonic fold, they slid consent to recognize the Royal Arch as a concluding part of the third degree. Under the articles of union, which were adopted, it was declared and pronounced that pure ancient Masonry consists of three degrees and no more, they being Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, Master Mason, and the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch.

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