Ears Of Wheat From A Cornucopia.

EARS OF WHEAT FROM A CORNUCOPIA .

LONDON , SATURDAY , MARCS 13 , 1869 .

By Bro . D . MURRAY LYON , A . M ., Masonic University of Kentucky , U . S . ; Corresponding Member of the Union of German Freemasons , Leipzig ; one of the G-rand Stewards in the Grand Lodgeof Scotland ; P . G . S . W . of Ayrshire ; author of the "History of Mother Kilwinning , " § 'c .

( Continued from page 63 ) . EAIDS UPON THE RIGHTS OF MOTHER KILWINNING . If we except the periodical boastings on behalf of a lodge Avhose claims for precedence over all other Scotch lodges were based upon the alleged

genuineness of a document which one of our most accomplished antiquarians ( Cosmo Inoes ) has unhesitatingly declared to be a forgery , the Lodgeof Kilwinning has for sixty years been in unchallenged possession of the first place on the roll of

daughter lodges under the Scotch Constitution . The last attempt to disturb this order of things was made by parties who seem in that movement to have been animated less by a desire for the humiliation of Mother Kilwinning , or the

aggrandisement of its ancient metropolitan rival , than by a Avish to gratify a spirit of retaliation and thereby mar the harmony of the Grand Lodge .

When the agreement of 1807 Avas entered into between the Grand Lodge and Mother Kilwinning , by a clause in which rank next to the former body was secured to the latter , a solitary individual of Mary ' s Chapel entered his protest against the

arrangements then madej but nothing farther took place in the shape of objection or opposition . Soon after the business with Kilwinning was finished , to the satisfaction of all parties , some members of Mary ' s Chapel , and others , leading

members of Edinburgh Lodges , Avere found guilty of practices which Avere b y the Grand Lodge considered so unmasonic , that it most reluctantly expelled the offenders . Iu 1814 , however , these expelled brethren applied to the Grand Lodge to

have the sentences of expulsion rescinded and themselves reponed in their former privileges , and they professed so much contrition for their offences that the Grand Lodge opened its arms and received them again into its bosom . Thus

reinstated , the moment an opportunity occurred , these brethren at a meeting held a few days previous to St . Andrew ' s day , in absence of the Substitute Grand Master ( William Inglis of Middleton , W . S . ) , and , contrary to all former

practice , endeavoured to bring forward a different set of office bearers for the Grand Lodge , from that proposed by Bro . Inglis , and approved of , on the first Monday of November , the day unalterably fixed for such nomination . The policy

of the newly-restored but secretly-dissatisfied brethren having become apparent , an adjournment of the communication was effected , ancl on St . Andrew ' s day the object of Mary ' s Chapel and its adherents was completely defeated in the

election of those Grand Officers AVIIO were originally put in nomination . Frustrated in their endeavours unconstitutionally to influence the election referred to , and being desirous of still farther fomenting disunion in the

Grand Lodo-e , the then Master of No . 1 ancl others formerly expelled , instigated a part of Mary ' s Chapel to agitate the question of seniority between that Lodge and Mother Kilwinning . Accordingly at the Grand Quarterly Communication held in

February 1815 , a petition A \ as presented by Mary ' s Chapel , praying that , as Mother Kilwinning had shoAvn no evidence of its being the oldest lodge in Scotland , Mary's Chapel , should be placed at the head of the Grand Lodge roll .

Consideration of this petition having been deferred till next Quarterly Communication , the interval Avas occupied by the opposing parties in procuring proxies in support of their respective positions . As shoAving the importance which was

attached to the subject , we here give an extract of a letter addressed to the Lodge of Kilwinning by the Grand Clerk : —" . . . . Should Mary ' s Chapel persist in her groundless and urgent demands , it will be necessary for the Grand Lodge

to make Mother Kilwinning a party to the question , in order that she may defend her own just rights ancl privileges . ... In order that the

Grand Lodge may be enabled completely to defeat the intentions of Mary's Chapel and her adherents , it may ancl Avill be necessary that the friends of the Grand Lodge should come readily forward , especially as we understand the other

party is moving in every quarter , endeavouring to procure what proxies they can lay their hands upon from country lodges . . . . Now that Mother Kilwinning ' s rights are about to be challenged it is indispensably necessary that she should have

some one in Edinburgh to watch over ancl protect her privileges . . . ancl it is equally necessary that all those lodges who formerly held from Kilwinning , but Avho have since got charters from the