Part 13 (1/2)
Section VIII.
_Of the Renewal of Applications by Rejected Candidates._
As it is apparent from the last section that there can be no reconsideration by a lodge of a rejected pet.i.tion, the question will naturally arise, how an error committed by a lodge, in the rejection of a worthy applicant, is to be corrected, or how such a candidate, when once rejected, is ever to make a second trial, for it is, of course, admitted, that circ.u.mstances may occur in which a candidate who had been once blackballed might, on a renewal of his pet.i.tion, be found worthy of admission. He may have since reformed and abandoned the vicious habits which caused his first rejection, or it may have been since discovered that that rejection was unjust. How, then, is such a candidate to make a new application?
It is a rule of universal application in Masonry, that no candidate, having been once rejected, can apply to any other lodge for admission, except to the one which rejected him. Under this regulation the course of a second application is as follows:
Some Grand Lodges have prescribed that, when a candidate has been rejected, it shall not be competent for him to apply within a year, six months, or some other definite period. This is altogether a local regulation--there is no such law in the Ancient Const.i.tutions--and therefore, where the regulations of the Grand Lodge of the jurisdiction are silent upon the subject, general principles direct the following as the proper course for a rejected candidate to pursue on a second application. He must send in a new letter, recommended and vouched for as before, either by the same or other Brethren--it must be again referred to a committee--lie over for a month--and the ballot be then taken as is usual in other cases. It must be treated in all respects as an entirely new pet.i.tion, altogether irrespective of the fact that the same person had ever before made an application. In this way due notice will be given to the Brethren, and all possibility of an unfair election will be avoided.
If the local regulations are silent upon the subject, the second application may be made at any time after the rejection of the first, all that is necessary being, that the second application should pa.s.s through the same ordeal and be governed by the same rules that prevail in relation to an original application.
Section IX.
_Of the necessary Probation and due Proficiency of Candidates before Advancement_.
There is, perhaps, no part of the jurisprudence of Masonry which it is more necessary strictly to observe than that which relates to the advancement of candidates through the several degrees. The method which is adopted in pa.s.sing Apprentices and raising Fellow Crafts--the probation which they are required to serve in each degree before advancing to a higher--and the instructions which they receive in their progress, often materially affect the estimation which is entertained of the inst.i.tution by its initiates. The candidate who long remains at the porch of the temple, and lingers in the middle chamber, noting everything worthy of observation in his pa.s.sage to the holy of holies, while he better understands the nature of the profession upon which he has entered, will have a more exalted opinion of its beauties and excellencies than he who has advanced, with all the rapidity that dispensations can furnish, from the lowest to the highest grades of the Order. In the former case, the design, the symbolism, the history, and the moral and philosophical bearing of each degree will be indelibly impressed upon the mind, and the appositeness of what has gone before to what is to succeed will be readily appreciated; but, in the latter, the lessons of one hour will be obliterated by those of the succeeding one; that which has been learned in one degree, will be forgotten in the next; and when all is completed, and the last instructions have been imparted, the dissatisfied neophyte will find his mind, in all that relates to Masonry, in a state of chaotic confusion. Like Ca.s.sio, he will remember ”a ma.s.s of things, but nothing distinctly.”
An hundred years ago it was said that ”Masonry was a progressive science, and not to be attained in any degree of perfection, but by time, patience, and a considerable degree of application and industry.”[72] And it is because that due proportion of time, patience and application, has not been observed, that we so often see Masons indifferent to the claims of the inst.i.tution, and totally unable to discern its true character. The arcana of the craft, as Dr. Harris remarks, should be gradually imparted to its members, according to their improvement.
There is no regulation of our Order more frequently repeated in our const.i.tutions, nor one which should be more rigidly observed, than that which requires of every candidate a ”suitable proficiency” in one degree, before he is permitted to pa.s.s to another. But as this regulation is too often neglected, to the manifest injury of the whole Order, as well as of the particular lodge which violates it, by the introduction of ignorant and unskillful workmen into the temple, it may be worth the labor we shall spend upon the subject, to investigate some of the authorities which support us in the declaration, that no candidate should be promoted, until, by a due probation, he has made ”suitable proficiency in the preceding degree.”
In one of the earliest series of regulations that have been preserved--made in the reign of Edward III., it was ordained, ”that such as were to be admitted Master Masons, or Masters of work, should be examined whether they be able of cunning to serve their respective Lords, as well the lowest as the highest, to the honor and wors.h.i.+p of the aforesaid art, and to the profit of their Lords.”
Here, then, we may see the origin of that usage, which is still practiced in every well governed lodge, not only of demanding a proper degree of proficiency in the candidate, but also of testing that proficiency by an examination.
This cautious and honest fear of the fraternity, lest any Brother should a.s.sume the duties of a position which he could not faithfully discharge, and which is, in our time, tantamount to a candidate's advancing to a degree for which he is not prepared, is again exhibited in the charges enacted in the reign of James II., the ma.n.u.script of which was preserved in the archives of the Lodge of Antiquity in London. In these charges it is required, ”that no Mason take on no lord's worke, nor any other man's, unless he know himselfe well able to perform the worke, so that the craft have no slander.” In the same charges, it is prescribed that ”no master, or fellow, shall take no apprentice for less than seven years.”
In another series of charges, whose exact date is not ascertained, but whose language and orthography indicate their antiquity, it is said: ”Ye shall ordain the wisest to be Master of the work; and neither for love nor lineage, riches nor favor, set one over the work[73] who hath but little knowledge, whereby the Master would be evil served, and ye ashamed.”
These charges clearly show the great stress that was placed by our ancient Brethren upon the necessity of skill and proficiency, and they have furnished the precedents upon which are based all the similar regulations that have been subsequently applied to Speculative Masonry.
In the year 1722, the Grand Lodge of England ordered the ”Old Charges of the Free and Accepted Masons” to be collected from the ancient records, and, having approved of them, they became a part of the Const.i.tutions of Speculative Freemasonry. In these Charges, it is ordained that ”a younger Brother shall be instructed in working, to prevent spoiling the materials for want of judgment, and for increasing and continuing of brotherly love.”
Subsequently, in 1767, it was declared by the Grand Lodge, that ”no lodge shall be permitted to make and raise the same Brother, at one and the same meeting, without a dispensation from the Grand Master, or his Deputy;”
and, lest too frequent advantage should be taken of this power of dispensation, to hurry candidates through the degrees, it is added that the dispensation, ”_on very particular occasions only_, may be requested.”
The Grand Lodge of England afterwards found it necessary to be more explicit on this subject, and the regulation of that body is now contained in the following language:
”No candidate shall be permitted to receive more than one degree on the same day, nor shall a higher degree in Masonry be conferred on any Brother at a less interval than four weeks from his receiving a previous degree, nor until he has pa.s.sed an examination in open lodge in that degree.”[74]
This seems to be the recognized principle on which the fraternity are, at this day, acting in this country. The rule is, perhaps, sometimes, and in some places, in abeyance. A few lodges, from an impolitic desire to increase their numerical strength, or rapidly to advance men of worldly wealth or influence to high stations in the Order, may infringe it, and neglect to demand of their candidates that suitable proficiency which ought to be, in Masonry, an essential recommendation to promotion; but the great doctrine that each degree should be well studied, and the candidate prove his proficiency in it by an examination, has been uniformly set forth by the Grand Lodge of the United States, whenever they have expressed an opinion on the subject.
Thus, for instance, in 1845, the late Bro. A.A. Robertson, Grand Master of New York, gave utterance to the following opinion, in his annual address to the intelligent body over which he presided: