ENTERED APPRENTICE MASON
Q.Whence came you?
A.From a lodge of the Holy Saints John at Jerusalem.
Q.What came you here to do?
A.To learn to subdue my passion, and improve myself in Masonry.
Q.Then you are a Mason I presume?
A.I am so taken and accepted among brothers and fellows.
Q.What makes you a Mason?
A.My obligation.
Q.Where were you made a Mason?
A.Within the body of a just and legally constituted lodge of Free and Accepted Masons.
Q.How may I know you to be a Mason?
A.By certain signs, a Token, a Word and the Perfect points of entrance.
Q.What are signs?
A.Right angle, horizontal and perpendicular.
Q.What is a Token?
A.A certain friendly grip, whereby one brother Mason may know another in the dark, as well as in the light.
Q.What is a Word?
A.The name of a token.
Q.What are the perfect points of entrance?
A.The guttural, pectoral, manual and pedal, and are exemplified by the four cardinal virtues: temperance, fortitude, prudence and justice.
Q.Where were you first prepared to be a Mason?
A.In my heart.
Q.Where next?
A.In a room or a place adjacent to the body of a just and legally constituted lodge of Free and Accepted Mason.
Q.How were you prepared?
A.By being divested of all minerals and metals, neither naked nor clod, barefoot nor shod, hoodwink and with a cable-tow once around my neck, in which condition I was conducted to a door by a friend whom I afterwards found to be a brother.
Q.Being hoodwink, how did you know it to be a door?
A.By first meeting with resistance and afterward gaining admission.
Q.How gained you admission?
A.By giving three distinct knocks on the door from without, which were answered by a like number from within, followed by the inquiry: Who comes here?
Q.Your answer?
A.A poor blind candidate who desires to be brought from darkness to light, to receive and have a part of the rights and benefits of this Worshipful Lodge, erected to God and dedicated to the Holy Saints John, as all brothers and fellows have done, who have gone this way before.
Q.What was then asked?
A.If it was of my own freewill and accord, if I was duly and truly prepared, worthy and well qualified, of lawful age and properly vouched for, all of which being answered in the affirmative, I was then asked by what further right I expect to gain admission into a lodge of Free and Accepted Masons.
Q.Your answer?
A.By being a man, free born, under the tongue of good rapport and coming well recommended.
Q.What were you then told to do?
A.To a-wait a time with patience, until the Worshipful Master in the East had been informed of my request and his answer returned.
Q.What was his answer?
A.Let him enter.
Q.On your first admission into the lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, how were you received?
A.Upon the point of a sharp instrument piercing my naked left breast, which was to teach me that, as that instrument is a torture to the flesh, so may the recollection be to my