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Article FOREIGN FREEMASONRY. Page 1 of 2 Article FOREIGN FREEMASONRY. Page 1 of 2 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Foreign Freemasonry.
FOREIGN FREEMASONRY .
Its Position Visa-Vis of Christianity , and of Catholicism . By D . Moncrieff O'Connor , in the " Tablet . " His face the semblance of a just man's wore , So kind and gracious was its outward cheer ; The rest was serpent all
The fell monster with the deadly sting Who passes mountains , who breaks through fenced walls And firm embattled spears , and with his filth Taints all the world . " Dante ' s Inferno " ( c . xvii . ) .
AT a time when most of the Catholic courts of Europe were in either covert or open hostility to his throne , a keen intellect which had risen to power through a brilliant past , in whom tho full maturity of a life-long study of men and affairs had , deepening into wisdom , impressed itself on Christendom in these words :
" We strictly forbid . . the faithful . . to dare or presume under whatever pretext . . to enter the" said Societies of Freemasons . . or to spend , entertain , or receive them ; to give them asylum or cover ; to be inscribed , received among , or help them . . . Wo absolutely ordain they
totally refrain from such Societies . . under pain of excommunication incurred by such act . . . Further , we will , and order . T all Inquisitors of Heresy to . . proceed against the transgressor . . of whatever . . dignity or pre-eminence . "
One greater than he , a man steeped to the lips in learning , bolder and more comprehensive in his grasp of policies ; a leader of men ever superior to events ; having analysed with scrupulous care the Bull containing these weighty words , emphasised the condemnation they contained . The " In Eminent - ' of Clement XII ., of 28 th April 1738 , was then confirmed by
Benedict XIV . in his " Providias Eomanorum , " of Sth May 1751 . By a constitution " Si Antiqua " of August 1814 , Pius VII ., three months after his restoration accentuated this antagonism . Condemned once more by Leo XII , their aims were so closely prescinded by Pius VIII ., in his Encyclical of 24 th May 1829 , that his exactitude of knowledge excited suspicion of
treachery somewhere , in the mind of the Leading Lodge of Italy , clearly expressed in a letter from the Carbonaro Felice , dated Ancona , 11 th June 1829 . Again , in an allocution , 25 th September 1865 , Pius IX . laid bare
their designs and recalled the still existing anathema against them . And our venerated Head , Leo XIII ., in his " Humanum Genus " of 20 th April 1884 , and his Encyclical of 15 th October 1890 , is no less explicit in his warning and reprobation .
The pronouncement of Clement not a little astonished his Catholic subjects . So ill apprehended was the trend of Masonry that Catholics not only joined , but created Lodges . A relic of this may still be found in the faded embroidery from Catholic ceremonial with which some Masonio symbolism is yet shrouded . Indeed , fifty years after Clement's condemnation
a man of so Catholic a home , of such Catholic training and feeling , as the Count de Vivieu , obeyed summons to attend the famous Congress of Wilhelmsbad . Even in 1810 , so acute an observer as the loyal and devoted Count de Maistre , a man of singularly penetrative mind and very curious political foresight , of imagination virile and profound , had but partially seized
its real significance . When , again , Cardinal Gonsalvi , in January 1818 , endeavoured to rouse the Courts of Europe to a sense of the danger lurking in Masonry , the Emperor of Russia , and the Kings of Prussia and France , showed themselves incapable of grasping the situation . As lately as 1875 , an English writer , conscious to repletion of the necessary knowledge ,
delivered himself pf two volumes on Secret Societies , in which , speaking of French Masonry , he says : " Modern Masonry is a very tame affair , and though very fond of being dressed up as knights , Masons , as a rule , are mere
carpet knights . " And of Italian Masonry : " Very little need or can be said as regards tho active proceedings of Italian Masonic bodies of the present day , though they have been re-constituted and united under one or two heads . "
We will endeavour a truer appreciation of a Society whose secrecy , subtlety , and penetration have been anxiously marked by Princes and by Popes ; of this Eyeless Titan of the years to be . Perhaps the most general opinion finds the origin of Masonry in the Templars . And it would appear not a little of the cast-off clothing of that
discredited body is worn by the society . Some will have Cromwell and his fellows as their forefathers ; others the Crusaders , the Druids , the builders of Solomon's Temple ; while many cast longing eyes on Eleusinian Mysteries , the Bites of Memphis or Heliopolis . Bolder spirits would even clothe the naked Gymnosophists of India with their origin , though no one less than
Adam himself will satisfy at least two writers . But this claim has the inconvenience of putting Adam in a false position—which Eve alone has hitherto been considered capable of doing . It presupposes him holding Lodges with Eve , thus contravening a strict principle of early Masonry , the rigid exclusion of woman from its assemblies ; a principle adhered to till 1774 , when our gallant and gallant cousins , the French , naturally abrogated
, *¦ Quoted by Cretineau-Joly : " L'Eglise Bomaine eu face de la Revolution , " Paris , 1861 , T . ii ., p . 117 . 2 " Roman d ' un Royaliste , " p . 43 . " - " Lettres et opuscules , " Vol . I ., pp . 135-6 . 4 Seo Cretineau-Joly , loco cit . T . ii ., pp . 08 , et seq . I " The Secret Societies of all Ages , " by C . W . Hecklehorn , Vol . I ., pp . doo-346 .
Foreign Freemasonry.
it . The neatest theory is the most simple , having an added value of the prehistoric— " God made light , therefore God was the first Mason . " But the founder of modern speculative Masonry lies in an exile's grave , outside the small village of Luclavia , not far from Cracow , on whose neglected tomb may be deciphered these words :
Tota licet Babylon destruxit tecta Lutherus ; Muros Calvinus , sed fundamenta Socinus . Faustus Socinus was born at Sienna , 1539 , and died an outcast , 1604 , in Poland , a fugitive the greater part of his restless life . Though ill-educated he was a facile speaker , a tireless writer , a man of sleepless brain . Subtle in
address , he had the art of compelling followers , whom he infused with his irrepressible activity . His religious system has been aptly called the " Art of Disbelief . " His test of doctrine was " Reason ; " the basis of his teaching Individual Reason , the solent under which all dogma is to be passed , the cupel in which he essayed all spiritual knowledge . Scripture to be solely
interpreted , the supernatural to be only judged by the light of this right reason . There he set that tree of knowledge whence the poison of Rationalism has been so actively distilled by the Society we are studying . For in a circular letter to the Italian Lodges , dated 25 th March 1869 , the Mason Frapolli officially declared Rationalism to be the essence of Masonry .
We do not , of course , suggest Socinus of forethought prescinded speculative Masonry as it now is ; on the principle of the correlation of forces he was not mighty enough a man to impel so deep a movement . But he impregnated the human mind with those constituents whose normal development Freemasonry is . In him , naked and not ashamed , arose that spirit of
question , of criticism , of individual judgment with which this century is overweary . With him awakened that licence of imagining , since ennobled by the Masonic title of " Freedom of Thought ; " that revolt against authority , since Masonically crowned as " Moral Independence , " that " Liberty " which .
we shall see Ragon—a deeply-versed Mason—lays down as one of the motives of Masonry : " Individual opinion is the only light which should guide its adepts in religion , " says the "Masonic Encyclopajdia . " His rationalistic attack on the Holy Trinity left Deism the natural road to Pantheism or Atheism . His one alembroth of reason led to the entire release of the human
mind from control . His rejection of Christian authority made Liberty of Conscience—a Masonic shibboleth—an essential . His opposition to dogmatic religion , his amalgam of all religious systems except Catholicism—the exception is his own—carries the active germ of Indifierentism . All and each of which resultants are among the " Notes " of Freemasonry .
It is to his talents , knowledge and indefatigable activity , and the protection of those Princes he knew how to attract to his side , that Masonry owes its origin , its first footing , and tha formulating of the principles which are the basis of its doctrines . *" He undertook the building of a new Temple , into which he proposed to
draw all sectaries , by uniting , joining their sections , admitting all their errors , making a monstrous whole of contradictory principles . . . . This good project of erecting a new temple , by founding a new religion , caused the
followers of Socinius to arm themselves with aprons , hammers , squares , plumbs , trowels , tracing boards , as if they intended to use them in constructing the new temple their chief had projected : but in truth they are but plaj things , ornaments of dress rather than instruments of building .
What , then , are the ideals Freemasonry has evolved from the principles Socinus left it ? Masons only—they are all honourable men—shall give you the answer . And in considering the evidence to be submitted , it is to be borne in mind that from an address by the Masonic President , Vivier , we learn a Mason is never allowed to pronounce or publish a discourse or any
piece without the previous authorisation of the Master of the Lodge . And the " Masonic Gazette" declares "The written word is scrutinised more carefully than the spoken . " We do not wish to press this too far , or make it subserve moro than it should ; private letters , of course , cannot have this supervision , but it seems to justify the claim of published Masonic utterances
to be semi-official . Further , though we may cite now a French Mason , a German , an Italian , remember the aims of the Order are One , that wherever existing , Masons are animated by one and the same spirit . Nothing is clearer than this from their own writers . The Ritual of the Grand Lodge of Germany lays down : " Wherever the Brothers of the Association are
dispersed over the world , they are but one and the same body ; all' have the same origin , the same aim ; all are initiated into the same mysteries , led in the same path , submit to tho same rule , ancl are animated by the same
spirit . " I 0 " There is but ono sole Order , " cries a Grand Master , the Duke of Brunswick . " Do not think , " says the " Mason Bazot , " " that Masonry changes with a change of country . " And in this , Ragon , Juge , Rebold , Chemin-Dupontes , and Moreau . are agreed .
In the Ritual of the Masonic Apprentice , the learned Mason Ragan , an admitted authority , says : " Freemasonry is a universal society submissive to the laws of each country . In every state , as in each Lodge , it is a close body composed of the
elite of men ; a society , the basis of whose doctrine is tho Love of God under the style of the Great Architect of the universe , aud the love of mankind . Its rule * , the religion of nature and universal morality ; its motive , truth , light , liberty ; its principle , equality , fraternity , and benevolence ; its means ,
<" •" Le Libre-Map / on , theoretique et pratique , " 1865 , p . 31 . 7 Lefranc , " Le voile leve pour les curieux , " Paris , 1816 , p . 23 . " Lefranc , " Loco , cit ., " pp . 24 , 25 . » In " Latomia , " vol . IL , p . 134 . io In " Sarsena , " p . 220 . » " Codes des Macons , " p . 188 .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Foreign Freemasonry.
FOREIGN FREEMASONRY .
Its Position Visa-Vis of Christianity , and of Catholicism . By D . Moncrieff O'Connor , in the " Tablet . " His face the semblance of a just man's wore , So kind and gracious was its outward cheer ; The rest was serpent all
The fell monster with the deadly sting Who passes mountains , who breaks through fenced walls And firm embattled spears , and with his filth Taints all the world . " Dante ' s Inferno " ( c . xvii . ) .
AT a time when most of the Catholic courts of Europe were in either covert or open hostility to his throne , a keen intellect which had risen to power through a brilliant past , in whom tho full maturity of a life-long study of men and affairs had , deepening into wisdom , impressed itself on Christendom in these words :
" We strictly forbid . . the faithful . . to dare or presume under whatever pretext . . to enter the" said Societies of Freemasons . . or to spend , entertain , or receive them ; to give them asylum or cover ; to be inscribed , received among , or help them . . . Wo absolutely ordain they
totally refrain from such Societies . . under pain of excommunication incurred by such act . . . Further , we will , and order . T all Inquisitors of Heresy to . . proceed against the transgressor . . of whatever . . dignity or pre-eminence . "
One greater than he , a man steeped to the lips in learning , bolder and more comprehensive in his grasp of policies ; a leader of men ever superior to events ; having analysed with scrupulous care the Bull containing these weighty words , emphasised the condemnation they contained . The " In Eminent - ' of Clement XII ., of 28 th April 1738 , was then confirmed by
Benedict XIV . in his " Providias Eomanorum , " of Sth May 1751 . By a constitution " Si Antiqua " of August 1814 , Pius VII ., three months after his restoration accentuated this antagonism . Condemned once more by Leo XII , their aims were so closely prescinded by Pius VIII ., in his Encyclical of 24 th May 1829 , that his exactitude of knowledge excited suspicion of
treachery somewhere , in the mind of the Leading Lodge of Italy , clearly expressed in a letter from the Carbonaro Felice , dated Ancona , 11 th June 1829 . Again , in an allocution , 25 th September 1865 , Pius IX . laid bare
their designs and recalled the still existing anathema against them . And our venerated Head , Leo XIII ., in his " Humanum Genus " of 20 th April 1884 , and his Encyclical of 15 th October 1890 , is no less explicit in his warning and reprobation .
The pronouncement of Clement not a little astonished his Catholic subjects . So ill apprehended was the trend of Masonry that Catholics not only joined , but created Lodges . A relic of this may still be found in the faded embroidery from Catholic ceremonial with which some Masonio symbolism is yet shrouded . Indeed , fifty years after Clement's condemnation
a man of so Catholic a home , of such Catholic training and feeling , as the Count de Vivieu , obeyed summons to attend the famous Congress of Wilhelmsbad . Even in 1810 , so acute an observer as the loyal and devoted Count de Maistre , a man of singularly penetrative mind and very curious political foresight , of imagination virile and profound , had but partially seized
its real significance . When , again , Cardinal Gonsalvi , in January 1818 , endeavoured to rouse the Courts of Europe to a sense of the danger lurking in Masonry , the Emperor of Russia , and the Kings of Prussia and France , showed themselves incapable of grasping the situation . As lately as 1875 , an English writer , conscious to repletion of the necessary knowledge ,
delivered himself pf two volumes on Secret Societies , in which , speaking of French Masonry , he says : " Modern Masonry is a very tame affair , and though very fond of being dressed up as knights , Masons , as a rule , are mere
carpet knights . " And of Italian Masonry : " Very little need or can be said as regards tho active proceedings of Italian Masonic bodies of the present day , though they have been re-constituted and united under one or two heads . "
We will endeavour a truer appreciation of a Society whose secrecy , subtlety , and penetration have been anxiously marked by Princes and by Popes ; of this Eyeless Titan of the years to be . Perhaps the most general opinion finds the origin of Masonry in the Templars . And it would appear not a little of the cast-off clothing of that
discredited body is worn by the society . Some will have Cromwell and his fellows as their forefathers ; others the Crusaders , the Druids , the builders of Solomon's Temple ; while many cast longing eyes on Eleusinian Mysteries , the Bites of Memphis or Heliopolis . Bolder spirits would even clothe the naked Gymnosophists of India with their origin , though no one less than
Adam himself will satisfy at least two writers . But this claim has the inconvenience of putting Adam in a false position—which Eve alone has hitherto been considered capable of doing . It presupposes him holding Lodges with Eve , thus contravening a strict principle of early Masonry , the rigid exclusion of woman from its assemblies ; a principle adhered to till 1774 , when our gallant and gallant cousins , the French , naturally abrogated
, *¦ Quoted by Cretineau-Joly : " L'Eglise Bomaine eu face de la Revolution , " Paris , 1861 , T . ii ., p . 117 . 2 " Roman d ' un Royaliste , " p . 43 . " - " Lettres et opuscules , " Vol . I ., pp . 135-6 . 4 Seo Cretineau-Joly , loco cit . T . ii ., pp . 08 , et seq . I " The Secret Societies of all Ages , " by C . W . Hecklehorn , Vol . I ., pp . doo-346 .
Foreign Freemasonry.
it . The neatest theory is the most simple , having an added value of the prehistoric— " God made light , therefore God was the first Mason . " But the founder of modern speculative Masonry lies in an exile's grave , outside the small village of Luclavia , not far from Cracow , on whose neglected tomb may be deciphered these words :
Tota licet Babylon destruxit tecta Lutherus ; Muros Calvinus , sed fundamenta Socinus . Faustus Socinus was born at Sienna , 1539 , and died an outcast , 1604 , in Poland , a fugitive the greater part of his restless life . Though ill-educated he was a facile speaker , a tireless writer , a man of sleepless brain . Subtle in
address , he had the art of compelling followers , whom he infused with his irrepressible activity . His religious system has been aptly called the " Art of Disbelief . " His test of doctrine was " Reason ; " the basis of his teaching Individual Reason , the solent under which all dogma is to be passed , the cupel in which he essayed all spiritual knowledge . Scripture to be solely
interpreted , the supernatural to be only judged by the light of this right reason . There he set that tree of knowledge whence the poison of Rationalism has been so actively distilled by the Society we are studying . For in a circular letter to the Italian Lodges , dated 25 th March 1869 , the Mason Frapolli officially declared Rationalism to be the essence of Masonry .
We do not , of course , suggest Socinus of forethought prescinded speculative Masonry as it now is ; on the principle of the correlation of forces he was not mighty enough a man to impel so deep a movement . But he impregnated the human mind with those constituents whose normal development Freemasonry is . In him , naked and not ashamed , arose that spirit of
question , of criticism , of individual judgment with which this century is overweary . With him awakened that licence of imagining , since ennobled by the Masonic title of " Freedom of Thought ; " that revolt against authority , since Masonically crowned as " Moral Independence , " that " Liberty " which .
we shall see Ragon—a deeply-versed Mason—lays down as one of the motives of Masonry : " Individual opinion is the only light which should guide its adepts in religion , " says the "Masonic Encyclopajdia . " His rationalistic attack on the Holy Trinity left Deism the natural road to Pantheism or Atheism . His one alembroth of reason led to the entire release of the human
mind from control . His rejection of Christian authority made Liberty of Conscience—a Masonic shibboleth—an essential . His opposition to dogmatic religion , his amalgam of all religious systems except Catholicism—the exception is his own—carries the active germ of Indifierentism . All and each of which resultants are among the " Notes " of Freemasonry .
It is to his talents , knowledge and indefatigable activity , and the protection of those Princes he knew how to attract to his side , that Masonry owes its origin , its first footing , and tha formulating of the principles which are the basis of its doctrines . *" He undertook the building of a new Temple , into which he proposed to
draw all sectaries , by uniting , joining their sections , admitting all their errors , making a monstrous whole of contradictory principles . . . . This good project of erecting a new temple , by founding a new religion , caused the
followers of Socinius to arm themselves with aprons , hammers , squares , plumbs , trowels , tracing boards , as if they intended to use them in constructing the new temple their chief had projected : but in truth they are but plaj things , ornaments of dress rather than instruments of building .
What , then , are the ideals Freemasonry has evolved from the principles Socinus left it ? Masons only—they are all honourable men—shall give you the answer . And in considering the evidence to be submitted , it is to be borne in mind that from an address by the Masonic President , Vivier , we learn a Mason is never allowed to pronounce or publish a discourse or any
piece without the previous authorisation of the Master of the Lodge . And the " Masonic Gazette" declares "The written word is scrutinised more carefully than the spoken . " We do not wish to press this too far , or make it subserve moro than it should ; private letters , of course , cannot have this supervision , but it seems to justify the claim of published Masonic utterances
to be semi-official . Further , though we may cite now a French Mason , a German , an Italian , remember the aims of the Order are One , that wherever existing , Masons are animated by one and the same spirit . Nothing is clearer than this from their own writers . The Ritual of the Grand Lodge of Germany lays down : " Wherever the Brothers of the Association are
dispersed over the world , they are but one and the same body ; all' have the same origin , the same aim ; all are initiated into the same mysteries , led in the same path , submit to tho same rule , ancl are animated by the same
spirit . " I 0 " There is but ono sole Order , " cries a Grand Master , the Duke of Brunswick . " Do not think , " says the " Mason Bazot , " " that Masonry changes with a change of country . " And in this , Ragon , Juge , Rebold , Chemin-Dupontes , and Moreau . are agreed .
In the Ritual of the Masonic Apprentice , the learned Mason Ragan , an admitted authority , says : " Freemasonry is a universal society submissive to the laws of each country . In every state , as in each Lodge , it is a close body composed of the
elite of men ; a society , the basis of whose doctrine is tho Love of God under the style of the Great Architect of the universe , aud the love of mankind . Its rule * , the religion of nature and universal morality ; its motive , truth , light , liberty ; its principle , equality , fraternity , and benevolence ; its means ,
<" •" Le Libre-Map / on , theoretique et pratique , " 1865 , p . 31 . 7 Lefranc , " Le voile leve pour les curieux , " Paris , 1816 , p . 23 . " Lefranc , " Loco , cit ., " pp . 24 , 25 . » In " Latomia , " vol . IL , p . 134 . io In " Sarsena , " p . 220 . » " Codes des Macons , " p . 188 .