A Plea For Tolerance.

A PLEA FOR TOLERANCE .

AMID all the dissensions of race and creed ; the contentions for wealth and power ; the ambitions of the mighty and the plaints of the weak and lowly ; the cry of anguish from the downtrodden and oppressed ; the awful wail of despair that even now comes across the mighty deep from the murdered , ravished , and plundered in a land which is running red with the blood of the victims of the implacable Turk , crying aloud to God for

redress of wrongs unspeakable , we take refuge within the sanctuary of Masonry , and , clinging to the very horns of the altar , cry aloud to God to hasten the day when all His children shall be gathered together in the bonds of universal Brotherhood , in a sanctuary where the incense ascending to heaven shall not go up to the throne accompanied by the wails of those who are persecuted for opinion ' s sake .

Who shall say that the work of Masonry is done when hungry children cry for bread which the unrequited toil of their fathers cannot supply ; when we hear the grinding heel of the ncK and strong as it crunches beneath it human flesh in the greed for gain ; when the market place is filled with human chattels who sell themselves for bread , and there is misery and

want everywhere ; when the widow and the orphan are still in need of succour and counsel , and God ' s poor demand assistance and support , or while it is permitted by the Christian nations of the earth to the Moslem power , to crush , with atrocities beyond description , fellow Christians for worshiping the Son of God , instead of praying towards Mecca ; or to the Czar to drive from his dominions the descendants of the children of Israel for

worshipping the God of their fathers , according to the light which He has given to them ; or to Priests of Rome to persecute and drive from their homes the Masons in our sister South American Republics . No , Brethren , the work of Masonry is not yet done , nor will it be until toleration of the opinions of others shall be one of the first principles of every religious creed , and man

everywhere shall be free to worship God according to the dictates of conscience . Great as has been its work in the past and abundant as are the fruits of its planting , it yet remains for it to carry forward its banners , emblazoned with its legend that " all men are Brothers , and God is the Father of us all , " into every land where there is oppression for conscience sake . And even

here in this great American Republic , where we have the felicity to live and where the beneficent work of Masonry has been productive of the greatest results , there is yet much work for a society which belongs to no creed or school but to universality , where truth is the foundation and morality the superstructure ; which possesses a character which enabled two kings , worshippers

of different deities , to sit together as Grand Masters while the walls of the first temple arose , and the men of Gebal , who bowed down to Phoenician gods , to work side by side with the Hebrews to whom those gods were an abomination ; a society which permits the Brahmin , the Mohammedan , the Jew and the Christian , each professing his peculiar religion and retaining his

faith , to worship at its altars the common Father of all , for even here there is yet intolerance and bigotry to be combated . Alas , that it should be so , but man seems to be so constituted that he is ever ready to deny to others the boon he demands for himself . It was the work of our forefathers in Masonry to sow the seeds of civil and religious liberty ; it is ours to preserve the goodly legacy and transmit it unimpaired to our children . Rome may

thunder its anathemas ; the Czar may drive the Jews into exile ; the Sultan may deluge his dominions with the blood of his Armenian subjects , and tyrants , temporal or spiritual , everywhere , may seek to crush out the spirit of liberty , but so long as the altars of Freemasonry and the little red schoolhouse stand , the education and elevation of the masses will go on , and the grand propaganda of civil and religious liberty will be preached .

Freemasonry always had more to fear from those within its Lodges who do not appreciate its mission than from avowed enemies who stand without its portals . There always has been danger that those who had escaped from the bonds of tyranny would in turn become tyrants ; it was so even with the Pilgrim fathers , who fled to the bleak and inhospitable shores of New

England to escape from persecution , only to become persecutors themselves . Oh , liberty , what crimes are committed in thy name It seems scarcely credible that those who have gained admission into the temple , and learned the sublime lessons of toleration which are here taught , should occupy themselves in attacking any form of religion , but it has become a common thing , latterly , to see in our Masonic press bitter attacks upon the Roman

Catholic religion , made in the name of Masonry , and as if spoken by its authority . No man has a right to speak for the whole body of the Craft , much less to place in its mouth sentiments which it has never endorsed . He can only speak for himself , and this he is at full liberty to do , but when he attempts to speak for Masonry he has no right to say that it is in antagonism to any form of religion , however repugnant it may be to his own sentiments . There is no antagonism between

A Plea For Tolerance.

Masonry and Rome , though there is between the principles they teach . It has always bean a fundamental principle in Masonry that man is sovereign over his own mind and conscience , while the church teaches that " all wills are as completely subject to the church and Roman Pontiff as to God , the Pontiff being the supreme teacher . " Those who from the cover of Masonry

combat Rome are forgetful of the fact that so long as any principle is left free to be combated , it is harmful only to those who accept it . There is no war between Masonry and the church , because of another great principle in Masonry , to which it has clung with a tenacity which knows no yielding , which is , that while it teaches the great primitive truths of religion , viz .,

the existence of the Supreme Being , the immortality of the soul , a resurrection to a future life , and a book of revealed Divine Law , that when a man enters the Lodge he must leave his " peculiar opinions " outside , for " no private piques or quarrels must be brought within the doors of the Lodge , far less any quarrels about any religion , national or state policy , we being

only as Masons , of the Catholic religion above mentioned . " There is no barrier between the Eoman church and Masonry except that which has been set up by the church itself , and if a man can , in the interpretation of the fundamental principles , reconcile them , as thousands do , there is no barrier to his admission . If in the exercise of his sovereignty over his mind , he reaches the conclusion that it is safer in matters of faith and

religious doctrine to trust to the combined wisdom of the multitude of councillors who inspire the papal dogma , it is entirely consistent with the teachings of the Craft ; the point is that he shall have the right to exercise his own mind and conscience , not that he exercises it because he believes some one else is possessed of superior knowledge . It is to this great

cardinal teaching of Breemasonry that we owe the wonderful progress which the whole nations of the earth have made in the matter of religious liberty . Even those peoples most deeply steeped iu fanaticism have been forced from their old moorings , and the Inquisition is no longer a possibility anywhere . The priesthood no longer drives men , but must lead them . The

heart and conscience must be appealed to , and reason sways where brute force cannot . All along the ages the seed was being sown in the Lodges , which ripened into the glorious fruitage of the American Constitution ; free speech , a free press , free schools , and religious freedom , are the offspring of the Masonic teaching . We need not wonder that a priesthood , bound as it is

by the fetters of the dead past , should view with horror the wreck and ruin of an obsolete despotism which demanded that a man should believe or die . But this seeding of Freemasonry has not fallen on stony ground , even within the sacred enclosures of Eome . The church as it exists in this free American air is not the church which burned at the stake martyrs to the freedom

of conscience . Whatever of intolerance survives is to be found in the foreign-born clergy , who from education and environment are wholly unfitted to comprehend the genius of our institutions . No men who have ever existed have leaped with one bound from a state of political and religious tyranny to a full comprehension of political and religious liberty . The English people were

centuries emerging from the darkness of the pre-reformation period . It is but one in a thousand of all the emigrants who land upon our shores , who can comprehend how a people can exist at all without anarchy , who are not ruled by the strong arm of power wielded by thousands of soldiery . It was , even with the enlightened visitors at the Columbian exhibition , a

subject of remark that the whole power of the nation was represented by but two or three score of armed men guarding the Government exhibit . They looked for force where none was needed . Is it to be wondered at , then , that the seminarians who are the product of Eome ' s teachings should not understand or be capable of appreciating a government of the people by the

people ? Coming out from the atmosphere in which they are raised and educated it is a moral impossibility . But the American born priests of the Eoman church are probably as thoroughly American as the preachers who denounce Masonry from the Blanchard standpoint . The Cardinal and Archbishop

Ireland are fairly good samples of the patriotic American . The great American Methodist Church has taken a stand against rum selling and has been denounced in as bitter terms as being narrow minded and bigoted as ever our Romanish friends have been by those whose idea of liberty has been license .

From the Roman standpoint Freemasonry is a nursery of infidelity . If we are to take it as it exists in parts of Europe , can we say that the charge is not true ? We reply that there is no true Masonry in France , for instance , where the Brethren renounced God . To which Rome says , It confirms my fears

that all Masonry tends to atheism ; by your fruits we judge that your tendency is dangerous , and as the guardians of the consciences of men , it is our duty to warn against it . Have not you heaivl scores of times some ignorant protestant fanatic against Masonry because " there is no Christ in it" ? and is it true that all the intolerance is to be found in the Vatican ?