IV. OF MASTERS, WARDENS, FELLOWS AND APPRENTICES.f

All preferment among Masons is grounded upon real worth and personal merit only; that so the lords may be well served, the brethren not put to shame, nor the royal craft despised ; therefore no Master or Warden is chosen by seni- ority, but for his merit. It is impossible to describe these things in writing, and every Brother must attend in his place, and learn them in a way peculiar to this Fraternity : only candidates may know that no Master should take an Appren- tice unless he has sufficient imployment for him, and unless he be a perfect youth, having no maim or defect in his body, that may render him uncapable of learning the art, of serving his Master's lord, and of being made a Brother, and then a Fellow Craft in due time, even after he has served such a term of years as the custom of the country directs ; and that he should be descended of honest parents ; that so, when otherwise qualified, he may arrive to the honour of being the
* Dermott alters this clause respecting the qualifications, &c, so as to read thus: " The men made Masons must be free born (or no bondmen), of ma- ture age, and of good report ; hale and sound, not deformed or dismembered at the time of their making ; but no woman, no eunuch."
t Dermott makes very considerable and important alterations in this Charge, as, for instance, he brings the Master Masons forward as constituting the great body of the craft ; whereas, it will be perceived that Entered Ap« prentices and Fellow Crafts are alone spoken of in that capacity in the authen tic Charges. But Anderson made the same change in his edition of 1738.
3*
58 THE WRITTEN LAW.
Warden, and then the Master of the Lodge, the Grand War- den, and at length the Grand Master of all the Lodges, accord- ins to his merit.
No Brother can be a Warden until he has passed the part of a Fellow Craft ;* nor a Master, until he has acted as a Warden, nor Grand Warden until he has been Master of a Lodge, nor Grand Master, unless he has been a Fellow Craftf before his election, who is also to be nobly born, or a gentle- man of the best fashion, or some eminent scholar, or some curious architect or other artist, descended of honest parents, and who is of singular great merit in the opinion of the Lodges. And for the beth* and easier, and more honourable discharge of his office, the Grand Master has a power to chuse his own Deputy Grand Master, who must be then, or must have been formerly, the Master of a particular Lodge, and has the privilege of acting whatever the Grand Master, his principal, should act, unless the said principal be present, or interpose his authority by a letter.
These rulers and governors, supreme and subordinate, of the ancient Lodge, are to be obeyed in their respective stations by all the brethren, according to the Old Charges and Regulations, with all humility, reverence, love, and alacrity.