Chapter III.

(Continued.)

The Irreligion of Freemasonry.

(You must be shocked, dear reader, but continue to read attentively.)

"2. That all proceedings at the opening or at the closing of our Lodges, as well as all documents either of individual members or of the brotherhood in general, should be dated from the Creation of the World, or the Era of Light, in opposition to the modern system of chronology invented in the end of the eleventh century by a Pope, who introduced page 12 the use of a later era; a pitiful and cowarding artifice by which to obtain universal recognition of the event from which he dated."

(What a blow here aimed at the claims of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Virgin Mary, on our most reverent "recognition" of him as our Divine Redeemer!)

"3. That in remembrance of the Last Supper, or Christian Love-feast, of Jesus the Son of Mary Amram (sic), an account of which is given in the Arabic traditions and in the Koran" (no notice taken of the New Testament), "a solemn festival should be held, accompanied by a distribution of bread, in commemoration of an ancient custom observed by the slaves of eating bread together, and of their deliverance by means of the liberator, Josue. The distribution is to be accompanied by these memorable words—'This is the bread of misery and oppression which our fathers were forced to eat under the Pharoes the priests of Juda; whosoever hungers let him come and eat; this is the Paschal sacrifice of the liberator Josue; come unto us, all you who are oppressed; yet this one year more in Babylon, and the next shall see us free men.' This instructive, and at the same time commemorative, supper of the Rosicrucians is the counterpart of the supper of the Papists."

I fear to weary the reader by transcribing more of this impious and absurd document. In its every part there is observable the effort to crush out the very idea of Christianity. For this, come whatever theory, no matter how ridiculous or ill-founded. It is truly Masonic.

Under the head of Deism we can safely assert that the key-note of Freemasonry is war to death against Revelation. In a Masonic work published in Germany, it may be read :—"Belief in revelation is a malady to which weak and pious minds are very subject; it is an infectious epidemic, employed ever since the world began, to effect the destruction of human liberty; it is alike incompatible with sound reason and true freedom; it is the parent of fanaticism and superstition." "The laws of the Masonic and Christian religions are the contemptible institutions of petty minds bent on deceiving others; they are the most extravagant aberrations of the human intellect." (Warrschuwing, Vol. xi.)

Deism as professed by Freemasonry recognises no eternity. Read the following from the pamphlet entitled, "The Attitude of Freemasonry in the Present Day," written in defence of the Craft in 1865:—

"Freemasonry teaches nothing impossible; its secret consists in teaching man to discern realises. It instructs him in the art of being good without reference to heaven or hell, independent of the motives of hope and fear. The Mason does not await a future life to receive his reward; he has it here, and is content." What super-excellent and pre-eminently noble creatures, those perfect Masons! What a sublimely admirable system is Freemasonry!

The passage from the rejection of all revealed belief to that of the very existence of God, is quite natural. The truths of religion follow from each other by logical sequence. Remove any of the fundamental parts, and the superstructure will inevitably sink. Hence, since Freemasonry is the enemy of Christianity, it must be also the very nursery and school of Atheism. In 1865, at a Masonic Convention whose object was he elaboration of a new constitution for the Order, out of one hundred and fifty-one motions proposed, sixty of them demanded the absolute abolition of all formulas affirming the existence of God. After the most animated debates, however, the formula used as the heading to official documents, "To the great Architect of the Universe," was preserved. In consequence, numberless protests were heard from the Lodges. We read in the Masonic World (Nov., 1866) :—"In its sitting of the 26th October, the first section of the Great Central Lodge (Scotch Rite), composed of deputies elected by each of the Lodges of their obedience, declared that, according to their ideas, Freemasonry had no business to affirm the existence of God." The question was revived in the General Assembly of the Grand Orient in June, 1867. Exciting, indeed, were the debates, and blasphemous to a degree. Of such a character, surely, were such expressions as these, uttered by the orators at this convention : "Morality does not need to lean upon God"; Freemasonry, by affirming the idea of God, would pass into the condition of a church." Despite this logic, prudence carried the day and the formula was retained. But it is evident that it is a perfect nullity—an empty form, serving only to allay the scruples of those who are not yet sufficiently advanced. And so the Masonic World is justified in asserting that Freemasonry remains "the universal temple eternally opened to Atheists as well as to Pantheists, etc., etc."

Just listen to other edifying professions of faith made in the great Masonic assemblies:—

"I affirm that the name of God is a word void of sense." (Liege Lodge, 1865.)

"We must not only place ourselves above different religions, but above all belief in any God whatever." (M. Neut, p. 223.)

"It is only fools who speak and dream still of God." (M Neut.)

It was boasted by one of the Atheistical orators at the Masonic Convention of 1867, that Proudhon, one of the master-minds of this century, had been received among the Freemasons. And yes, it is true, Proudhon was welcomed to their ranks—the man who said, "God is the origin of evil"; and who, to the question, "What do we owe to God?" replied, "War." The Masonic World, in an article in December, 1881, declared that Proudhon's initiation in 1847 forms an epoch in the development of Masonry. "It is," says this journal, "above all, to his friends and disciples that Masonry owes the importance that marks its existence during the second half of the Empire. Masonry has not forgotten Proudhon, for the life and work of Proudhon were in unison with the aspirations of Masonry." Dearest reader, could words tell more plainly what is the true spirit, and what the real aim of this secret sect? For, what was the mission this Proudhon set himself? Why, he himself avows expressly that it was "to deliver men from the ideas of the immortality of the soul, and a Supreme Being, and to teach them that the idea of God was not only foreign to morality, but hurtful to morality."

Pantheism, or the worship of nature as God, is in high favour in pure and real Freemasonry. The recognition of the Sun as a Deity is its special feature, as it was in the religion of many ancient peoples of the East of Europe. From the Latomia, a Masonic periodical, the writer of "The Secret Wariare," quotes the following :—"Egypt is to be regarded as the cradle of all our learning, especially as being the land where Craftsmen were first initiated into the Secret Society as it then existed, into the Corporation or Fraternity of Masons. Throughout the whole of Asia, Busiris, the sun-god, was adored under the name of Mithras and the emblem of fire; the temples of the Freemasons are likewise enlightened by the presence of that life-giving symbol!" In another Masonic document I see a passage quite as telling as the preceding. It is a sketch "for private circulation" of the proceedings on the occasion of the celebration of the winter page 15 solstice at Brussels. The orator spoke thus :—"It is Christmas time! Glory to the Great Architect of the Universe! All that lives, all that breathes, is bestirring itself anew, and preparing to shake off its temporary lethargy, its ice-bound sleep. Ought not grateful emotions to fill every heart at such a season, for, of all the festivals we celebrate, this is the greatest. On this day light is born again into the world!"

What an effort to trample under foot the Christian significance of Christmas! Christianity joyfully exclaims at that time, "To-day a Saviour is born to us, Christ the Lord!" Whereas the truly Masonic cry is, "To-day light is born again to the world, let us rejoice!"

Pantheism leads Freemasonry to the fourth stage of its warfare against God and religion, namely, to the worship of Humanity itself—complete Antitheism. Observe the logical sequence in this matter—if God be one thing with Nature, that is, if Nature be God, then man, the noblest thing in visible Nature, must be the most perfect embodiment of the Divinity—must be God himself.

We hear, indeed, the Venerable in La Fidélité Lodge at Ghent asserting boldly, "We are our own gods." We find also the following passages in a Masonic periodical, treating of this worship of the Craft :—"The idea of religion indirectly includes all men as men, but in order to comprehend this aright, a certain degree of cultivation s necessary. . . . For this reason our temples, consecrated to the worship of Humanity" (that is, the Lodges of the higher grades,) "can as yet be opened only to a few. . . . It is advisable not to reveal the cultus (worship) of Humanity to the eyes of the uninitiated, until at length the time shall come, when from east to west, north to south, this lofty conception of humanity shall find a place in every breast, this worship alone shall prevail, and all mankind be gathered into one fold and one family.

And, indeed, do we not know from history what Freemasonry might do were it to hold sway. "This phase of Antitheism," says the author of "The Secret Warfare of Freemasonry," made a dramatic and legalised debut on the public stage in the days when Freemasonry celebrated its triumph. In 1793 belief in God was a crime prohibited in France under pain of death, and the worship of Reason was set up on the national cultus. On November 10th of the same year, a prostitute might be seen in Paris exalted upon a triumphal car, a crucifix placed beneath her feet, and conducted by an escort of page 16 statesmen and philosophers (?) to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, there to be raised upon an altar, while incense was burnt and songs were sung in her honour."

Is not this a pretty pass for the human soul to arrive at? What an excess of impiety in the creature to place himself on a level with the Creator! Shocking sin! from which arose that dreadful perturbation in the heavenly kingdom, when Michael, with his army, drove from a state of bliss to eternal misery those proud ones who had said, "We shall be like the Most High."

Are we to wonder that the Church of Christ should prohibit her children from joining a Society of such a character? And, for pity sake, let us not hear, "Oh! Masons, as I see them, are not, cannot be, of the same mind as those whom you call the 'advanced.' "I distinctly repeat, that this rejection of all existing religions, and this adoption of the grossest impiety are the tendency of Freemasonry, even in its simplest form, or from its earliest stages. There are many steps to such an unhappy consummation; and Masonry supplies them, points them out, leads its victims on in them. A sure movement towards irreligion and impiety is the very first grade of this secret oath-bound association; and, therefore, the merest connection with it is to be deprecated by every Christian. "No," says Bishop Dupanloup, "a Christian cannot be a Freemason."—But, strange as it may appear, Freemasons have themselves confessed as much. For, when the Bishop of Autun also affirmed that "If a man wished to remain a sincere Christian, he cannot at the same time be a Freemason," the organ of the Craft, the Masonic World, openly admitted that "the Bishop is justified in speaking thus. He is in his right. It is his duty."

A very odious aspect truly of the irreligious spirit of Freemasonry is that demoniacal zeal which it displays for the dissemination of its corrupt doctrines. It proposes to itself the unworthy mission of preaching morality without God, and eliminating all religious teaching in belief from the education of youth. The Masonic axiom is, "Morality independent of all religious hypotheses." (Masonic World, May, 1867.) Religious instruction must be suppressed, because "faith in God takes away the dignity of man, troubles his reason, and is even likely to lead him to the abandonment of all morality." (Ibid., October, 1866.) This organ of the Craft likewise page 17 assures us that, the question having been propounded in the "Love of Order" Lodge, "What kind of education should a Mason give to his children?" "all the orators declared themselves partisans of a liberal and secular education, independent of narrow-minded religious instruction." The Grand Orient of Belgium put the same query to the Lodges under its jurisdiction; of the replies we give that of the Antwerp Lodge :—"The teaching of the Catechism is the greatest obstacle to the development of a child's faculties. The intervention of a priest in education deprives the children of all moral, logical, and rational teaching." And the Chain of Union, the Masonic journal in London, in the same strain, declared that religious education was a poison, and demanded, in consequence, "That parents should bind themselves by promise to withhold their children from the virus of religious education."

How edifying what Nubio, a Masonic chief, wrote to a friend saying that he was "appointed to demoralise the education of the youth of the Church"!

This document "speaks volumes" in demonstrating the fiendish aim of this hypocritical body. On the front of its constitution it will emblazon the words, "benevolence," "liberty of conscience," and "freedom for all shades of opinion or religious persuasions"; yet, when we pry into its working, we detect the verriest tyranny and the tone of war to the knife against society as it exists.

But what shall we say in elucidating the [unclear: positive] teaching of Freemasonry? What does this sect propose to mankind in lieu of Christianity? I confess that here I feel, as it were, in a haze. However, I shall endeavour to give my readers some sentences upon the point.

The grand moral law or precept of the system which Masonry would have the human race adopt, is—"Follow the dictates of nature." Well, no doubt, there are some individuals in whose nature, good, noble impulses seem, so to speak, "the order of the day." And even Christianity teaches that the Divine Grace does not destroy nature, but rather purifies, perfects, elevates, enobles it. But, "here's the rub"—here is a nut for those fine philosophers to crack—the Masonic worship of humanity, based as it is upon Pantheism, recognises no fundamental distinction between good and evil. Thus there is no evil: everything is good, and divine. Now, if man is divine, the impulses of his heart must be divine. Away, then, with the idea of check, restraint, control; he who would impose any such, must be regarded as a usurper of man's prerogative. Yes, following out the Masonic principles to their legitimate conclusions, all that is human is good, and so, what Christianity terms vices and misdeeds are rather to be commended—nay, in them man is to seek his highest felicitation. And what when State as well as Church is swept away—when all authority is annihilated, and, upon the ruins of society as it at present exists, is erected the superstructure of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity"? Dear reader, I throw up the subject in disgust and bewilderment; for, in vain do I endeavour to picture to myself the condition to which this diabolical Society would lead mankind, if it would not be to a resemblance to that Hell, where, as holy Job says, "no order, but everlasting horror, dwells."