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 .