Chapter VIII (2)

In our days it is as it was in olden times, to believe in the biblical “miracles” requires _faith_; but to be enabled to produce them one’s self demands a knowledge of the esoteric meaning of the “word.” “If Christ,” say Dr. Farrar and Canon Westcott, “wrought no miracles, then the _gospels_ are untrustworthy.” But even supposing that he did work them, would that prove that gospels written by others than himself are any more trustworthy? And if not, to what purpose is the argument? Besides, such a line of reasoning would warrant the analogy that miracles performed by other religionists than Christians ought to make _their_ gospels trustworthy. Does not this imply at least an equality between the Christian Scriptures and the Buddhist sacred books? For these equally abound with phenomena of the most astounding character. Moreover, the Christians have no longer _genuine_ miracles produced through their priests, for they have _lost the Word_. But many a Buddhist Lama or Siamese Talapoin--unless all travellers have conspired to lie--has been and now is able to duplicate every phenomenon described in the _New Testament_, and even do more, without any pretence of suspension of natural law or divine intervention either. In fact, Christianity proves that it is as dead in faith as it is dead in works, while Buddhism is full of vitality and supported by practical proofs.

The best argument in favor of the genuineness of Buddhist “miracles” lies in the fact that Catholic missionaries, instead of denying them or treating them as simple jugglery--as some Protestant missionaries do have often found themselves in such straits as to be forced to adopt the forlorn alternative of laying the whole on the back of the Devil. And so belittled do the Jesuits feel themselves in the presence of these genuine servants of God, that with an unparalleled cunning, they concluded to act in the case of the Talapoins and Buddhists as Mahomet is said to have acted with the mountain. “And seeing that it would not move toward him, the Prophet moved himself toward the mountain.” Finding that they could not catch the Siamese with the birdlime of their pernicious doctrines in Christian garb, they disguised themselves, and for centuries appeared among the poor, ignorant people as Talapoins, until exposed. They have even voted and adopted a resolution forthwith, which has now all the force of an ancient article of faith. “Naaman, the Syrian,” say the Jesuits of Caen, “did not dissemble his faith when he bowed the knee with the king in the house of Rimmon; _neither do the Fathers of the Society of Jesus dissemble, when they adopt the institute and the habit of the Talapoins of Siam_” (nec dissimulant Patres S. J. Talapoinorum Siamensium institutum vestemque affectantes.--_Position_ 9, 30 Jan., 1693).

The potency contained in the _Mantras_ and the _Vâch_ of the Brahmans is as much believed in at this day as it was in the early Vedic period. The “Ineffable Name” of every country and religion relates to that which the Masons affirm to be the mysterious characters emblematic of the nine names or attributes by which the Deity was known to the initiates. The Omnific Word traced by Enoch on the two deltas of purest gold, on which he engraved two of the mysterious characters, is perhaps better known to the poor, uneducated “heathen” than to the highly accomplished Grand High Priests and Grand Z.’s of the Supreme Chapters of Europe and America. Only why the companions of the Royal Arch should so bitterly and constantly lament its loss, is more than we can understand. This word of M. M. is, as they will tell themselves, entirely composed of consonants. Hence, we doubt whether any of them could ever have mastered its pronunciation, had it even been “brought to light from the secret vault,” instead of its several corruptions. However, it is to the land of Mizraim that the grandson of Ham is credited with having carried the sacred delta of the Patriarch Enoch. Therefore, it is in Egypt, and in the East alone that the mysterious “Word” must be sought.

But now that so many of the most important secrets of Masonry have been divulged by friend and foe, may we not say, without suspicion of malice or ill-feeling, that since the sad catastrophe of the Templars, no “Lodge” in Europe, still less in America, has ever known anything worth concealing. Reluctant to be misunderstood, we say _no_ Lodge, leaving a few _chosen_ brethren entirely out of question. The frantic denunciations of the Craft by Catholic and Protestant writers appear simply ridiculous, as also the affirmation of the Abbé Barruel that everything “betrays our Freemasons as the descendants of those proscribed Knights” Templars of 1314. The _Memoirs of Jacobinism_ by this Abbé, an eye-witness to the horrors of the first Revolution, is devoted in great measure to the Rosicrucians and other Masonic fraternities. The fact alone that he traces the modern Masons to the Templars, and points them out as secret assassins, trained to political murder, shows how little he knew of them, but how ardently he desired, at the same time, to find in these societies convenient scape-goats for the crimes and sins of another secret society which, since its existence, has harbored more than one dangerous political assassin--the Society of Jesus.

The accusations against Masons have been mostly half guess-work, half-unquenchable malice and predetermined vilification. Nothing conclusive and certain of a criminal character has been directly proven against them. Even their abduction of Morgan has remained a matter of conjecture. The case was used at the time as a political convenience by huckstering politicians. When an unrecognizable corpse was found in Niagara River, one of the chiefs of this unscrupulous class, being informed that the identity was exceedingly questionable, unguardedly exposed the whole plot by saying: “Well, no matter, _he’s a good enough Morgan until after the election_!” On the other hand, we find the Order of the Jesuits not only permitting, in certain cases, but actually _teaching and inciting to “High treason and Regicide.”_[778]

A series of _Lectures_ upon Freemasonry and its dangers, as delivered in 1862, by James Burton Robertson, Professor of Modern History in the Dublin University, are lying before us. In them the lecturer quotes profusely as his authorities the said Abbé (Barruel, a natural enemy of the Masons, _who cannot be caught at the confessional_), and Robison, a well-known apostate-Mason of 1798. As usual with every party, whether belonging to the Masonic or anti-Masonic side, the traitor from the opposing camp is welcomed with praise and encouragement, and great care is taken to whitewash him. However convenient for certain political reasons the celebrated Committee of the Anti-Masonic Convention of 1830 (U. S. of America) may have found it to adopt this most Jesuitical proposition of Puffendorf that “oaths oblige not when they are absurd and impertinent,” and that other which teaches that “an oath obliges not if God does not accept it,”[779] yet no truly honest man would accept such sophistry. We sincerely believe that the better portion of humanity will ever bear in mind that there exists a moral code of honor far more binding than an oath, whether on the _Bible_, _Koran_, or _Veda_. The Essenes never swore on anything at all, but their “ayes” and “nays” were as good and far better than an oath. Besides, it seems surpassingly strange to find nations that call themselves Christian instituting customs in civil and ecclesiastical courts diametrically opposed to the command of their God,[780] who distinctly forbids any swearing at all, “neither by heaven ... nor by the earth ... nor by the head.” It seems to us that to maintain that “an oath obliges not if God does not accept it,” besides being an absurdity--as no man living, whether he be fallible or infallible, can learn anything of God’s secret thoughts--is _anti-Christian_ in the full sense of the word.[781] The argument is brought forward only because it is convenient and answers the object. Oaths will never be binding till each man will fully understand that humanity is the highest manifestation on earth of the Unseen Supreme Deity, and each man an incarnation of his God; and when the sense of _personal_ responsibility will be so developed in him that he will consider forswearing the greatest possible insult to himself, as well as to humanity. No oath is now binding, unless taken by one who, without any oath at all, would solemnly keep his simple promise of honor. Therefore, to bring forward as authorities such men as Barruel or Robison is simply obtaining the public confidence under false pretenses. It is not the “spirit of _Masonic malice_ whose heart coins slanders like a mint,” but far more that of the Catholic clergy and their champions; and a man who would reconcile the two ideas of honor and perjury, in any case whatever, is not to be trusted himself.

Loud is the claim of the nineteenth century to preëminence in civilization over the ancients, and still more clamorous that of the churches and their sycophants that Christianity has redeemed the world from barbarism and idolatry. How little both are warranted, we have tried to prove in these two volumes. The light of Christianity has only served to show how much more hypocrisy and vice its teachings have begotten in the world since its advent, and how immensely superior were the ancients over us in every point of honor.[782] The clergy, by teaching the helplessness of man, his utter dependence on Providence, and the doctrine of atonement, have crushed in their faithful followers every atom of self-reliance and self-respect. So true is this, that it is becoming an axiom that the most honorable men are to be found among atheists and the so-called “infidels.” We hear from Hipparchus that in the days of _heathenism_ “the shame and disgrace that justly attended the violation of his oath threw the poor wretch into a fit of madness and despair, so that he cut his throat and perished by his own hands, and his memory was so abhorred after his death that his body lay upon the shore of the island of Samos, and had no other burial than the sands of the sea.”[783] But in our own century we find ninety-six delegates to the United States Anti-Masonic Convention, every one doubtless a member of some Protestant Church, and claiming the respect due to men of honor and gentlemen, offering the most Jesuitical arguments against the validity of a Masonic oath. The Committee, pretending to quote the authority of “the most distinguished guides in the philosophy of morals, and claiming the most ample support of _the inspired_[784] ... who wrote before Freemasonry existed,” resolved that, as an oath was “a transaction between man on one part and the Almighty Judge on the other,” and the Masons were all infidels and “unfit for civil trust,” therefore their oaths had to be considered illegal and not binding.[785]

But we will return to these _Lectures_ of Robertson and his charges against Masonry. The greatest accusation brought against the latter is that Masons reject a _personal_ God (this on the authority of Barruel and Robison), and that they claim to be in possession of a “secret to make men better and happier than Christ, his apostles and his Church have made them.” Were the latter accusation but half true, it might yet allow the consoling hope that they had really found that secret by breaking off entirely from the mythical Christ of the Church and the official Jehovah. But both the accusations are simply as malicious as they are absurd and untrue; as we shall presently see.

Let it not be imagined that we are influenced by personal feeling in any of our reflections upon Masonry. So far from this being the case we unhesitatingly proclaim our highest respect for the original purposes of the Order and some of our most valued friends are within its membership. We say naught against Masonry as it should be, but denounce it as, thanks to the intriguing clergy, both Catholic and Protestant, it now begins to be. Professedly the most absolute of democracies, it is practically the appanage of aristocracy, wealth, and personal ambition. Professedly the teacher of true ethics, it is debased into a propaganda of anthropomorphic theology. The half-naked apprentice, brought before the master during the initiation of the first degree, is taught that at the door of the lodge every social distinction is laid aside, and the poorest brother is the peer of every other, though a reigning sovereign or an imperial prince. In practice, the Craft turns lickspittle in every monarchical country, to any regal scion who may deign, for the sake of using it as a political tool, to put on the once symbolical lambskin.

How far gone is the Masonic Fraternity in this direction, we can judge from the words of one of its highest authorities. John Yarker, Junior, of England; Past Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of Greece; Grand Master of the Rite of Swedenborg; also Grand Master of the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Masonry, and Heaven only knows what else,[786] says that Masonry could lose nothing by “the adoption of a higher (not pecuniary) standard of membership and morality, with exclusion from the ‘purple’ of all who _inculcate frauds, sham, historical degrees, and other immoral abuses_” (page 158). And again, on page 157: “As the Masonic Fraternity is now governed, the Craft is fast becoming the paradise of the _bon vivant_; of the ‘charitable’ hypocrite, who forgets the version of St. Paul, and decorates his breast with the ‘charity jewel’ (having by this judicious expenditure obtained the ‘purple’ he metes out judgment to other brethren of greater ability and morality but less means); the manufacturer of paltry Masonic tinsel; the rascally merchant who swindles in hundreds, and even thousands, by appealing to the tender consciences of those few who do regard their O. B.’s; and the Masonic ‘Emperors’ and other charlatans who make power or money out of the aristocratic pretensions which they have tacked on to our institution--_ad captandum vulgus_.”

We have no wish to make a pretence of exposing secrets long since hawked about the world by perjured Masons. Everything vital, whether in symbolical representations, rites, or passwords, as used in modern Freemasonry, is known in the Eastern fraternities; though there seems to be no intercourse or connection between them. If Medea is described by Ovid as having “arm, breast, and knee made bare, left foot slipshod;” and Virgil, speaking of Dido, shows this “Queen herself ... now resolute on death, having one foot bare, etc.,”[787] why doubt that there are in the East _real_ “Patriarchs of the sacred Vedas,” explaining the esotericism of pure Hindu theology and Brahmanism quite as thoroughly as European “Patriarchs?”

But, if there are a few Masons who, from study of kabalistic and other rare works, and coming in personal communication with “Brothers” from the far-away East, have learned something of _esoteric_ Masonry, it is not the case with the hundreds of American Lodges. While engaged on this chapter, we have received most unexpectedly, through the kindness of a friend, a copy of Mr. Yarker’s volume, from which passages are quoted above. It is brimful of learning and, what is more, of _knowledge_, as it seems to us. It is especially valuable at this moment, since it corroborates, in many particulars, what we have said in this work. Thus, we read in it the following:

“We think we have sufficiently established the fact of the connection of Freemasonry with other speculative rites of antiquity, as well as the antiquity and purity of the old English Templar-Rite of _seven degrees_, and the spurious derivation of many of the other rites therefrom.”[788]

Such high Masons need not be told, though Craftsmen in general do, that the time has come to remodel Masonry, and restore those ancient landmarks, borrowed from the early sodalities, which the eighteenth century founders of speculative Freemasonry meant to have incorporated in the fraternity. There are no longer any secrets left unpublished; the Order is degenerating into a convenience for selfish men to use, and bad men to debase.

It is but recently that a majority of the Supreme Councils of the Ancient and Accepted Rite assembled at Lausanne, justly revolting against such a blasphemous belief as that in a personal Deity, invested with all human attributes, pronounced the following words: “Freemasonry proclaims, as it has proclaimed from its origin, the existence of a _creative principle_, under the name of the great Architect of the universe.” Against this, a small minority has protested, urging that “belief in a _creative principle_ is not _the belief in God, which Freemasonry requires of every candidate_ before he can pass its very threshold.”

This confession does not sound like the rejection of a personal God. Could we have had the slightest doubt upon the subject, it would be thoroughly dispelled by the words of General Albert Pike,[789] perhaps the greatest authority of the day, among American Masons, who raises himself most violently against this innovation. We cannot do better than quote his words:

“This _Principe Createur_ is no new phrase--it is but an old term revived. _Our adversaries, numerous and formidable_, will say, and will have the right to say, that our _Principe Createur_ is identical with the _Principe Generateur_ of the Indians and Egyptians, and may fitly be symbolized as it was symbolized anciently, by the Lingæ.... To accept this, in lieu of a personal God, is TO ABANDON CHRISTIANITY, and _the worship of Jehovah_, and return to wallow in the styes of Paganism.”

And are those of _Jesuitism_, then, so much cleaner? “Our adversaries, numerous and formidable.” That sentence says all. Who these so formidable enemies are, is useless to inquire. They are the Roman Catholics, and some of the Reformed Presbyterians. To read what the two factions respectively write, we may well ask which adversary is the more afraid of the other. But, what shall it profit any one to organize against a fraternity that does not even dare to have a belief of its own for fear of giving offense? And pray, how, if Masonic oaths mean anything, and Masonic penalties are regarded as more than burlesque, can any adversaries, numerous or few, feeble or strong, know what goes on inside the lodge, or penetrate beyond that “brother terrible, or the tiler, who guards, with a drawn sword, the portals of the lodge?” Is, then, this “brother terrible” no more formidable than Offenbach’s _General Boum_, with his smoking pistol, jingling spurs, and towering _panache_? Of what use the millions of men that make up this great fraternity, the world over, if they cannot be so cemented together as to bid defiance to all adversaries? Can it be that the “mystic tie” is but a rope of sand, and Masonry but a toy to feed the vanity of a few leaders who rejoice in ribbons and regalia? Is its authority as false as its antiquity? It seems so, indeed; and yet, as “even the fleas have smaller fleas to bite ’em,” there are Catholic alarmists, even here, who pretend to fear Masonry!

And yet, these same Catholics, in all the serenity of their traditional impudence, publicly threaten America, with its 500,000 Masons, and 34,000,000 Protestants, with a union of Church and State under the direction of Rome! The danger which threatens the free institutions of this republic, we are told, will come from “the principles of Protestantism logically developed.” The present Secretary of the Navy--the Hon. R. W. Thompson, of Indiana, having actually dared, in his own free Protestant country, to publish a book recently on _Papacy and the Civil Power_, in which his language is as moderate as it is gentlemanly and fair, a Roman Catholic priest, at Washington, D. C.--the very seat of Government--denounces him with violence. What is better, a representative member of the Society of Jesus, Father F. X. Weninger, D.D., pours upon his devoted head a vial of wrath that seems to have been brought direct from the Vatican cellars. “The assertions,” he says, “which Mr. Thompson makes on the necessary antagonism between the Catholic Church and free institutions, are characterized by pitiful ignorance and blind audacity. He is reckless of logic, of history, of common sense, of charity; and presents himself before the loyal American people as a narrow-minded bigot. No scholar would venture to repeat the stale calumnies which have so often been refuted.... In answer to his accusations against the Church as the enemy of liberty, I tell him that, if ever this country should become a Catholic country, that is, if Catholics should ever be in the majority, and _have the control of political power_, then he would see the principles of our Constitution carried out to the fullest extent; he would see that these States would be in very deed _United_. He would behold a people living in peace and harmony; joined in the bonds of one faith, their hearts beating in unison with love of their fatherland, with charity and forbearance toward all, and respecting the rights and consciences even of their slanderers.”

In behalf of this “Society of Jesus,” he advises Mr. Thompson to send his book to the Czar, Alexander II., and to Frederick William, Emperor of Germany. He may expect from them, as a token of their sympathy, the orders of St. Andrew and of the Black Eagle. “From clear-minded, self-thinking, patriotic Americans, he cannot expect anything but the _decoration_ of their contempt. As long as American hearts _will_ beat in American bosoms, and the blood of their fathers _shall_ flow in their veins, such efforts as Thompson’s _shall_ not succeed. True, genuine Americans will protect the Catholic Church in this country and _will finally join it_.” After that, having thus, as he seems to think, left the corpse of his impious antagonist upon the field, he marches off emptying the dregs of his exhausted bottle after the following fashion: “We leave the volume, whose argument we have killed, as a carcass to be devoured by those Texan buzzards--those stinking birds--we mean that kind of men who love to feed on corruption, calumnies, and lies, and are attracted by the stench of them.”

This last sentence is worthy to be added as an appendix to the _Discorsi del Somma Pontifice Pio IX._, by Don Pasquale di Franciscis, immortalized in the contempt of Mr. Gladstone.--_Tel maître tel Valet!_

Moral: This will teach fair-minded, sober, and gentlemanly writers that even so well-bred an antagonist as Mr. Thompson has shown himself in his book, cannot hope to escape the only available weapon in the Catholic armory--Billingsgate. The whole argument of the author shows that while forcible, he intends to be fair; but he might as well have attacked with a Tertullianistic violence, for his treatment would not have been worse. It will doubtless afford him some consolation to be placed in the same category with schismatic and infidel emperors and kings.

While Americans, including Masons, are now warned to prepare themselves to join the Holy Apostolic and Roman Catholic Church, we are glad to know that there are some as loyal and respected as any in Masonry who support our views. Conspicuous among them is our venerable friend, Mr. Leon Hyneman, P. M., and a member of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. For eight or nine years he was editor of the _Masonic Mirror and Keystone_, and is an author of repute. He assures us personally that for over thirty years he has combated the design to erect into a Masonic dogma, belief in a _personal_ God. In his work, _Ancient York and London Grand Lodges_, he says (p. 169): “Masonry, instead of unfolding professionally with the intellectual advancement of scientific knowledge and general intelligence, has departed from the original aims of the fraternity, and is apparently inclining towards a sectarian society. That is plainly to be seen ... in the persistent determination not to expunge the sectarian innovations interpolated in the Ritual.... It would appear that the Masonic fraternity of this country are as indifferent to ancient landmarks and usages of Masonry, as the Masons of the past century, under the London Grand Lodge were.” It was this conviction which prompted him, in 1856, when Jacques Etienne Marconis de Nègre, Grand Hierophant of the Rite of Memphis, came to America and tendered him the Grand Mastership of the Rite in the United States, and the Ancient and Accepted Rite offered him an Honorary 33d--to refuse both.

The Temple was the last European secret organization which, as a body, had in its possession some of the mysteries of the East. True, there were in the past century (and perhaps still are) isolated “Brothers” faithfully and secretly working under the direction of Eastern Brotherhoods. But these, when they did belong to European societies, invariably joined them for objects unknown to the Fraternity, though at the same time for the benefit of the latter. It is through them that modern Masons have all they know of importance; and the similarity now found between the Speculative Rites of antiquity, the mysteries of the Essenes, Gnostics, and the Hindus, and the highest and oldest of the Masonic degrees well prove the fact. If these mysterious brothers became possessed of the secrets of the societies, they could never reciprocate the confidence, though in their hands these secrets were safer, perhaps, than in the keeping of European Masons. When certain of the latter were found worthy of becoming affiliates of the Orient, they were secretly instructed and initiated, but the others were none the wiser for that.

No one could ever lay hands on the Rosicrucians, and notwithstanding the alleged discoveries of “secret chambers,” _vellums_ called “T,” and of fossil knights with ever-burning lamps, this ancient association and its true aims are to this day a mystery. Pretended Templars and sham Rose-Croix, with a few genuine kabalists, were occasionally burned, and some unlucky Theosophists and alchemists sought and put to the torture; delusive confessions even were wrung from them by the most ferocious means, but yet, the true Society remains to-day as it has ever been, unknown to all, especially to its cruelest enemy--the Church.

As to the modern Knights Templar and those Masonic Lodges which now claim a direct descent from the ancient Templars, their persecution by the Church was a farce from the beginning. They have not, nor have they ever had any secrets, dangerous to the Church. Quite the contrary; for we find J. G. Findel saying that the Scottish degrees, or the Templar system, only dates from 1735-1740, and “_following its Catholic tendency, took up its chief residence in the Jesuit College of Clermont, in Paris_, and hence was called the Clermont system.” The present Swedish system has also something of the Templar element in it, but free from Jesuits and interference with politics; however, it asserts that it has Molay’s Testament in the original, for a Count Beaujeu, a nephew of Molay, _never heard of elsewhere_--says Findel--transplanted Templarism into Freemasonry, and thus procured for his uncle’s ashes a mysterious sepulchre. It is sufficient to prove this a Masonic fable that on this pretended monument the day of Molay’s funeral is represented as March 11, 1313, while the day of his death was March 19, 1313. This spurious production, which is neither genuine Templarism, nor genuine Freemasonry, has never taken firm root in Germany. But the case is otherwise in France.

Writing upon this subject, we must hear what Wilcke has to say of these pretensions:

“The present Knight Templars of Paris will have it, that they are direct descendants from the ancient Knights, and endeavor to prove this by documents, interior regulations, and secret doctrines. Foraisse says the Fraternity of Freemasons was founded in Egypt, Moses communicating the secret teaching to the Israelites, Jesus to the Apostles, and thence it found its way to the Knight Templars. Such inventions are necessary ... to the assertion that the Parisian Templars are the offspring of the ancient order. All these asseverations, unsupported by history, were fabricated _in the High Chapter of Clermont_ (Jesuits), and preserved by the Parisian Templars as a legacy left them by those political revolutionists, the Stuarts and the Jesuits.” Hence we find the Bishops Gregoire[790] and Münter[791] supporting them.

Connecting the modern with the ancient Templars, we can at best, therefore, allow them an adoption of certain rites and ceremonies of purely _ecclesiastical_ character after they had been cunningly inoculated into that grand and antique Order by the clergy. Since this desecration, it gradually lost its primitive and simple character, and went fast to its final ruin. Founded in 1118 by the Knights Hugh de Payens and Geoffrey de St. Omer, nominally for the protection of the pilgrims, its true aim was the restoration of the primitive secret worship. The true version of the history of Jesus, and the early Christianity was imparted to Hugh de Payens, by the Grand-Pontiff of the Order of the Temple (of the Nazarene or Johanite sect), one named Theocletes, after which it was learned by some Knights in Palestine, from the higher and more intellectual members of the St. John sect, who were initiated into its mysteries.[792] Freedom of intellectual thought and the restoration of one and universal religion was their secret object. Sworn to the vow of obedience, poverty, and chastity, they were at first the true Knights of John the Baptist, crying in the wilderness and living on wild honey and locusts. Such is the tradition and the true kabalistic version.

It is a mistake to state that the Order became only later anti-Catholic. It was so from the beginning, and the red cross on the white mantle, the vestment of the Order, had the same significance as with the initiates in every other country. It pointed to the four quarters of the compass, and was the emblem of the universe.[793] When, later, the Brotherhood was transformed into a Lodge, the Templars had, in order to avoid persecution, to perform their own ceremonies in the greatest secresy, generally in the hall of the chapter, more frequently in isolated caves or country houses built amidst woods, while the ecclesiastical form of worship was carried on publicly in the chapels belonging to the Order.

Though of the accusations brought against them by order of Philip IV., many were infamously false, the main charges were certainly correct, from the stand-point of what is considered by the Church, _heresy_. The present-day Templars, adhering strictly as they do to the _Bible_, can hardly claim descent from those who did not believe in Christ, as God-man, or as the Saviour of the world; who rejected the miracle of his birth, and those performed by himself; who did not believe in transubstantiation, the saints, holy relics, purgatory, etc. The Christ Jesus was, in their opinion, a false prophet, but the man Jesus a Brother. They regarded John the Baptist as their patron, but never viewed him in the light in which he is presented in the _Bible_. They reverenced the doctrines of alchemy, astrology, magic, kabalistic talismans, and adhered to the secret teachings of their chiefs in the East. “In the last century,” says Findel, “when Freemasonry erroneously supposed herself the daughter of Templarism, great pains were taken to regard the Order of Knights-Templars as innocent.... For this purpose not only legends and unrecorded events were fabricated, but pains were taken to repress the truth. The Masonic admirers of the Knights-Templars bought up the whole of the documents of the lawsuit published by Moldenwaher, because they proved the culpability of the Order.”[794]

This culpability consisted in their “heresy” against the Roman Catholic Church. While the real “Brothers” died an ignominious death, the spurious Order which tried to step into their shoes became exclusively a branch of the Jesuits under the immediate tutelage of the latter. True-hearted, honest Masons, ought to reject with horror any connection, let alone descent from these.

“The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem,” writes Commander Gourdin,[795] “sometimes called the Knights Hospitallers, and the Knights of Malta, were not Freemasons. On the contrary, they seem to have been inimical to Freemasonry, for in 1740, the Grand Master of the Order of Malta caused the Bull of Pope Clement XII. to be published in that island, and forbade the meetings of the Freemasons. On this occasion several Knights and many citizens left the island; and in 1741, the Inquisition persecuted the Freemasons at Malta. The Grand Master proscribed their assemblies under severe penalties, and six Knights were banished from the island in perpetuity for having assisted at a meeting. In fact, unlike the Templars, they had not even a secret form of reception. Reghellini says that he was unable to procure a copy of the secret Ritual of the Knights of Malta. The reason is obvious--there was none!”

And yet American Templarism comprises three degrees. 1, Knight of the Red Cross; 2, Knight Templar; and 3, Knight of Malta. It was introduced from France into the United States, in 1808, and the first _Grand Encampment General_ was organized on June 20, 1816, with Governor De Witt Clinton, of New York, as Grand Master.

This inheritance of the Jesuits should hardly be boasted of. If the Knights Templar desire to make good their claims, they must choose between a descent from the “heretical,” anti-Christian, kabalistic, primitive Templars, or connect themselves with the Jesuits, and nail their tesselated carpets directly on the platform of ultra-Catholicism! Otherwise, their claims become a mere pretense.

So impossible does it become for the originators of the _ecclesiastical_ pseudo-order of Templars, invented, according to Dupuy, in France, by the adherents of the Stuarts, to avoid being considered a branch of the Order of the Jesuits, that we are not surprised to see an anonymous author, rightly suspected of belonging to the Jesuit Chapter at Clermont, publishing a work in 1751, in Brussels, on the lawsuit of the Knights Templar. In this volume, in sundry mutilated notes, additions, and commentaries, he represents the _innocence_ of the Templars of the accusation of “heresy,” thus robbing them of the greatest title to respect and admiration that these early free-thinkers and martyrs have won!

This last pseudo-order was constituted at Paris, on the 4th of November, 1804, by virtue of a _forged Constitution_, and ever since it has “contaminated genuine Freemasonry,” as the highest Masons themselves tell us. _La Charte de transmission_ (tabula aurea Larmenii) presents the outward appearance of such extreme antiquity “that Gregoire confesses that if all the other relics of the Parisian treasury of the Order had not silenced his doubts as to their ancient descent, the sight of this charter would at the very first glance have persuaded him.”[796] The first Grand Master of this spurious Order was a physician of Paris, Dr. Fahre-Palaprat, who assumed the name of Bernard Raymond.

Count Ramsay, a Jesuit, was the first to start the idea of the Templars being joined to the Knights of Malta. Therefore, we read from his pen the following:

“Our forefathers (!!!), the Crusaders, assembled in the Holy Land from all Christendom, wished to unite in a fraternity embracing all nations, that when bound together, heart and soul, for mutual improvement, they might, in the course of time, represent one single intellectual people.”

This is why the Templars are made to join the St. John’s Knights, and the latter got into the craft of Masonry known as St. John’s Masons.

In the _Sceau Rompu_, in 1745, we find, therefore, the following most impudent falsehood, worthy of the Sons of Loyola: “The lodges were dedicated to St. John, because _the Knights_-Masons had in the holy wars in Palestine joined the Knights of St. John.”

In 1743, the Kadosh degree was invented at Lyons (so writes Thory, at least), and “it represents the _revenge of the Templars_.” And here we find Findel saying that “the Order of Knights Templars had been abolished in 1311, and to that epoch they were obliged to have recourse when, after the banishment of several Knights from Malta, in 1740, because they were Freemasons, it was no longer possible to keep up a connection with the Order of St. John, or Knights of Malta, then in the plenitude of their power _under the sovereignty of the Pope_.”

Turning to Clavel, one of the best Masonic authorities, we read: “It is clear that the erection of the French Order of the Knight Templars is not more ancient than the year 1804, and that it cannot lay any legitimate claim to being the continuation of the so-called society of ‘la petite Resurrection des Templiers,’ nor this latter, either, extend back to the ancient Order of the Knights Templars.” Therefore, we see these pseudo-Templars, under the guidance of the worthy Father Jesuits, forging in Paris, 1806, the famous charter of Larmenius. Twenty years later, this nefast and subterranean body, guiding the hand of assassins, directed it toward one of the best and greatest princes in Europe, whose mysterious death, unfortunately for the interests of truth and justice, has never been--for political reasons--investigated and proclaimed to the world as it ought to have been. It is this prince, a Freemason himself, who was the last depository of the secrets of the true Knights Templar. For long centuries these had remained unknown and unsuspected. Holding their meetings once every _thirteen_ years, at Malta, and their Grand Master advising the European brothers of the place of _rendezvous_ but a few hours in advance, these representatives of the once mightiest and most glorious body of Knights assembled on the fixed day, from various points of the earth. _Thirteen_ in number, in commemoration of the year of the death of Jacques Molay (1313), the now Eastern brothers, among whom were crowned heads, planned together the future religious and political fate of the nations; while the Popish Knights, their murderous and bastard successors, slept soundly in their beds, without a dream disturbing their guilty consciences.

“And yet,” says Rebold, “notwithstanding the confusion they had created (1736-72), the Jesuits had accomplished but one of their designs, viz.: _denaturalyzing and bringing into disrepute the Masonic Institution_. Having succeeded, as they believed, in destroying it in one form, they were determined to use it in another. With this determination, they arranged the systems styled ‘Clerkship of the Templars,’ an amalgamation of the different histories, events, and characteristics of the crusades mixed with the reveries of the alchemists. _In this combination Catholicism governed all, and the whole fabrication moved upon wheels, representing the great object for which the Society of Jesus was organized._”[797]

Hence, the rites and symbols of Masonry which though “Pagan” in origin, are all applied to and all flavor of Christianity. A Mason has to declare his belief in a _personal_ God, Jehovah, and in the Encampment degrees also in Christ, before he can be accepted in the Lodge, while the Johanite Templars believed in the unknown and invisible Principle, whence proceeded the Creative Powers misnamed _gods_, and held to the Nazarene version of Ben-Panther being the sinful father of Jesus, who thus proclaimed himself “the son of god and of humanity.”[798] This also accounts for the fearful oaths of the Masons taken _on the Bible_, and for their lectures servilely agreeing with the Patriarcho-Biblical Chronology. In the American Order of Rose Croix, for instance, when the neophyte approaches the altar, the “Sir Knights are called to order, and the captain of the guard makes his proclamation.” “To the glory of the sublime architect of the universe (Jehovah-Binah?), under the auspices of the Sovereign Sanctuary of _Ancient_ and _Primitive_ Freemasonry,” etc., etc. Then the Knight Orator strikes 1 and tells the neophyte that the antique legends of Masonry date back FORTY centuries; claiming no greater antiquity for the oldest of them than 622 A.M., at which time he says Noah was born. Under the circumstances this will be regarded as a liberal concession to chronological preferences. After that Masons[799] are apprised that it was about the year 2188 B.C., that Mizraim led colonies into Egypt, and laid the foundation of the Kingdom of Egypt, which kingdom lasted 1,663 years (!!!). Strange chronology, which, if it piously conforms with that of the _Bible_, disagrees entirely with that of history. The mythical nine names of the Deity, imported into Egypt, according to the Masons, only in the twenty-second century B.C., are found on monuments reckoned twice as old by the best Egyptologists. Nevertheless we must take at the same time into consideration, that the Masons are themselves ignorant of these names.

The simple truth is that modern Masonry is a sadly different thing from what the once universal secret fraternity was in the days when the Brahma-worshippers of the AUM, exchanged grips and passwords with the devotees of TUM, and the adepts of every country under the sun were “Brothers.”

What was then that mysterious name, that mighty “word” through whose potency the Hindu as well as the Chaldean and Egyptian initiate performed his wonders? In chapter cxv. of the Egyptian _Funeral Ritual_, entitled “The chapter of coming out to the Heaven ... and of knowing the Spirits of An” (Heliopolis), Horus says: “I knew the Spirits of An. The greatly glorious does not pass over it ... unless the gods give me the WORD.” In another hymn the soul, transformed, exclaims: “Make road for me to Rusta. I am the Great One, dressed as the Great One. I have come! I have come! Delicious to me are the kings of Osiris. I am creating the water (through the power of the _Word_).... Have I not seen the hidden secrets ... I have given truth to the Sun. I am clear. I am adored for my purity” (cxvii.-cxix. The chapters of the going into and coming out from the Rusta). In another place the mummy’s roll expresses the following: “I am the Great God (spirit) existing of myself, the creator of _His Name_.... I know the name of this Great God that is there.”

Jesus is accused by his enemies of having wrought miracles, and shown by his own apostles to have expelled _demons_ by the power of the INEFFABLE NAME. The former firmly believed that he had stolen it in the Sanctuary. “And he cast the spirits with his _word_ ... and healed all that were sick” (_Matthew_ xviii. 16). When the Jewish rulers ask Peter (_Acts_ iv. 7): “By what power, or by what _name_, have ye done this?” Peter replies, “By the NAME of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.” But does this mean the name of Christ, as the interpreters would make us believe; or does it signify, “by the NAME which was in the possession of Jesus of Nazareth,” the initiate, who was accused by the Jews to have learned it but who had it really through initiation? Besides, he states repeatedly that all that he does he does in “_His Father’s Name_,” not in his own.

But who of the modern Masons has ever heard it pronounced? In their own _Ritual_, they confess that they never have. The “Sir Orator” tells the “Sir Knight,” that the passwords which he received in the preceding degrees are all “so many corruptions” of the true name of God engraved on the triangle; and that therefore they have adopted a “substitute” for it. Such also is the case in the Blue Lodge, where the Master, representing King Solomon, agrees with King Hiram that the Word * * * “shall be used as a _substitute_ for the Master’s word, until wiser ages shall discover the true one. What Senior Deacon, of all the thousands who have assisted in bringing candidates from darkness to light; or what Master who has whispered this mystic “word” into the ears of supposititious Hiram Abiffs, while holding them on the five points of fellowship, has suspected the real meaning of even this substitute, which they impart “at low breath?” How few new-made Master Masons but go away imagining that it has some occult connection with the “marrow in the bone.” What do they know of that mystical personage known to some adepts as the “venerable MAH,” or of the mysterious Eastern Brothers who obey him, whose name is abbreviated in the first syllable of the three which compose the Masonic substitute--The MAH, who lives at this very day in a spot unknown to all but initiates, and the approaches to which are through trackless wildernesses, untrodden by Jesuit or missionary foot, for it is beset by dangers fit to appall the most courageous explorers? And yet, for generations this meaningless jingle of vowels and consonants has been repeated in noviciate ears, as though it possessed even so much potency as would deflect from its course a thistle-down floating in the air! Like Christianity, Freemasonry is a corpse from which the spirit long ago fled.

In this connection, place may well be given to a letter from Mr. Charles Sotheran, Corresponding Secretary of the New York Liberal Club, which was received by us on the day after the date it bears. Mr. Sotheran is known as a writer and lecturer on antiquarian, mystical, and other subjects. In Masonry, he has taken so many of the degrees as to be a competent authority as regards the Craft. He is 32 ∴ A. and P. R., 94 ∴ Memphis, K. R✠, K. Kadosh, M. M. 104, Eng., etc. He is also an initiate of the modern English Brotherhood of the Rosie Cross and other secret societies, and Masonic editor of the _New York Advocate_. Following is the letter, which we place before the Masons as we desire that they should see what one of their own number has to say:

“NEW YORK PRESS CLUB, January 11th, 1877.

“In response to your letter, I willingly furnish the
information desired with respect to the antiquity and
present condition of Freemasonry. This I do the more
cheerfully since we belong to the same secret societies,
and you can thus better appreciate the necessity for the
reserve which at times I shall be obliged to exhibit. You
rightly refer to the fact that Freemasonry, no less than
the effete theologies of the day, has its fabulous history
to narrate. Clogged up as the Order has been by the rubbish
and drift of absurd biblical legends, it is no wonder
that its usefulness has been impaired and its work as a
civilizer hampered. Fortunately the great anti-Masonic
excitement that raged in the United States during a portion
of this century, forced a considerable band of workers to
delve into the true origin of the Craft, and bring about
a healthier state of things. The agitation in America
also spread to Europe and the literary efforts of Masonic
authors on both sides of the Atlantic, such as Rebold,
Findel, Hyneman, Mitchell, Mackenzie, Hughan, Yarker and
others well-known to the fraternity, is now a matter of
history. One effect of their labors has been, in a great
measure, to bring the history of Masonry into an open
daylight, where even its teachings, jurisprudence, and
ritual are no longer secret from those of the ‘profane,’
who have the wit to read as they run.

“You are correct in saying that the _Bible_ is the ‘great
light’ of European and American Masonry. In consequence
of this the theistic conception of God and the biblical
cosmogony have been ever considered two of its great
corner-stones. Its chronology seems also to have been based
upon the same pseudo-revelation. Thus Dr. Dalcho, in one of
his treatises asserts that the principles of the Masonic
Order were presented at and coëval with the creation. It
is therefore not astonishing that such a pundit should
go on to state that God was the first Grand Master, Adam
the second, and the last named initiated Eve into the
Great Mystery, as I suppose many a Priestess of Cybelè
and ‘Lady’ Kadosh were afterward. The Rev. Dr. Oliver,
another Masonic authority, gravely records what may be
termed the minutes of a Lodge where Moses presided as Grand
Master, Joshua as Deputy Grand Master, and Aholiab and
Bezaleel as Grand Wardens! The temple at Jerusalem, which
recent archæologists have shown to be a structure with
nothing like the pretended antiquity of its erection, and
incorrectly called after a monarch whose name proves his
mystical character, Sol-Om-On (the name of the sun in three
languages), plays, as you correctly observe, a considerable
share in Masonic mystery. Such fables as these, and the
traditional Masonic colonization of ancient Egypt, have
given the Craft the credit of an illustrious origin to
which it has no right, and before whose forty centuries
of legendary history, the mythologies of Greece and Rome
fade into insignificance. The Egyptian, Chaldean, and other
theories necessary to each fabricator of ‘high degrees’
have also each had their short period of prominence. The
last ‘axe to grind’ has consecutively been the fruitful
mother of unproductiveness.

“We both agree that all the ancient priesthoods had their
esoteric doctrines and secret ceremonies. From the Essenic
brotherhood, an evolution of the Hindu Gymnosophists,
doubtless proceeded the Solidarities of Greece and Rome as
described by so-called ‘Pagan’ writers. Founded on these
and copying them in the matter of ritual, signs, grips,
passwords, etc., were developed the mediæval guilds.
Like the present livery companies of London, the relics
of the English trade-guilds, the operative Masons were
but a guild of workmen with higher pretensions. From the
French name ‘Maçon,’ derived from ‘Mas,’ an old Norman
noun meaning ‘a house,’ comes our English ‘Mason,’ a house
builder. As the London companies alluded to present now
and again the Freedom of the ‘_Liveries_’ to outsiders, so
we find the trade-guilds of Masons doing the same. Thus
the founder of the Ashmolean Museum was made free of the
Masons at Warrington, in Lancashire, England, on the 16th
October, 1646. The entrance of such men as Elias Ashmole
into the Operative Fraternity paved the way for the great
‘Masonic Revolution of 1717,’ when SPECULATIVE Masonry
came into existence. The Constitutions of 1723 and 1738,
by the Masonic impostor Anderson, were written up for the
newly-fledged and first Grand Lodge of ‘Free and Accepted
Masons’ of England, from which body all others over the
world hail to-day.

“These bogus constitutions, written by Anderson, were
compiled about then, and in order to palm off his miserable
rubbish yclept history, on the Craft, he had the audacity
to state that nearly all the documents relating to Masonry
in England had been destroyed by the 1717 reformers.
Happily, in the British Museum, Bodleian Library, and
other public institutions, Rebold, Hughan and others
have discovered sufficient evidence in the shape of old
Operative Masonic charges to disprove this statement.

“The same writers, I think, have conclusively upset the
tenability of two other documents palmed upon Masonry,
namely, the spurious charter of Cologne of 1535, and
the forged questions, supposed to have been written by
Leylande, the antiquary, from a MS. of King Henry VI. of
England. In the last named, Pythagoras is referred to as
having--‘formed a great lodge, at Crotona, and made many
Masons, some of whom travelled into France, and there made
many, from whence, in process of time, the art passed
into England.’ Sir Christopher Wren, architect of St.
Paul’s Cathedral, London, often called the ‘Grand Master
of Freemasons,’ was simply the Master or President of the
London Operative Masons Company. If such a tissue of fable
could interweave itself into the history of the Grand
Lodges which now have charge of the first three symbolical
degrees, it is hardly astonishing that the same fate
should befall nearly all of the High Masonic Degrees which
have been aptly termed ‘an incoherent medley of opposite
principles.’

“It is curious to note too that most of the bodies which
work these, such as the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite,
the Rite of Avignon, the Order of the Temple, Fessler’s
Rite, the ‘Grand Council of the Emperors of the East and
West--Sovereign Prince Masons,’ etc., etc., are nearly all
the offspring of the sons of Ignatius Loyola. The Baron
Hundt, Chevalier Ramsay, Tschoudy, Zinnendorf, and numerous
others who founded the grades in these rites, worked under
instructions from the General of the Jesuits. The nest
where these high degrees were hatched, and no Masonic rite
is free from their baleful influence more or less, was the
Jesuit College of Clermont at Paris.