I have already discussed the right of Past Masters to become members of a Grand Lodge, in a preceding part of this work, 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."
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 Arkansas. He does not
consider "that the Past Master's degree, conferred in a chapter, invests
the recipient with any rank or authority, except within the chapter
itself; that it no ways qualifies or authorizes him to preside in the
chair of a lodge: that a lodge has no legal means of knowing that he has
received the degree in a chapter: for it is not supposed to know anything
that takes place there any more than it knows what takes place in a Lodge
of Perfection, or a Chapter of Knights of the Rose Croix;" and, of course, if the Past Masters of a lodge have no such "legal means" of recognition of Chapter Masters, they cannot permit them to be present at an installation.
This is, in fact, no new doctrine. Preston, in his description of the installation ceremony, says: "The new Master is then conducted to an adjacent room, where he is regularly installed, and bound to his trust in ancient form, in the presence of at least three installed Masters." And Dr. Oliver, in commenting on this passage, says, "this part of the ceremony can only be orally communicated, nor can any but installed Masters be present."