The Sixth Degree: The Most Excellent Master

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The sixth degree, the Most Excellent Master, is as intimately connected with the Master Mason’s as the Mark Master’s is with that of the Fellow Craft.  It is intended to teach the doctrines of the resurrection of the dead and the immortality of the soul.  

The Most Excellent Master comes forward with its beautiful symbolism to represent the man prepared to enter upon that eventful passage.  In the preceeding degrees the duties of life have been delineated under various types–the virtuous craftsman has been assiduously laboring to erect within his heart a spiritual temple of holiness, fit for the habitation of the holiest of beings.  If the moral and religious precepts of the order have been observed, stone has been placed upon stone–virtue has been added to virtue–and the duties of one day have been scrupulously performed, only that the duties of the next may be commenced with equal zeal.

The tradition upon which the degree of Most Excellent Master is founded is recorded in Anderson’s Constitutions of 1738.  The ceremonies commemorated in this degree, refer, therefore, to the completion and dedication of the temple.  It is reasonable to suppose that, when this magnificent edifice was completed, King Solomon should bestow some distinguished mark of approval upon the skillful and zealous builders who had been engaged for seven years in its construction.  No greater token of that approbation could have been evinced than to establish an order of merit, with the honorable appellation of “Most Excellent Master” and to bestow it upon those craftsmen who had proved themselves to be complete masters of their profession.