VII. A Lodge has the right to install its officers

after being elected. This is a right incidental to the grant of perpetual succession, which is contained in the warrant ; for, as by ancient Masonic law and universal usage, no officer can legally discharge the functions of the office to which he has been elected, until he has been regularly inducted into it by the ceremony of installation, it follows that when a grant of perpetual succession of officers is made, the grant carries with it the power of investing all suc- ceeding officers with the powers and functions of their predecessors, which investiture is accomplished in Masonry by the ceremony of installation. But this power of installation, like all the other powers of subordinate Lodges, is controlled and directed by certain Grand Lodge regulations, which it is not in the power of the Lodge to set aside.
The installation, for instance, must take place at the communication, immediately before or on the festival of St. John the Evangelist. This is con- sidered as the commencement of the Masonic year, and on that day the old officers vacate their seats,
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which are assumed by the new ones. But if by any circumstance the installation Las been omitted until after this festival, the law having been violated, ' and there being no other law which provides for an installation after that day, the installation can then only take place by the authority and under the dis- pensation of the Grand Master.
We have seen, in the preceding chapter, that at the constitution of a new Lodge, the installation can only be conducted by the Grand Master, or some Past Master, acting for and representing him. This is because on that occasion the installation makes a part of the ceremony of constitution, which, by the Old Regulations, can only be performed by the Grand Master. But all subsequent installations may be conducted by any Past Master of the Lodge, or other Past Master representing him ; because the warrant grants the Master of the Lodge and his successors the perpetual power of installing their successors. It is only when the exercise of this right has been temporarily forfeited by an omission to install at the regular time, that it becomes neces- sary to go outside of the warrant, and apply to the Grand Master for his dispensing power to legalize the installation at an irregular period.
It has been supposed by many that when an officer who has once been installed, is re-elected to the same office, a repetition of the installation is not neces- sary ; but this neglect of forms, in an institution which depends so much on them, is, 1 think, of dangerous tendency, and it is therefore better that
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the installation should always be repeated. In fact the omission of it changes, if not practically, at least theoretically, the tenure by which the re- elected officer holds his office for the second year. At his first election he was of course installed ; now by the law of Masonry, an old officer holds on until his successor is installed. But in this case he is his own successor, and if, on his second election, he does again pass through the ceremony of installation, it is evident that he holds the office to which he has been elected, not by the tenure of that election, but by the tenure by which an old officer retains his office until his successor is installed. He is not, therefore, the regularly installed officer for the year, but the former one, retaining the office in trust for his successor. The theory of his official position is entirely changed ; and as the obligation for the faithful discharge of the duties of the office for the year on which he has entered has never been ad- ministered to him, it is a question how far a man, not strictly conscientious, might feel himself con- trolled by the promises he had made for the preced- ing year, and which he might, with sophistry, I admit, suppose to have been fulfilled at the close of his term of office. And although this practical re- sult might never occur, still, as I have already said, it is dangerous, in a ceremonial institution like ours, to neglect the observance of any prescribed form.*
* Lord Coke has wisely said that, " prudent antiquity did, for more so Temnity and better memory and observation of that which is to be done, es press substances under ceremonies."
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