West Lancashire Relief Committee.

to the Manchester Relief Committee , for the promptitude with , which reports of cases have been exchanged . They have also to thank the Secretaries of Birmingham and Newcastle for their kind assistance .

In two cases which came under the notice of the committee , medical attendance was required , and application was made to Bro . Joseph Kellett Smith , M . D ., and he with the utmost alacrity attended to those requests , and also placed his professional services at the disposal of the committee , whenever required .

The committee being anxious to see the brethren generally interesting themselves in the work of charity , invite their co-operation . The Secretaries of the various lodges will confer a special favour on the . Secretary by promptly

transmitting the names and addresses of the delegates nominated by the lodges as members of this committee . The annual grant is now due , and can be paid to the Treasurer .

On behalf of the Committe THOS . MAESH , Hon . Sec . Committee Rooms , Masonic Temple , 22 , Hope-street , Liverpool .

Masonic Notes And Queries.

MASONIC NOTES AND QUERIES .

THE GLORIOUS ARCHITECT 0 _? HEAVES' AND EARTH . A brother at Florence is not mistaken in the memorandum respecting these words , which he states was made hy him , when visiting an English lodge , at the commencement of a pocket edition of the " Constitutions of the Ancient Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons" published hthe authority of the

, y United Grand Lodge of England , into which my brother looked upon that occasion . There are printed charges from the Ancient Records of Lodges beyond Sea , and of those in England , Scotland , and Ireland . In the first charge , which is that concerning God and religion , there is this passage : — "Let a reliion mode of worshi

man's g or p he what it may , he is not excluded from the Order , provided he believe in the Glorious Architect of Heaven and Earth . — CHATH - PUM & IS COOPEE . VOLTAIRE A FREEMASON . The pamphlet to which an East Kent brother

refers was printed at Paris in 1814 is entitled " Defense et Apologie de la Francmaconnerie , ou . Refutation des accusations dirigees contre elle a difierentes epoques et par divers auteurs . " It is no longer in my possession . The passage respecting Yoltaire transferredas my brother reminds mewhen he was

, , present in the library at Denton Court , autumn of 1854 , to a Common Place Book , has , after a long search , been discovered . I subjoin a copy . "Voltaire spres avoir eerit lui-meine contre la Maconnerie ,

revent de son erreur , s ' y fit initier , et finit par rdeconnaitre et declarer son importance et son utilite . " See my communications to the FREEMASONS' MAGAZINE —the one entitled " Voltaire ' s Assertion respecting the Origin of Freemasonry , " vol ix ., page 375 ; the other entitled " Voltaire and Freemasonry , " vol . x ., page 43 . —CHARLES PURTON COOPER .

DEAFNESS . In reply to your correspondent " P . M ., " who asks " What is to be done with a very deaf candidate ? " I may put on record in your pages a very interesting case of this nature which came under my own observation on two occasions , when presiding in place of the W . M . of a lod and whichwhen first reported

ge , , to me prior to a meeting of the lodge , I deemed it almost impossible to perform the ceremony : —A gentleman , so completely deaf that he could not hear the report of a pistol if fired off close to his ear , presented himself for initiation , and his brother , a member of the lod undertook to interpret to him

ge , by the deaf and dumb alphabet the whole of the ceremony . The chief difficulty , of course , lay in the earlier portion of the proceedings , but the brother , holding one of the candidate ' s hands in his , interpreted to him , by touch , the words addressed to him from the chair , and to which , as required , the

candidate gave the fitting responses , to the great interest of a large number of brethren . The manner in which the candidate repeated the OB . was especially truly marvellous . Occasionally he gave a wrong word , hut on his brother again touching his hand with the signs , the right word was readily substituted . Of courseduring the subsequent part of the ceremony

, the difficulty was very considerably lessened . In the same manner the candidate was regularly passed and raised , and the only difference between this and ordinary cases was that in each instance a much longer time was occupied in performing the ceremony . Should the candidate referred to by "P . M . " and

some member of the lodge be conversant with the deaf and dumb alphabet , the same mode of initiation might be tried , but I very much doubt whether another deaf candidate could be met with who could so readily go through the ceremony of initiation as the brother above mentioned . —D . PROV . G . M .

" COWANS . In our paper on Mother Kilwinning appearing in the MAGAZINE of date August 29 , 1863 , there occurs the following passage : — " Kilwinning , Dec . 20 , 1705 , . . . the same day by consent of the meeting , it was agreed th . it no Measson shall imploy no Cowan ,

which is to say without the word , to work . If there be ane Measson to be found within fiftein myles he is not to imploy ane Cowan , under the pain of fourtie shellings Scots . " This definition of Cowan proves the absurdity of the attempt made by certain anti-Masonic writers to derive the word from the

" chouans" of the French Revolution . Mackie , to show that the word was Masonically in use long before the French Revolution was even meditated , quotes from Anderson ' s " Constitutions " ( printed in 1759 ) a sentence in which "Cowan" occurs ; but here we find it in use by Mother Kilwinning in 1705 to denote irregular or uninitiated operatives . A revision of our notes enables us to adduce a still stronger proof of the antiquity of the word Cowan ,