Preston says that the petition must be recommended “by the Masters of three regular lodges adjacent to the place where the new lodge is to be held.”  Dalcho says it must be recommended “by three other known and approved Master Masons,” but does not make any allusion to any adjacent lodge.  The laws and regulations of the Grand Lodge of Scotland require the recommendation to be signed “by the Masters and officers of two of the nearest lodges.”  The Constitutions of the Grand Lodge of England require that it must be recommended “by the officers of some regular lodge.”  The recommendation of a neighboring lodge is the general usage of the craft, and is intended to certify to the superior authority, on the very best evidence that can be obtained, that, namely, of an adjacent lodge, that the new lodge will be productive of no injury to the Order.

If this petition be granted, the Grand Secretary prepares a document called a dispensation, which authorizes the officers named in the petition to open and hold a lodge, and to “enter, pass, and raise Freemasons.”  The duration of this dispensasation is generally expressed on its face to be, “until it shall be revoked by the Grand Master or the Grand Lodge, or until a warrant of constitution is granted by the Grand Lodge.”  Preston says, that the Brethren named in it are authorized “to assemble as Masons for forty days, and until such time as a warrant of constitution can be obtained by command of the Grand Lodge, or that authority be recalled.”  But generally, usage continues the dispensation only until the next meeting of the Grand Lodge, when it is either revoked, or a warrant of constitution granted.

If the dispensation be revoked by either the Grand Master or the Grand Lodge (for either has the power to do so), the lodge of course at once ceases to exist.  Whatever funds or property it has accumulated revert, as in the case of all extinct lodges, to the Grand Lodge, which may be called the natural heir of its subordinates; but all the work done in the lodge, under the dispensation, is regular and legal, and all the Masons made by it are, in every sense of the term, “true and lawful Brethren.”

Let it be supposed, however, that the dispensation is confirmed or approved by the Grand Lodge, and we thus arrive at another step in the history of the new lodge.  At the next sitting of the Grand Lodge, after the dispensation has been issued by the Grand Master, he states that fact to the Grand Lodge, when, either at his request, or on motion of some Brother, the vote is taken on the question of constituting the new lodge, and, if a majority are in favor of it, the Grand Secretary is ordered to grant a warrant of constitution.