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This Month’s Entry is:
“Calling On and Off”
“Calling Off”
A technical term in Freemasonry which signifies the
temporary suspension of labor in a Lodge without passing
through the formal ceremony of closing. The full form of the
expression is to call from labor to refreshment, and it took its
rise from the former custom of dividing the time spent in the
Lodge between the work of Freemasonry and the moderate
enjoyment of the banquet. The banquet formed in the
eighteenth century an indispensable part of the arrangements
of a Lodge Communication. "At a certain hour of the
evening," says Brother Oliver, "with certain ceremonies, the
Lodge was called from labor to refreshment, when the
Brethren enjoyed themselves with decent merriment." That
custom no longer exists; and although in England almost
always, and in the United States occasionally, the labors of the
Lodge are concluded with a banquet; yet the Lodge is
formally closed before the Brethren proceed to the table of
refreshment.
Calling off in American Lodges is now only used, in a certain
ceremony of the Third Degree, when it is desired to have
another meeting at a short interval, and the Master desires to
avoid the tediousness of dosing and opening the Lodge.
Thus, if the business of the Lodge at its regular meeting has so
accumulated that it cannot be transacted in one evening, it
has become the custom to call off until a subsequent evening,
when the Lodge, instead of being opened with the usual
ceremony, is simply "called on," and the latter meeting is
considered as only a continuation of the former.
This custom is very generally adopted in Grand Lodges at
their Annual Communications, which are opened at the
beginning of the session, called off from day to day, and
finally closed at its end. We do not know that any objection
has ever been advanced against this usage in Grand Lodges,
because it seems necessary as a substitute for the
adjournment, which is resorted to in other legislative bodies,
but which is not admitted in Freemasonry. But much
discussion has taken place in reference to the practice of
calling off in Lodges, some authorities sustaining and others
condemning it. Thus, many years ago, the Committee of
Correspondence of the Grand Lodge of Mississippi proposed
this question : ''In case of excess of business, cannot the
unfinished be laid over until the next or another day, and
must the Lodge be closed in form, and opened the next, or the
day designated for the transaction of that business?" To this
question some authorities, and among others Brother C. W.
Moore (Freemasons Monthly Magazine, volume xii, No,10),
reply in the negative, while other equally good jurists differ
from them in opinion.
The difficulty seems to be in this, that if the regular meeting
of the Lodge is closed in form, the subsequent meeting
becomes a special one, and many things which could be done
at a regular communication cease to be admissible. The
recommendation, therefore, of Brother Moore, that the Lodge
should be closed, and, if the business be unfinished, that the
Master shall call a special meeting to complete it, does not
meet the difficulty, because it is a well settled principle of
Masonic law that a special meeting cannot interfere with the
business of a preceding regular one. As, then, the mode of
briefly closing by adjournment is contrary to Masonic law
and usage, and cannot, therefore, be resorted to, as there is no
other way except by calling off to continue the character of a
regular meeting, and as, during the period that the Lodge is
called off, it is under the government of the Junior Warden,
and Masonic discipline is thus continued, Doctor Mackey, for
the reasons cited by him in regard to Brother Moore, was
clearly of opinion that calling off from day to day for the
purpose of continuing work or business is, as a matter of
convenience, admissible.
The practice may indeed be abused. But there is a well-known
legal maxim which says, Ez abusu non arguitur in usum. "No
argument can be drawn from the abuse of a thing against its
use. " Thus, a Lodge cannot be called off except for
continuance of work and business, nor to an indefinite day,
for there must be a good reason for the exercise of the
practice, and the Brethren present must be notified before
dispersing of the time of reassembling; nor can a Lodge at one
regular meeting be called off until the next, for no regular
meeting of a Lodge is permitted to run into another, but each
must be closed before its successor can be opened.
“Calling On”
When a Lodge that is called off at a subsequent time resumes
work or business, it is said to be called on. The full expression
is called on from refreshment to labor.
- Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry
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