The Approaching Grand Festival And The New Masonic Buildings.

difficulty in baking it , but these are intended only for those delicate productions in the pastry cook ' s art for which this tavern has so long been celebrated . -. Another , and very important item in the cuisine arrangements , is the ice department , and

here those savory and cooling preparations undergo their manipulation , and but for the proximity of the depositories to the premises , ovens , & c ., you might almost from the presence of immense blocks of ice , consider that you had got into a miniature

Ai'ctic region , and that it' was Avinter " all the year round . " Whatever may be the number of the intending " diners out , " the place and fittings appear equal to the demand , the wants of the hungry multitude heing supplied in a shorter

time than any other hall in London , inasmuch as there is an hydraulic lift from the kitchen to the dining-room door , so that course after course can follow without those long intervals which tend to prolong the gustatory process , loss of time , and general delay of the important business which has to follow . Here all that will be avoided , and

consequently the arrangements must add to the general comfort and convenience , and place the Freemasons ' Tavern in the first place of the front rank of the hotels of the metropolis . The cellar department has also undergone a careful revision . The old wines left by the late proprietor ,

unworthy of keeping , have been disposed of at a great loss , and others of a very different class substituted for those sent away . The directors of the Company , now renting the tavern from the Grand Lodge , have determined to cater Avell for the Craft ,

and under the able management of Bro . Charles Gosden , who personally superintends the general arrangements , they confidently expect to receive in addition a very liberal amount of the public patronage . The building has been constructed from the designs

of Bro . F . P . Cockerell , Grand Superintendent of Works , by Messrs . Rider and Son , of Southwark , which is deserving of the highest commendation , and as the home of Freemasonry in London , as well as for its tavern accommodation , will certainly rank amongst the first architectural buildings of the day .

Ears Of Wheat From A Cornucopia.

EARS OF WHEAT FROM A CORNUCOPIA .

By Bro . D . MURRAY LYOJT , A . M ., ( Masonic University of Kentnchy , U . S . ); Corresponding Member of the Union of German Freemasons ; one of the Grand Stewards in the Grand Lodge of Scotland , Sec . KILWINNING ABBEY . Than the Abbey of Kilwinning no Scottish ecclesiastical building is more closely associated

Ears Of Wheat From A Cornucopia.

Avith the early history of Freemasonry ; ifcs erection is coeval with the organisation of what is almost universally believed to have been the first formallyconstituted lodge in this country of those contitinental masons and architects , through the prior

development of Avhose artistic skill , aided no doubt by native labour , the magnificent abbeys of Melrose and Kelso Avere erected . The precise date of the foundation of Kilwinning Abbey , equally Avith that of the formation of the Lodge

of Kilwinning , has been lost in the accidents and circumstances of time—no historical record being extant to confirm or to refute the traditions respecting these two events . As to the identity of the founder of the abbey there is also some

discrepancy . Pont attributes its foundation to one of the murderers of Thomas a Beckett , and fixes the date in the time of Malcolm IV ., whose reia * n closed in 1165 ; others urge the possibility that it was founded in the latter part of the twelfth century , by Richard cle Morville , son of Hugh ,

Constable of Scotland , the chief benefactor * , if not also the founder , of Dryburgh Abbey * Avhile by another ( fche commonly received ) account , it Avas founded in the reign of David I ., A . D . 1140 , by Hugh de Morville himself . It Avas dedicated ,

to St . Winning * , and builfc for the reception of the Tyronensian order of monks , a detachment of which was brought thither from Kelso . If we may judge from the value and extent of its possessions ( said to have been largely contributed

to by Robert Bruce and other crowned heads ) , and the number of churches under its jurisdiction , * the position of the Monastery of Kilwinning must have been one of considerable influence- —but with the dawn of the Reformation began the

alienation by the Popish abbots of its lands •—an example which afc a subsequent period was closely imitated by others Avho in the act belied the name of Reformer , —and although , for many years surviving the general wreck in Avhich most of the religious establishments of the period