what are the five points of fellowship

The Five Points of Fellowship are moral duties owed by Masons to one another, symbolically illustrated in the Master Mason degree to teach the practice of brotherly love 1. As summarized by George Oliver, these obligations consist of assisting a brother in distress, supporting him in his virtuous undertakings, praying for his welfare, keeping his secrets inviolate, and vindicating his character in his absence 1.

These five duties correspond symbolically to specific points of the body 1. In the older ritual tradition taught by William Preston in England and Thomas Smith Webb in the United States, the physical points were the hand, the foot, the knee, the breast, and the back 12. Under this scheme, the foot signifies a willingness to go out of one's way to render service 21; the knee represents remembering a brother's welfare in prayer 21; the breast denotes guarding and preserving a brother's confidences 21; the hand symbolizes extending assistance in times of adversity 1; and the back represents supporting and defending a brother's reputation when he is maligned 1.

In 1843, the Baltimore Masonic Convention introduced a change in North American practice by omitting the hand and substituting the mouth and ear 12. Albert Mackey viewed this alteration as an unwarranted innovation, holding that the earlier enumeration of hand, foot, knee, breast, and back represented the authentic traditional symbolism 12. Carl Claudy noted that while such ritual shifts interest antiquarians, the core instruction of the Five Points remains a practical, everyday call to fraternal service, trust, and mutual support 2.