ust meet by their representatives and
proceed to the formation of a Grand Lodge. When that process has been
accomplished, the subordinate lodges return the warrants, under which they
had theretofore worked, to the Grand Lodges from which they had originally
received them, and take new ones from the body which they have formed.

That a mass meeting of the fraternity of any state is incompetent to
organize a Grand Lodge has been definitively settled--not only by general
usage, but by the express action of the Grand Lodges of the United States
which refused to recognize, in 1842, the Grand Lodge of Michigan which had
been thus irregularly established in the preceding year. That unrecognized
body was then dissolved by the Brethren of Michigan, who proceeded to
establish four subordinate lodges under Warrants granted by the Grand
Lodge of New York. These four lodges subsequently met in convention and
organized the present Grand Lodge of Michigan in a regular manner.

It seems, however, to have been settled in the case of Vermont, that where
a Grand Lodge has been dormant for many years, and all of its subordinates
extinct, yet if any of the Grand Officers, last elected, survive and are
present, they may revive the Grand Lodge and proceed constitutionally to
the exercise of its prerogatives.

The next inquiry is, as to the number of lodges required to organize a new
Grand Lodge. Dalcho says that _five_ lodges are necessary; and in this
opinion he is supported by the Ahiman Rezon of Pennsylvania, published in
1783 by William Smith, D.D., at that time the Grand Secretary of that
jurisdiction, and also by some other authorities. But no such regulation
is to be found in the Book of Constitutions, which is now admitted to
contain the fundamental law of the institution. Indeed, its adoption would
have been a condemnation of the legality of the Mother Grand Lodge of
England, which was formed in 1717 by the union of only _four_ lodges. The
rule, however, is to be found in the Ahiman Rezon of Laurence Dermott,
which was adopted by the "Grand Lodge of Ancient Freemasons," that seceded
from the lawful Grand Lodge in 1738. But as that body was undoubtedly,
under our present views of masonic law, schismatic and illegal, its
regulations have never been considered by masonic writers as being
possessed of any authority.

In the absence of any written law upon the subject, we are compelled to
look to precedent for authority; and, although t