The Builder Magazine

February 1916 - Volume VI - Number 2

 

THE EFFECT OF “HOME RULE” ON FREEMASONRY IN IRELAND

BY BRO. W. COPELAND TRIMBLE, IRELAND

SOME of our American brethren may desire to know the result which would likely grow from the granting to Ireland of what is understood as “Home Rule.” If the whole of the Irish people were loyal to the United kingdom and not under the domination of clericalism, things might be very different from what they are; but we have to do with facts as we find them.

 

Up to the time of the Unification of States under Garibaldi, Roman Catholics were to be found freely in Masonic lodge rooms. Daniel O'Connell and many of the Irish priesthood were members of our order. But the Pope considered that Masonic lodges had been used in Italy for the furtherance of the propaganda which wrested from him the Papal States and created a new and unified Italy, and hence the decree that forbade Roman Catholics to join the Order. This decree was frequently referred to in Lenten pastorals by Irish Roman Catholic Bishops, and as a Roman Catholic ceased to be a Catholic, according to clerical teaching, by the mere fact of going to lodge many of the Roman Catholic members of the Order ceased attendance, but others continued until old age came upon them.

 

How would Home Rule affect Freemasonry in Ireland?

 

First, What would Home Rule mean? It is generally understood to imply an Ireland separate in government from England and Scotland, being governed either by a parliament recognizing the King as sovereign, yet independent of control at Westminster, or a separate Republic for Ireland having no connection with Great Britain whatever. Be it remembered that at present Irish District and County Councils have control of the whole country in ordinary domestic legislation, and that in Parliament Ireland has, owing to the excess of her members over the population, double the power of England and Scotland.

 

Second. With then, a separate Parliament as the sovereign power in Ireland, we would have a governing body under the dominion of the Roman Catholic priesthood whose exercise and claims of authority in morals (which, freely interpreted, means everything), and who elect, or cause to be elected the various members of Parliament throughout Ireland. Full deference is paid by these members to the Bishops and clergy, not only in their episcopal or clerical capacity, but as the controllers of the local politics.

 

Third. With then, a Parliament to frame and to execute the laws, it follows that the Hierarchy would cause legislation to be passed embodying their views and Freemasonry would be prohibited beyond doubt.

 

We are not left in any doubt in the matter. Before Ireland was handed over in 1898 to the new regime of County and District Councils, several lodges that had been accustomed to holding their meetings in public courthouses foresaw what would take place and made preparations for a change. In Sligo the brethren built; a Masonic Hall; in other places something similar was done; in Enniskillen a lease was obtained for a long number of years from the Board which had, for a rental, allowed Masonic lodges to assemble in one of the rooms in the Town Hall - to guard against a notice to quit from a succeeding Board elected under new conditions.

 

Brethren in other places awaited word, hoping that they would be allowed to meet in the public buidings as before. But in vain. The local lodge received notice to quit and had to make other provision for assemblies. And if a new Parliament were to be placed in authority there is no manner of doubt in the Craft that all Masonic meetings would be prohibitedCnot so much due to the Roman Catholic laymen themselves, but to the influence which impels them to obey their clergy in matters outside the clerical province, and to them Freemasonry is anathema maranatha.

 

The ideas of liberty in thought and speech in Treland also varies with ideas held on such subjects elsewhere. The prevailing opinion among the Irish peasantry is that a man has no right to hold views differing from “the voice of the country” - that is, that the minority should always yield to the majority. In practice this view does not always hold good. There are some men of independent mold. But woe to the man who differs from his pliest, the final arbiter of all such matters !

 

Freemasonry has a strong hold among Unionist, or Protestant, circles in Ireland, and it is proud of its Masonic charities and the quality of its membership. Nor is this a matter of recent date. The writer possesses the certificate of his grandfather in the Craft and Royal Arch degrees, dating from 1797, and other ancient certificates are preserved in the Masonic Hall, Dublin, showing that Freemasonry is no new thing in this island. But how long it would escape persecution were Ireland to be dominated by a separate parliament under some form of Home Rule, is another matter, and I believe I am expressing the unanimous opinion of the Fraternity in Ireland when I say that under Home Rule the path of the Order would not be an easy one.

 

Even the British government yields to the Roman Catholic clamor against Freemasonry. A policeman formerly, on being attested when joining the force, was prohibited from holding membership in any fraternal organization, the Masonic Order alone excepted. But this exception has been overruled within the past few years and at the present time no policeman, whatever his rank or station, may become affiliated or hold affiliation with the Masonic Fraternity.

 

The instinct of Freemasonry in Ireland is correct as to the future unless some guarantees of security were placed in all Act of Parliament which would set up any new legislature in Ireland. And even then we would doubt security.

 

From THE FREEMASON of London, England, we reprint the following concerning the debate in the House of Commons which appeared in the issue of that Journal for November 25th, 1916:

 

 

PARLIAMENT AND FREEMASONRY

IMPORTANT ACTION AND FEEBLE PROTEST

 

Close attention is demanded by all interested in the welfare of the Craft to the recent debates in the House of Commons dealing especially with the relations in one particular of Freemasonry with the outer world. We have thought it well to deal with the subject in detail, because we feel that the Craft generally, and not only in Ireland, may be affected by the temper displayed towards Freemasonry in the House of Commons, and most inadequately protested against by members of our own body, of whom there are a number, and some of much Masonic distinction. It may be urged that they did not expect the question to be raised in this fashion; but, the hare having been started in full cry on Tuesday, it was hunted to the kill on the following Thursday, with only one Masonic voice raised in protest, and that by an Ulster member, who specially noted that he had none of his friends there to support him, or even to advise him in the matter.

 

THE DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

 

As a preliminary, it may be recalled that, in the short-lived strike among the Dublin Metropolitan Police in October, trouble began over the fact that more than 100 constables defied an order of the Chief Commissioner by attending a meeting of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and enrolling themselves in the society. The Chief Commissioner issued a notice warning the men that, if they attended the meeting of this secret political society, they would be liable to “serious consequences,” for, under the terms of their enlistment, the men were prohibited from joining any political or secret society except the Freemasons. The advocates of the disaffected men urged that the Hibernian Order was not as secret a society as the Freemasons, and not more sectarian, owing to the abstention of Roman Catholics generally from membership of the Craft; and, though there were grievances about rates of pay, this as to Masonry was made much of.

 

It was not, indeed, a new question, for over ten years ago when Mr. Walter Long was Chief Secretary, Mr. J. MacVeagh, a Nationalist member, called attention in the House of Commons to the encouragement given in the oath of the police to become Freemasons, and asked the then Unionist Government to withdraw the preferential treatment given to that Order. Mr. Long denied that any encouragement was given to the police to become Freemasons, and would not admit that any irregularity was committed in making the exception complained of. In more than one quarter of Nationalist opinion in the lobby, however, when the question was now brought forward, the anticipation was indulged in that the exception made in favour of Freemasonry would be dropped.

 

This anticipation proved correct, for when, on 7th November, a motion was made in the House of Commons by Mr. Duke, K.C., the present Chief Secretary, to read a second time the Constabulary and Police (Ireland) Bill, introduced to remove the Constabulary's grievances.

 

Major Newman, an English Unionist member, submitted, as an amendment, a declaration that “in view of the lack of discipline recently shown by a section of the Dublin Metropolitan Police it is inopportune to immediately proceed with the further consideration of the Bill.” In so doing, he incidentally said: “I understand that some 400 of the junior members of the Dublin force have joined the Ancient Order of Hibernians. A member of the Royal Irish Constabulary, on entering the force, has to take an oath, and he swears that he will not belong to any secret society in Ireland or any part of the world, with the exception of the Order of Freemasons. [Hon. Members: 'Hear, hear!'] I am very glad to hear those cheers, which show that the Order of Freemasons is so popular in Ireland. I am a Mason myself, and I daresay other members of the House are members of that Order. At any rate, it is a fact that the policeman takes an oath not to become a member of any secret society except the Freemasons. The Ancient Order of Hibernians is not a secret society, but it is semi-secret; its constitution, aims, methods, and so on are pretty well known. If it be only semi-secret, it is wholly sectarian; it is confined absolutely to the Roman Catholic faith. No one who is an Orangeman can become a member of that Order, and to that extent it is a sectarian society, and a semi-secret one.... I daresay some members below the gangway will argue about the Order of the Freemasons. At any rate, the Freemasons take no part in politics. [Hon Members: 'Oh, oh!']”

 

Mr. Dillon intersected the remark: “They ruled Ireland for fifty years.”

 

Major Newman continued: “They have done so, but the Freemasons are now a great cosmopolitan body, dealing only with matters of Charity, and with nothing more. I am a Mason, and I know that in a Lodge of Freemasons no word of politics is ever introduced, and hon. members are very much mistaken if they think that Freemasons allow politics in their lodges. I do not think I incur any penalty by saying that, or stating that the Lodges of the Order of Freemasons deal only with matters of Charity.”

 

Mr. Duke, the Chief Secretary, in replying, observed: “With regard to the matter of membership of societies, I regard it as a very unfortunate thing that the oath against membership of societies has any qualification; and, if hon. members desire to alter that state of things, then, so far as I am concerned, they will find that my view is that there must be equal treatment for everybody in these matters of police discipline. The objection to membership of organizations on the part of those who are responsible for the conduct of the police is to membership of any organization which may cut across the primary duty of the police. Taking that view of the matter, I have had it under consideration whether, without any regard to the oath under the Act of William IV., or to any of these matters, the proper mode of dealing with this question of membership of outside organisations is not to say to everybody who is in the police, as well as to everybody who comes to join the police, 'You must not join any outside organisation without the consent of your chief commanding officer, because it is contrary to discipline.' That, to my mind, is the sound mode of dealing with a matter of this kind.”

 

This, however, did not satisfy the Nationalists, Mr. Devlin saying: “If you lay down as a universal principle of equality that men who are in a police force of this character are not to join societies, then complete and absolute liberty should be conceded to them. I am not going to make any attack upon the Freemasons. I know nothing whatever about them. I have no doubt that they are all that members of that organization in England have described them to be. But I cannot blind myself to the fact that Freemasonry in Ireland is a large political organization - is a most powerful and scientific political machine. Every one of us knows that it eats into and corrodes the whole social and political life of Ireland. Everybody knows it. Perhaps the right hon. and learned gentleman is ignorant of it. I could give him a list of appointments made to Government offices in Ireland. In every branch of the public service where Freemasons decide - at all events, if they do not decide, look at the statistics and consider! - I think it will be found that every position above the position of crossing‑sweeper, although the Irish people are overwhelmingly Catholic in the three provinces of Ireland - ninety per cent. are Catholics, but the great bulk of these positions are held by those who are hostile to our faith and our aspirations.”

 

The Bill was then read a second time without a division, and two days later it was considered in committee of the whole House, when the Masonic point came again - and this time very practically - to the front.

 

Major Newman now observed: “Let us allow these constables to belong to no secret society whatsoever. Do not let us have the Hibernians, Orangemen, or Freemasons - at any rate, so long as both these forces are under the control of Parliament. What may happen after they are transferred to the Dublin Parliament does not concern us now. Up till then, for the safety of Ireland, for fair play, and on behalf of the peace of that country, let us lay down once and for all the rule that, so long as we here have control of these forces, so long as they have to look to us for their emoluments and so on, we will not allow any member of those forces, be he county inspector, divisional inspector, subordinate officer, head constable, or what not, to be a member of any secret society - Freemasons, Ancient Order of Hibernians, or Orangemen. If the Chief Secretary will not give us assurances on this point, I should certainly like to test the feelings of the House in the matter.”

 

Mr. Dillon replied for the Nationalists, remarking: “The other day, when some of us pointed out that both the Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police, by an extraordinary oath, are prohibited from belonging to any secret society or any political association, excepting the Society of Freemasons, several hon. members cried out that the Society of Freemasons is not political. I do not know anything about the Society of Freemasons in this country, or about the details of its proceedings in Ireland; but I do know this, that you may state that fact until you are black in the face, but you will not get any man in Ireland to believe it. I speak as an outsider altogether, quite ignorant of these matters, as being a Roman Catholic, I am obliged to be, but it is a very singular thing that the great Society of Freemasons, against whom I do not desire to make any attack whatever, in certain countries, in certain times, has become a most powerful and dominating political society. Nobody who has studied history will challenge that. It is a matter of public knowledge that the great revolution in Turkey was carried out by the Grand Lodge of Salonika, and that all the Young Turks whose names were famous throughout the world at that time, owed a great deal of their remarkable power - which enabled them to overthrow the Sultan's rule - to the fact that they were leading and high up in the Masonic Order.  That is a matter of common knowledge throughout Europe, and it is remarkable that in certain countries and at certain periods the Masonic Society, which in this country may be, for all I know, and I believe it is, a purely charitable, social, and benevolent society, becomes when under the control of certain individuals, and, under the stress of certain peculiar circumstances, locally a most powerful and formidable political association. It was so in Italy, Portugal, and Turkey. That has been the case in Ireland for three or four generations, notoriously, and it is perfectly idle to deny it. Here is the oath which the Constabulary in Ireland and the Dublin Metropolitan Police are compelled to swear, with one slight variation, to which I will draw attention in a moment. This oath - and it is a thing which it is well for the Chief Secretary to take note of - was imposed upon the Constabulary in 1836, at a time when a great deal of the Penal Code against the Catholics had been barely repealed - I mean when the Catholics of Ireland were an oppressed majority of the population, and really were kept out of all authority and all social position in their own country. The oath is:-

 

‘I, A. B., do swear that I will well and truly serve our Sovereign,'

 

and so forth, and then it goes on to detail the duties which he undertakes to perform:-

 

'and that I do not now belong to, and that I will not while I shall hold the said office, join, subscribe or belong to any political society whatsoever, or to any secret society whatsoever, unless to the Society of Freemasons.’

 

Now that oath, imposed upon the constables of a Catholic nation where the vast majority of the people were suffering under cruel oppression from the law, and where that majority were forbidden by the Church, under pain of mortal sin, to join this association, was an act of high-handed oppression, and was calculated in the eyes of the people to mark out the policemen as partisans of the ascendancy faction who ruled Ireland for many years, and this act destroyed all idea of faith on the part of the Irish in the impartiality of the administration of the law. I say, therefore, that the infliction of that oath, which has gone on to this hour was a cruel and very outrageous insult to the Catholic people of Ireland. Here is the form of oath taken by the Dublin Metropolitan Police:-

 

'and that I do not now belong to, and that while I shall hold the said office I will not join or belong to, any political society whatsoever, or any secret society whatsoever, unless the Society of Freemasons.'

 

That form of oath, administered to the Dublin Metropolitan Police, admits in the very words of the oath that the Freemasons are a political society, because it says, 'I will not belong to any political society except the Society of Freemasons.’ “

 

Major Newman: “Secret society.”

 

Mr. Dillon: “The wording of the oath conveys the meaning which even the framers of the oath recognised.”

 

Sir John Lonsdale (Ulster Unionist): “Or any secret society.”

 

Mr. Dillon: “That is the situation. In a country governed, as Ireland has always been governed, without the slightest regard to the wishes of her own people, on these men was imposed a duty so difficult and delicate that it was almost beyond the resources of men to carry out those duties in a way to command the public confidence, and the Government in those days went out of their way to frame an oath which would destroy, in my opinion, all hope of impartiality on the part of the police.... One of the causes of the trouble in Dublin - and now that the subject has been raised we should speak perfectly frankly - is that the belief has grown up amongst the police - and I believe it to be a sound one - that promotion does not always wait upon merit, but is the reward of certain occult influences, outside influences, and political views, which ought not to enter into the question of the promotion of a police force at all.... What is the Ancient Order of Hibernians? It is not a secret society, it is not an oath-bound society, and it is not a political society. It is a friendly society registered under the Insurance Act. It is an open legal friendly Society which is open to Catholics. I admit it is a sectarian society, but in Ireland the Freemasons are a sectarian society closed to Catholics, and all that the police have done - I admit it is very delicate ground, but they have been smarting under grievances which have existed a long time - all that it is alleged they have done - I do not know whether it is a fact - is that five hundred of them have joined the Ancient Order of Hibernians. I ask on what grounds of justice can the hon. member take up the position that they are not as much entitled to join the Ancient Order of Hibernians as the officers are entitled to join the Freemasons? That is an impossible position. If the hon. member wants my opinion, I will give it to him. I would not allow, if I were administering the affairs of Ireland, a policeman to join any society. I would carry it further, and I would not allow any man engaged in the administration of the law to join any society. But we know perfectly well that up to quite recently every man engaged in the administration of the law in Ireland was a Freemason. I say that the law, whether it be administered by policemen, or magistrates, or prosecutors, or the Attorney-General, or judges, they ought to be all above suspicion and stand equally between His Majesty's subjects, no matter what society they belong to. Therefore, I go further than the hon. and gallant member does, as I would require every judge, magistrate, Crown prosecutor, and everyone, whoever he may be, in carrying out the law to take an oath that he would not belong or did not belong to any association. We all remember the Lord's Prayer, and human nature is weak, and if you have before you in the administration of the law a man who is bound to you by the bonds of an association you are tempted to be friendly.”

 

Mr. Devlin, another Nationalist, took the same line, exclaiming: “Let all policemen in Ireland stand upon the basis of a common equality. Let them either join the Hibernians or any other society they like, and let them join the Freemasons or any other society they like. If those men are not to have any connection or affiliation, direct or indirect, with associations, then I say let that be a common principle equally applicable to all men in the force.” He then appealed to the Chief Secretary to say whether he intended to accept an amendment standing in the name of a third Nationalist member, Mr. Nugent, proposing to alter the oath the Irish police had to take.

 

Mr. Duke replied: “I said when the Bill was before us on Second Reading that I saw no answer to the objection there was to retaining this exception in favour of the Order of Freemasons in the oath, and that I proposed to take the necessary steps in accordance with that view. It is difficult to say what I will do on a particular amendment, because it is not quite so simple as to enable me to say Yes or No with regard to the particular amendment, but, of course, I propose to make the change.”

 

Mr. Devlin rejoined: “A great deal of the time of the House, and the time, perhaps, that ought to be occupied with other matters contained in this Bill, has already been taken up in the discussion of this question; and I wanted, as far as possible, to avoid the repetition of this discussion, therefore I am very glad to find that the right hon. gentleman, in pursuance of the promise which he gave when the Bill was before the Hoase on the Second Read ng, proposes to accept the amendment which stands in the name of my hon. friend.”

 

Mr. Nugent, in moving his amendment, observed: “I have listened to the suggestion made not by one speaker, but by all, that this antiquated rule which prohibits men from joining any secret society other than the Freemasons should be wiped out of existence. I am glad that that is now recognised. I agree that men should not belong to any secret society - Catholic, Proestant, or anything else - which, as the Chief Secretary said should cross or interfere with the discharge of their public duties. But how is this to apply? . . . It is a terrible objection to a man that he should be a member of an organisation of Catholics, but is no objection when he signs the Ulster Covenant, or joins the Freemasons' organization. The hon. gentleman (Major Newman) admits that the Masonic organisation is a perfectly secret society, from which Catholics are excluded by their religion. In the City of Dublin more than eighty percent. of the people are Catholic, and in the Dublin Metropolitan Police more than eighty per cent. of the men are Catholic. They are informed that they can join the Masonic organization and have its influence to secure promotion, but that if they join a Catholic organization, or the Hibernian Society, it is an entirely different thing. The Ancient Order of Hibernians is not a political society, and is not a secret society. It is a society registered under the Friendly Societies Act, its books are open for inspection to every member of the society, its returns are made to the Registrar of Friendly Societies, it is approved under the Insurance Act as one of those societies which are to administer it. I can say here, without fear of contradiction, that there is no society in Great Britain that has been able to conduct its business better.

 

. . . It would be far better in the interests of good government in the interests of the City and Metropolitan police, and in the interests of the peace of the city, to be generous in this critical period whenever you are introducing a Bill which to some extent will remove some of the grievances under which the men suffer.”

 

The amendment, however, was negatived without challenge, it being understood that the Chief Secretary was prepared to meet the point in another way. This other way was by means of a new clause, moved by Mr. Dillon expressly to remove a portion of the old oath, in the following terms: “The Statutes mentioned in the Third Schedule to this Act shall be repealed to the extent mentioned, and in the said Schedule.”

 

An Ulster Unionist member (Col. Craig) at this point observed: “I have not really had time to consider the question, but, as far as I understand it, a great many men have joined the Freemasons' Society, and I would like to ascertain whether the effect of this amendment might not press rather hardly on those who have joined a society which, so far as I understand, he could not leave once having joined it.”

 

Mr. Duke replied: “It is quite true that there are men in the constabulary now who have joined the Order of Freemasons, but I do not at all gather that there is any desire to penalize them, and I understand that the intention is to have a fresh form of oath which has not on the face of it that obvious inequality and that provocative exception with which the amendment deals. I gather from the hon. member for East PIayo (Mr. Dillon) that I correctly interpret his desire in this respect, and the desire of those who act with him. There is an additional reason for it which I might perhaps mention. When a man has attained commission rank he has to renew his oath with regard to the position, and obviously it would be unjust that a man who has entered the force upon certain conditions should be deprived of the just expectation of promotion because in a different time and in a different temper there was used what now seems an obsolete expression. I shall propose to insert a qualification, when we come to the schedule, by means of words which provide 'that the repeal, so far as it affects persons who join the respective forces after the commencement of this Act.' I must say I am glad to accept the proposal which the hon. member has made.”

 

Mr. Dillon rejoined: “I accept the qualification which the right hon. gentleman has stated, and I only desire to add this one word. The attitude of the right hon. gentleman has been most conciliatory and most fair, and I am very glad to be able to make such a concession, if concession it be.”

 

The question was then put and agreed to, and the proposed new clause was added to the Bill; but a further discussion took place when, later in the proceedings, the new schedule was brought before the House in the following terms:-

 

THIRD SCHEDULE

ACTS REPEALED

 

Session and Chapter	SHORT TITLE	EXTENT OF REPEAL
6 & 7 Will. 4, c. 13.	Constabulary (Ireland) Act, 1836	Section 17 from “whatsoever,” where it last appears to “Freemasons.”
6 & 7 Will. 4, c. 29.	The Dublin Police Act, 1836	Section 44, from “whatsoever,” where it last appears to “Freemasons.”

 

The schedule having been read a first time, Mr. Muldoon, a Nationalist member, moved that it be read a second time, suggesting that a provision preserving the interests of those who have already joined the society might, perhaps, more conveniently be inserted after the new Clause 4.

 

Mr. Duke replied: “I think the object desired by the hon. member could be attained by inserting, at the end of the first paragraph in the third column, the words, 'so far as respects persons who join the Royal Irish Constabulary after the commencement of this Act'; and at the end of the second paragraph in the third column, the words, 'so far as respects persons who join the Dublin Metropolitan Police after the commencement of this Act.' I think that will meet the hon. member's view. But if he thinks it would be more artistic to do it in a different manner on report, I daresay we shall not quarrel over that.”

 

The schedule having been read a second time,

 

Mr. Duke said: “I beg to move, at the end of the first paragraph in the third column, to insert the words, 'so far as respects persons who join the Royal Irish Constabulary after the commencement of this Act.”'

 

Mr. Hazleton (Nationalist): “After the passing of this Act.”

 

Mr. Duke: “It is the same thing. 'Commencement' is the technical expression for its coming into operation.”

 

Col. Craig then observed: “I want to enter a protest against this proposal, in order that it may be recorded that I did so. I do not intend to press my objection further than to say, as a member of the Masonic Order, that I do not think it is necessary that this step should be taken. I see the point of view of hon. members below the gangway - that, if there is to be a restriction, so far as joining any of these societies is concerned, there should be no exception whatever. Hitherto the Masonic Order has taken a place entirely by itself. It takes no political part whatever in the life of Ireland, nor, as far as I know, in the life of England. At the same time, I am fully alive to the fact that as it is a secret society, hon. members say that if there is to be a rule that men of the Royal Irish Constabulary are not to be permitted to join any secret society, the rule must apply here also, and with this protest I am prepared to waive my objection. I hope, however, that members of the Order, whether inside or outside the House, will not regard it as any slur upon the society. We are in the midst of a great war, and we all have to sacrifice something. I have none of my friends here to support me, or even to advise me, in this matter. Therefore I simply enter my protest, and, faced with the fact that we want to show a united front wherever we can, and in the interests of the discipline of the force, I withdraw my opposition.”

 

The amendment was then agreed to, and a further amendment made, at the end of the second paragraph, in the third column, to insert the words, “so far as respects persons who join the Metropolitan Police after the commencement of this Act.” The schedule, as amended, was then added to the Bill, it being worded thus:-

 

THIRD SCHEDULE

ACTS REPEALED

 

Session and Chapter	SHORT TITLE	EXTENT OF REPEAL
6 & 7 Will. 4, c. 13.	Constabulary (Ireland) Act, 1836	Section 17 from “whatsoever,” where it last appears to “Freemasons,” so far as respects persons, who join the Royal Irish Constabulary after the commencement of this Act
6 & 7 Will. 4, c. 29.	The Dublin Police Act, 1836	Section 44, from “whatsoever,” where it last appears to “Freemasons,” so far as respects persons, who join the Dublin Metropolitan Police after the commencement of this Act

 

The Bill was immediately reported to the House, at which stage, despite the Chief Secretary's suggestion that it might be possible then to deal with the matter “in a more artistic way,” not a further word was said concerning it; and the measure was ordered in a very few minutes for third reading, which was given to it without further ado on Wednesday of this week.

 

THE ENCYCLICAL LETTER HUMANUM GENUS” OF THE POPE LEO XlIl

 

(CONCLUDED FROM JANUARY ISSUE)

 

THE LETTER then proceeds to state the materialistic “principles of statesmanship.” It says: “They maintain that all things are vested in a free people; that power is held by the order or permission of that people, so that, if the popular pleasure change, Princes may be degraded from their rank even against their will. They assert that the source of all laws and civil duties is either in the multitude, or in the power that rules the State, and this when formed by the newest teaching.” And the Letter avers, “that these very sentiments are equally pleasing to the FreeMasons; and that they wish to arrange States after this likeness and pattern, is too well known to need demonstration. For long indeed they have been openly working for this object with all their strength and resources.”

 

These are the political principles of all English-speaking Masons; not because they are Free-Masons, not because these principles are taught in their lodges for they teach nothing there in regard to politics or systems of government; but because they are Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen, or citizens of the United States; and their Civil Governments are founded upon these principles. In other countries these are the principles which have always inspired the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and the French or Modern Rite; and these Rites have therefore always been the advocates and champions, especially in the Latin countries of Europe, of freedom and constitutional government; and in this chiefly consist their glory and their honour. The Roman Catholic Church has been always and everywhere on the side of the arbitrary power Princes and Potentates: Masonry on the side of the people. Thou hast said truly, O Pope!

 

Then the Successor of Saint Peter thus announces to the Faithful the law by which they are to be absolutely governed, - the law of the Divine right of anointed Princes:

 

“As men are born by the will of God for civil union and association, and as  the power of ruling is so necessary a bond of civil society, that on its removal that society must suddenly be severed, it follows that He who gave birth to society gives birth also to the rule of authority. Whence it is understood that he in whom power is, WHOEVER HE IS, is God's Minister. Wherefore, so far as the end and nature of human society require, it is as right to obey lawful authority, when it issues just orders as it is to obey the power of God who rules all things: and this is pre-eminently inconsistent with truth, that it should depend upon the will of the people to cast off obedience at its pleasure.”

 

Is every one, then, who finds himself actually possessing power, thereby God's Minister? Was Cromwell God's Minister? Was William of Orange God's Minister? Was Napoleon the Great? Were William and Mary God's Ministers? Are the King and Parliament of Italy God's Ministers? Are the Emperors of Germany and Brazil God's Ministers? Oh no! The Pope means those in whom power is, they having lawful authority, i. e., those whose rule and power are sanctioned by the Church. How, according to his doctrine, if it be “pre-eminently inconsistent with truth” that the people may rid a country of a ferocious and brutal tyrant, by compelling his abdication - of a Ferdinand VII., or Philip II., (whose will and that of the Church of Rome Alva executed in the Netherlands, leaving written there all over the land the never-to-be-effaced records of the blood-guiltiness of the Church and King), - of a Bomba, of a Nero, of a Caligula, of a Borgia, - how is any bloody and brutal miscreant, wearing the purple, to be dethroned? Must the people endure until God shall remove the butchering malefactor by death, that perhaps Commodus may succeed Tiberius, or a worse and meaner tyrant follow Bomba?

 

There must be some power on earth to set free a suffering people. It must not “depend upon the will of the people to cast off obedience at its pleasure, - all Catholics are ordered to believe.” When, then? When the Church may authorize it; when the Pope may declare the Throne forfeited for crime, and excommunicate the Ruler, as Heretic or Free-Mason? Is it not this that is meant?

 

Thus the Pope pronounces by his prerogative of infallibility, and as Vicegerent of God, whom it is as unlawful to refuse to obey as it is to refuse “to obey the power of God who rules all things,” that the dethronement of James II., Catholic King of England, was an act of disobedience of the power of God.

 

“On the contempt for the authority of Princes, on the allowing and approving of lust for sedition, on the granting of full license to the passions of the people, bridled only by the fear of punishment, there must of necessity arise a change and overthrow of all things.”

 

The Free-Masons, he passionately cries, “have begun to have great weight in ruling States, but they are ready to shake the foundations of Empires, and to censure, accuse and drive out the chief men of a State, whenever its administration seems different from their wishes. Just so have they deluded the people by their flattery. By calling in sounding  terms for liberty and public prosperity, and saying that it is owing to the Church and Princes that the people are not delivered from unjust slavery and want, they have imposed upon the populace, and have instigated it by a thirst for revolution to attack the power of both.”

 

Where? Garibaldi, in Italy, was a Free-Mason, and there are perhaps a hundred and fifty Masonic lodges in Italy; and yet a King rules peacefully there, upheld by the Free-Masons, his Minister, Depretis, being a Mason. In Brazil the Emperor is a Free-Mason of the 33d Degree, and there have been no insurrections or disturbances of the public peace there, though the Free-Masons assemble in some two hundred Lodges and higher Bodies. In Portugal there are a Grand Orient and Supreme Council and sixty or seventy Lodges, and the Marshal Duke Saldanha, why by peaceful revolution gave that Kingdom a constitutional government, was Ex-Grand Master of Masons; and yet a King reigns peacefully in Portugal. In Spain there are two hundred Lodges, and Sagasta is a Free-Mason, and Alfonso reigns secure, his throne upheld by FreeMasonry.

 

Attacks upon the Church and Princes, the Pope exclaims, instigated by Free-Masons, have given the people greater expectation than reality of advantage. “Nay, rather, the common people, suffering worse oppression, are for the most part forced to be without those very alleviations of their miseries, which they would find with ease and abundance, if matters were arranged according to Christian ordinances. But as many as strive against the order arranged by divine Providence, usually pay this penalty for their pride, that they meet with a wretched and miserable fortune in the quarter whence they rashly expected prosperity and success.”

 

The Spanish Colonies in the New World threw off by revolt the intolerable yoke of oppression of the Spanish Crown, and made themselves free Republics. They were not content with “matters arranged according to Christian Ordinances” by the Catholic Church, for the benefit of a rapacious and cruel government, with those “Ordinances” administered by Inquisitors. Are the people of Mexico loosers thereby? Are those of Chile, or Venezuela? The Netherlands, bled nearly unto death, at last, by heroic endurance and matchless courage, rescued their country from the Satanic rule of Alva. France put an end to such Saturnalia of Hell there as that of the Eve of St. Bartholomew, and in carrying away the Pope to Avignon paid Rome in full for the blood with which the grey hairs of old Coligni dabbled the stones of Paris. God, by the instrumentality of Luther, avenged the murdered Albigenses and Lollards, Huss and Wiclif, Jerome of Prague and Savonarola; seriously disarranging “matters arranged according to Christian Ordinances.” Has all this been to the manifest disadvantage of the people of the liberated countries of the world ? Have the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, lost by it? Is France miserable and suffering? Is Germany wretched? Does Great Britain languish for want of the tender mercies of the Papacy?

 

That great Statesman, Edmund Burke, said that he did not know how to draw an indictment against a whole people; but we have thus shown, by the very words, faithfully translated, of the Roman Pontiff himself, that this Encyclical Letter, which purports to be only an arraignment and condemnation of Free-Masonry, is in its principal intent and deepest significance an indictment, not only of the people of every Republic and Constitutional Monarchy in the world; but of every Protestant country in the world; and not only of the people of every Protestant country in the world, but of all that portion of the people of every Catholic country who have in these later centuries asserted the right of the people to have a voice in the affairs of government, and to be secure in their persons and lives against the infernal methods of procedure, the creation of imaginary crimes, and the cruel torturings upon mere suspicion, of such tribunals as the Inquisition. It is a sentence purporting to be uttered by the voice of God, outlawing and excluding from Heaven all the patriots and lovers of liberty and liberators of the people, all the array of martyrs who have died in endeavoring to vindicate the right of Humanity to freedom of thought and conscience.

 

It denounces as wicked and criminal, and contrary to the ordinances of the Christian religion, not only the laws which permit the solemnization of marriage by the civil magistrate, and those which exclude sectarian religious teaching from schools and seminaries maintained by public taxation; not only the constitutional provisions which in all the States of these United States decree the separation of Church and State, and refuse to the Church any part in the civil government of the country; not only those by which the pretensions of the Churches and their right to dictate opinions may be freely discussed by the public press; but also the great principle on which the governments of all Republics are founded, of the sovereignty of the people, the only legitimate source and author of civil power and government. It asserts the divine right of Princes, if held by the Church of Rome to have lawful authority, to govern men against their will; that they are the Ministers of God; and that the people have no power to free themselves from the tyranny and oppression of these divinely commissioned scourges and Assassins of Humanity.

 

It is an indictment of Humanity itself, for its instinctive struggles to lift itself above the miseries and indignities of bodily and intellectual bondage to Priest and Potentate; for the involuntary and irrepressible aspirations of its Soul towards light and knowledge and the free atmosphere of intellectual expansion; and for the not more involuntary quiverings of its tortured, racked, wrenched and mutilated muscles and nerves. It is an indictment of Civilization, of Progress, of the Spirit of Manhood, of the self-respect of the Peoples, of the Progress onward and upward of Humanity, of the Spirit of the Age, which is the very Inspiration of God; and of God Himself and the beneficent Providence of God, Who loves the people in rags, hungry and hopeless, better than He loves the Priests in scarlet and the Tyrants in purple.

 

In renewing and by his Apostolic authority confirming everything decreed by former Popes against Free-Masonry, ratifying their Bulls as well in general as in particular, Leo XIII. leaves to his faithful subjects no discretionary power to regard any portions of those anathemas as obsolete, or to pay respect and obedience to those laws, Bills of Right, or Constitutions, of the countries in which they live, which may forbid the enforcement of the commands of the Church containing these Bulls.

 

For he immediately adds: “Having entire confidence in this respect, in the good will of those who are Christians, we beseech them, in the name of their erernal salvation, and we demand of them to make it for themselves a sacred obligation of conscience, never to depart, even by one single line, from the mandates promulgated on this subject by the Apostolic See.”

 

He then proceeds to direct by what measures and devices the Clergy “are “to cause to disappear the impure contagion of the poison which circulates in the veins of society, and infects it throughout.”

 

First: by tearing off the mask of Free‑Masonry and showing it as it is.

 

Second: by special discourses and pastoral letters to instruct the people. “Remind the people,” he says, “that by virtue of the decrees often issued by our predecessors, no Catholic, if he desires to continue worthy of the name, and to have for his salvation the concern which it deserves, can, under any pretext, affiliate with the Sect of Free-Masons.”

 

Then, by frequent instruction and exhortation to help the masses to acquire a knowledge of religion, expounding, in writing and orally, the elements of the sacred principles which constitute the Christian philosophy; and so to increase the devotion of Clergy and Laity to the Catholic Church, the result whereof will be increased disgust for secret societies, and greater care to avoid them. To which method of inculcating what is believed by the Church to be truth, and opposing the progress of what it believes to be error, a Free-Mason will be the last man in the world to object, if it is not to be supplemented by other too well known methods.

 

And, to engage with great zeal in increasing and strengthening the Third Order of Saint Francis, in the discipline whereof the Pope claims to have made wise modifications; so that “it may be able to render greater service in helping to overcome the contagion of these detestable Sects.”

 

Third: to re-engage in establishing corporation of workingmen, to protect, under the tutorship of religion, the interests of labor and the morals of workers; with societies of patrons, to assist and instruct the proletaires, such as is the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.

 

Fourth: vigilantly to watch with pastoral solicitude over the young, drawing them away, by renewed efforts, from the schools and teachers where they would be exposed to breathe the poisoned breath of the Sects: parents, teachers and curates, urged by the Bishops, guarding their children and pupils against “these criminal societies,” which are ever endeavoring to ensnare them; those who have it in charge to prepare young persons to receive the sacraments, inducing every one of them to take a firm resolution not to join any society without the knowledge of their parents, or without havng consulted their curate or confessor.

 

For the rest, to implore the aid of the Lord, with great ardor and reiterated solicitations, proportioned to the necessity of the circumstances, and the intensity of the peril.

 

“Haughty on account of its former success, the Sect of Free-masons insolently erects its head, and its audacity no longer seems to know any bounds. United to one another by the bond of a criminal federation, and by their secret plans, its adepts lend to each other mutual support, and incite each other to dare and to do evil.”

 

“To which violent attack an energetic defence must respond. Good men must unite, and form an immense coalition of prayers and efforts. Especially the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, must be besought to become the auxiliary and interpreter of the Church, displaying her power against the Sects which are reviving the rebellious spirit, the incorrigible perfidy, and the cunning, of the Devil. Saint Michael who precipitated the revolted Angels into hell, Saint Joseph, husband of the Virgin, and the great Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, must also be enlisted: and thus the imminent danger to the human race may be averted.”

 

Instructions of the people in religious doctrine; enlargement of the Third Order of Franciscans; organization of associations of working men; gaining control of the education of the young; and incessant prayer, -  these are to be the ostensible means of offense and defence. A la bonne heure! if no more were meant. But the Church of Rome has never been in the habit of making known the real means or instruments which it has determined to use for the suppression of heresy or to repress the struggles of Humanity to escape from the intolerable burdens of oppression; and it is not likely to do it now. The ostentatious recital of these peaceful means of antagonism does not agree with the explicit re-enactments of the Bulls of Clement and Benedict. The Church has other measures in view than teaching and prayer; and it is already using them in Belgium and Brazil. It has mysteries the divulgation of which is interdicted; Conclaves and Consistories, Generals of the Order, Assemblies that are secret, as their decisions and the means and agents of execution are. The adepts blindly and without discussion obey the injunctions of their Chiefs, holding themselves always ready, upon the slightest notification or hardly perceptible sign, to execute the orders given them, devoting themselves in advance, in case of disobedience, to the most terrible penalties, and even to death; were the order even to bring about the murder of another William the Silent, or of the Chiefs of a Republic.

 

With such a Past as that of the Church of Rome is, it would have been wise not to provoke comment upon its real crimes by accusing others of having committed imaginary ones; or exposure of the doctrines of the Jesuits, by libelling those of Free-Masonry.

 

It is not only just and fair and reasonable, but of absolute necessity, to conclude that any one who speaks to men by authority intends the consequences that may naturally, anywhere, be the effects of his words. It is even of absolute necessity, sometimes, to conclude that ambiguous phrases and significant suggestions and veiled meanings, when used as they are here, are employed to induce the commission of infamies, the explicit incitation whereunto might startle the conscience of Humanity. And this is especially of unavoidable necessity, in the interpretation of the mandates of the Church of Rome against those whom it considers its enemies. For it has never yet repudiated and condemned the maxims of the Spanish Jesuits, or declared the suppression of the Truth or the suggestion of Falsehood, for the benefit of the Church, to be contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, or confessed itself ashamed for having so long employed the infernal enginery of the Inquisition. It is infallible, can never have erred, can never change. It long ago lost all right to expect the world to give it credit for honesty of intention or frankness of expression.

 

This new Proclamation of Interdict and Excommunication is, it is probable, more especially intended as a political manifesto to the Clergy and Catholics of Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Brazil, inciting them to treasonable plottings and combinations against the Constitutional Governments of those countries. It preaches to them a new Crusade, the purpose whereof is to destroy those governments, to depose the Monarchs who permit the existence of Free-Masonry in their dominions and the expression of the voice of the people in public affairs; and to place in those Kingdoms the education of the young in the hands of the soldiery of Loyola, and the power of persecuting Free-Masonry and Heresy and the favouring of liberal government in the Holy Office or Inquisition, armed with all its old inhuman and unchristian powers, against which the sense of justice of the whole world long ago revolted. In Brazil it incites the Arch-Bishop of Rio de Janeiro and the Bishop of Para, and all the Jesuits and Ultramontane Clergy, to renew the war a few years ago waged by them against Free-Masonry, against the Emperor and Parliament, and the Laws of the Empire, acting towards the Emperor as towards one excommunicated, reprobated and accursed.

 

Thus it menaces the public peace in those countries, inciting revolt and insurrection and assassination, and makes the Lord's Prayer the patent of an Inquisitor, and the Sermon on the Mount a warrant for murder.

 

Already the General of the Jesuits and the Chief Inquisitor of the Holy Office have promulgated their orders to their troops and officials, commanding them to use their utmost exertions to carry into effect the mandates of the Encyclical Letter. In Spain and Portugal secret Anti-Masonic Associations are already being organized under these orders, and like organizations may be looked for in the United States, with resort to every other means of warfare against the great principles which Free-Masonry represents, that can be prudently and safely employed.

 

It is also a political manifesto, and more, for our neighboring Republic of Mexico, and those of Central and South America. There are Grand Lodges and Supreme Councils of Masons in most of them; and in all, Masonry is free to exist and work undisturbed, and is powerful and influential. In Mexico, the Ex-President, now President Elect of the Republic, and the Actual President, are 33ds, members of the Supreme Council of Mexico created by us, as the President Comonfort was a 33d, Grand Commander of that Supreme Council, and as the President Juarez was a Mason. It is well known that the population at large of the Republic is uneducated and grossly ignorant, and slavishly subservient to the Priesthood; and that it detests and hates Protestants as heretics, damned by the anathemas of the Church, and unfit to live. The Priesthood in Mexico has always been the uncompromising and wily enemy of every patriotic President, of Republican Government, of Free-Masonry, of the principles on which Constitutional Governments are founded, and of all the men by whose sublime efforts and sacrifices Mexico was made and has been maintained a Republic.

 

It is also well known that, in consequence of the friendly relations between our two Republics, and the extension of railroads in Mexico, built by the capital of our citizens, there now are in that country a great number of citizens of the United States, many of whom have purchased mines and lands, and are working and cultivating them. The Letter Humanum Genus is so framed and worded as to be calculated, and must therefore be taken to be artfully and deliberately intended, to incite the Priesthood in Mexico to renewed zeal against heresy and heretics, and more persistent and continuous and better organized and more audacious efforts to destroy Free-Masonry there, and overturn Republicanism. If citizens of the United States peaceably engaged there in useful avocations, should be assassinated by mobs, instigated, if not openly led, by the Priests; if Diaz and Gonzales and other Free-Masons should be murdered, and the Church should inaugurate a bloody civil war, Pope Leo XIII. will not be able, by any special pleading, to avoid the responsibility for all the fatal consequences that may ensue.

 

For men have not forgotten that Ignatious Loyola, founder of the Order of Jesus, promulgated this law.

 

“Visum est nobis in Domino nullas Constitutiones posse obligationem ad peccatum mortale vel veniale inducere, nisi Superior, (in nomine J.-C. vel in virtute obedientiae,) juberet.”

 

“It has seemed to us in the Lord that on Constitutions can make it obligatory to commit a mortal or a pardonable sin unless the Superior (in the name of Jesus Christ, or in virtue of obedience,) may so order.”

 

No doubt the General of the Jesuits holds the same doctrine to-day, and is ready to apply it, if occasion should demand, - that the Superior in the Order has the power to command an inferior to commit a mortal sin. It is a fruitful and convenient doctrine, when the matter in hand is to destroy Constitutional Governments in Catholic countries.

 

There is still more to be considered by the people of the United States; which, when they come fully to comprehend the puport of this manifesto from the Vatican, they will consider. The Catholics, whom it proposes to organize into Italian Colonies or Camps here, obeying the laws enacted at Rome, regulating their political action by principles hostile to those on which Republican Government is founded, and sedulously inculcating these upon the young entrusted to their charge, are being thoroughly informed of its contents and meanings; for it is already being read in all their Churches. Those, whose principle it damns as detestable and wicked, will come to the knowledge of it more slowly, feeling, even if Free-Masons, little interest in a Papal Bull against Free-Masonry, and little inclined to read so long a paper; and slow to believe that it is an attack upon the civil institutions and system of government under which they live. But they will well understand it by and by, and have something to say in regard to it.

 

It makes it to be of divine obligation for every faithful Catholic in the United States, to be at heart the mortal and uncompromising enemy of the principles and spirit, the plan and purpose, of the Government under which he lives, and whose equal laws permit him to plot and conspire against it with impunity. It proclaims it to the devout believer as a truth spoken by the mouth of God, that the great axiomatic principles, dear to the lovers of human liberty in every age, dear especially, dear beyond price or expression, to the people of the United States, on which, as upon the immovable adamant of eternal truth, their system of government is builded, are false and criminal and wicked, making the United States to be a part of the Kingdom of Satan.

 

It makes it his and her duty, therefore, to do all that it may be possible to do to eradicate these principles and destroy all that is builded upon them; to gain control, so far as possible, of the education of youth and convert the young to the Catholic faith; to win or buy for the Catholic Church a power and influence in the government of the country.

 

Already the Encyclical Letter is acted upon as a political manifesto in Ireland.

 

Archbishop McCabe, we are told, has written a letter with reference to the approaching election of Lord Mayor for Dublin. He says he is unable to understand how Catholics could in honor and conscience cast their votes for Mr. Winstanley, who is both a Home Ruler and a Free-Mason. “As a Free-Mason he is a member of a society which aims to overthrow religion. To Free-Masonry the revolutions of the last century were traceable. No one can plead non-participation as long as he remains a Mason.”

 

And Mr. Winstanley has repudiated Free-Masonry to obtain votes; and he has been defeated.

 

But, - for which thanks be unto the God of Hosts “from Whom all glories are”! - Free-Masonry is mightier than the Church of Rome; for it possesses the invincible might of the Spirit of the Age and of the convictions of civilized Humanity; and it will continue to grow in strength and greatness while that Church, in love with and doting upon its old traditions, and incapable of learning anything, will continue to decay. The palsied hand of the Papacy is too feeble to arrest the march of human progress. It cannot bring back the obsolete doctrine that Kings reign by divine right. In vain it will preach new Crusades against Free-Masonry, or Heresy, or Republicanism. It will continue to sigh in vain for the return of the days of Philip II. and Mary of England, of Loyola and Alva and Torquemada. If it succeeds in instigating the Kings of Spain and Portugal to engage in the work of extirpating Free-Masonry, these will owe it to the speedy loss of their crowns. The world is no longer in a humour to be saddled and bitted like an ass and ridden by Capuchins and Franciscans. Humanity has inhaled the fresh, keen winds of freedom, and has escaped from companionship with the herds that chew the cud and the inmates of stables and kennels, to the highlands of Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood.

 

The world is not likely to forget that the infallible Pope Urban VIII., Barberini, set his signature to the sentence which condemned to perpetual imprisonment, to adjuration and to silence, Galileo Gililei, who, it is known, avoided being burned at the stake by denying on bended knees the deductions of positive science, which demonstrated the movement of the earth; and on the 2d of July, 1633, the Cardinal of Santo Onofio Barbering in the name of the Pope his uncle, announced to the world the condemnation of Galileo by an Encyclical Letter, from the Latin whereof we translate these words: “For which matter Galileo, accused and confined in the prisons of the Holy Office, has been condemned to adjure the said opinion....”

 

Nor are Free-Masons likely to forget that when the Bull of Clement XII., which Leo XIII. now revives and re-enacts, was published, Cardinal Firrao explained the nature of the punishments which were required to be inflicted on Masons, and what the kind of service was which the Pope demanded from “the Secular Arm.”

 

“It is forbidden,” he says . . . “to affiliate one's self with the Societies of Masons . . . under penalty of death and of confiscation of goods, and to die unabsolved and without hope of salvation.” Who will be audacious enough to censure us for replying defiantly to a decree which, by revivor of the Bull of Clement, condemns every Free-Mason in the world to death and confiscation, and damns him in advance to die without hope of salvation?

 

The world has not forgotten that when Charles IX. of France and the Due de Guise at first disowned responsibility for the massacre of 20,000 Protestants, and others, on the Eve and after the Eve of St. Bartholomew, the Catholic Clergy assumed it. Heaven adopted it, they said: “it was not the massacre of the King and the Duke: “it was the Justice of God.” Then the slaughter recommenced, of neighbor by neighbor, of women, of children, of children unborn, in order to extinguish families, the wombs of mothers cut open, and the children torn from them, for fear they might survive. “The paper would weep, if we should write upon it all that was done.”

 

Men remember that at Saint-Michel, the Jesuit Auger, sent thither from the College of Paris, announced to Bordeaux that the Archangel Michael had made the great massacre, and deplored the sluggishness of the Governor and Magistrates of Bordeaux. After the 24th of August there were feasts. The Catholic Clergy had theirs, at Paris, on the 28th, and ordered a jubilee, to which the King and Court went, and returned thanks to God. And the King, who proclaimed that he had caused Coligni to be killed, and that he would have poniarded him with his own hand, was flattered to intoxication by the praises and congratulations of Rome. Do men not remember that there were feasts and great gaities at Rome on account of the massacre? that the Pope chaunted the Te Deum Laudamus, and sent to “his son,” Charles IX., (to win for whom the whole credit of the massacre, the Cardinal of Lorraine moved Heaven and Earth), the Rose of Gold? that a medal was coined by Rome to commemorate it; and that a painting of the bloody scene was made, and until lately hung in the Vatican ?

 

Free-Masonry is strong enough, everywhere, now, to defend itself, and does not dread even the Hierarchy of the Roman Church, with its great revenues, and its Cardinal Princes, claiming to issue the Decrees and Bulletins of God, and to hold the keys with which it locks and unlocks at pleasure the Gates of Paradise. The Powers of Free-Masonry, too, sending their words to one another over the four Continents and the great Islands of the Southern Seas, colonized by Englishmen, speak, but with only the authority of reason, Urbi et Orbi, to men of free souls and high courage and quick intelligence.

 

It does not need that Free-Masonry should take up arms of any sort against the Church of Rome. Science, the wider knowledge of what God is, learned from His works; the irresistible progress of Civilization, the Spirit of the Nineteenth Century; these are the sufficient avengers of the mutilations and murders of the long ages of the horrid Past. These have already avenged Humanity, and Free-Masonry need not add another word:-

 

Except these: - that there are two questions to be asked, and answer thereunto demanded of all Roman Catholics in the United States, who are loyal to the Constitution of Government under which they live, patriotic citizens of the United States:

 

Do not your consciences tell you that what is now demanded of you by Pope Leo XIII., by the General of the Jesuits and Chief Inquisitor is, to engage actively in a conspiracy against that Constitution of Government, and the principles on which it is founded; after the dethronement of which principles that Constitution of Government could not live an hour?

 

If you cannot see it in that light, do not your consciences and common sense tell you, that to approve and favour and give aid and assistance to an open conspiracy against every other Republic and every Constitutional Monarchy in the world, and the principles on which they are founded, is to play a part that is inconsistent with the principles that you profess to be governed by here, is in opposition to all the sympathies of the country in which you live, and is hostile to the influences of its example among the people of other countries, treacherous to your own country, and unworthy of Amercian citizens?

 

You will have to answer these questions; for they will not cease to be reiterated until you do; and not by Free-Masonry alone.

 

Given at the Grand Orient aforesaid, the first day of August, 1884, and of the Supreme Council the, 84th year.

 

The Grand Commander,

 

ALBERT PIKE, 33d

 

AMERICA -- A LEAGUE OF THE NATION

 

BY BRO. JOSEPH FORT NEWTON, NEW YORK

 

THE LITTLE month of February holds among its days the greatest birth-dates in the calendar of our Republic: it gave us Washington and Lincoln. It behooves us not only to recall their names, but to renew our homage to their patriotic manhood, their moral intelligence, and their practical sagacity, that so, avoiding alike the obscurantist and the impossibilist, we may realize our true destiny in our own nation and among the peoples of the earth. Living in a time of reaction and irritation, of confusion and misgiving, we need to reach into the grave and touch the bones of our prophets, and thus rekindle both our faith and our vision.

 

Washington came up from the south; Lincoln came down from the north. They were providential men, each trained for the task appointed him, each bringing to an hour of crisis a great and simple faith, a disinterested devotion to the common good, a practical acumen led and lighted by an authentic moral insight; and the Republic is at once their monument and their memorial. Fidelity to all that is holy in our history, no less than our obligation to those yet unborn, demands that we keep alive the memory and ideals of the men who first organized, and then cemented, a group of states into a League of the Nation, changing division and weakness into unity and power. Three things are supremely needed today, if we are not to lose our way in the fogs of party passion, and betray both ourselves and humanity.

 

First of all, there must be a profound recognition of the fact, attested by the clearest-visioned men of our race, and confirmed by long tragic experience, that, in the end, only spiritual forces can hold a nation together and make it truly great. The great moral prophets were not the dupes of delusions; they saw straight, and the “long-lived storm of great events” through which we have passed proves that they alone are practical men. Even Bismarok saw that in the last result victories are won by the “imponderables,” by the moral and spiritual influences, and that fact is made doubly plain today. Force is a failure. Diplomacy is a delusion. Regimented ruthlessness provokes reaction. Unless the finer influences are allowed to have free play, inducing a nobler mood and a clearer insight, there is little hope that the prayer of Lincoln for “a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations” will ever be answered.

 

For that reason, every organized moral influence - like Freemasonry - has laid upon it a new obligation and a new opportunity. By as much as the world fills up with men of moral insight and courage - men who see that Masonry is not a system of moral manicure, but a method of training men in fraternal righteousness - by so much our problems will be solved. The great causes of God and Humanity are not delayed by being blown up, but by the slow, glacier-like mass of morally indifferent men. So, when our wise and gentle Craft labors to make men noble, faithful, and brotherly of heart, building their lives into a brotherly world-order, she is working at the foundations of society, making all good things better, and all sacred things more secure. But to this influence on the individual must be added the momentum that comes of co‑operation which, by its intelligence as well as by its efficiency, makes itself felt in behalf of the national life.

 

Next to a new sense of the practical efficacy of moral forces, we need, as never before, a clear, commanding conception of what America means. He is a poor patriot, and no Mason at all, who has not asked himself what plan, what purpose, what prophecy the Great Architect is trying to work out in our national history? For true citizenship, no less than true statesmanship, consists in discerning the way the Eternal Will is moving and in getting things out of His way. Surely America exists to build in the new world a Beloved Community - united, just, and free - where men of every race and creed may live and live well, because they live in moral fellowship under a sense of common interest and obligation; and loyalty to that ideal is true patriotism. For the same reason, race, class, party, sect, everything must be subordinated to the service of that ideal, that we may fulfill our national destiny and be of real service to all humanity.

 

In short, we need a League of the Nation, uniting all races, classes, and conditions of men in a compact body of conviction and purpose, and resolved to bring to the problems of peace somewhat of the solidarity, the spirit of service and sacrifice, won by the war. Unfortunately, we have already lost to a sad extent the new solidarity created by the mighty crusade, but we can never wholly lose the strength and liberation that came of united effort in a great enterprise, which must have flashed before even the dullest mind a dim vision of what America means both to itself and to humanity. Hereafter, any man who lives altogether for himself, or his party, or his sect, proves false to the men who paid "the last full measure of devotion" for a better  ordering of the world in liberty, justice, and goodwill. Here, again, Masonry can help, and is the better able to help in the nation as it realizes its own unity and obligation. Surely we have a right to hope much from the fact that the leading minds of the Craft are coming into vital contact with one another, and into a larger sense of informal but conscious comradeship in a common cause.

 

By the same token, no nation can live unto itself without becoming either a menace or a monstrosity, as the myopic nationalism of Germany before the war proved. Great events, which were the footsteps of God, led America into the fellowship of free peoples in a crusade of righteousness, and we cannot withdraw. Moral obligations, no less than the dictates of humanity, hold us to our comrades, as before a comperil and necessity united us with them in the trenches, on the grey solitudes of the sea, and in the consecration of an inexpressible sacrifice. Whatever the name, whatever the details of agreement, there must be some new way of working together - either by formal bonds or otherwise if we are to save civilization from an all-dissolving anarchy.

 

For the rest, I believe in America, as I believe in God, and I know that she will not fail herself or humanity, much less shirk her just responsibility for the public law and order of the world. The words of our gracious and wise Emerson speak to us as poignantly today as they did sixty years ago, both as to our duty to be just at home and the friend of freedom and peace abroad:

 

United States! the ages plead,

Present and part in under-song;

Go put your creed into your deed,

Nor speak with double tongue.

 

Be just at home; then write your scroll

Of honor o'er the sea,

And make the broad Atlantic roll

A ferry of the free.

 

For He that worketh high and wise,

Nor pauses in His plan,

Will take the sun out of the skies

Ere freedom out of man.

 

AMERICAN MASONIC SYSTEMS

 

BY BRO. JESSE M. WHITED, CALIFORNIA

 

The systems of Freemasonry practiced in the United States are generally known as the York Rite and the Scottish Rite. Properly speaking, they should be termed the American Rite and the Scottish Rite, for the one commonly called York is peculiar in its organized proceedings only to the United States.

 

The American Rite embraces the Symbolic, the Capitular, the Cryptic and the Templar degrees.

 

The Symbolic degrees are conferred in a Lodge and are the Entered Apprentice, the Fellow Craft and the Master Mason. They are called Symbolic because their prominent mode of instruction is by symbols.

 

The Capitular degrees are conferred in a Royal Arch Chapter and are the Mark Master, the Past Master, the Most Excellent Master and the Royal Arch. The supplemental and honorary degree of High Priesthood is conferred in a Council of High Priests upon those who have been regularly elected to preside over a Chapter of Royal Arch Masons. They are called Capitular because they are conferred in a Chapter, the work "Capitular" meaning "done in a Chapter."

 

The Cryptic degrees are conferred in a Council. They are the Royal Master, the Select Master and the Super-Excellent Master. They are called Cryptic because the word "crypt" means a secret vault or underground passage.

 

The Templar degrees are conferred in a Commandery and are the Red Cross, the Temple and the Malta. The name Knight Templar comes from the efforts of the Christian Knights to take the temple at Jerusalem from the Mohammedans.

 

The Scottish Rite embraces the degrees from the 4th to the 33rd, inclusive. In the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States (which includes all territory south of the Ohio River and west of the Mississippi River) the organization of the different bodies, and the degrees conferred by them, are: Lodge of Pertection, 4d to 14d, inclusive; Chapter Rose Croix, 15d to 18d; Council of Kadosh, 19d to 30d; Consistory, 31d to 32d; Supreme Council, 33d.

 

In the Northern Jurisdiction (which includes all States north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River) the degrees conferred are: Lodge of Perfection, 4d to 14d, inclusive; Council Princes of Jerusalem, 15d and 16d; Chapter Rose Croix, 17d and 18d; Consistory, 19d to 32d; Supreme Council, 33d.

 

LARGEST LODGES

 

The largest subordinate lodges in various states of the United States are situated in the following cities and states

 

GRAND JURISDICTION	NAME	NO.	LOCATION	MEMBERS
Michigan	Palestine	357	Detroit	3095
Michigan	Ashlar	91	Detroit	2120
Michigan	Zion	1	Detroit	2065
Michigan	Friendship	417	Detroit	1779
New York	Genesse Falls	507	Rochester	1739
Minnesota	Minneapolis