Mother Kilwinning.

MOTHER KILWINNING .

LONDON , SATURDAY , JULY 1 , 1865 .

BY BEO . D . MTJEEAT LYON , K . T ., ONE OP THB GrEANB STEWAEDS IN THE GrEAND IiODGE 01 T SCOTLAND . No . XVI . Till about the middle of last century , initiations effected without the lodge were freely homologated

by Mother Kilwinning ; and it was only when the fees for such intrants failed to be forthcoming that " abhorrence" of the system was formally expressed , and its perpetuation forbidden . Nor did the practice of irresponsible parties making Masons seem ,

at the period of which we speak , to be peculiar to the Mother Lodge ; for while by the rules of at least one of her daughters , framed in 1765 , brethren were prohibited from being " a witness , or accessory to making a Mason , unless he enter

himself to a certain constitute lodge / ' liberty was grantedto ordinary members resident at adistauce of " more than three miles from the place where the Box is kept" to " enter persons to the lodge "—a custom ( in the observance of which one Mason

could , unaided , make another ) indicating either the presence of a ritual of less elaborate proportions than that now in use ., or a total indifference to uniformity in imparting "to novitiates the secrets of the Craft . We have been able to trace the

existence of such an innovation , as authorised by a daughter of the Grand Lodge of Scotland so recently as 1813 ; though the practice being found , by those lodges who had formerly sanctioned or winked at it , to be pregnant with evil not only to

themselves but to the whole brotherhood , had with the eighteenth century been , with few exceptions , allowed to lapse into disuse . Of the complaints coming before the Mother Lodge on St . Thonias ' sday , 1814 , we select one bearing upon this reprehensible manner of extending a lodge ' s membership : —

"Tho petition of the Mastoi * , office-bearers , and members of Ayr Operative Squaremen Lodge showeth , that some time ago Brother J W , member of said lodge , then residing in Greenock , made application to the lodge that several persons had made application to him -wishing to be made members to Ayr Operative Lodge , and wherever entries were made that he would transmit their that mi

names , so they ght bo enrolled in the books of the lodge ,. and that he would be forthcoming to the lodge for their entry money . The Master and office-bearers , along wkh the different members , sent him a full power to enter as many as he thought worthy to said lodge , which , wo undei-stand , ho has occasionally done to a great extent . We have got the names of three , with their entry money ; but as we have good reason to think there is a great many more entered of which we have had no information from him ,

as some of them have applied to the lodge for diplomas whose names he did not transmit to the lodge , nor the money for their entry , upon which account the lodge has at different times written to him both for their names and also their entry money ; but he has nob answered any of said letters , and , as we have reason to suppose , still continues to make intrants to said lodge

in defiance of the same . l ? or these reasons , the petitioners beg yon , as Provincial Grand Master for this "Western District , to use your authority to enable your petitioners not only to recover what entry money is due to the lodge from what entries J . W . has made since he received his authority from the lodge , but that he shall return the same . "

Consideration of this complaint resulted in the Master and other brethren of Mother Kilwinning expressing themselves as " decidedly of opinion that the "Master , ofB . ce-bearers , and members of Ayr Operative Squaremen Lodge have acted very

improperly in granting to J . W . a commission to enter members to their lodge at his discretion , and are highly reprehensible for so doing , contrary to the amies of Masonry , and every other well regulated society—therefore' unanimously pronounce a

vote of censure in this case upon their conduct , leaving them to operate their relief against J . W . for the dues of intrants made by him , and for his improper behaviour actiug under their authority , in the way they best can . " Occasion for a similar complaint has , so far as we are aware , never since been presented by any of the Ayrshire lodges .

Yet another questionable , but now obsolete , mode of widening the sphere of the Craft ' s influence remains to be noticed , viz ., the erection of branch lodges by " dispensation , " granted by the office-bearers of subordinate lodges , whereby the brethren named in these mock-charters were

empowered to elect office-bearers , and otherwise to meet and act as a regular lodge of Freemasons in name of and as representing the lodge by whom they were so constituted , and into whose exchequer a fixed proportion of intrants' fees was to be

paid—the parent lodge undertaking the recording iu the books of the Grand Lodge the names of all such intrants , who , although made forth of the lodge , were accounted among its regular members . This innovation , current in Ayrshire early

in the present century , was certainly an improvement upon that which Mother Kilwinning was led to pronounce as being " contrary to the rules of Masonry / ' inasmuch as by the formal election of office-bearers responsible to their mother lodge

for the manner in which they worked the dispensation , a guarantee was provided that in administering the rites of the fraternity , no essential principle would be violated . We cannot point to the