A French Priest's View Of Masonry.

" That the English-speaking Freemasons differ very greatly from all othei is , however , beyond dispute . And this ought at once to warn American Catholics that the Masonic literature of Europe can be applicable here onl y with considerable modifications . The American Lodges , it is well known , number among their members many Protestant ministers , chiefly Methodists and Eiscopalians . "

p This admission , by two prominent Roman Catholics , that the Holy Bible is ( in Masonic phrase ) one of the Lights of Masonry , ancl that " in the United States ancl other English-speaking countries Freemasonry has so far been free from some of the mischievous influences that dominate the institution in most of the continental countries of Europe " ( this is the language of the reviewer in the Catholic World ) , while it by no means states the whole truth , gives a

much larger share of it than is the custom of those who are of the obedience of the Pope . We have hope of even the Hierarchy itself , when a priest and a reviewer in one of its official journals unite in rendering , unsought , such testimony . Father Deschamps , however , does not always see clearly , but , like the blind man in the Scripture , whose sight was restored , he sometimes sees " men as trees , walking . " He traces the secularization of education in European politics to Freemasonry ancl Freemasons . He attributes even the French

Revolution to Freemasonry ; deducing also from it nearly all of the political , social , ancl moral ills of the day . But his reviewer in the Catholic World sets him right in this matter . In this connection the language of the latter is so just that we quote it entire : — " Father Deschamps thinks that ' Freemasonry alone can explain' the suppression of the Jesuits . But when he tells us that Yoltaire , ancl Rousseau , and D'Alembert , ancl Pombaland Choiseulancl all the resteven to

Pompa-, , , dour (!) , were affiliated to Freemasonry , ancl therefore Freemasonry must be held chargeable with the origin of the war against the Jesuits , we cannot but ask , What about Calvin , and Fra Palo , the author of the " Monita Secreta , " and the whole brood of Jansenism ? Surely these , which were very potent factors in this war , had little to do with Freemasonry . And if all the persons whom Father Deschamps names—even Pompadour—were Freemasons ,

so to , and that not figuratively either , was Frederick the Great , the intimate friend and correspondent of Voltaire . Yet Frederick , the idol of the philosophers , Carlyle ' s hero , was also a Freemason and the organizer of Freemasonry , and he it was that offered the Jesuits an asylum , which they accepted . He treated them with great respect , and recommended them in the most flatteringterms to other sovereigns as excellent teachers . But Father Deschamps speaks of the Parliaments of France—which had ceased to exist some years before the Revolution—as Freemasons in a body .

" As for the Parliaments , their certificate of philosphico-Masonic affiliation is found in the correspondence of Yoltaire ancl D'Alembert , in the pilgrimages to Ferney made by the councillors and referendaries , ancl in the numerous letters to the principal members , we might have added , were it necessary , — Les Soe . Sec , t . ii ., p . 58 . " This charge against what , with all their faults , were respectable and learned assemblies , containing many worth y Christians , is rendered somewhat

vague , it must be admitted , by the ' philosophico ' prefixed to the word Masonic . " It is well to remark that the many v ears ' close attention which Father Deschamps gave to the subject of Freemasonry , while undoubtedly fitting him to pronounce an opinion , also tended , in the natural order of things , to magnif y m his eyes the operations of the Craft he had been so long studying . He sees Freemasonry in everything that is anti-Catholic . A similiar phenomenon is observable among non-Catholics , for many of whom the illustrious Society of Jesus is a constant bugbear and the source of unnumbered woes . We have all to guard against cant , if we would deal seriously with serious questions . It