PAST MASTER. The name of -a degree conferred on Mas• ters of Lodges before they can assume the duties of the chair. The same degree is also the second of the series known as the Royal Arch degrees. This somewhat anomalous arrangement has led to a confusion of ideas, and considerable controversy in regard to the rights of these two classes of Past Masters Is a brother who has received the degree of Past Master in a Royal Arch Chapter, but who has never been elected to nor installed into the office of Master of the Blue Lodge, eligible to the elective offices in the Grand Lodge? The constitutions of most Grand Lodges confine the honors of official station to Past Masters. The point to be determined is what construction must be put on this term Past Master, as used in the constitutions. Does it refer solely to those who have actually passed the oriental chair, or does it include others who are not actual Past Masters, but who are entitled to the name, from the fact that they have received the degree in the Royal Arch Chapter ? It would seem to be a plain conclusion that, as neither the Grand Lodges nor their subordinates know anything of such a body as the Chapter, the authors of those constitutions could have had no refer ence to the Chapter whatever, nor to any of its degrees.
When designating those who should be eligible to office in the Grand Lodge, they must have had in their minds those, and only those, who had actually served a term as Master of a Blue Lodge. In point of fact, the degree of Past Master is out of place in the Chapter, and has no right there. It belongs to the Blue Lodge, and should be conferred only upon actual Masters of Lodges when installed into office. As a degree of the Lodge, used as above, it is fit and proper. In the Chapter it has no significance nor pertinence what ever—it is simply an act without meaning, and mars greatly the beauty of Royal Arch Masonry. The degree, itself, fur nishes strong internal evidence that it never was intended for any persons but Masters of Lodges. It deals solely with the duties of Masters and with Masonic labors which belong exclusively to Blue Lodges, and is nothing more nor less than the beginning of the installation service.