The commission of a grossly immoral act is a violation of the contract entered into between each Mason and his Order.

If sanctioned by silence or impunity, it would bring discredit on the institution, and tend to impair its usefulness.

A Mason who is a bad man, is to the fraternity what a mortified limb is to the body, and should be treated with the same mode of cure--he should be cut off, lest his example spread, and disease be propagated through the constitution.
The punishment of expulsion can only be inflicted after a due course of trial, and upon the votes of at least two-thirds of the members present, and should always be submitted for approval and confirmation to the Grand Lodge.
One question here arises, in respect not only to expulsion but to the other masonic punishments, of which I have treated in the preceding sections:--Does suspension or expulsion from a Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, an Encampment of Knights Templar, or any other of what are called the higher degrees of Masonry, affect the relations of the expelled party to Symbolic or Ancient Craft Masonry?
I answer, unhesitatingly, that it does not, and for reasons which, years ago, I advanced, in the following language, and which appear to have met with the approval of the most of my contemporaries:-- "A chapter of Royal Arch Masons, for instance, is not, and cannot be, recognized as a masonic body, by a lodge of Master Masons.

'They hear them so to be, but they do not know them so to be,' by any of the modes of recognition known to Masonry.

The acts, therefore, of a Chapter cannot be recognized by a Master Masons' lodge, any more than the acts of a literary or charitable society wholly unconnected with the Order.