But the doctrine, that after the expiration of the term of a definite suspension, an action by the lodge is still necessary to a complete restoration, is capable of producing much mischief and oppression. For, if the lodge not only has a right, but is under the necessity of taking up the case anew, and deciding whether the person who had been suspended for three months, and whose period of suspension has expired, shall now be restored, it follows, that the members of the lodge, in the course of their inquiry, are permitted to come to such conclusion as they may think just and fit; for to say that they, after all their deliberations, are, to vote only in one way, would be too absurd to require any consideration. They may, therefore, decide that A.B., having undergone the sentence of the lodge, shall be restored, and then of course all would be well, and no more is to be said. But suppose that they decide otherwise, and say that A.B., having undergone the sentence of suspension of three months, _shall not_ be restored, but must remain suspended until further orders. Here, then, a party would have been punished a second time for the same offense, and that, too, after having suffered what, at the time of his conviction, was supposed to be a competent punishment--and without a trial, and without the necessary opportunities of defense, again found guilty, and his comparatively light punishment of suspension for three months changed into a severer one, and of an indefinite period. The annals of the most arbitrary government in the world--the history of the most despotic tyrant that ever lived--could not show an instance of more unprincipled violation of law and justice than this. And yet it may naturally be the result of the doctrine, that in a sentence of definite suspension, the party can be restored only by a vote of the lodge at the expiration of his term of suspension. If the lodge can restore him, it can as well refuse to restore him, and to refuse to restore him would be to inflict a new punishment upon him for an old and atoned-for offense.