The wages of a Mason
A Definition
Wage, of which wages is the collective plural, remotely descended from the Latin vas, having the meaning of pledge, security, pawn, or a promise to pay backed up by security.
After it entered into modem languages it had a peculiar history; it became 'gage', a pledge or pawn, appearing in our engage, disengage, etc., but having no relation with gage, one of our Working Tools; 'wager' in the sense of a bet; in another context it became 'wed', the act of marrying, so called because of the pledges given; and 'wage' in the sense of compensation for service given.
An 'allowance' is a one-sided form of payment, depending on the will of the giver; a 'stipend' is a fixed sum, usually nominal, and is supposed to be paid as per a permanent arrangement; a 'salary' (from sal, or salt, the old pay given soldiers) is an amount fixed by contract, and estimated over a relatively long period of time, year or month; 'wages' are paid to laborers over short periods of time, or at the completion of the required task.
In Speculative Masonry, the Master Mason symbolically receives 'wages', rather than salary, because they represent the rewards that come to him as rapidly as he does his work; and, as the etymology of the word suggests, they are certain, something one may bank on.
Paying the Wages Due
To some the practical wages briefly mentioned above are the important payments for a Freemason's work. To others, the more intangible but none the less beloved opportunities to give, rather than get, are the Master's Wages which count them.
Great among these is the Craft's opportunity for service. The world is full of chances to do for others, and no man need apply to a Masonic Lodge only because he wants a chance to 'do unto others as he would others do unto him'. But Freemasonry offer peculiar opportunities to unusual talents which are not always easily found in the profane world.
There is always something to do in a Lodge. There are always committees to be served – and committee work is usually thankless work. He who cannot find his payment in his satisfaction of a task well done will receive no Master's Wages for his labours on Lodge committees.
There are brethren to be taught. Learning ritual and the associated symbolism is a man's task, not to be accomplished in a hurry. Yet it is worth the doing, and in instructing officer-bearers and candidates many a Mason has found a quiet joy which is the Master's Wages. Service leads to the possibility of appointment or election to the line of officer-bearers. There is little to speak of the Master's Wages this opportunity pays, because only those who have occupied the Chair as Master of the Lodge know what they are. The outer evidence of the experience may be told, but the inner spiritual experience is untellable because the words have not been invented.
But Past Masters know! To them is issued a special coinage of Master's Wages which only the Master of a Lodge may earn. Ask any of them if they do not pay well for the labour.
If practical Master's Wages are acquaintances in Lodge, the enjoyment of fellowship, merged into friendship, is the same payment in larger form. Difficult to describe, the sense of being one of a group, the solidarity of the circle which is the Lodge, provides a satisfaction and pleasure impossible to describe as it is clearly to be felt. It is interesting to meet many men of many walks of life; it is heart-warming continually to meet the same group, always with the same feeling of equality. High and low, rich and poor, merchant and money-changer, banker and broom-maker, doctor and ditch-digger all meet on the level, and find it happy – Master's Wages, value untranslatable into money.
Finally – and best – is the making of many friends.
Thousands of brethren count their nearest and their dearest friends on the rolls of the Lodge they love and serve. The Mystic Tie makes for friendship It attracts man to man and often draws together 'those who might otherwise have remained at a perpetual distance'. The teachings of brotherly love, relief and truth; of temperance, fortitude, prudence and justice; the inculcation of patriotism and love of country, are everyday experiences in a Masonic Lodge. When men speak freely those thoughts which, in the outside world, they keep silent, friendships are formed.
Count gain for work well done in what coin seems most valuable; the dearest of the intangibles which come to any Master Mason are those Masonic friendships than which there 'are' no greater Master's Wages.
Source: Short Talk Bulletin – Feb. 1933