THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

worthy applicant, is to be corrected, or how such a candidate, when
once
rejected, is ever to make a second trial, for it is, of course,
admitted,
that circumstances may occur in which a candidate who had been once
blackballed might, on a renewal of his petition, be found worthy of
admission. He may have since reformed and abandoned the vicious habits
which caused his first rejection, or it may have been since discovered
that that rejection was unjust. How, then, is such a candidate to make
a
new application?
It is a rule of universal application in Masonry, that no candidate,
having been once rejected, can apply to any other lodge for admission,
except to the one which rejected him. Under this regulation the course
of
a second application is as follows:
Some Grand Lodges have prescribed that, when a candidate has been
rejected, it shall not be competent for him to apply within a year, six
months, or some other definite period. This is altogether a local
regulation--there is no such law in the Ancient Constitutions--and
therefore, where the regulations of the Grand Lodge of the jurisdiction
are silent upon the subject, general principles direct the following as
the proper course for a rejected candidate to pursue on a second
application. He must send in a new letter, recommended and vouched for
as
before, either by the same or other Brethren--it must be again referred
to
a committee--lie over for a month--and the ballot be then taken as is
usual in other cases. It must be treated in all respects as an entirely
new petition, altogether irrespective of the fact that the same person
had
ever before made an application. In this way due notice will be given
to
the Brethren, and all possibility of an unfair election will be
avoided.
If the local regulations are silent upon the subject, the second
application may be made at any time after the rejection of the first,
all
that is necessary being, that the second application should pass
through
the same ordeal and be governed by the same rules that prevail in
relation
to an original application.
Section IX.
_Of the necessary Probation and due Proficiency of Candidates before
Advancement_.
There is, perhaps, no part of the jurisprudence of Masonry which it is
more necessary strictly to observe than that which relates to the