Symbolism of the Degree.
If the object of the first degree is to symbolize the struggles of a candidate groping in darkness for intellectual light, that of the second degree represents the same candidate laboring amid all the difficulties that encumber the young beginner in the attainment of learning and science. The Entered Apprentice is to emerge from darkness to light; the Fellow Craft is to come out of ignorance into knowledge. This degree, therefore, by fitting emblems, is intended to typify these struggles of the ardent mind for the attainment of truth—moral and intellectual truth—and above all that Divine truth, the comprehension of which surpasseth human understanding, and to which, standing in the Middle Chamber, after his laborious ascent of the winding stairs, he can only approximate by the reception of an imperfect, yet glorious reward in the revelation of that "hieroglyphic light which none but craftsmen ever saw."