ofane is required to apply for initiation to the lodge
nearest his place of residence, and, if there rejected, can never in
future apply to any other lodge. But the rule is different with respect to
the application of a Master Mason for membership.

A Master Mason is not restricted in his privilege of application for
membership within any geographical limits. All that is required of him is,
that he should be an affiliated Mason; that is, that he should be a
contributing member of a lodge, without any reference to its peculiar
locality, whether near to or distant from his place of residence. The Old
Charges simply prescribe, that every Mason ought to belong to a lodge. A
Mason, therefore, strictly complies with this regulation, when he unites
himself with any lodge, thus contributing to the support of the
institution, and is then entitled to all the privileges of an affiliated
Mason.

A rejection of the application of a Master Mason for membership by a lodge
does not deprive him of the right of applying to another. A Mason is in
"good standing" until deprived of that character by the action of some
competent masonic authority; and that action can only be by suspension or
expulsion. Rejection does not, therefore, affect the "good standing" of
the applicant; for in a rejection there is no legal form of trial, and
consequently the rejected Brother remains in the same position after as
before his rejection. He possesses the same rights as before, unimpaired
and undiminished; and among these rights is that of applying for
membership to any lodge that he may select.

If, then, a Mason may be a member of a lodge distant from his place of
residence, and, perhaps, even situated in a different jurisdiction, the
question then arises whether the lodge within whose precincts he resides,
but of which he is not a member, can exercise its discipline over him
should he commit any offense requiring masonic punishment. On this subject
there is, among masonic writers, a difference of opinion. I, however,
agree with Brother Pike, the able Chairman of the Committee of
Correspondence of Arkansas, that the lodge can exercise such discipline. I
contend that a Mason is amenable for his conduct not only to the lodge of
which he may be a member, but also to any one within whose jurisdiction he
permanently resides. A lodge is the conservator of the purity and the
protector of the integrity of the Order within its precincts. The unworthy
conduct of