But the case is otherwise whenever a candidate for advancement has been rejected.  He has now been set aside by the lodge, and no time is laid down in the regulations or usages of the craft for his making a second application.  He may never do so, or he may in three months, in a year, or in five years.  The members are, therefore, no more prepared to expect this renewed application at any particular meeting of the lodge, than they are to anticipate any entirely new petition of a profane.  If, therefore, the second application is not made at one regular meeting and laid over to the next, the possibility is that the lodge may be taken by surprise, and in the words of the old Regulation, “a turbulent member may be imposed on it.”

The inexpediency of any other course may be readily seen, from a suppositions case.  We will assume that in a certain lodge, A, who is a Fellow Craft, applies regularly for advancement to the third degree.  On this occasion, for good and sufficient reasons, two of the members, B and C, express their dissent by depositing black balls.  His application to be raised is consequently rejected, and he remains a Fellow Graft.  Two or three meetings of the lodge pass over, and at each, B and C are present; but, at the fourth meeting, circumstances compel their absence, and the friends of A, taking advantage of that occurrence, again propose him for advancement; the ballot is forthwith taken, and he is elected and raised on the same evening.  The injustice of this course to B and C, and the evil to the lodge and the whole fraternity, in this imposition of one who is probably an unworthy person, will be apparent to every intelligent and right-minded Mason.

I do not, however, believe that a candidate should be rejected, on his application for advancement, in consequence of objections to his moral worth and character.  In such a case, the proper course would be to prefer charges, to try him as an Apprentice or Fellow Craft; and, if found guilty, to suspend, expel, or otherwise appropriately punish him.  The applicant as well as the Order is, in such a case, entitled to a fair trial.  Want of proficiency, or a mental or physical disqualification acquired since the reception of the preceding degree, is alone a legitimate cause for an estoppal of advancement by the ballot.  But this subject will be treated of further in the chapter on the rights of Entered Apprentices.

Section XI.

Of the Number to be Initiated at one Communication.

The fourth General Regulation decrees that “no Lodge shall make more than five new Brothers at one time.”  This regulation has been universally interpreted (and with great propriety) to mean that not more than five degrees can be conferred at the same communication.

This regulation is, however, subject to dispensation by the Grand Master, or Presiding Grand Officer, in which case the number to be initiated, passed, or raised, will be restricted only by the words of the dispensation.