FREEMASONRY.

WHAT IT IS, WHAT IT DOES, AND WHAT IT DESIRES TO DO.

The Herald in its European telegram has the following paragraph :
The Freemasons have stated adherence to the Commune by posting their banners on the ramparts.

The Freemasons have long been accused of fomenting and taking part in the troubles which agitate society, but now the matter stands publicly confessed. As we believe there are some persons, even in our own communion, who have been weak enough to join the Masonic Brother hood, and that, neither they nor ninety nine hundreths of others who become members of it are aware of its true tendency, the following abridgment of Mgr's de Segur's pamphlet on Freemasonry, recently published, may serve to open their eyes on the subject : —

In this pamphlet I am not concerning myself with Freemasonry in a political, nor even a social point of view ; my only object is to make known its moral and religious dangers. A formidable propaganda, increasing from day to day, and covering as with an immense network, not only Europe, but the whole world, renders watchfulness and effort more and more necessary. There are eight millions of Freemasons, according to their last reports, and about five thousand lodges, without reckoning the secret lodges. In France the number of Freemasons already exceeds sixteen hundred thousand. Names generally express things ; but in this matter it is just the reverse. Freemasons are not free, nor are they masons. That they are not masons there is no need to prove, and it is no less clear that they are not free, since their society is dependent on secrets and mysterious initiations, which they may not reveal to any one under pain of death. Before the "Profane" (which includes all who are not Masons) they assume the appearance of being simply a bacchanalian and philanthropic society, eating, drinking, singing, and doing good ; we shall see whether there is anything underneath. The fantastical name of Freemasons comes, it appears, from Scotland. After Pope Clement the Fifth and Philip the Fair, King of France, had very justly abolished the order of the Templars, early in the fourteenth century, many of those infamous men fled into Scotland, and there forming themselves into a secret society, vowed implacable hatred and eternal vengeance against the papacy and against royalty. For the better concealment of their plots, they affiliated themselves to corporations of masons, and at a later period, spread themselves over Europe. Their definite organisation appeals to date from the beginning of the eighteenth century. In order to throw dust in the eyes of the multitude, they pretend to trace back their descent as far as Solomon's Temple, the Flood, and the Garden of Eden.
What then is Freemasonry? How do people become Freemasons? What takes place in their lodges? Are there secret lodges behind them? and, if so, what is done there? Is Freemasonry a praiseworthy, moral, religious, or even beneficent institution? Is it not, rather, essentially anti-Christian? Is it powerful and active?   What are its objects? Is it allowable to enrol oneself under its mysterious banner? We will briefly answer these grave question, but, first of all, let us lay down an important distinction — that there are two kinds of Freemasons. There is Freemasonry which is more or less seen, and Freemasonry which is not seen at all, and the two together make one. "Masonry is one ; it has but one starting point," said Brother Ragon (whose book was ordered to be reprinted by the Chapter Lodge Oriental of Nancy) one of the most accredited organs of the sect. To the first kind belongs an immense majority of Freemasons. Out of eight millions of adepts "there are not much more than five hundred thousand active members," is the formal confession made by Le Monde Masonique newspaper, August, 1866. These five hundred thousand are the Masons on active service — the picked Masons ; but still they are not the Masons of the secret; lodges, who know what they are doing, who deliberately wish to destroy Christianity and society, and who, under different names, compose what is called the secret societies. The eight millions initiated in external Masonry, are, nearly all of them, tools, that know not the greater part of their time, whither they are being led. They are made use of as trumpets to publish the praises of Masonry, develop its resources, and gain sympathy and money. Behind this multitude who enjoy themselves and talk about morality, the real Masons conceal all their plots.

HOW FREEMASONRY GETS ITS RECRUITS.
"The essential point to be observed," wrote one of the secret chiefs surnamed the Little Tiger "is to isolate a man from his family, and cause him to lose the habits of family life. Draw him off by degrees, give him some sort of importance, discreetly teach him to be weary of his daily work. Man is born a rebel: stir up this desire for rebellion with a flame, but let not the flame burst forth. * * * * When you have insinuated into a man's mind a distaste for family ties and religion (the one almost invariably follows the other) let fall certain words that will provoke a desire of being affiliated to the nearest lodge. * * * * To find himself a member of a lodge, to feel that he is away from his wife and children, and called upon to keep a secret which will newer be confided to him is for some natures, a pleasure and an ambition, (Lettre a la Vente Piemontaise, 18 Janvier 1822). Another mason, Brother Claud, exposes the same system of recruiting. These are his words —"Freemasonry, we tell those we wish to enrol, is a progressive philanthropic institution, whose members live as brothers. * * * * To entice the curious, we add, that the order preserves religiously a secret, that can be shared by none but Freemasons. * * * * To decide men of pleasure, we make the most of the frequent banquets. * * * * As for artisans and tradesmen, we tell them that Freemasonry will be profitable to them, by extending the circle of their connection and custom. Thus we have arguments for every inclination, every vocation, every class."

 CEREMONIAL OF INITIATION.
 The first degree in Masonry is that of Apprentice ; the second that of Fellow Craft ; the third that of Master Mason. On the day fixed for admission, the candidate is "brought to the lodge by a brother, whom he does not know," and is left alone in a room where, between two candles, he finds a Bible, open at the first chapter of St. John. Why is this? An uninstructed mason would answer, "Because we are an innocent and enlightened people;" but what would be the answer of a mason belonging to one of these secret lodges, of which we shall speak anon, when they say plainly that there is no God but Nature, and that the Masonic worship is addressed to the sun? The candidate is left alone for a few moments, and then a number of puerile ceremonies are performed. One would not believe that men endowed with reason would practice these absurd rites, were it not that the fact is absolutely certain, and that the ritual printed by the sect precludes the possibility of doubt. All the assistants rise, draw their swords, and the postulant takes the following impious oath :— "I swear, in the name of the Supreme Architect of all worlds, never to reveal the secrets, signs, touches, words, doctrines, and usages of the Freemasons, &c, &c , * * * * never to make known anything which has been confided to me, up to this moment, or which shall be confided to me hereafter. I bind myself to submit to the following punishment if I break my word : — Let my lips be burned with a red-hot iron, my hand cut off, my tongue torn out, my throat cut, my corpse hung up in a lodge during the admission of a new brother, to brand my faithlessness and be a lesson to others. Let it be afterwards burned and the ashes thrown to the winds, that there may remain no trace of my treason. So help me God and His holy Gospel. Amen." Thus they mingle the name of God with their detestable oath, and bind them selves hand and foot to a hidden power which they know not — which they never will know. * * * * The candidate, whose eyes have been previously bandaged, sees the brethren pointing their swords at him. * * * "Fear nothing, my brother," says the Venerable,  " from the swords which are pointed at you — they are only meant as a menace to perjurers. If you are faithful to Freemasonry, those swords will always be ready to defend you ; but if ever you betray it, there is no spot on earth that could afford you shelter from those avenging weapons." The Venerable then declares the candidate to be an Apprentice in the name of the Great Architect. of the Universe, and, raising him up, he girds him with a white leathern apron, gives him a pair of white gloves, " and whether he be married or not, a pair of woman's gloves, which he is to offer to her whom he shall esteem the most." * * *

 THE DEGREE OF MASTER MASON.  
 All this time we have been speaking of external Masonry. The degree of Master Mason is the third and last, for the dignity of Grand Oriental, and the other accessory dignities belonging to the external council of the Masonic Order are not degrees properly so-called. In Masonry, there are several rites or obediences, which have only shades of difference. There are three in France, the Grand Oriental of France, the Scotch, and the Misraim ; Misraim is the name which cabalistic science has, in all ages, given to a very powerful and perverse demon. The Misraim rite chooses for its father, Cham (or Ham) the accursed son of Noe. But we must return to our fellow-craft, who is burning with anxiety to be made a Master Mason. The lodge is no longer called a lodge, but "the middle chamber" which is hung with black embroidered in white, with death's heads, skeletons, and cross-bones. In the middle of the room is a coffin with a live Mason in it. The Fellow Craft who is to be made a Master Mason, knocks at the door, his feet, left arm, and left breast naked, a square hanging from his right arm, and a rope tied three times round his waist. 'At the sound,' says Brother Clavel, "the meeting is affected." The Brother First Superintendent cries out " Most Respectable (in the first degrees called Venerable) a Fellow Craft has knocked at the door." " See what this Fellow-Craft wants" answer the most Most Respectable. They go to enquire, and, as they know all beforehand, the matter is not very complicated. " Why does the Master of the Ceremonies come to disturb our grief," &c, says the Master, "Brother Expert, seize this Fellow-Craft, search him, and find out whether there be any trace on him of complicity in the crime which has been committed." This crime is supposed to be the murder of the architect Adoniram, put to death by three working masons whilst building Solomon's Temple, in reality it means the execution of the Templars, the spiritual ancestors of the Freemasons. The Most Respectable explains how Adoniram was murdered by the three working masons, Jubelus, Jubelos, and Jubelum ; the new Master is then put into the coffin, the Brothers say "Mac Benac" the Most Respectable imparts the Masters' sign, and the initiation is over.

THE HIGH DEGREES OF FREEMASONRY.
 Under this name are included a quantity of initiations independent of each other, and varying with the difference of locality and nation. Many of these are recent while others no longer exist. There are Masons who disown them, amongst others the chiefs of external Masonry. Others acknowledge, praise, and join them, with out thereby belonging to secret Freemasonry or the secret societies, properly so called. The high degrees are, as it were, an efflorescence, more or less secret of common Masonry, a more advanced, yet still an incomplete initiation to what may be called the soul of Masonry, that is to the final object of its plots. That final object is the destruction of all royalty and of all religion ; it is the universal revolt of the world against God and His Christ ; it is Satan and man wishing to reign in the world instead of God and His Christ. Part of this infernal secret has been discovered by surprise ; in vain do the half honest Masons deny it. "The object of the order should remain its chief secret," said the Grand Lodge of Germany in 1774. "The world is not robust enough to hear the revelation of it." Nor are the Masons themselves, even those of high degree, robust enough it seems ; for at the initiation to one of the high degrees of the Scotch rite, the master of the lodge says to the candidate, "By this degree a thick wall rises up between us and the profane, and even between us and several of those amongst us."
In all the Masonic rites together there are nearly one thousand degrees. In the Grand Oriental there are thirty-three, and the same in the Scotch rite, though they generally give only seven. The Misraim rite has one hundred. The best known of the high degrees are, it seems, those of Philosophic Judge Grand Commander Unknown, Elect, Ancient, Knight of S. Andrew, Knight of the Sun, Kadosch, and Rosicrucian. In admitting a man to tho degree of Philosophic Judge Grand Commander Unknown, the true meaning and application of the legend about Adoniram is undisguisedly revealed to the adept. (See Brother Ragon's book on Masonic Orthodoxy). "Have not the degrees you have passed through," says the Master of the Lodge, "taught you to make a just application of Adoniraai's death to the tragic and fatal end of Jacques Molay, Philosophic Judge Grand Commander of the order? Is not your heart prepared for vengeance? Do you not feel that implacable hatred which we swore against the three traitors on whom we must avenge the death of Jacques Molay? This, my brother, is true masonry, such as it has been transmitted to us." Practically these three traitors are : 1. The Pope, including the Catholic church and all Christianity ; 2. The King, including all royalty and all civil Government, as now constituted ; 3. Armies organised to preserve the peace of the State from external foes or domestic traitors. The Grand Master adds; "You are now placed on a level with the zealous Masons who devoted themselves to us for the common vengeance. Carefully conceal from the vulgar the high destiny reserved for you. * * * * You are now, my brother, in the ranks of the elect who are called to accomplish the great work. * * * * Amen.

THE HIGH GRADE OF KADOSCH.
 When Philippe Egalité was initiated to this grade, they put a dagger into his hand, and made him stab a crowned lay figure, placed be side a skeleton. * * * * A blood-coloured fluid flowed from the wound. * * * * They told him the skeleton was that of Jaques Molay, Grand Master of the Templars (suppressed by Pope Clement the Fifth on account of their wickedness), and that the man whose blood he had shed was Philip the Fair, King of France. Of course this expression of vengeance was not really intended for Philip the Fair, who had been dead nearly five hundred years, but for all royalty ; and in fact the newly made Kadosh was among the principal murderers of his brother, Louis Sixteenth. Nearly all the regicides of the convention were Freemasons. According to the sacred author, Brother Ragon, it is not only a crowned lay figure the Kadosch has to stab but a serpent with three heads, the first of which bears a tiara or key, the second a crown, the third a sword.

 THE HIGH GRADE OF ROSICRUCIAN.
 Amongst other things the candidate is question about the meaning of the inscription J.N.R.J. According to the Masons it does not mean Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, but, "that the Jew, Jesus of Nazareth was led, by the Jew Raphael (can this mean Judes Iscariot?) to be justly punished for his crimes." When the candidate has given this explanation, the "Most Wise" exclaims: "My Brothers the word is found." Thus "the word" means hatred of Jesus Christ. In the Masonic legends our Lord, as being descended from King Solomon, justly expiates upon the cross the supposed murder of Adoniram by Solomon, (although it is stated in conferring the degree of Master Mason that the crime was perpetrated by Jubelus, Jubelos, and Jubelum,) who was jealous of his architect. Adoniram they assume to have been descended from Cain, assumed to be the son of Lucifer and Eve, and the present struggle of the Revolution is but the logical result of the struggle begun in the Garden of Eden, the struggle of Lucifer, his son Cain, his descendant Adoniram, and a whole race of superior beings who have received the gifts of science, light, and true virtue, against God, Adam, Abel, Solomon, Jesus, and the inferior race of the children of Adam, personified by priests and kings; and the characteristics of this second race are blind force, tyranny, and ignorance. According to the Masons, God is jealous of Lucifer and persecuted him ; Cain was persecuted by Adam, Abel, &c, which is truth upside down and the apotheosis of revolt. Still, however much advanced these Brothers of the high degrees may be in the secrets of Masonry, we must remember that they have not left "the ill-lighted anti-chamber," as the Little Tiger called it : they are as yet Masons but in leaf and blossom.

 REAL FREEMASONRY WHICH IS TOTALLY SECRET.
 This is not the Freemasonry of the lodges, not even that of the high degrees ; it is simply the Secret Society. There the Masons throw off the mask ; they despise and reject all the ridiculous and perverse symbolism of the earlier initiations and go straight to the point, war against God, and against His Christ, war against Kings, and against every power that is not with them. This is their motto, this their rallying cry. There you find no more Grand Orientals, no more Grand Masters, but a frightful unity, carried out by a secret government, as simple as it is scientifically organised. At the head of this army of darkness there is one unknown chief who remains out of sight, and keeps the lodges under his thumb ; that mysterious and terrible chief to whom all Masons are bound by an oath of blind obedience — all Masons of all rights and degrees, even those who do not know his name. This diabolical man is more powerful than any King in the world. In the last century the office was filled for many years by a German named Weishaupt. This patriarch of the secret societies is known only to four or five chosen adepts, who put him in communication, either with a section, vendita, or lodge (the name matters little,) and the adepts of that section are not aware of the part which the chief's lieutenant is playing among them. Each Mason of the section plays the same part in an inferior section, without the knowledge of its adepts, and the same system is carried on down to the most in- significant lodges of external masonry. In this sub-Masonic hierarchy each person is led, with out knowing whom, and executes orders of whose origin and true object he knows nothing. It is the real secret society, secret even to those who belong to it. Forty years ago the Roman Police very nearly got hold of the chief himself. Cardinal Bernetti, Secretary of State to Leo the Twelfth, managed to seize part of the secret correspondence of chiefs of the High Vendita — that is the lodge directed immediately by the supreme head himself. One of these scoundrels was in the suite of the Emperor of Austria's Prime Minister, Prince Metternich, who had full confidence in him : another was a Jew whose Masonic name was the Little Tiger. Occult Freemasons are called Carbonari ; they are the combatant class in Freemasonry, the number of its adepts is not known. Central Venditas are formed by two members of the High Vendita taking a third who is ignorant of their office, and appointing him President of the future Vendita ; one of the two under the name of deputy, corresponding with the High Vendita, the other controlling the management of the new one, yet keeping the fact secret from the members of it on account of the police which could not be put quite oft the scent, it was agreed that the Venditas should act in common, without knowing each other, so that the police could not get at the whole organisation of the society, unless they get into the High Vendita. Every Carbonaro was there forbidden, under pain of death, to seek an introduction into a Vendita other than his own. The duties of a Carbonaro are to have a rifle and fifty cartridges to be ready to devote himself, (we know what that means,) and to obey blindly the orders of the unknown chiefs. Thus behind the lodge there is the secret lodge ; behind the masons of the secret lodges lie hidden the Carbonari; the ridiculous secrets conceal the real secret ; in short public masonry conceals secret masonry. There is an intimate but hidden union between the Freemasons and the Carbonari ; one is body, the other soul ; one is led, the other leads. Such is that innocent Freemasonry which pretends to be calumniated by the Church In the secret lodges a ceremony is performed called "The Devil's Mass," in which black candles are lighted on an altar and the Blessed Sacrament, brought by some incarnate fiend who has made a sacrilegious communion for the purpose, is spat upon and trodden under foot. These are but the literal realisation of the precise instructions by which, the sect is now ruled. Here are some of the articles of this secret constitution:  "Art. 30. Those who do not obey the orders of the secret society, or who shall reveal its mysteries, shall be stabbed. 31. The secret tribunal shall pronounce sentence, and name one or two members for its immediate execution. 32. Whoever shall refuse to execute the sentence shall be considered a perjurer and as such immediately killed. 33. Should the guilty per son escape, he shall be pursued without inter mission, and in all places, and he shall be struck by an invisible hand, even in his mother's bosom or in the tabernacle of Christ." One of the secret notes seized by the Roman police in the pontificate of Leo the Twelfth says : "The High Vendita desires that, under one pretext or another, the greatest possible number of princes and rich men may be introduced into the Masonic lodges. * * * * By-and-by the High Vendita will bee what is to be done with them for the cause of progress? They will serve as bird-lime for fools, intriguers, citizens and even difficulties. (Letter to the Piedmontese Vendita.) Princes, bigots, and nobles must be annihilated. * * * * . Against these enemies of the human race one has every right and every duty. Yes anything is allowable in order to annihilate them ; violence and fraud, fire and sword, poison and the dagger. The end sanctifies the means." (Brother Fichte on German and universal masonry, supplementary advertisement p. 43.) Freemasonry has managed to pass itself off as an institution eminently charitable and beneficent. Is this true? Brother Ragon (Cours Philosophiques et interpratif des initiations anciennes et modernes) calls poor Masons "that hideous leprosy of Freemasonry," and he warmly recommends all the judges to follow the rule of charity given by Brother Beurnonville : "Do not introduce into the order any but men who can give you their hand and not hold it out." Brother Bazot says : "The mendicant Mason is a novel genius who besieges you at all times." Freemasonry is the absolute denial of religion, it is not I who say so, but Brother Proudhon. "Freemasonry," says he, "is the very negation of the religious element." It will no longer have God or religion. In Belgium and elsewhere, it is Freemasonry which has produced the dreadful sect of the Solidaires who bind themselves by mutual engagement, to live and die without religion. That there are many Masons who do not fall into these excesses we know very well, but as for Freemasonry in itself, whatever people may say, it is an institution essentially anti-Christian. Brother Renan says, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, October 15, 1863, "the worship of the sun is the only reasonable and scientific worship."


 Freeman's Journal 17 June 1871,