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Article TREVILIAN ON FREEMASONRY. ← Page 5 of 34 →
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Trevilian On Freemasonry.
once for all distinctly say , that it is just as unfair to make Freemasonry responsible for all the unauthorised and foolish sayings which have from time to time been uttered and committed to paper , as it would be to charge the observations of Mr . Trevilian to the account of the British army , of whichwe believehe was at some period , or may be
, , still , a half-pay major . Mr . Trevilian forcibly reminds us of the people described by Rabelais , as " gens nourriz dedans ung harril , et qui onques ne regarderent que par ung trouf This champion of the church-militant , however , brings three charges against Masonry in proof of its " anti-Christian character" which we will proceed to consider
, seriatim . " First , the manner of administering its oath at admission ; secondly , the rules that govern the worship it addresses to the Deity ; and thirdly , its pretensions as a laio of love . "— ( P . 12 . )
" First , then , of the manner in which the oath is administered to the candidate . ... I did not know that this oath was to be tendered to me blindfolded and on my knees , that it was not to be submitted to my consideration beforehand , but that I was to pronounce its requisitions , accompanied and enforced by the most dreadful vows , as they were dictated to me sentence by sentence , each one outstripping the preceding in the terrific fearfulness of its imprecations . . . . Oh ! for words to express the indignation I feel at the remembrance of that debasing scene . Oh . ' for the voice of St . Paul , & c . "—( P . 12 . )
Now will it be believed that the whole of this fearful oath , these terrific imprecations , and this debasing scene , to describe which the eloquence of the apostle Paul is stated to be necessary , in plain , honest English consists in this , that the candidate swears on the holy Bible never to reveal the secrets of the Order ! But honest English does not suit Mr .
Trevilian ; and we are to be indulged in this dishonest cant for the sake of raising a morbid interest in a contemptible book , without which not a single copy would ever have been sold . We blush to think that a gentleman could , for any motive so mean , have stated so perpetually what he must know to be utterly untrue ; but it is all of a piece with the
garbled extracts from private letters with which the public have since been favoured—letters , the whole of which , this gallant would-be perjurer dared not publish . We have stated that the upshot of the oath is , that the candidate is not to reveal what may be entrusted to him ; and yet Mr . Trevilian complains " that it was not submitted to his consideration beforehand . " What was there to
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Trevilian On Freemasonry.
once for all distinctly say , that it is just as unfair to make Freemasonry responsible for all the unauthorised and foolish sayings which have from time to time been uttered and committed to paper , as it would be to charge the observations of Mr . Trevilian to the account of the British army , of whichwe believehe was at some period , or may be
, , still , a half-pay major . Mr . Trevilian forcibly reminds us of the people described by Rabelais , as " gens nourriz dedans ung harril , et qui onques ne regarderent que par ung trouf This champion of the church-militant , however , brings three charges against Masonry in proof of its " anti-Christian character" which we will proceed to consider
, seriatim . " First , the manner of administering its oath at admission ; secondly , the rules that govern the worship it addresses to the Deity ; and thirdly , its pretensions as a laio of love . "— ( P . 12 . )
" First , then , of the manner in which the oath is administered to the candidate . ... I did not know that this oath was to be tendered to me blindfolded and on my knees , that it was not to be submitted to my consideration beforehand , but that I was to pronounce its requisitions , accompanied and enforced by the most dreadful vows , as they were dictated to me sentence by sentence , each one outstripping the preceding in the terrific fearfulness of its imprecations . . . . Oh ! for words to express the indignation I feel at the remembrance of that debasing scene . Oh . ' for the voice of St . Paul , & c . "—( P . 12 . )
Now will it be believed that the whole of this fearful oath , these terrific imprecations , and this debasing scene , to describe which the eloquence of the apostle Paul is stated to be necessary , in plain , honest English consists in this , that the candidate swears on the holy Bible never to reveal the secrets of the Order ! But honest English does not suit Mr .
Trevilian ; and we are to be indulged in this dishonest cant for the sake of raising a morbid interest in a contemptible book , without which not a single copy would ever have been sold . We blush to think that a gentleman could , for any motive so mean , have stated so perpetually what he must know to be utterly untrue ; but it is all of a piece with the
garbled extracts from private letters with which the public have since been favoured—letters , the whole of which , this gallant would-be perjurer dared not publish . We have stated that the upshot of the oath is , that the candidate is not to reveal what may be entrusted to him ; and yet Mr . Trevilian complains " that it was not submitted to his consideration beforehand . " What was there to