General Ahiman Rezon, by Daniel Sickels, [1868], at sacred-texts.com

The Winding Stairs.

The door for the middle chamber was in the right side of the house; and they went up with winding stairs into the middle chamber.—I. KINGS vi. 8. *

THE SYMBOLICAL STAIRWAY, which leads front the ground-floor to the Middle Chamber of our mystic house, consists of fifteen steps and three divisions. The divisions, we perceive, differ in the number of their steps, each having an odd number—"three, five, and seven." While there is no positive evidence that these divisions have any particular reference to Ancient Craft Masonry, yet the lessons taught us, as we ascend, should impress upon the mind of every Freemason the importance of discipline, as well as a knowledge of natural, mathematical, and metaphysical science It also opens to him an extensive range of moral and speculative inquiry, which may prove a source of peculiar gratification.

Reference is here made to the Masonic organization into three degrees—the Entered Apprentice, the Fellow-Craft, and the Master Mason; and to its system of government by three officers—the Worshipful Master, the Senior Warden, and the Junior Warden.

Footnotes

130:* Vide Lecture on the Legend of the Winding Stairs, pp. 159-170.