gone before us.  The three steps, usually delineated upon the Master’s carpet, are emblematical of the three principal stages of human life, viz.:  Youth, Manhood, and Age.  In youth, as Entered Apprentices, we ought industriously to occupy our minds in the attainment of useful knowledge; in manhood, as Fellow Crafts, we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties to God, our neighbors, and ourselves; so that in age, as Master Masons, we may enjoy the happy reflections consequent on a well-spent life, and die in the hope of a glorious immortality.

Q. What are the second class of emblems?  A. The spade, coffin, death-head, marrow bones, and sprig of cassia, which are thus explained:  The spade opens the vault to receive our bodies, where our active limbs will soon moulder to dust.  The coffin, death-head, and marrow bones are emblematical of the death and burial of our Grand Master, Hiram Abiff, and are worthy our serious attention.  The sprig of cassia is emblematical of that immortal part of man which never dies; and when the cold winter of death shall have passed, and the bright summer’s morn of the resurrection appears, the Son of Righteousness shall descend, and send forth his angels to collect our ransomed dust; then, if we are found worthy, by his pass-word we shall enter into the Celestial Lodge above, where the Supreme Architect of the Universe presides, where we shall see the King in the beauty of holiness, and with him enter into an endless fraternity.

Here ends the first three degrees of Masonry, which constitutes a Master Mason’s Lodge.  A Master Mason’s Lodge and a Chapter of Royal Arch Masons are two distinct bodies, wholly independent of each other.  The members of a Chapter are privileged to visit all Master Mason’s Lodges when they please; and may be, and often are, members of both at the same time; and all the members of a Master Mason’s Lodge who are Royal Arch Masons, though not members of any Chapter, may visit any Chapter.  I wish the reader to understand that neither all Royal Arch Masons nor Master Masons are members of either Lodge or Chapter; there are tens of thousands who are not members, and scarcely ever attend, although privileged to do so.

A very small proportion of Masons, comparatively speaking, ever advance any further than the third degree, and consequently never get the great word which was lost by Hiram’s untimely death.  Solomon, King of Israel, Hiram, King of Tyre, and Hiram Abiff, the widow’s son, having sworn that they, nor either of them, would ever give the word, except they three were present (and it is generally believed that there was not another person in the world, at that time, that had it), consequently the word was lost, and supposed to be forever; but the sequel will show it was found, after a lapse of four hundred and seventy years; notwithstanding, the word Mah-hah-bone,