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Article THE RECORDS OF AN ANCIENT LODGE. ← Page 5 of 5
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The Records Of An Ancient Lodge.
We have now concluded our labours so far as the old minute book of the ancient Lodge of Melrose is concerned , and we trust the gleanings we have laid before the readers of the Masonic Magazine have been not altogether uninteresting . Before we hegan extracting and arranging these ancient records , a little discussion was raised in the pages of the Freemason , in which it was stated that Bro . W . P . Buchanof Glasgowhadabout ten years agoexamined
, , , , the books and documents belonging to the Lodge of Melrose , and had then given to the craft the result of his researches ; that since that time nothing new had been discovered in connection with the Melrose Lodge ; that , in fact , any further investigation would be a work of supererogation . We have , nevertheless , undertaken the task , ancl completed it . without in any way going over old ground , for since our labours began , we have been favoured with a perusal
of Bro . Buchan ' s paper upon " Melrose Abbey and Loclge , " and find he gives no information about the lodge beyond a copy of the regulations reprinted in 1861 , and an abstract of the income ancl expenditure for 1867 . The ancientcharges which we were fortunate enough to discover seem to have been unknown to anyone , the secretary of the lodge himself not knowing what was contained in the roll ; and the old minute bookfrom which we have freely made
, extracts , seems to have been similarly neglected ; consequently , we conclude that onr labours have not been altogether thrown away when we have been able to bring before our brethren Masonic gleanings hitherto ungathered . We have before us an abstract of the income and expenditure of " St . John ' s-Lodge , Melrose , " from December , 1878 , to December , 1879 , which shows as follows : —
Income ... £ 172 13 6 i Expenditure 164 13 8 | Balance ... £ 7 19 10 Besides a bank deposit of £ 300 , a fine hall and shop , which bring in an averao-c income of between £ 30 and £ 40 a year . There is no doubt that this lod
ge can claim an antiquity second to very few , and it is a pity that it has not fallen into line and owned allegiance to the Grand Lodge of Scotland . Instead of being , as it then might be , an honoured Loclge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons , it is nothing more or less in its present postion than a well conducted and prosperous benefit society , benefit societies ancl Masonic lodges being , as every Mason knows , very different things . If the lodge came in
under the banner of the Grand Loclge of Scotland , arrangements could easil y be made for the society to be carried on as it is now , without interferino- with the true Masonic work of the lodge , and we trust this will take place in time . We cannot conclude without expressing our thanks to the secretary of the lodge , Mr . James Faii-bairn , to whose courtesy we are indebted for the inspection of the documents we have been able to place before our readers . We
understand there are other papers and books of a more modern date than those we have quoted , but we had not an opportunity of seeing them . However we have been able to give our readers the cream of the old documents of this interesting loclge , which has held its meetings regularly , as the minutes testify , for a period of over two hundred years . It may be worthy of note that in all the documents we have examined there is no mention of the Master Mason ' s degree , and that the regulations printed in 1861 contain no allusion to it , but it is made special mention of in the regulations printed in 1879 .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Records Of An Ancient Lodge.
We have now concluded our labours so far as the old minute book of the ancient Lodge of Melrose is concerned , and we trust the gleanings we have laid before the readers of the Masonic Magazine have been not altogether uninteresting . Before we hegan extracting and arranging these ancient records , a little discussion was raised in the pages of the Freemason , in which it was stated that Bro . W . P . Buchanof Glasgowhadabout ten years agoexamined
, , , , the books and documents belonging to the Lodge of Melrose , and had then given to the craft the result of his researches ; that since that time nothing new had been discovered in connection with the Melrose Lodge ; that , in fact , any further investigation would be a work of supererogation . We have , nevertheless , undertaken the task , ancl completed it . without in any way going over old ground , for since our labours began , we have been favoured with a perusal
of Bro . Buchan ' s paper upon " Melrose Abbey and Loclge , " and find he gives no information about the lodge beyond a copy of the regulations reprinted in 1861 , and an abstract of the income ancl expenditure for 1867 . The ancientcharges which we were fortunate enough to discover seem to have been unknown to anyone , the secretary of the lodge himself not knowing what was contained in the roll ; and the old minute bookfrom which we have freely made
, extracts , seems to have been similarly neglected ; consequently , we conclude that onr labours have not been altogether thrown away when we have been able to bring before our brethren Masonic gleanings hitherto ungathered . We have before us an abstract of the income and expenditure of " St . John ' s-Lodge , Melrose , " from December , 1878 , to December , 1879 , which shows as follows : —
Income ... £ 172 13 6 i Expenditure 164 13 8 | Balance ... £ 7 19 10 Besides a bank deposit of £ 300 , a fine hall and shop , which bring in an averao-c income of between £ 30 and £ 40 a year . There is no doubt that this lod
ge can claim an antiquity second to very few , and it is a pity that it has not fallen into line and owned allegiance to the Grand Lodge of Scotland . Instead of being , as it then might be , an honoured Loclge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons , it is nothing more or less in its present postion than a well conducted and prosperous benefit society , benefit societies ancl Masonic lodges being , as every Mason knows , very different things . If the lodge came in
under the banner of the Grand Loclge of Scotland , arrangements could easil y be made for the society to be carried on as it is now , without interferino- with the true Masonic work of the lodge , and we trust this will take place in time . We cannot conclude without expressing our thanks to the secretary of the lodge , Mr . James Faii-bairn , to whose courtesy we are indebted for the inspection of the documents we have been able to place before our readers . We
understand there are other papers and books of a more modern date than those we have quoted , but we had not an opportunity of seeing them . However we have been able to give our readers the cream of the old documents of this interesting loclge , which has held its meetings regularly , as the minutes testify , for a period of over two hundred years . It may be worthy of note that in all the documents we have examined there is no mention of the Master Mason ' s degree , and that the regulations printed in 1861 contain no allusion to it , but it is made special mention of in the regulations printed in 1879 .