Of the Rights of Past Masters.
I have already discussed the right of Past Masters to become members of a Grand Lodge, in a preceding part of this work,1 and have there arrived at the conclusion that no such inherent right exists, and that a Grand Lodge may or may not admit them to membership, according to its own notion of expediency. Still the fact, that they are competent by their masonic rank of accepting such a courtesy when extended, in itself constitutes a prerogative; for none but Masters, Wardens, or Past Masters, can under any circumstances become members of a Grand Lodge.
Past Masters possess a few other positive rights.
In the first place they have a right to install their successors, and at all times subsequent to their installation to be present at the ceremony of installing Masters of lodges. I should scarcely have deemed it necessary to dwell upon so self-evident a proposition, were it not that it involves the discussion of a question which has of late years been warmly mooted in some jurisdictions, namely, whether this right of being present at an installation should, or should not, be extended to Past Masters, made in Royal Arch Chapters.
In view of the fact, that there are two very different kinds of possessors of the same degree, the Grand Lodge of England has long since distinguished them as "virtual" and as "actual" Past Masters. The terms are sufficiently explicit, and have the advantage of enabling us to avoid circumlocution, and I shall, therefore, adopt them.
An actual Past Master is one who has been regularly installed to preside over a symbolic lodge under the jurisdiction of a Grand Lodge. A virtual Past Master is one who has received the degree in a chapter, for the purpose of qualifying him for exaltation to the Royal Arch.
Now the question to be considered is this. Can a virtual Past Master be permitted to be present at the installation of an actual Past Master?
The Committee of Correspondence of New York, in 1851, announced the doctrine, that a Chapter, or virtual Past Master, cannot legally install the Master of a Symbolic Lodge; but that there is no rule forbidding his being present at the ceremony. This doctrine has been accepted by several Grand Lodges, while others again refuse to admit the presence of a virtual Past Master at the installation-service.
In South Carolina, for instance, by uninterrupted usage, virtual Past Masters are excluded from the ceremony of installation.
In Louisiana, under the high authority of the late Brother Gedge, it is asserted, that "it is the bounden duty of all Grand Lodges to prevent the possessors of the (chapter) degree from the exercise of any function appertaining to the office and attributes of an installed Master of a lodge of Symbolic Masonry, and refuse to recognize them as belonging to the order of Past Masters."2
Brother Albert Pike, whose opinion on masonic jurisprudence is entitled to the most respectful consideration, has announced a similar doctrine in one of his elaborate reports to the Grand Chapter of