Masonic Service In Donaghadee.

the presence of the third mystery—the idea of God . Man feels there must be some one who will be the realisation of his longings after goodness ; he feels that his life is finite , and the world is finite , but bshind the finite there must be One who is unchangeable and eternal . He feels tint the world had a wise designer , a designer who may indeed dwell in light unapproachable , and robed in awful majesty , and yet who may be loved by

men , because He Himself is loving . My brethren , what answer does your Christian ' s faith give you to these mysteries of existence ? Christianity assumes three things : —i . That the world was made by God . 2 . That man was made in the image of God . 3 . That man by self-assertion has broken his rightful connection with God . Further back than this it does not go . It does not explain the origin of evil , but it recognises its existence , and promises its extinction . Christianity , I say , assumes these three , and

it does so , first , on the authority of revelation , and , secondly , because they have the instinctive mark of truth . We learn from revelation—1 . That in the beginning the Great Architect of the Universe created the heavens and the earth , and that when the work was finished He looked on it and it was good . 2 . That God created man in His own image . 3 . The Bible gives us another picture , and whether literal or allegorical we know that it is true ,

and the closing scene of it is this— " And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him , ' Where art thou ? ' And Adam answered , ' 1 was afraid . '" This is the Bible account of " self " and " the world " — two of the mysteries which puzzle us . But is man to be left so — a creature half good and half evil — a soul that grovels and aspires in turn ? Is that the end ? The answer of Christianity is the

incarnation . It is the sole and adequate explanation of the puzzles of existence . The old mysteries are alone solved as we stand in the presence of a greater mystery—God manifest in the flesh j and we realise that wide and far-reaching as are the results of the fall , the results of the incarnation will be at least as wide and as far-reaching . In Jesus Christ man and God once more meet . The old barriers are broken down . The human brother

is united to the eternal Spirit . The life of Christ is the light of men . Once more take the question of " self . " Take the angel's question— " Whence comest thou , and whither wilt thou go 1 " And God incarnate answers— "I came forth from the Father , and am come into the world ; again I leave the world and go unto the Father . In my Father's house are many mansions , I go to prepare a place for you . " Ah ! how it comes to us , this voice of

God , breathing peace over troubled minds . " In my Father ' s house are many mansions . " " The life is the light of men . " There is no human experience ; there are no human personal questionings ; there are no human aspirations that the life of Jesus does not satisfy . In its light human life ceases to be pitiful and paltry , for it becomes eternal and progressive . "Whither shall I go ? " And Christ speaks lo me of a Father ' s house here and hereafter ; and the world is God-loved and God-directed ; and

even in the darkest hour we can realise that the great world's altar stair , though it be in the darkness , yet it slopes through darkness up to God . My brothers in the Masonic Order , we , too , recognise the existence of the mysteries about which we have thought to-day . Above the world we recognise the Great Architect of the Universe , whose wisdom has contrived , whose strength supports , and whose beauty adorns His works . As Masons we

recognise , too , the mystery of existence . We see around us pain , and suffering , and sin . But we believe that these are but the concomitants of " this little while ; " that heaven , in spite of these , is joined to earth , and Faith , and Hope , and Charity , these three are steps on a celestial stairway . And we believe that in the realisation of our human Brotherhood and in the bearing of one another's burdens we become likest God , until we pass from the lodge below into that Grand Lodge above , where the world ' s Great Architect lives and rules for evermore . My brothers and my Christian

brethren , I pray God that you and I may so live our lives , so do our work as under the eye of the Great Master Builder , and amid the darkness which enshrouds the future may so keep our eyes fixed upon the Bright and Morning Star that in the great hereafter we may be united in the eternal world , where in the realised presence of our Father , amid the glory of that temple whose polished ashlars are the souls of men , the mysteries of life shall be made plain , and sorrow and orphanhood shall be no more ; neither shall be any more pain , where God himself is moon and sun .

The collection , which was in aid of the Masonic Orphan Schools , was then taken up by the following gentlemen acting as collectors : Brigadier-General Leslie , R . A . ; Bros . Dunbar-Buller , D . L ., J . Stevenson , James Fitchie , John Horner , Alex . Woods , John Gregg , J . P ., Wm . Milligan , W . L . Wheeler , Wm . Morrison , J . Hamilton , R . A . Nesbitt , M . D ., N . J . Ledgerwood , J . Kennedy , and Hugh M'Cready . A handsome sum was realised . The service concluded with the singing of a hymn and the pronouncing of the benediction .

The Anti-Masonic Congress.

THE ANTI-MASONIC CONGRESS .

The most hopeful augury for the future of society on the Continent is to be found in the efforts now being made by foreign Catholics to rally their forces from the state of helpless disorganisation which condemned them to political extinction despite their great numerical preponderance . No defenceless mob in front of troops armed with weapons of precision , no rabble

of the inferior races of Africa before a Zulu impi , could have been reduced to greater impotence than the Catholic multitudes on the Continent in presence of the disciplined ranks of the secret societies , rallied to the watchwords of the revolution and backed by all the influence of the press . Branded as clericals , jeered at as tools of sacerdotalism , they were so inured to see their

reli gion daily outraged and their rights of conscience trampled on , that they had grown to accept these wrongs as inseparable from the present order of things , and their position of subjection as no less than irreversible than a law of nature . It is only now , alter a century of oppression and humiliation lhat they have begun lo borrow the tactics of their adversaries , and to learn

Irom them the lesson of self-assertion and common action . The truth that they have only to do so in order to become irresistible is thoroughly realised ¦ n the opposite camp , and the panic there at any symptoms of intelligent resistance on the part of their hitherto submissive victims is absolutely ludicrous . All the well-worn revolutionary platitudes as to the indefeasible r 'ghts of majorities , and the unanswerable logic of numbers , are thrown to

The Anti-Masonic Congress.

the winds in the insolent assumption that liberty , justice , and moral and intellectual progress are identified with the triumph of their particular views . Belgium has taken her place in the front rank of the Catholic re-action , and the movement there has been carried to its ultima ' . e aim in the restoration of the political supremacy t * f the party . The victories of the Catholic lists in

the recent municipal elections in almost every commune in Italy is a symptom of the same concerted action of the majority in that country . Catholic France , enslaved to the all-pervading influence of officialism , is still left far in the rear by her more enterprising neighbours , but there , too , the effect of their example and the strenuous efforts of Leo XIII . to secure political unity cannot fail eventually to encourage her to shake off the odious

yoke of sectarian intolerance . The community of action by which Catholics in different countries are preparing to meet the universal propaganda of the secret societies is apparent in the proposal for an international anti-Masonic Congress , the organisation of which has been undertaken by a French Committee elected on July 26 th , to work on the same lines as the Roman Committee of the anti-Masonic

Union of Italy . The newly-constituted association has lost no time in beginning its labours . In two preliminary meetings , on August ist and 2 nd , it created a permanent staff consisting of a President , two Vice-Presidents , two Secretaries , and a Treasurer , decided to hold weekly sittings for dispatch of further business , and compiled a programme for the proceedings of the Congress to be submitted to the Roman Committee in order to secure

perfect co-operation between the two associations . The objects of the movement are declared to be— " 1 . To prove to the world , by the most convincing evidence , the evils and disasters of which Freemasonry has been the cause to mankind at large and to the Catholic Church in particular . 2 . To find the remedy for its sinister action , and to constitute from all the active forces that can be induced to co-operate in the struggle a permanent

organisation against this infernal society . " The opening proceedings of the Congress are to be directed to inquiry into the aims and methods of Freemasonry , with a view to enli ghtening public opinion in regard to them . Thus its action will be shown 10 have been detrimental to the cause of revealed truth by the discredit cast on Christian faith and belief in the Divinityand to the

, interests of Christian civilisation by its depreciation of all progress due to the influence of the Church , and its exaltation of everything done by paganism and the enemies of religion . The ruin of social peace will be brought home to it by evidence of its fomentation of class enmities and its abolition of industrial corporations , and its responsibility for national dissensions and aggressions shown by a recapitulation of its -action in

encouraging wars and revolutions in accordance with its own prejudices and interests . Lastly , its active hostility to the Church will be demonstrated by the part it has played in all recent history , more especially in reference to the occupation of the Pontifical dominions . The methods b y which it has attained so large a measure of success will be examined , and the secret of its power analysed , the latter being shown to depend mainly on the diffusion

of error by the distortion of history , while its organisation , its discipline , its secrecy , and the crimes from which it has not shrunk in order 10 propagate its doctrines have secured ita triumph , assisted by the complicity of the civil authorities , no less than by the indifference , the ignorance , and the cowardly apathy of Catholics . Its designs for the future will also be examined in the light of documentary evidence furnished by all countries , in order to show

how far it has advanced towards the fulfilment of its desi gns and how much yet remains to be done in order to complete ils programme . The second part of the Congress will be devoted to the discussion of the best means of counteracting its pernicious influence . Of these the most eilicacious would seem to be , after the invocation of the Divine assistance b y prayer and increased religious fervour , the creation of a universal organisation like its

own , embracing the world in a federation of committees under the guidance of a central body which should control and direct their action . The utilisation of the Third Order ot St . Francis , and its possible modification for the purpose , will be among the subjects mooted , as will also be the practicability of providing some substitute for the mutual assistance rendered to each other by the Freemasons of different countries , especially in the case of sailors and traders .

In a letter to the editor of the Unith CnUolicn , M . Leo Taxil gives the substance of some of the conclusions arrived at by the preliminary conference as to the arrangements for the Congress , with the arguments on which they were based . As regards its place of meeting , Brussels is provisionally recommended , the Governments both of France and Italy being too much under the dominion of the secret societies to render it probable that it would

be allowed to meet unmolested in either of those countries . September 29 th was decided on , always subject to the assent of the Roman Committee , as the date for the assembling of the Congress ; the Feast of the great Archangel , the champion of the Church Militant , being considered especially propitious for its deliberations . The debate as to the secrecy or publicity of its proceedings closed with a unanimous vote in favour of the latterleaving

, to the sect to be combated its special methods of mystery and melodrama . The projected AIasonic Convention in Rome on September 29 th will thus have its counterblast in the Congress of Brussels , and the challenge of the one to the faith and religious lreedom of Catholics will be taken up and answered by the other . The unanimity of French Catholic opinion in its adhesion to the views of the promoters of the Congress was shown in the

large representation of the press at the preliminary meeting , which was attended by nearly all Ihe principal Catholic journalists of Paris , as well as by many from the provinces . The enthusiasm with which the idea , originated by the Roman Committee , has been adopted in the sister country , augurs well for the success of the movement thus initialed . Much attention has recently been called to the doings of the various sects of Freemasons

abroad Dy tne sudden conversion of one of their high priestesses , Miss Diana Vaughan , ex-Grand Mistress of the Luciferiansor Palladians . ' Thestrange perversion of mind by which an intelligent and high-souled woman decficated herself to the worship of Lucifer did not blind her to the degrading character of the rites practised by her fellow-worshi ppers , and her first move was her secession from the " Triangles , " as she termed the branch of

Masonry of which Signor Lemmi is the Grand Orient , anel the attempt 10 found a reformed sect under the name of the Regenerated Palladium . The divergence of views between her and her former associates , and her condemnation of the Satanic rites practised by them , drew down upon her a rebuke from the heads of the Order , to which she replied by withdrawing