The Secret.

The secret is out at last, and it will be no use our pretending any longer that the proceedings of a Masons' lodge are hidden from the knowledge of the public. Such an idea may have held good formerly, and even now it may pass current for the truth among the inmates of Bedlam or the aborigines of Central Africa; but civilised people, and especially those dwelling in the favourite counties of Limerick and Tipperary, know better. A Mr R. H. Cotter has written a letter to a journal circulating in those parts, in which he describes, in all its diabolical hide-ousness, the whole ceremony of Masonic initiation. Mr Cotter is by no means scrupulous about the use of strong language, there being almost innumerable "damns" and "devils" introduced into his description of the scene, but he supports his statements by frequent references to articles and reports in the "Freemason," and therefore there can be no doubt about the authenticity of his facts. At all events, our readers who have gone through the dread ordeal of initiation know from experience what "devilish" cruelties were perpetrated at their expense by the "incarnate fiends" who performed the ceremony. They know, alas! but too well, that one of the most important features in a properly furnished Masons' lodgeroom is the "rough ashlar;" or "rock," of half a ton or more in weight, ballasting the goat or tracing board," to which the candidate is tightly strapped, and on which he lies in a paroxysm of terror, the big beads of perspiration dropping from his forehead, while one "devil" prods him with a dirk or poniard "in the left mammary region," just over the heart, and another "devil" extorts from him the oath of allegiance to the "devilish" principles of the craft. of course, too, if he were slow to utter the words of that "nefarious oath," he has a most vivid recollection of how those "devils" kept prodding him more and more sharply by command of the "thundering devil" in the "chair of A—," till "broken down in spirit for all time, if not for eternity," he at length "caved under to that incarnation of Satan in those depths of Hell." Even now probably he feels "a certain sensation" "go through him and down to his legs," and shudders fearfully at the bare recollection of that awful scene. For ourselves, we have done nothing else than shudder since reading Mr Cotter's letter, and as the blood-stained garments in which we underwent the ceremony are "still religiously preserved among our ancient archives," we fear we shall go on shuddering for the rest of our days. But this is by no means the sum total of Mr Cotter's disclosures, derived as he tells us, from a journal, which is published "with the special sanction of the Prince of Wales," and such other trustworthy sources as "Kenning's Cyclopaedia," &c. He recounts, among other things, that "the process of initiation is so cruel that even the devils themselves are obliged to have 'lodges of instruction' in order to get their hand steady—and one devil acts as sham candidate for the rest to practise on." He explains that a "Lewis" is "the son of a mason devil father who has 'the privilege' of murdering his own son in body and soul at the tender page 20 age of eighteen!" and that whenever an event of this kind takes place '"the sponsor' announces that 'a new creature' is born into 'the mother lodge.'" Further on we read—and on our own authority, too—that Cain was our "first Grand Master," and that he (Cain) "made a bungling attempt to make a Freemason of his brother Abel and failed." It appears also that when Nebuchadnezzar, who was a Sovereign Grand Conservator of the rite, tried "to make Freemasons of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, he smelt fire, and repented." Well, we suppose we must content ourselves with the wise reflection that this is an age in which—to use a hackneyed phrase—"we live and learn." We, of course, and our readers, have known all these things from our initiation onwards, and can therefore vouch for their perfect truth. Now, thanks to Mr Cotter's exposition, the profane world knows them likewise, and is doubtless edified. To the phantasies in green, the studies in black and white, the blue devils, the devils in red, must be added henceforth this "alto relievo" in terra Colter, in which the artist has delineated in all its devilry the only true mode of initiating Freemasons. We are much obliged to Mr Cotter for giving publicity to our ceremonies, and we hope he will follow up his first success by others still more astounding. The one thing that surprises us is that the editor of any journal, especially if he is under the necessity of disclaiming all knowledge of the craft, should have allotted so much space in his correspondence columns to these Masonic "devils." They must have "played the very devil" with the nerves of his more sensitive readers.—The Freemason.