The intellectual qualifications refer to the security of the Order; because they require that its mysteries shall be confided only to those whose mental developments are such as to enable them properly to appreciate, and faithfully to preserve from imposition, the secrets thus entrusted to them.  It is evident, for instance, that an idiot could neither understand the hidden doctrines that might be communicated to him, nor could he so secure such portions as he might remember, in the “depositary of his heart,” as to prevent the designing knave from worming them out of him; for, as the wise Solomon has said, “a fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.”

The political qualifications are intended to maintain the independence of the Order; because its obligations and privileges are thus confided only to those who, from their position in society, are capable of obeying the one, and of exercising the other without the danger of let or hindrance from superior authority.

Of the moral, physical and political qualifications of a candidate there can be no doubt, as they are distinctly laid down in the ancient charges and constitutions.  The intellectual are not so readily decided.

These four-fold qualifications may be briefly summed up in the following axioms.

Morally, the candidate must be a man of irreproachable conduct, a believer in the existence of God, and living “under the tongue of good report.”

Physically, he must be a man of at least twenty-one years of age, upright in body, with the senses of a man, not deformed or dismembered, but with hale and entire limbs as a man ought to be.

Intellectually, he must be a man in the full possession of his intellects, not so young that his mind shall not have been formed, nor so old that it shall have fallen into dotage; neither a fool, an idiot, nor a madman; and with so much education as to enable him to avail himself of the teachings of Masonry, and to cultivate at his leisure a knowledge of the principles and doctrines of our royal art.

Politically, he must be in the unrestrained enjoyment of his civil and personal liberty, and this, too, by the birthright of inheritance, and not by its subsequent acquisition, in consequence of his release from hereditary bondage.

The lodge which strictly demands these qualifications of its candidates may have fewer members than one less strict, but it will undoubtedly have better ones.

But the importance of the subject demands for each class of the qualifications a separate section, and a more extended consideration.

Section I.

Of the Moral Qualifications of Candidates.

The old charges state, that “a Mason is obliged by his tenure to obey the moral law.”  It is scarcely necessary to say, that the phrase, “moral law,” is a technical expression of theology, and refers to the Ten Commandments, which are so called, because they define the regulations necessary for the government of the morals and manners of men.  The habitual violation of any one of these commands would seem, according to the spirit of the Ancient Constitutions, to disqualify a candidate for Masonry.