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

entirely of a masonic character, and is exercised only over the members
of
the Order who have voluntarily contracted their allegiance. It cannot
affect the profane, who are, of course, beyond its pale. It is true,
that
as soon as a candidate applies to a lodge for initiation, he begins to
come within the scope of masonic law. He has to submit to a prescribed
formula of application and entrance, long before he becomes a member of
the Order. But as this formula is universal in its operation, affecting
candidates who are to receive it and lodges which are to enforce it in
all
places, it must have been derived from some universal authority. The
manner, therefore, in which a candidate is to be admitted, and the
preliminary qualifications which are requisite, are prescribed by the
landmarks, the general usage, and the ancient constitutions of the
Order.
And as they have directed the _mode how_, they might also have
prescribed
the _place where_, a man should be made a Mason. But they have done no
such thing. We cannot, after the most diligent search, find any
constitutional regulation of the craft, which refers to the initiation
of
non-residents. The subject has been left untouched; and as the ancient
and
universally acknowledged authorities of Masonry have neglected to
legislate on the subject, it is now too late for any modern and local
authority, like that of a Grand Lodge, to do so.
A Grand Lodge may, it is true, forbid--as Missouri, South Carolina,
Georgia, and several other Grand Lodges have done--the initiation of
non-residents, within its own jurisdiction, because this is a local law
enacted by a local authority; but it cannot travel beyond its own
territory, and prescribe the same rule to another Grand Lodge, which
may
not, in fact, be willing to adopt it.
The conclusions, then, at which we arrive no this subject are these:
The
ancient constitutions have prescribed no regulation on the subject of
the
initiation of non-residents; it is, therefore, optional with every
Grand
Lodge, whether it will or will not suffer such candidates to be made
within its own jurisdiction; the making, where it is permitted, is
legal,
and the candidate so made becomes a regular Mason, and is entitled to
the
right of visitation.
What, then, is the remedy, where a person of bad character, and having,
in
the language of the Grand Lodge of Maryland, "a distrust of his
acceptance" at home, goes abroad and receives the degrees of Masonry?
No
one will deny that such a state of things is productive of great evil
to