Notes By Father Foy On His Second Lecture.

indicates the Popes : the last wears a sword , and represents the Army , The great initiated are to watch over the repression of these abuses . As pledge of his engagements , the new member cuts doivn with his dagger the three heads of the serpent . ( That is to say , the crown

, religion , and the defenders of order : the army ) . This is quoted by the Bishop from a treatise by F . Ragon , a work praised by the Grand Orient , or Parliament of the Secret Societies . 'Their doctrines , ' says Monsieur Ragon , ' form thc essential

complement of true freemasonry . ' This title of Kadosch bears , with reason , the title of ' ne plus ultra . ' " AVeishaulpt writes : " You cannot conceive how much any degree of priest is admired by our people . But what is the

most extraodinary , is that several great protestant and reformed divines , who are of our order , really believe that that part of the discourse which alludes to reli gion contains the true spirit , and real sense of Christianity ; poor mortals , what could I not make you believe ? Candidl y I own to you that I never thought of becoming a founder of religion . "

ILLUMINATION . For this purpose I must go back to tho founder of Illuminism , Dr . Adam AVeishaulpt , born in 1748 , at Ingolstadt , in Bavaria .

Ihe dupes of this movement ( Illuminism ) were cajoled into the idea that they became members of a modern areopagus . The avowed object of this system , or association was , so it was given out , " the emancipation of the human mind from errorand the discovery of the truth . To

, declare this tho more unmistakabl y , there was the inscription upon the four walls of the Assembly Hall of the titles : Wisdom , Firmness , Caution , Liberty . In this way the Senior Warden was to be the very special impersonation of truth itself . The

ritual of the reception is just in this way : brother truth is asked , ivhat is the hour 1 He informs brother Adam that among men it is the hour of darkness ; but that it is mid-day in that assembly . The candidate is asked , why he has knocked at the door , and what has become of his eight

companions 1 He replies that the world is in darkness , and that his companions and he have lost each other . For the future then , there was to be Instruction and Enlightenment . They termed themselves Illuminators , and their system Illuminism .

This was especially to bring about the triumph of reason over error . And ivhat , in the teaching of these men , was Error 1 Superstition and slavish fear , ivhich weighed down the soul of man with an overwhelming system of reli gious

and political prejudices . Ignorance in particular had been , up to that time , the chief enemy of man . Now all this superstition and ignorance , and darkening of the human mind , had been mainly kept up by Christianity

whether Catholic or Protestant . The religion of all countries had , up to that time , been an engine of the state . Hesperus , the star of Europe , was obscured by clouds of incense , offered by superstition to despots , who had made themselves

almost deities , and had retired into the inmost recesses of their palaces , that they may not be regarded merely as men , whilst their priests are deceiving the people , and causing them to worship these divinities . And thus it was that the princes of this world enlisted into their service the priests , who exerted themselves hi darkening the

understandings of men , and filled then minds with religious terrors . The altar became the chief pillar of the throne , and men were held in complete subjection . Nothing , therefore , could recover them from this abject state , but knowledge . Asthenall this had been going on

, , under the Gospel , the Gospel must , therefore , bo dispelled by tho sun of reason ; so that , finally , all Christianity was to be destroyed in order that this also might be a stepping stone to tho overthrow of all evil governments ,

For fear , however , of repelling the dupes at the very commencement , things were not to be brought to an extremity at once . So a commencement was made with the Holy Gospel , ivhich , it was pretended , was capable of an lanation never yet lied

exp app to it . Thus a lively imagination mig ht conceive the whole history and peculiar doctrines of the Now Testament as the final triumph of philosophy over error . La this way it was that a work was published