I. A Lodge lias the rigid to retain possession of its

warrant of constitution. In this respect we see at once a manifest difference between a warranted Lodge and one working under a dispensation. The latter derives its authority from the Grand Master, and the dispensation, which is the instrument by which that authority is delegated, may at any time be revoked by the officer from whom it emanated. In such an event there is no mode of redress pro- vided by law. The dispensation is the voluntary act of the Grand Master, is granted ex gratia, and may be withdrawn by the same act of will which first prompted the grant. There can be no appeal
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from such an act of revocation, nor can any Masonic tribunal require that the Grand Master should show cause for this exertion of his prerogative.
But the warrant having been granted by the Grand Lodge, the body of Masons thus constituted form at once a constituent part of the Grand Lodge. They acquire permanent rights which can- not be violated by any assumption of authority, nor abrogated except in due course of Masonic law. The Grand Master may, in the conscientious dis- charge of his duty, suspend the work of a chartered Lodge, when he believes that that suspension is necessary for the good of the Order ; but he cannot recall or revoke the warrant. From that suspen- sion of work there is of course an appeal to the Grand Lodge, and that body alone can, on cause shown, and after due and legal investigation, with- draw or revoke the warrant.*
When a Grand Master thus suspends the labors of a Lodge, he is usually. said " to arrest the war- rant." There is no objection to the phrase, if its signification is properly understood. " To arrest the warrant of a Lodge" is simply to forbid its com- munications, and to prevent its members from con-
* " No warrant of a Lodge can be forfeited except upon charges regularly made in Grand Lodge, at its annual communication, of which due notice shall be given the Lodge, and an opportunity of being heard in its defence ; but it may be suspended by the Grand Lodge or Grand Master, or Deputy Grand Master, at any time, upon proper cause shown, which suspension shall not extend beyond the next annual communication."7 — Ccrast. Grand Lodge of New York, §19. This, with the prerogative of suspension con- ferred upon the Deputy, and which is merely a local law of New York, seems to be the settled law upon the subject.
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gregating for the purposes of Masonic labor or business, under the authority of the warrant. But otherwise the condition of the Lodge remains un- changed. It does not forfeit its funds or property, and its members continue in good standing in the Order ; and should the decree of arrest by the Grand Master be reversed by the Grand Lodge, it resumes its functions just as if no such suspension or arrest had occurred. I have no doubt that the Grand Master cannot demand the delivery of the warrant into his custody ; for having been intrusted to the Master, Wardens, and their successors, by the Grand Lodge, the Master, who is the proper cus- todian of it, has no right to surrender it to any one, except to that body from whom it emanated. The " arrest of the warrant" is only a decree of the Grand Master in the character of an injunction, by which he forbids the Lodge to meet until the com- plaints preferred against it can be investigated and adjudicated by the Grand Lodge.
The laws of Masonry provide only two ways in which the warrant of constitution of a Lodge can be forfeited, and the Lodge dissolved. The first of these is by an act of the Grand Lodge, after due trial. The oitences which render a Lodge liable to this severe penalty are enumerated in the Constitu- tion of the Grand Lodge of New York * as being ; 1. Contumacy to the authority of the Grand Mas ter or Grand Lodge. 2. Departure from the ori ginal plan of Masonry and Ancient Landmarks
* Constitution G. L. of New York, § 17.
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3. Disobedience to the constitutions. And 4, Ceas- ing to meet for one year or more. To these I am disposed to add, 5. The indiscriminate making of immoral candidates, whereby the reputation of the institution in the vicinity of the Lodge is im- paired.
The second mode by which a Lodge may be dis- solved is by a voluntary surrender of its warrant. This must be by the act of a majority of the mem- bers, and at a communication especially called for that purpose. But it has been held that the Master must concur in this surrender ; for, if he does not, being the custodian of the instrument, it cannot be taken from him, except upon trial and conviction of a competent offence before the Grand Lodge.
As the warrant of constitution is so important an instrument, being the evidence of the legality of the Lodge, it is essentially necessary that it should be present and open to the inspection of all the mem- bers and visitors at each communication of the Lodge. The ritual requires that the three great lights of Masonry should always be present in the Lodge,45" as necessary to its organization as a just
* I cannot refrain from quoting here, although not strictly a legal subject, the beautiful language of the Committee of Foreign Correspondence of the Grand Lodge of New Jersey, in 1849 :
" The Bible is found in every Masonic assembly. Nor is it there as a slighted and neglected symbol of the Order. Upon its pages often rests the hand and falls the eye of the candidate from the moment the first star of Masonry rises upon his vision to ' the breaking of the dominion of the infidel over the Holy Sepulchre, by the tried steel and strong arm of valorous knight'. To the authority of that volume Masonry appeals for the solemnity cf her obligations and the purity of her principles. It shines in her templea
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Lodge. Equally necessary is the warrant of con- stitution to its organization as a legal Lodge ; and therefore if the warrant is mislaid or out of the room at the time of opening, it is held by Masonic jurists that the Lodge cannot be opened until that instrument is brought in and deposited in a con- spicuous place, the most usual, and perhaps the most proper, being the pedestal of the Master.
Hence, too, as the warrant is the evidence of the legality of a Lodge, every Mason who desires to visit a Lodge for the first time is entitled to an in- spection of this instrument, nor should any Mason ever consent to visit a strange Lodge until he has had an opportunity of examining it. The refusal to submit it to his inspection is in itself a suspicious circumstance, which should place him on his guard, and render him at once averse to holding communion of a Masonic nature with persons who are thus un- willing, and, it may be, unable to produce the evi- dence of their legal standings.