during your incarceration, and therefore, I shall keep you confined six months longer?” Certainly not.  The Sheriff or the Judge who should do so high-handed a measure, would soon find himself made responsible for the violation of private rights.  But the course to be pursued would be, to arrest him for the new offense, give him a fair trial, and, if convicted again, imprison or otherwise punish him, according to his new sentence, or, if acquitted, discharge him.

The same course should be pursued with a Mason whose conduct during the period of his suspension has been liable to reproach or suspicion.  Masons have rights as well as citizens—­every one is to be considered innocent until he is proved guilty—­and no one should suffer punishment, even of the lightest kind, except after an impartial trial by his peers.

But the case of an indefinite suspension is different.  Here no particular time has been appointed for the termination of the punishment.  It may be continued during life, unless the court which has pronounced it think proper to give a determinate period to what was before indeterminate, and to declare that on such a day the suspension shall cease, and the offender be restored.  In a case of this kind, action on the part of the lodge is necessary to effect a restoration.

Such a sentence being intended to last indefinitely—­that is to say, during the pleasure of the lodge—­may, I conceive, be reversed at any legal time, and the individual restored by a mere majority vote the of lodge.  Some authorities think a vote of two-thirds necessary; but I see no reason why a lodge may not, in this as in other cases, reverse its decision by a vote of a simple majority.  The Ancient Constitutions are completely silent on this and all its kindred points; and, therefore, where a Grand Lodge has made no local regulation on the subject, we must be guided by the principles of reason and analogy, both of which direct us to the conclusion that a lodge may express its will, in matters unregulated by the Constitutions, through the vote of a majority.

But the restoration of an expelled Mason requires a different action.  By expulsion, as I have already said, all connection with the Order is completely severed.  The individual expelled ceases to be a Mason, so far as respects the exercise of any masonic rights or privileges.  His restoration to the Order is, therefore, equivalent to the admission of a profane.  Having ceased on his expulsion to be a member of the lodge which had expelled him, his restoration would be the admission of a new member.  The expelled Mason and the uninitiated candidate are to be placed on the same footing—­both are equally unconnected with the institution—­the one having never been in it, and the other having been completely discharged from it.

The rule for the admission of new members, as laid down in the Thirty-nine Regulations, seems to me, therefore, to be applicable in this case; and hence, I conceive that to reverse a sentence of expulsion and to restore an expelled Mason will require as unanimous a vote as that which is necessary on a ballot for initiation.