Duncan's Ritual of Freemasonry.pdf - FatimaMovement

Senior Deacon to ascertain if there are any
candidates desiring to be advanced to the
honorary Degree of Mark Master Mason. The
Senior Deacon then retires to the ante-room, and
if he finds any candidates in waiting, he returns to
the Lodge and informs the Right Worshipful
Master. It is the duty of the Senior Deacon to
prepare and conduct the candidate (or candidates,
as the case may be), during the first part of the
ceremony of initiation, and if there are any
candidates for advancement, the Right
Worshipful Master directs this officer to retire to
the ante-room and see them duly and truly
prepared. The Junior Deacon, with an assistant,
then passes out of the Lodge into the ante-room,
where the candidate is in waiting (we will
suppose that only one is to be advanced), and
requests him to divest himself of his coat and roll
up his shirt-sleeves to the shoulder. The Senior
Deacon and his associate do the same. When they
are thus prepared, the Deacon takes in his right
hand a small block of marble or Painted wood,
about the size of a brick, weighing five or six
Pounds. The Deacon's associate also takes a
similar block to carry. One of the blocks has a
square engraved upon it, the
p. 158
other, a plumb. (See cut.) The candidate is then
furnished with a block representing a keystone,
which he is requested to carry between the thumb
and two first fingers of the right hand, the other
fingers clinched with the nails tight against the
palm, the arm extended down perpendicularly at
the side. The two officers carry their blocks in the
same manner. The three are styled "Workmen
from the quarries." As we have before said, the
block which the candidate carries represents a
keystone, and has the initials H. T. W. S. S. T. K.
S. engraved upon it in a circle.