Foreign Freemasonry.

FOREIGN FREEMASONRY .

Its Position Vis-a-Vis of Christianity , and of Catholicism . By D . Moncrieff O'Connor , in the " Tablet . " ( Continued from page 183 ) . ' ¦» / CONSIDERING that the idea of God is the source and mainstay of V ^ every despotism and all iniquity , " proposed the Mason Andrieux

at the Anti-Council of Naples 1869 and passed therein by acclamation '; " considering that the Catholic religion is the most complete and most formidable personification of this idea , that the body of its dogma is the negation even of society , the Freethinkers assume the obligation of effecting the total destruction of Catholicism and its annihilation by every means , including revolutionary force . "

How true is the exclamation of the German Mason that " Freemasonry and Catholicism mutually exclude each other I " In the French Masonic Bulletin for May 1880 , those who have the misfortune to wade through such literature may read this on the " Utility and duty of Freemasonry in the World , and especially in France : "

Freemasonry after having gloriously proved itself during those splendid epochs of our national History , 1789 , 1793 , 1830 , and 1848 , fell into a state of torpor . ^ Continuing , "The Review" quotes with approval from a speech of Madier de Monfcjau :

The clerical question is open , but by no means determined . The citizens must fight , fight everywhere , and especially here ( in France ) . Have they not to fight , in thoir homes , against the spirit of the confessor , and incessantly to uphold . those ideas which are dear to them in face of wife and children imbued and ruled by the spirit of Catholicism ? And in the next week's issue :

The Popes have always dreaded this association , universal like Catholicism , which denies the authority of the Church , and stands face to face with it as a power destined to destroy it . See " Rivista della Massoneria Italiano , " Vol . xviii ., p . 304 . " All reconciliation with thee , " the Papacy , "is henceforth and forever impossible . " Ibid ., vol . xix ., p . 7 .

In July , generalisations are abandoned . and specific action pointed out , until in June 1883 , the taking of the Clerical Bastille is indicated through the subjection of youth , mind , and heart , to Masonry . No more baptism , no more communions , no more confession , no more

religious marriages , no more holy water at the hour of death ; these ( cries Brother Galopin ) are the Bastilles to seize . To conquer these we must begin at the beginning , and give no religious instruction whatever to the child , for almost always something of it remains in manhood , although it be not practised then .

" For the growing child , " exclaims a she-mason , Mdme . Hardouin after a "Masonic baptism , " instead of stories of St . Joseph , St . Ignatius , St . Labre , & c ,, let us take the incomparable examples which the splendid Revolution produced . " ¦ " "Never , " cried Brother Janvier , " never let the young be poisoned by the priest ; the old dogmas corrupt humanity ! " **

The official Bulletin of the Grand Orient of Italy lays down the following instruction on this point : Let the labours of-fche Lodge be specially directed to the youth of Rome , brought up by priests in the false morality , curbed and straining 'rieath the tyrannical yoke of the priesthood . . For them have we to be Apostles of redemption and civilisation .

Again this is no mere rhetoric ; a Masonic-theory needs only opportunity to . become a practice . In a letter dated December I 860 , Charles Albert , certainly -well qualified-to judge , is stated to have declared to an eminent person that wherever the Jesuits opened a College , there the Freemasons

established a club to seduce the youths entrusted to the Fathers . How well they succeeded may be judged by . the fact that the Military Tribunal of Mantua discovered among the Freemasons children not yeb 15 years old . That this was the case in , Rome , too , Bottalla pledges his word . And so on , ad infinitum and ad nauseam .

Leaving aside the very serious issues raised by its polity audits sociology we have only touched upon two aspects of Masonry ; its position vis-a-vis of Christianity and of Catholicism . That position it has accentuated for us with sufficient distinctness .

1 Ibid ., p . 59 . 3 Present and Future of German Masonry , Leipsig 1854 , p . 116 . 3 We would ask consideration of these dates , especially the last . On 12 th ; January of that year the Revolution broke out in Palmero ; 24 th February , at Paris ; 13 th March , at Vienna ; on the 18 th , at Berlin ; the same day at Milan ; on the 20 th ,: at Parma ; on the 22 nd , at Venice ; . on 14 th May ,. at . Naples . In Hungary ,, at Munich , Trieste , Padua , Modena , and Neuchatel , the Revolution also left its deadly trail .

4 On 3 rd December 1887 , the Secretary of the Grand Orient of Italy sent a circular to all the Italian Lodges , which contained these words : " The Anniversary of 20 th September , the day Rome became the capital of Italy , . and the Temporal Power was overthrown , exclusively concerns Freemasonry , It is an anniversary , a fete , pure and simply Masonic , as it marks the date of ! the arrival of Italian Freemasonry in Rome' an end it has had in view so long . "

Bulletin Mac , de la G . Lodge Symbolique Ecossaise No . 30 , Sept ., p . 176 , et seq . 6 Ibid . 7 Ibid . Also De La Rive ; La Femme et l'lnfant dans Ia Franc Maconnerie Universelle .

8 For 1863 . No . 9 , 138 . 9 " The Tablet , " 12 th January 1861 10 " Hist , de la Rev ., T . ll . p . 367 .

Foreign Freemasonry.

Founded undoubtedly within the boundaries of Christianity , it has been pushed beyond her pale by leaders intoxicated with the visions its shibboleths created . In its eagerness to attain an universalism it sacrificed all limits , mental and moral . If the personality of God were a curb , make God an

Idea ; if as an Idea He led to misapprehension , retain Him , if you like , as a motto , or generic expression ; whence He faded to a legend—to a myth . And if God be thus dissolved , His image , the spiritual essence of man , can have little lasting actuality . Thus the soul , in its true life , which is immortality , lapsed to a memory , thence to a meaningless unreality .

But though Masonry emancipated itself from Christianity , there existed around it a force , the power of which it could not evade ; of sleepless action , of tireless incentive . Turn as it would , Masonry was face to face with Catholicism and instinctively recognised its death foe . Keenl y it fences

itself from the influence of this environment . Hence its cry for t-J-ie destruction of Catholicism ; the mining and sapping its foundations ; the acclaim of all it denounces ; the sneer , the laugh , the taunt , the calumny to which Masonry incessantly subjects it—the war to the death it openly proclaims .

But as the authority of Catholicism is the only permanent authority in the hands of man , the escape from it let loose a spirit of independence of ail authority which strikes at tri , e root of civil life . Hence it is that revolution is of the essence and vitality of Masonry . And this lust for independence carried from political into social being , awoke the spirit of absolute

irresponsibility in mental life—the shibboleth , freedom of thought , and , too , that unquestioned individual apprizement of moral acts—the shibboleth , liberty of conscience . But to strike at civil authority , to destroy the responsibility of inter-dependence is to disintegrate society , fco ruin its fabric , . fco wreck its foundations :

Destruxit tecto Lutherus Muros Calvinus , sed fundamenta Sooinus . And shall society have no saviour ? Remembering St . Malachy ' s " Religio depopula , " which we are fast approaching , is there among the crowned and consecrated leaders of mankind no power whioh dare confront

this Hydra ? No Isfeudiyar fco destroy this diabolical Simurgh ? '¦> No Greyhound to hurry it back to hell ? But one Power alone . That mysterious Power which , under Leo , stayed the scourge of Hunnish and Vandal invasion ; which , under Agapius stemmed the Gothic flood ; which , under John spared Rome the tyranny of Narses ; which , under two Gregories saved

Italy from tho Lombards . The Power which under Leo IV ., John VIII ., John X ., Benedict VIII ., and Victor III ., purged Italy of , and saved Europe from , the Saracens ; which , under Urban II ., laid these batteries that , guided by a Boniface XL , an Eugenius IV ., a Nicholas V-, a Calixtus III ., and a Pius V ., saved Christendom from Mahommed , and , but for which ,

Rome would have become a " wilderness of ruins like Carthage or Babylo . r , " and Italy , a Moslem pashalik , like Greece before the War of Independence . The power which under Gregory VII ., Alexander III ., and Innocent IV ., won Italy her freedom from German dominion , and spared her becoming , aa

Illyria , an obscure province of the German Empire , and the Papacy irom sinking , like the Patriarchate of Constantinople , to a creature and slave of despotic greed . The Power which , from Adrian IV . to Boniface VIII ., built up tbe municipal liberties of the Italian cities , finally consolidated into that glory of Italy , her Republics .

Amid fche surging flood of insensate licence it alone stands , out a beacon and a warning to the perishing . True shepherds of the folds of Christendom , the Popes through , the long watches of restless years have guarded humanity from this ravening hate . Friendless and unthanked , the Popes have

unmasked this crime . Fearless and alone have the Popes withstood its flood . Pleaders before God , tho despised friends of humanity , they alone have the conscience free ; they alone know true liberty ; they alone , saviours of society , are the guardians of the rights of man .

The report of the Directors ot the Exmouth Masonic Hall Company , just issued , shows that , after applying £ 23 odd to capital charges , there remains a balance of £ 40 16 s lOd . Out of

this the Directors . recommended the payment of . the interest . op the 3 £ per cent , preference shares , and of 5 per cent , on the shares held by the Sun Lodge .

The latest thing in home-grown lotteries emanates , from a Masonic source , and is designed " to liquidate the debt on Mother Kilwinning Lodge Buildings , " at Glasgow . Mother Kilwinning , whoever she may be , seems to have taken a leaf from the

booka lottery-book in this case—of Mother Church . It . hardly seems in keeping with the honourable traditions of Masonry that a Lodge should be circulating among the general public invitations to take part in an illegal gamble of this kind , with a long string

of exalted personages as " patrons , " and Brothers This and That as managers of the enterprise ; and I should hope that a hint of what is going on will lead the bigwigs of the Craft to interfere . If not , the duty will devolve upon the Glasgow police . — ** Truth . "

11 See " Crena-Simurgh-Rea " ; a curious and learned paper read by Dr . L . C . Casartelli before the Catholic International Scientific Congress of Paris , April 1891 . ( Picard ) .