A French Priest's View Of Masonry.

is impossible to insist too forcibly on the d anger to religion ancl society that Freemasonry offers , but the right way to avert the danger is to look at it as it is , not to dress it up in so fantastic a guise that Freemasons themselves will be unable to recognize it . Of course , politicians of all parties , unscrupulous as the class have always been , eager to further their own or their party ' s ends , would enroll themselves among the Freemasonswho were a numerous and

, influential association , yet it would not follow that all the vagaries , schemes , or theories of these politicians are to be laid at the door of Freemasonry . In fact many , very many , of those who suffered during the Revolution , very many of the emigre nobles , were Freemasons . " The justness of the most of this language is apparent . It is especiall y noteworthy as the utterance of an influential Roman Catholic writer . It

shows that it is possible for one to be an enemy to Freemasonry , ancl yet not blind to the facts of past history or to contemporary events . It is true that all are not angels of light that appear in angelic guise ; that some unscrupulous men do wear the livery of Freemasonry ; but these do not colour its creed , nor fashion its purpose . It is composed , in the main , of " good men and true . " This even its enemies , if ingenuous , must admit . But we quote our reviewer

further : " Freemasonry , then , in the politico-atheistical form which it has taken on the continent of Europe , was not , it may safely be said , the cause , primarily or secondarily , of the Revolution , or the revolutionary spirit . It is rather merely one of the manifestations of a craving for some sort of reli gion , and for some code of morality , which still exists even among those who have fallen away from the Church of God .

" In France Freemasonry had received the official recognition of the government of Napoleon III ., but' advanced ' Freemasons chafed under the restraints which this recognition imposed upon the Order . The Masonic Congress held at Metz in 1869 , demanded that the fundamental article of Freemasonry in France , which affirmed the basis of the Order to be the belief in the existence of God , the immortality of the soul , and the love of humanity , should be replaced by the declaration that Masonry has for its only princile the unity of

p mankind . The promoter of this movement was M . Mace , of the University . M . Mace ancl his friends were at last entirely successful , for the general assembly of French Masons held at Paris a few years later , by a great majority , ancl after taking- the sense of all the lodges subject to the Grand Orient or central authority of France , abolished the fundamental article in question , substituting it by the declaration that ' Freemasonry has for its foundation absolute libert y

of conscience , and the unity of mankind . It excludes no one for his belief . " It is true , and we sadly admit it , that the so-called Freemasonry of the Grand Orient of France is spurious Freemasonry . It is atheistic . With it English-speaking Freemasonry has nothing to do , ancl for it has no responsibility . It has fallen from its high estate—it is no longer Freemasonry . The Craft in England , Scotland , Ireland , and America has so declared it . French Freemasons of the obedience of the Grand Orient , and ourselves , are no longer brethren . The fault is theirs , not ours , nor that of Freemasonry .

The following language , used b y the reviewer also , is worth repeating : " It is true Disraeli , too , sees the secret societies in every uneasy movement of the harassed people of Europe . Nor will the impressionable Celts feel any delight in reading that Ireland is dominated by Freemasonry ! Nothing could be more absurd .

" The essay on the Knights Templar is particularly interesting . Fathei Deschamps thinks the knights guilty of the crimes and irregularities charged to them , ancl he traces , with a few breaks , however , in the evidence , a connection between the suppressed order of the Temple and modern Freemasonry . Freemasonry itself he traces also to Gnosticism , Manichism , and the Albigenses , but he finds the real corporate existence of the institute to have first appeared