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Article CORRESPONDENCE. ← Page 5 of 8 →
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Correspondence.
and heaven-born institution . Were our Lodges and our Brethren presided over by Prophets and Apostles , as they were in the days of yore , I sliould certainly have maintained that the path of religion and virtue lay only " through the portal of a Mason ' s Lodge ; " but I meant to say nothing of the kind with regard to the Lodges of our own clay . And so far from saying " that the way to eternal life is shut out from the uninitiated world" I maintain that many an
, uninitiated individual—as to what we call initiation , —will be found " in the Grand Lodge above , " whilst many an initiated one will have his place amongst the Cowans . Tiie true man of God is the genuine Freemason , and not simply the initiated individual . I endeavoured to establish the theorem that " Genuine Freemasonry was indissolubly connected with Revelation . " According to my position , therefore , the individual , who has his soul reflected from the mirror
of Revelation , is a genuine Freemason , whether he has been intrusted with the tests of merit , or not ; those tests being taken from the sacred volume of Revelation . Thus much on the review of my first Lecture .
The strictures on my second Lecture , however , are those that are likely to give umbrage to well-informed Brethren ; inasmuch as better digested matter is expected to be found in the pages devoted to " Literary Notices " of the hitherto only accredited organ of English Freemasonry . It is true that the reviewer " confesses" that he " passed over a great deal which he could not really understand ; " but very few Freemasons will consider such a confession an advantageous qualification for a reviewer of works on Freemasonry .
The critic having made a clear breast , by Ids confession , proceeds to quote a passage from my second Lecture , and vouchsafes his comments upon the same . The following is the passage alluded to : —
" I have met with many Brother Masons during my various peregrinations in different parts of the world , and one and all have put down the idea of universality to the superstition of Freemasonry . As for modern Jews being Freemasons , this proves nothing to the purpose . They can only date their admission into the confraternity to the middle of the last century , when one of them , Stephen Morin by name , contrived to learn a few of the pass-words from a weak Brotherand who was also a dealer in Masonic publicationsand
, , thus picked up a good deal of information on the subject , by which he was smuggled into some of the Lodges in America , which became a precedent for Jews being admitted as Masons , and was one of the causes whicli conduced to tarnish the pristine purity of Freemasonry . How well-informed and zealous Jews could be Freemasons is a
greater mystery to me than is Masonry to the mass of the people !" This extract states an incontrovertible fact , that the Jews " can only elate their admission into the confraternity to the middle of the last century . " Let us see by what cogent argument this fact is made to prove nothing . The reviewer exclaims : — " Such is the language of a converted Hebrew . He surely forgot the words of the Litany : — ' From pride , vain-glory , and hypocrisy ; from envy , hatred , and malice , and all uncharitableness , good Lord deliver us ! ' And again : ' Charity snffereth long , and is kind ; charity envieth not ; charity vaunteth not itself , is not puffed up , doth not behave
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Correspondence.
and heaven-born institution . Were our Lodges and our Brethren presided over by Prophets and Apostles , as they were in the days of yore , I sliould certainly have maintained that the path of religion and virtue lay only " through the portal of a Mason ' s Lodge ; " but I meant to say nothing of the kind with regard to the Lodges of our own clay . And so far from saying " that the way to eternal life is shut out from the uninitiated world" I maintain that many an
, uninitiated individual—as to what we call initiation , —will be found " in the Grand Lodge above , " whilst many an initiated one will have his place amongst the Cowans . Tiie true man of God is the genuine Freemason , and not simply the initiated individual . I endeavoured to establish the theorem that " Genuine Freemasonry was indissolubly connected with Revelation . " According to my position , therefore , the individual , who has his soul reflected from the mirror
of Revelation , is a genuine Freemason , whether he has been intrusted with the tests of merit , or not ; those tests being taken from the sacred volume of Revelation . Thus much on the review of my first Lecture .
The strictures on my second Lecture , however , are those that are likely to give umbrage to well-informed Brethren ; inasmuch as better digested matter is expected to be found in the pages devoted to " Literary Notices " of the hitherto only accredited organ of English Freemasonry . It is true that the reviewer " confesses" that he " passed over a great deal which he could not really understand ; " but very few Freemasons will consider such a confession an advantageous qualification for a reviewer of works on Freemasonry .
The critic having made a clear breast , by Ids confession , proceeds to quote a passage from my second Lecture , and vouchsafes his comments upon the same . The following is the passage alluded to : —
" I have met with many Brother Masons during my various peregrinations in different parts of the world , and one and all have put down the idea of universality to the superstition of Freemasonry . As for modern Jews being Freemasons , this proves nothing to the purpose . They can only date their admission into the confraternity to the middle of the last century , when one of them , Stephen Morin by name , contrived to learn a few of the pass-words from a weak Brotherand who was also a dealer in Masonic publicationsand
, , thus picked up a good deal of information on the subject , by which he was smuggled into some of the Lodges in America , which became a precedent for Jews being admitted as Masons , and was one of the causes whicli conduced to tarnish the pristine purity of Freemasonry . How well-informed and zealous Jews could be Freemasons is a
greater mystery to me than is Masonry to the mass of the people !" This extract states an incontrovertible fact , that the Jews " can only elate their admission into the confraternity to the middle of the last century . " Let us see by what cogent argument this fact is made to prove nothing . The reviewer exclaims : — " Such is the language of a converted Hebrew . He surely forgot the words of the Litany : — ' From pride , vain-glory , and hypocrisy ; from envy , hatred , and malice , and all uncharitableness , good Lord deliver us ! ' And again : ' Charity snffereth long , and is kind ; charity envieth not ; charity vaunteth not itself , is not puffed up , doth not behave