2 BOWL CAIN

The Spirit of Freemasonry at Halcyon Lodge

2011-09-16T11:01:00.008-04:00

The spirit of Freemasonry is alive and well at Halcyon Lodge this weekend with brothers arriving from all over the country to enjoy Halcyon Fest 2011. For the past three years we've had a Freemasonry festival in September but this year we decided to give it a name, and hold more fun and fraternal events than ever.

Friday night, Sept. 16, we have the Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd music and laser light show, and then on Sat., Sept. 17, we have MMA fighting. After each event the lodge will remain open for fraternal activities such as brandy and cigars until....

Beyond a tribute, Dark Side of the Moon is a testimonial to the unique music of Pink Floyd and the emotions they stir. It recreates, to a higher degree, the mystic and terrestrial sounds of the phenomenon that is Pink Floyd. Close your eyes; it’s like being there again!

If you're in town, drop by and enjoy the spirit of Freemasonry with us at Halcyon Lodge No. 498!

Life Cycles of Masonic Lodges

2011-09-14T23:21:00.006-04:00

I’ve been studying Freemasonry and its history for over twenty-five years, and have notice a series of trends that indicate organizational life cycles, especially in the individual lodges. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the creation of new Masonic lodges continued at a rapid pace, but so did the closure of older ones.This constant state of evolutionary change seems to have come to an abrupt halt sometime around 1920. After 1920 Freemasonry entered into what I would describe as the era of mega lodges. Any lodge that has a membership exceeding 500 I consider to be a mega lodge.

During the period following 1920 there are a multitude of lodges that have over 500 members, some with membership rolls exceeding 3,000. How is it possible that 500 men, not to mention 3,000, could actively participate in the same lodge meeting? Did these men actually know one another, or were they merely going through a fraternal exercise in order to wear a Masonic ring?

European Freemasonry did not follow the trend into mega lodges. The European form of Freemasonry remained far more intimate, with most lodges having no more than fifty members. These small lodges appear very similar in make-up to the eighteenth and nineteenth century American lodges in that they appear to follow a certain life cycle.

Some lodges in both Europe and America are very old with some dating back 275 years or so. Did these lodges buck the life cycle trend or experience a different kind of life cycle? Looking at the oldest lodges they seem to have followed an internal life cycle of rise and fall over thirty-five year periods. In other words they thrived for awhile and then almost died before beginning to grow again.

At first it appeared that these trends may have followed the cycles of public interest in Freemasonry but it turned out not to be the case. Even at times when Masonic membership declined, some of these lodges were growing. Why?

I think the answer lies in human nature and how we relate to those around us. Freemasonry is a fraternity that brings people together in one place (a lodge) for a meeting. What will be discussed at that meeting, the type of food consumed, and the level of personal comfort between the members will be determined by the nature of their relationships with one another. If the members of the lodge share little in common other than Freemasonry then the lodge will be socially dysfunctional because the members never truly relate to one another. There are many possible sources of this that include, age, income, and philosophical prejudices.

Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone has been used countless times by the Grand Lodges to illustrate that the present decline in Freemasonry is unavoidable because it is a relational consequence of changes in society. I am of the opinion that Putnam is a victim of his own preconceptions. Society is not becoming increasingly fragmented and separated. It is evolving and unifying in new ways that were previously unknown. Putnam wrongly assumes that the decline of social institutions of the past are primary examples of fragmentation and separation, when in fact they are merely obsolete social mechanisms that have been replaced by changes in culture and the advance of technology.

The present social model utilized by American Freemasonry was developed in the 1950′s and is a monolithic cultural relic that cannot adapt itself to the rapid pace of change. This is a result of the failure of the institution to understand the dynamic life cycle of lodges, and the changes it implemented in the 1920′s to lodge organization. The mega lodge relied on the industrial manufacturing concepts of streamlining processes. The quality of production came in a far distant second to overall quality. The object was to “manufacture” as many Masons as possible in order to increase cash flow and thereby increase the services provided to members. Lodge membership from 1920 through the present is based on the idea that the Mason doesn’t want to attend meetings, but to take advantage of the relationships created through membership (i.e. insurance salesmen) and the services afforded (Masonic insurance, old age homes, etc.). While this model may indeed have been very attractive to members before the formation of Allstate, State Farm, and senior living centers, it has little to no value in the 21st century.

Many young Masons today point the finger towards the Grand Lodges and mismanagement as the source of all the present problems. In a way they’re right. The Grand Lodges are not adapting to changes in society and culture like they once did. The Grand Lodges, however, only appear to be the source of the problem when it is, in fact, yet another symptom of the disease plaguing the fraternity. It must be remembered that the Grand Lodges are a reflection of the voting members of the lodges. The true source of the problem is at the base of the institution, not the top. Unfortunately, the decisions made back in the 1920′s and 1950′s have created a self-reinforcing loop in the system. The lodges can no longer go through their natural life cycles because of the monolithic nature of the mega lodge infrastructure of the past. There is no easy way for an aging dysfunctional lodge to split apart and form new healthy social environments. This forces men of all ages and philosophical views into the same organizational unit resulting in bickering, bitterness, and the eventual resulting loss of attendance and membership.

Now it should be becoming clear that the Grand Lodges cannot adapt or change because the lodges themselves cannot experience any life cycle changes. It is the same lodges and members forever reinforcing the same ideas over and over again.

If the lodges were experiencing normal healthy life cycles, new lodges would form dynamically out of the old, and represent the ideas of the present generation of Masons. In order for this to happen under the present system it would require a complete collapse of the organization that would be followed by a reorganization by the survivors. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that the organization could survive such an institutional collapse. It would certainly mean the loss of virtually all the temples, financial assets, and collective institutional memory.

The above scenario is becoming increasingly likely. In part because we have failed to recognize the true source of the problems we face as a fraternity. There is, however, hope that things can be changed before it’s too late. By understanding our problems and being able to formulate the right questions we might be able to turn things around. This would require an openness to change and a focused effort on the behalf of the leadership and decision makers.

I believe that this process must begin with a thorough understanding of the historical life cycles of lodges, and the abandonment of the mega lodge model of the 1920′s. Ultimately, the future of Freemasonry lies in the hands of its members. Only they can decide whether or not they are willing to make the changes necessary for the survival of the institution.

Bro. Jeff Peace

Halcyon Lodge No. 498

Dark Side of the Moon and Freemasonry

2011-09-14T23:16:00.005-04:00

Halcyon Lodge of Freemasons will be hosting the Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd concert experience on Friday, September 16, 2011, beginning at 7:00 PM. This is the start of a new series of “Halcyon Rocks!” events.

Beyond a tribute, Dark Side of the Moon is a testimonial to the unique music of Pink Floyd and the emotions they stir.

Dark Side of the Moon recreates, to a higher degree, the mystic and terrestrial sounds of the phenomenon that is Pink Floyd.

We offer a pleasant distraction from the mundane. Enjoy a pleasant encounter with those sights and sounds, while Dark Side of the Moon emulates the magical and emotional experiences that Pink Floyd created for so many years.

Close your eyes; it’s like being there again.

Let Dark Side of the Moon reawaken your authentic concert experience or create a new one.

Click here for a little Pink Floyd before the show http://halcyontemple.org/a-message-to-all-of-us/

To learn more visit http://www.darksidetribute.com/

Patton's 3rd Army and the Liberation of Europe

2011-09-14T23:05:00.003-04:00

There are precious few Americans left who endured the hardships required to liberate Europe from the iron grip of the Nazis. We owe it to ourselves and future generations of Americans to never forget their sacrifice in the cause of liberty and democracy.

The 3^rd Army holds a unique place in history. It was due to their valor and sacrifice that the war in Europe was brought to end more rapidly than anyone had believed possible. To give you some perspective of their impact let’s review a few facts from the official action reports.

“’Under the command of Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr., the Third Army participated in eight major operations and gave new meaning to “hard charging, hard hitting, mobile warfare.’” The Third Army’s swift and tenacious drive into and through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Austria contributed immeasurably to the destruction of the Nazi war machine of Adolph Hitler’s Germany.

“Within one month of the day when the Third US Army and XIX Tactical Air Command of the Ninth Air Force began operations together in France, the armored and infantry divisions and covering fighter-bombers of this new ground-air team had broken out of Normandy into Brittany, conquered all of that peninsula except three stubborn ports, firmly secured the line of the Loire, and swept 140 miles beyond liberated Paris to within 60 miles of the German border.”

The Third Army liberated or captured 81,522 square miles of territory. An estimated 12,000 cities, towns, and communities were liberated or captured, including 27 cities of more than 50,000 in population. Third Army captured 765,483 prisoners of war. 515,205 of the enemy surrendered during the last week of the war to make a total of 1,280,688 POW’s processed. The enemy lost an estimated 1,280,688 captured, 144,500 killed, and 386,200 wounded, adding up to 1,811,388. By comparison, the Third Army suffered 16,596 killed, 96,241 wounded, and 26,809 missing in action for a total of 139,646 casualties.

This fall the Grand Orient of the United States will be holding a special event celebrating the 3^rd Army and their rightful place in both American and European history. As a part of this there will be a round table discussion forum and a display of artifacts from the European war. This will be an opportunity for both Americans and Europeans to learn more about the 3^rd Army and America’s contribution to the liberation of Europe.

Saving Freemasonry: Self-Reliance

2011-09-14T21:47:00.012-04:00

The quote below was taken from Chris Hodapp’s Blog Freemasons for Dummies. It’s an idea by a young Freemason about how to save Freemasonry. I agree with most of what he says but believe that he’s a bit too Pollyanna-ish in his view of the present Masonic system in the United States. At Halcyon Lodge we have all the things that he concludes are important to the future of the Craft, and we’ve had them for almost a decade. Yes, they work great! To keep them we had to divorce the Grand Lodge of Ohio. It was the best decision we ever made.

Perhaps the new young Freemasons should read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay Self-Reliance? When you are self-reliant you can succeed at anything. The Founding Fathers of the United States were entirely self-reliant, and many of them were Freemasons. Freemasons need to learn how to be self-reliant again.

Another awesome essay on how to save Freemasonry is Rich Graeter’s Reform Freemasonry!

"I read a lot of blogs, articles and books on Freemasonry. I see brothers concerned with the state of Freemasonry. Some are concerned with quantity and some are concerned with quality. Both groups are only trying to do what they feel is best. On one end, you have the “mason in a day” approach and on the other end you have the Traditional Observance Lodge movement. There are also some of us, probably most of us, who like the materials we have been given by our Grand Lodges and just want our brothers to use them. Just use them. That’s all. Get rid of the short forms, only do one degree per man at a time, enforce memory work, have a list of articles from the Grand Lodge to be read at each meeting on the hidden mysteries of Freemasonry, allow the consumption of alcohol after the meeting in the lodge and that’s it. No need to start new lodges. No need to force a dress code. Freemasonry can be done in casual clothes, too, if the ritual is spot on. It is all a matter of preference, not divine law. Just make a few, simple changes to the ones we have and we will REALLY see an improvement. Put more Masonry in Masons. If this plan is adopted and enforced by the Grand Lodges, we will maintain unity and quality AND…I think we will start to see some numbers again."

"My generation wants the old school brotherhood, the fun and the fraternity. We want the brandy and cigars. We also want the esoteric stuff. We want to earn it. We want the rituals. We want the Jedi, the Hogwarts. There is no need for a new book or anything fancy. Just put what I have suggested into motion and viola, our Craft is back on track. It has to start at the top and from the grassroots."

"Young Freemasons have to do their part. Hang in there with your lodge. Don’t start a new one. Start living these reforms. Be patient and loving to your older brothers. Show some respect. They kept it alive this long when our fathers wouldn’t join. Eventually, we will outlive the naysayers and we will be Freemasonry. Just maintain quality and wait. It will be our Masonic conspiracy."

1st Annual Halcyon Fest

2011-09-11T14:55:00.007-04:00

Halcyon Lodge

2011-08-06T20:24:00.005-04:00

Just a quick blurb that Halcyon http://halcyontemple.org/ has been very busy over the last few months and will be over the next few. We have re-vamped our boxing program and have a new bunch of young, respectful men training upstairs now. A couple fighters are headed to Las Vegas for a big tournament. We have remodeled various rooms, stripped the kitchen floor in preparation of a new one. We are planning the first Halcyon Fest to raise money for the Charities. In September we have our first concert for our concert series and our first MMA event. October has private rentals and the Touring Belly Dancing troupe performing at the Temple. We have men wanting to petition, but are having to show patience and perseverance to even receive a petition. Especially being willing to labor for the Charity. We have a few EA's that have labored for a long time and may be in position for advancement. Much is happenning and we are staying very busy. Peace, Love and Light be with all Travelers.

HALCYON LODGE BROTHERS AT WORK SATURDAY

2011-02-22T06:07:00.013-05:00

Some pictures from Saturday's amateur boxing matches. This was put on by Halcyon Charities in Ohio City. There's about 10-15 guys within the charity that are extremely dedicated to helping the kids, trainers and parents from the Cleveland area put on these events. Everyone here volunteers their time. If you want more info on how you can help or when the next fights are - just let me know.

Orient masons as well as mainstream masons together worked and supported Halcyon Charities. PHA Masons showed up with 20+ brothers and youths from their youth masonic group.
Thanks to all who helped and supported us!

Brother Skip Boyer and the Ship Builders

2011-01-21T11:46:00.004-05:00

Brother Skip Boyer and the Ship Builders

http://www.freemasonacademy.com/Forums/tabid/126/forumid/1/threadid/186/scope/posts/Default.aspx

When people ask me how we came up with the idea behind the Freemason Academy I think of Skip Boyer. I should point out that Skip was the person most responsible for my signing a petition for the degrees of Freemasonry. In fact, he not only answered my questions about the fraternity he also sponsored my petition. Of course, he asked me not to talk about that fact, especially after I gained a reputation as a “loose cannon”.

But as Skip would say I digress.

Skip besides being a great writer loved to build model ships. I asked him one time how he became involved in building these exact replicas which were absolutely great works of art.

“Yeah,” he said fingering one of his many pipes as he spoke, “I belonged to the biggest model ship building clubs in the Valley for several years. We would all get together every Saturday and talk about our progress and problems. You know, how to set the rigging, use the correct material for the sails, how to get the colors just right, that kind of thing. We would share our secrets and on the whole have a great time.”

“Sounds great” I said admiring his work, “Do you still do belong to that club?”

“No” Skip replied “Sadly the club lost its purpose and now I work in the garage”

“What happened?”

“Well, things were going along quite well for a couple of years then a guy joined. I forget what he did for a living but he did not seem to be very good at building sailing ships.Anyway one Saturday he announces that we really had to get organized and elect officers so people would know who to go to for various things. Well at first everyone thought why not? And said sure let’s pick some officers.

“Unfortunately, our new member insisted that we hold elections so for the next four Saturdays no work was done while the members put up nominations and printed ballots and finally we had our elected officers and we all thought that was it. But it wasn’t. Our new member, let’s call him Bob, had been elected Secretary and at the very next meeting decided that the club needed a set of By-Laws.

“Why a group of guys who just wanted to build replicas of the great sailing vessels in history, needed a set of By-Laws was beyond me but our new Secretary was determined. For the next six months every meeting was taken up with making sure the club had a solid set of By-Laws that covered every conceivable circumstance. Somewhere along the process we began to lose members. These were the guys who had made being a member of the club exciting and enjoyable. They were the real experts in shipbuilding who had grown tired of waiting for our focus to return to the purpose for which the club was formed. They were not interested in having a hierarchy, or a complicated set of rules what they wanted to do is build ships and share their knowledge with like minded people.

“Without the pleasure of visiting with these guys I just lost interest and stopped going” Skip said softly, “now I just work by myself in the garage. Sometimes a few of the guys stop by but it is not the same anymore.”

The idea behind the Academy to teach the fine art of shipbuilding once again, but in our case the vessel is inside us. I like to think that Skip would approve.

NEW MASONIC CARTOON I FOUND ON THE NET

2010-11-17T10:54:00.003-05:00

I found this pretty funny... and true!
Click to enlarge.

MORE GRAND LODGE TYRANNY? SAY IT AIN'T SO

2010-09-24T08:14:00.013-04:00

I found this over at www.freemasoninformation.com

Mike McCabe Versus The Grand Lodge Of New Jersey – Part 2
Posted on September 14, 2010 by BeeHive

http://www.freemasoninformation.com/2010/09/mike-mccabe-versus-the-grand-lodge-of-new-jersey-part-1/

Here is quote taken from the article: "During the course of the court hearing, the presiding judge asked the attorney representing Grand Lodge a question something along the lines of Is a Masonic lodge entitled to be treated fundamentally fair (by either the Grand Lodge or Grand Master)? The Grand Lodge attorney’s reply was NO. The judged then asked If the members of a Masonic lodge were entitled to be treated fundamentally fair? The Grand Lodge’s attorney responded that the members of a Masonic Lodge “Are not entitled to be treated fundamentally fair”."

Phenomenal!!!!!!

Here is one reason a Grand Master thinks he is in the right and not acting tyrannically: "Landmark No. 3 stated:

“The Grand Master…may suspend, at his pleasure, the operation of any rule or regulation of Masonry not a ‘landmark’…suspend the installed officers of any Lodge, and reinstate them at his pleasure, and is not answerable for his acts as Grand Master.”
Again, awesome stuff happening in America, the Land of the Free, except when becoming a Grand Lodge Freemason, then you are an Obligated Slave! LMAO

from BEEHIVE: "Another good reason would be the actions of his Grand Master in regards to his Lodge, Trimble Lodge. That Grand Master forced the three Lodges which met in the same building (worth several million dollars and co-equally owned) to merge. Trimble Lodge was one of the three and was very well endowed thanks to the generosity of several of its deceased members.

Each of the Lodges held meetings and votes were taken. The members of Trimble Lodge and one of the other Lodges voted overwhelmingly against the forced consolidation. After the results of Trimble’s vote was announced, 49-2 against the proposal, the District Deputy acting under the instructions of the then Grand Master, walked up to the East, picked up the Lodge’s Charter and stated that Trimble Lodge was closed."

NICE! The Grand Lodge of Ohio attempting similar shenanigans with us Halcyon guys, but we never were the trusting kind, and acting before they could shut things down in a similar manner.....

More from Brother BEEHIVE:"Instant Suspensions and Instant Expulsions without a Masonic trial by Grand Masters are not in the tradition of Masonic jurisprudence. Neither is pulling charters and closing down Lodges that are vibrant and healthy for purely political reasons. There has to be some recourse to the Brotherhood for relief from out of control Grand Masters who have eliminated all limits on their power. And that recourse has to be something beyond dumping the problem back on the individual members to correct. If a Grand Master can over ride and negate any vote taken by the Grand Lodge acting as a body then he is as entrenched in power as Castro is in Cuba."

This has and is going on all over the country, but silence is the fraternities motto! Not Truth and Justice?

Now, if we could only get the rest of the Craft to wake up, and if DDGM's and other GL Lackey's would stop with status quo
actions, the American Grand Lodge system may be able to salvage some decent men.

Freemasons Making An Impact In Philly!

2010-09-01T11:02:00.012-04:00

A blind friend of mine was in Philly over the weekend, and he sent me this note about an encounter with Freemasons in his hotel. My friend knows that I am a mason and that I have problems with the current state of masonry in America. But read to see how this blind gentleman knew they were masons. This is the exchange we had via facebook messaging.

ENJOY!

L.Train: I'm at the Down-Town Marriott in Philadelphia and just shared an elevator with a bunch of stinking drunk Masons!!! They're having some convention here--now i understand why you fit in so well with these guys--LOL!!!!

Tubul Cain: Or did not fit in? I did not need the masons to party, that was the problem. I was not looking to party when joining. How'd ya know they were "masons"?

L. Train: Because they said so, and the bell-man confirmed that the hotel was hosting a convention at the hotel.

This conversation was between L.Train and Tubul Cain.

"To preserve the reputation of the fraternity unsullied must be your constant care."
LMAO

Thanks again to those who keep their passions within due bounds and lead by example!

SPEAKING 9/18 IN CLEVELAND, OHIO

2010-08-19T11:29:00.003-04:00

SPEAKING 9/18 IN CLEVELAND, OHIO at the Grand Communication for the GOUSA?
LOL

Masonic Trial in Boise Against the Moderns

2010-08-14T07:56:00.009-04:00

Results of Masonic Trial Against Praxis Lodge Venerable Master

Is it time to update American Masonry's "Rules and Regulations" to be in step with the Times?

http://praxislodge-gousa.blogspot.com/

Today, August 13 at 10am, a history-making Masonic Trial was held in Boise, Idaho with charges against Freemason, Krispen Hartung. Brother Hartung was charged with "unmasonic conduct", and in particular for establishing and being a member of a "irregular" lodge of Freemasonry (Praxis Lodge, a Modern Lodge of Freemasonry, under the Grand Orient of the United States, and in amity with the Grand Orient of France) that does not require its members to believe in God or gods, does not use the Bible in lodge rituals and meetings, and allows discussion of politics and religion in the lodge setting.

During the trial, Brother Hartung pleaded "Not Guilty" to the charges and read a formal response and explanation to his plea. That response can be downloaded or viewed here:
http://www.box.net/shared/lfzfqbyhlv

Brother Hartung's argument was multifaceted, but the most powerful points made were in his closing paragraphs:

"In closing, I will admit that I have built and am currently a member of a Modern lodge of Freemasonry, but I cannot sincerely and with any rational basis admit to this trial committee that this lodge is "irregular", let alone an indication of any unmasonic behavior, based on the charges and explanations presented to me. I reject your misguided definition and concept of irregularity. I reject it for the same reasons that I reject the uncivilized and dogmatic beliefs that black people cannot run for office, that women can't vote, or that human beings do not have the right to free speech and expression. I reject it because it is inherently flawed and out of date, and the ever-changing history of Freemasonry does not justify the notion of regularity as a principle of Universal Freemasonry and brotherhood. I furthermore reject your notion of irregularity because I regard it as morally suspect, and the charges made against me, rather than providing a moral argument for my alleged unmasonic conduct, rely solely on definitions, semantics, and out of date principles.

Any fraternity that judges the worth of a member or potential candidate based on his private theological beliefs and not his character, or forces him to compromise his freedom of conscience, is not a fraternity that I want to be associated with in any way or form. I regard such behavior as myopic, uncivilized, and absurd. This is based solely on territorial politics and on drawing superficial and arbitrary boundaries of class membership, not the principles of universal brotherhood."

I therefore request that you do whatever you deem appropriate. If that means that you have to put me on trial for so-called unmasonic conduct, then so be it; but I will state for the record that this is not an act of justice, an act of morality, or one of a fraternity that embraces brotherhood, but an act of ignorance and stubbornness, and a refusal to evolve to a higher standard of humanity and Freemasonry."

The trial committee discussed the charges and Brother Hartung's response for over an hour. They voted and the verdict was that Brother Hartung was guilty of the above mentioned charges, and will be expulsed from Boise Lodge #2 and the Grand Lodge of Idaho. Note, this is actually what Brother Hartung wanted last November, but they did not acknowledge his request, but instead decided to charge him.

The outcome of the trial was as expected. Based on the rules, regulations, and definitions of the Grand Lodge of Idaho, Brother Hartung is indeed a member of an irregular lodge of Freemasonry, which is a sufficient basis to warrant unmasonic conduct. However, Brother Hartung's response to the charges raised several philosophical issues around the moral implications of Anglo-American or "mainstream" Freemasonry's requirement for members to believe in God, among other religiously rooted requirements and principles that render them a non-secular Fraternity.

I do think it is time our American Brethren pull their collective heads out of the sand and reflect upon what image and purpose they have as a fraternity in this Free country!

I will comment later..................... I just wanted to get it out first, then throw my $.02 in later....

Voltaire on Prayer

2010-07-30T08:38:00.005-04:00

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.
Voltaire

TREATISE OF THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

2010-07-01T07:38:00.016-04:00

TREATISE OF THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

1230 A.D,
(This text taken from a 1904 translation.)

CHAPTER 1.
OF GOD.

I
However important it may be for all men to know the Truth, very few, nevertheless, are acquainted with it, because the majority are incapable of searching it themselves, or perhaps, do not wish the trouble. Thus we must not be astonished if the world is filled with vain and ridiculous opinions, and nothing is more capable of making them current than ignorance, which is the sole source of the false ideas that exist regarding the Divinity, the soul, and the spirit, and all the errors depending thereon.

The custom of being satisfied with born prejudice has prevailed, and by following this custom, mankind agrees in all things with persons interested in supporting stubbornly the opinions thus received, and who would speak otherwise did they not fear to destroy themselves.

II

What renders the evil without remedy, is, that after having established these silly ideas of God, they teach the people to receive them without examination. They take great care to impress them with aversion for philosophers, fearing that the Truth which they teach will alienate them. The errors in which the partisans of these absurdities have been plunged, have thrived so well that it is dangerous to combat them. It is too important for these impostors that the people remain in this gross and culpable ignorance than to allow them to be disabused. Thus they are constrained to disuse the truth, or to be sacrificed to the rage of false prophets and selfish souls.

III

If the people could comprehend the abyss in which this ignorance casts them, they would doubtless throw off the yoke of these venal minds, since it is impossible for Reason to act without immediately discovering the Truth. It is to prevent the good effects that would certainly follow, that they depict it as a monster incapable of inspiring any good sentiment, and however we may censure in general those who are not reasonable, we must nevertheless be persuaded that Truth is quite perverted. These enemies of Truth fall also into such perpetual contradictions that it is difficult to perceive what their real pretensions are. In the meanwhile it is true that Common Sense is the only rule that men should follow, and the world should not be prevented from making use of it.

We may try to persuade, but those who are appointed to instruct, should endeavor to rectify false reasoning and efface prejudices, then will the people open their eyes gradually until they become susceptible of Truth, and learn that God is not all that they imagine.

IV

To accomplish this, wild speculation is not necessary, neither is it required to deeply penetrate the secrets of Nature. Only a little good sense is needed to see that God is neither passionate nor jealous, that justice and mercy are false titles attributed to him, and that nothing of what the Prophets and Apostles have said constitutes his nature nor his essence. In effect, to speak without disguise and to state the case properly, it is certain that these doctors were neither more clever or better informed than the rest of mankind, but far from that, what they say is so gross that it must be the people only who would believe them.

The matter is self-evident, but to make it more clear, let us see if they are differently constituted than other men.

V

As to their birth and the ordinary functions of life, it is agreed that they possessed nothing above the human; that they were born of man and woman and lived the same as ourselves. But for mind, it must be that God favored them more than other men, for they claimed an understanding more brilliant than others. We must admit that mankind has a leaning toward blindness, because it is said that God loved the prophets more than the rest of mankind, that he frequently communicated with them, and he believed them also of good faith. Now if this condition was sensible, and without considering that all men resembled each other, and that they each had a principle equal in all, it was pretended that these prophets were of extraordinary attainments and were created expressly to utter the oracles of God. But further, if they had more wit than common, and more perfect understanding, what do we find in their writings to oblige us to have this opinion of them?

The greater part of their writings is so obscure that it is not understood, and put together in such a poor manner that we can hardly believe that they comprehended it themselves, and that they must have been very ignorant impostors. That which causes this belief of them is that they boasted of receiving directly from God all that they announced to the people -- an absurd and ridiculous belief -- and avowing that God only spoke to them in dreams. Dreams are quite natural, and a person must be quite vain or senseless to boast that God speaks to him at such a time, and when faith is added, he must be quite credulous since there is no evidence that dreams are oracles. Suppose even that God manifested himself by dreams, by visions, or in any other way, are we obliged to believe a man who may deceive himself, and which is worse, who is inclined to lie?

Now we see that under the ancient law they had for prophets none more esteemed than at the present day. Then when the people were tired of their sophistry, which often tended to turn them from obedience to their legitimate Ruler, they restrained them by various punishments, just as Jesus was overwhelmed because he had not, like Moses, [Moses killed at one time 24,000 men for opposing his law.] an army at his back to sustain his opinions. Added to that, the Prophets were so in the habit of contradicting each other that among four hundred not one reliable one was to be found. [It is written in the First Book of Kings, ch. 22, v. 6, that Ahab, King of Israel, consulted 400 prophets, and found them entirely false in the success of their predictions.]

It is even certain that the aim of their prophecies, as well as the laws of the celebrated legislators were to perpetuate their memories by causing mankind to believe that they had private conference with God. Most political objects have been projected in such manner. However, such tricks have not always been successful for those, who -- with the exception of Moses -- had not the means of providing for their safety.

VI

This being determined, let us examine the ideas which the Prophets had of God, and we will smile at their grossness and contradictions. To believe them, God is a purely corporeal being. Micah sees him seated. Daniel clothed in white and in the form of an old man, and Ezekiel like a fire. So much for the Old Testament, now for the New. The disciples of J.C. imagined the Holy Spirit in the figure of a dove; the apostles, in the form of tongues of fire, and St. Paul, as a light which dazzled the sight unto blindness.

To show their contradictory opinions, Samuel, (I. ch. 15, v. 29), believed that God never repented of his own resolution. Again, Jeremiah, (ch. 18, v. 10), says that God repented of a resolve he had taken. Joel, (ch. 2, V. 13), says that he only repents of the evil he has done to mankind. Genesis (ch. 4, v. 7), informs us that man is prone to evil but that He has nothing for him but blessings. On the contrary, St. Paul, (Romans, ch. 9, v. 10), says that men have no command of concupiscence except by the grace and particular calling of God. These are the noble sentiments that these good people have of God, and what they would have us believe. Sentiments, however, entirely sensible, and quite material as we see, and yet they say that God has nothing in common with matter, is a sensible and material being, and that he is something incomprehensible to our understanding. I should like to be informed how these contradictions may be harmonized, and how, under such visible and palpable conditions it is proper to believe them. Again, how can we accept the testimony of a people so clownish that they, notwithstanding all the artifices of Moses, should imagine a calf to be their God! But not considering the dreams of a race raised in servitude, and among the superstitious, we can agree that ignorance has produced credulity, and credulity falsehood, from whence arises all the errors which exist today.

CHAPTER II
REASONS WHICH HAVE CAUSED MANKIND TO CREATE FOR THEMSELVES AN INVISIBLE BEING WHICH HAS BEEN COMMONLY CALLED GOD.

I
Those who ignore physical causes have a natural fear born of doubt. Where there exists a power which to them is dark or unseen, from thence comes a desire to pretend the existence of invisible Beings, that is to say their own phantoms which they invoke in adversity, whom they praise in prosperity, and of whom in the end they make Gods. And as the visions of men go to extremes, must we be astonished if there are created an innumerable quantity of Divinities? It is the same perceptible fear of invisible powers which has been the origin of Religions, that each forms to his fashion. Many individuals to whom it was important that mankind should possess such fancies, have not scrupled to encourage mankind in such beliefs, and they have made it their law until they have prevailed upon the people to blindly obey them by the fear of the future.

II

The Gods having thus been invented, it is easy to imagine that they resembled man, and who, like them, created everything for some purpose, for they unanimously agree that God has made nothing except for man, and reciprocally that man is made only for God. [Man is the noblest work of God -- but nobody ever said so but man. -- Fra Elbertus.] This conclusion being general, we can see why man has so thoroughly accepted it, and know for that reason that they have taken occasion to create false ideas of good and evil, merit and sin, praise and blame, order and confusion, beauty and deformity -- and similar qualities.

III

It should be agreed that all men are born in profound ignorance, and that the only thing natural to them is a desire to discover what may be useful and proper, and evade what may be inexpedient to them. Thence it follows first, that we believe that to be free it suffices to feel personally that one can wish and desire without being annoyed by the causes which dispose us to wish and desire, because we do not know them. Second, it consequently occurs that men are contented to do nothing but for one object, that is to say, for that object which is preferable above all, and that is why they have a desire only to know the final result of their action, imagining that after discovering this they have no reason to doubt anything. Now as they find in and about themselves many means of procuring what they desire: having, for example, ears to hear, eyes to see, animals to nourish, a sun to give light, they have formed this reasoning, that there is nothing in nature, which was not made for them, and of which they may dispose and enjoy. Then reflecting that they did not make this world, they believe it to be a well-founded proposition to imagine a Supreme Being who has made it for them such as it is, for after satisfying themselves that they could not have made it, they conclude that it was the work of one or several Gods who intended it for the use and pleasure of man alone. On the other hand, the nature of the Gods whom man has admitted, being unknown, they have concluded in their own minds that these Gods susceptible of the same passions as men, have made the earth only for them, and that man to them was extremely precious. But as each one has different inclinations it became proper to adore God according to the humor of each, to attract his blessings and to cause Him to make all Nature subject to his desires.

IV

By this method this precedent becomes Superstition, and it is implanted so that the grossest natures are believed capable of penetrating the doctrine of final causes as if they had perfect knowledge. Thus in place of showing that nature has made nothing in vain, they show that God and Nature dream as well as men, and that they may not be accused of doubting things, let us see how they have put forth their false reasoning on this subject.

Experience causing them to see a myriad of inconveniences marring the pleasure of life, such as storms, earthquakes, sickness, famine and thirst, they draw the conclusion that nature has not been made for them alone. They attribute all these evils to the wrath of the Gods, who are vexed by the offences of man, and they cannot be disabused of these ideas by the daily instances which should prove to them that blessings and evils have been always common to the wicked and the good, and they will not agree to a proposition so plain and perceptible.

The reason for that is, it is more easy to remain in ignorance than to abolish a belief established for many centuries and introduce something more probable.

V

This precedent has caused another, which is the belief that the judgments of God were incomprehensible, and that for this reason, the knowledge of truth is beyond the human mind; and mankind would still dwell in error were it not that mathematics and several other sciences had destroyed these prejudices.

VI

By this it may be seen that Nature or God does not propose any end, and that all final causes are but human fictions. A long lecture is not necessary since this doctrine takes away from God the perfection ascribed to him, and this is how it may be proved. If God acted for a result, either for himself or another, he desires what he has not, and we must allow that there are times when God has not the wherewith to act; he has merely desired it and that only creates an impotent God. To omit nothing that may be applied to this reasoning, let us oppose it with those of a contrary nature. If, for example, a stone falls on a person and kills him, it is well known they say, that the stone fell with the design of killing the man, and that could only happen by the will of God. If you reply that the wind caused the stone to drop at the moment the man passed, they will ask why the man should have passed precisely at the time when the wind moved the stone. If you say that the wind was so severe that the sea was also troubled since the day before while there appeared to be no agitation in the air, and the man having been invited to dine with a friend, went to keep his appointment. Again they ask, for the man never got there, why he should be the guest of his friend at this time more than another, adding questions after questions, finally avowing that it was but the will of God, (which is a true "asses bridge") and the cause of this misfortune.

Again when they note the symmetry of the human body, they stand in admiration and conclude how ignorant they are of the causes of a thing which to them appears so marvelous, that it is a supernatural work, in which the causes known to us could have no part.

Thence it comes that those who desire to know the real cause of supposed miracles and penetrate like true scholars into their natural causes without amusing themselves with the prejudice of the ignorant, it happens that the true scholar passes for impious and heretical by the malice of those whom the vulgar recognize as the expounders of Nature and of God. These mercenary individuals do not question the ignorance which holds the people in astonishment, upon whom they subsist and who preserve their credit.

VII

Mankind being thus of the ridiculous opinion that all they see is made for themselves, have made it a religious duty to apply it to their interest, and of judging the price of things by the profit they gain. Thence proceed the ideas they have formed of good and evil, of order and confusion, of heat and cold, of beauty and ugliness, which serve to explain to them the nature of things, which in the end are not what they imagine. Because they pride themselves in having free will they judge themselves capable of deciding between Praise and blame, sin and merit, calling everything good which redounds to their profit and which concerns divine worship, and to the contrary denominate as evil that which agrees with neither. Because the ignorant are not capable of judging what may be a little abstruse, and having no idea of things only by the aid of imagination which they consider understanding, these folk who know not what represents order in the world believe all that they imagine. Man being inclined in such a manner that they think things well or ill ordered as they have the facility or trouble to conclude when good sense would teach differently. Some are more pleased to be weary of the means of investigation, being satisfied to remain as they are, preferring order to confusion, as if order was another thing than a pure effect of the imagination of man, so that when it is said that God has made everything in order, it is recognizing that he has that faculty of imagination as well as man. If it was not so, perhaps to favor human imagination they pretend that God created this world in the easiest manner imaginable, although there are an hundred things far above the force of imagination, and an infinity which may be thrown into disorder by reason of weakness.

VIII

For other ideas, they are purely the effect of the same imagination, which have nothing real, and which are but the different modes of which this power is capable. For example, if the movement which objects impress upon the nerves by the means of the eyes is agreeable to the senses, we say that these objects are beautiful, that odors are good or bad, that tastes are sweet or bitter, that which we touch hard or soft, sounds, harsh or agreeable. According as odors, tastes or sounds strike and penetrate the senses, just so we find a belief that God is capable of taking pleasure in melody, that the celestial movements are a harmonious concert, proof evident that each one believes that things are such as they are imagined, or that the world is purely imaginary. That is why we should not be surprised if we rarely found two men of the same opinion, and some who glorify themselves in doubting everything. For while men have bodies which resemble each other in many particulars, they differ in some others, and it should not astonish us that what seems good to one appears bad to another: what pleases this one displeases the other, from which we may infer that opinions only differ by fancy, that understanding passes for little, and to conclude, things which happen every day are purely the effects of imagination. If one should consult the lights of understanding of philosophers he would have faith that everybody would agree to the truth, and that judgments would be more uniform and reasonable than they are.

IX

It is then evident that all the reasons of which men are accustomed to avail themselves when they endeavor to explain Nature, are only methods of imagination which prove nothing less than they pretend, and because they have given to these reasons names so real that if they existed otherwise than in imagination I would not call them reasonable beings, but purely chimerical, seeing nothing more easy than to respond to arguments founded on these vulgar notions and which we oppose as follows.

If it was true that the universe was a chance happening, and a necessary sequel of divine nature, whence come the imperfections and faults which we remark? For example, corruption which fills the air with bad odor, many disagreeable objects, so many disorders, so much evil, so many crimes and other like occurrences. Nothing is more easy than to refute these objections, for one cannot judge of the perfection of ancient existence only by knowing its essence and nature, and we deceive ourselves in thinking that a thing is more or less perfect, as it pleases or displeases, is useful or useless to human nature; and to close the mouths of those who ask why God has not created all men without exception that they might be guided by the light of reason, it is enough to say that it was because the material was not sufficient to give each being the degree of perfection that was most suitable for him, or to speak more proper, because the laws of nature were so ample and extensive that they could suffice for the production of all things of which an infinite understanding is capable.

CHAPTER III
WHAT GOD IS
I
Until now we have fought the popular idea concerning the Divinity, but we have not yet said what God is, and if we were asked, we should say that the word represents to us an Infinite Being, of whom one of his attributes is to be a substance of extent and consequently eternal and infinite. The extent or the quantity not being finite or divisible, it may be imagined that the matter was everywhere the same, our understanding not distinguishing parts. For example, water, as much as water is imagined, is divisible, and its parts separable from one another, though as much as a corporeal substance it is nether separable nor divisible. [So of water, however, it may be subject to generation and corruption, as long as it is substance it is not subject to separation and division.] Thus neither matter or quantity have anything unworthy of God, for if all is God, and all comes surely from his essence, it follows quite absolutely that He is all that he contains, since it is incomprehensible that Beings quite material should be contained in a Being who is not. That we may not think that this is a new opinion, Terlullian, one of the foremost men among the Christians, has pronounced against Apelles, that, "that which is not matter is nothing," and against Praxias, that "all substance is matter," without having this doctrine condemned in the four first Councils of the Christian Church, ecumenical and general. [The four first Councils were 1. That of Nice in the year 345, under the Emperor Constantine the Great, and under Pope Sylvester I.; 2. That of Constantinople in the year 381, under the Emperors Gratian, Valentinian and Theodore and the Pope Damase I.; 3. That of Ephesus in the year 431, under the Emperor Theodore, the younger, and Valentinian and under the Pope Celestin; 4. That of Chalcedon in the year 451, under Valentinian and Martian, and under Pope Leo I.]

II

These sentiments are plain and the only ones that good and sound judgment can form of God. However, there are but few who are satisfied with such simplicity. Boorish people, who are accustomed to adulation of opinion, demand a God who resembles earthly kings. The pomp and circumstance surrounding them so fascinates, that to take away all hope of going after death to increase the number of heavenly courtiers enjoying the same pleasure which attaches to the Court of Kings, is to take away the consolation and the only things which prevent them from going to despair over the miseries of life. They want a just and avenging God, who rewards and punishes after the manner of kings, a God susceptible of all human passions and weaknesses. They give him feet, hands, and ears, and yet they do not regard a God so constituted as material. They say that man is his masterpiece, and even his own image, but do not allow that the copy is like the original. In a word, the God of the people of today is subject to as many forms as Jupiter of the Pagans, and what is still more strange, these follies contradict each other and shock good sense. The vulgar reverence them because they firmly believe what the Prophets have said, although these visionaries among the Hebrews, were the same as the augurs and the diviners among the pagans. [These, among us, are the Astrologers and Fanatics.] They consult the Bible as if God or nature was therein expounded to them in a special manner, however this book is only a rhapsody of fragments, gathered at various times, selected by several persons, and given to the people according to the fancy of the Robbins, who did not publish them until after approving some, and rejecting others, and seeing if they were conformable or opposed to the Law of Moses. [the Talmud remarks that the Robbins deliberated whether they should omit the Book of Proverbs and that of Ecclesiastes from the number of canonicals, and would have done so had they not found in several places that they eulogized the Mosaic law. They would have done the same with the prophecies of Ezekiel had not a certain Chananias undertook to harmonize them with the same law.] Yes, such is the malice and stupidity of men that they prefer to pass their lives disputing with one another, and worshipping a book received from ignorant people; a book with little order or method, which everyone admits as confused and badly conceived, only serving to foment divisions.

Christians would rather adore this phantom than listen to the law of Nature which God -- that is to say, Nature, which is the active principle -- has written in the heart of man. All other laws are but human fictions, and pure illusions forged, not by Demons or evil spirits, which are fanciful ideas, but by the skill of Princes and Ecclesiastics to give the former more warrant for their authority, and to enrich the latter by the traffic in an infinity of chimeras which sell to the ignorant at a good price.

All other laws are not supported save on the authority of the Bible, in the original of which appear a thousand instances of extraordinary and impossible things, [The versions that we have differ greatly in a thousand places, one with another, until the end of the book.] and which speaks only of recompenses or punishments for good or bad actions, but which are wisely deferred for a future life, relying that the trick will not be discovered in this, no one having returned from the other to tell the news. Thus, men kept ever wavering between hope and fear, are held to their duty by the belief they aver that God has created man only to render him eternally happy or unhappy, and which has given rise to the infinity of religions which we are about to discuss.

CHAPTER IV
WHAT THE WORD RELIGION SIGNIFIES, AND HOW AND WHY SUCH A GREAT NUMBER HAVE BEEN INTRODUCED IN THE WORLD.
I
Before the word Religion was introduced in the world mankind was only obliged to follow natural laws and to conform to common sense. This instinct alone was the tie by which men were united, and so very simple was this bond of unity, that nothing among them was more rare than dissensions. But when fear created a suspicion that there were Gods, and invisible powers, they raised altars to these imaginary beings, so that in putting off the yoke of Nature and Reason, which are the sources of true life, they subjected themselves by vain ceremonies and superstitious worship to frivolous phantoms of the imagination, and that is whence arose this word Religion which makes so much noise in the world.

Men having admitted invisible forces which were all-powerful over them, they worshipped them to appease them, and further imagined that Nature was a being subordinate to this power, thence they had the idea that it was a great mace that threatened, or a slave that acted only by the order that such power gave him. Since this false idea had broken their will they had only scorn for Nature, and respect only for those pretended beings that they called their Gods. Thence came the ignorance in which mankind was plunged, and from which the well-informed, however deep the abyss, could have rescued them, if their zeal had not been extinguished by those who led them blindly, and who lived by imposture. But though there was but little appearance of success in the enterprise, it was not necessary to abandon the party of truth, and only in consideration of those who were afflicted with the symptoms of so great an evil, were generous souls available to represent matters as they were.

II

Fear which created Gods, made also Religion, and when men imbibed the notion that there were invisible agencies which were the cause of their good and bad fortune, they lost their good sense and reason substituting for their chimeras so many Divinities who had care of their conduct.

After having forged these Gods they were curious to know of what matter they consisted, and finally imagined that they should be of the same substance as the soul. Then being persuaded that the latter resembled the shadows which appear in a mirror, or during sleep, they believed that some Gods were real substances but so thin and subtle that to distinguish them from bodies they called them Spirits. So that bodies and spirits were in effect the same thing, and differed neither more nor less, and to be both corporeal and incorporeal is a most incomprehensible thing. The reason given is that each spirit has a proper form, and is included within some limit, that is to say that it has some boundaries, and consequently must be a body however thin and subtle it might be. [See Tertullian ante, also Hobbes' Leviathan, C. 12, p. 56.]

III

The ignorant, that is, the greater part of mankind having settled in this manner the substance of their Gods, tried also to determine by what methods these invisible powers produced their effects. Not being able to do this definitely by reason of their ignorance, they put faith in their conjectures, blindly judging the future by the past, while seeing neither cohesion nor dependence.

In all that they undertook they saw but the past, and foretold good or evil for the future according as the same enterprise had at another time turned out either good or bad. Phormion having defeated the Lacedemonians at the battle of Naupacte, the Athenians, after his death, chose another general of the same name: Hannibal having succumbed to the arms of Scipio Africanus, the Romans, remembering this great success, sent another Scipio to the same country against Caesar, which acts gained nothing for either the Athenians or the Romans. So after two or three experiences, good or bad fortune is made synonymous with certain names or places; others make use of certain words called enchantments, which they believe to be efficacious; some cause trees to speak, create man from a morsel of bread, and transform anything that may appear before them. (Hobbes' Leviatlian de homine. Cap. 12, p. 56-57.)

IV

Invisible powers being established in this way, straightway men revere them only as they do their rulers, that is to say, by tokens of submission and respect, as witness offerings, prayers, and similar things, I say at first, for nature has not yet learned to use on such occasions sacrifices of blood, which have only been instituted for the benefit of the sacrificers and the ministers called to the service of these beautiful Gods.

V

These causes of Religion, that is, Hope and Fear, leaving out the passions, judgments and various resolutions of mankind, have produced the great number of extravagant beliefs which have caused so much evil, and the many revolutions which have convulsed the nations.

The honor and revenue which attaches to the priesthood, and which has since been accorded to the ministry of the Gods, and those having ecclesiastical charges, inflame the ambition and the avarice of cunning individuals who profit by the stupidity of the people, who readily submit in their weakness, and we know how insensibly is caused the easy habit of encouraging falsehood and hating truth.

VI

The empire of falsehood being established, and the ambitious ones encouraged by the advantage of being above their fellows, the latter endeavor to gain repute by a pretense of being friendly with the invisible Gods whom the vulgar fear. For better success, each schemes in his own way, and multiplies deities so that they are met at every turn.

VII
The formless matter of the world they term the god Chaos, and the same honor is accorded to heaven, earth, the sea, the wind, and the planets, and they are made both male and female. Further on we find birds, reptiles, the crocodile, the calf, the dog, the lamb, the serpent, the hog, and in fact all kinds of animals and plants constitute the better part. Each river and fountain bears the name of a God, each house had its own, each man his genius; in fact all space above and beneath the earth was occupied by spirits, shades and demons. It was not sufficient to maintain a Divinity in all imaginable places, but they feared to offend time, day, night, concord, love, peace, victory, contention, mildew, honor, virtue, fever, and health, or to insult these charming divinities whom they always imagined ready to discharge lightning on the heads of men, provided temples and altars were not erected to them.

As a sequel, man commenced to fear his own special genius, whom some invoked under the name of Muses, and others under the name of Fortune adored their own ignorance. The latter sanctified their debauches in the name of Cupid, their rage in the name of Furies, and their natural parts under the name of Priapus, in a word, there was nothing which did not bear the name of a God or a Demon. (Hobbes' de homine, Chap. 12, p. 58.)

VIII

The founders of Religion having based their impostures on the ignorance of the people, took great care to maintain them by the adoration of images which they pretended were inhabited by the Gods, and this caused a flood of gold and benefactions called holy things, to pour into the coffers of the priests. These gifts were regarded as sacred, and designed for the use of these holy ministers, and none were so audacious as to pretend to their office, or even to touch them. To allure the people more successfully, these priests made prophecies and pretended to penetrate the future by the commerce which they boasted of having with the Gods. There is nothing so natural as to know destiny. These impostors were too well informed to omit any circumstance so advantageous for their designs. Some were established at Delos, others at Delphos and elsewhere, where by ambiguous oracles they replied to the demands made of them. Women even were engaged in these impostures, and the Romans in their great Calamities had recourse to the Sibylline books; fools and lunatics passed for enthusiasts, and those who pretended to converse with the dead were called necromancers.

Others read the future by the flight of birds, or by the entrails of beasts. Indeed the eyes, the hands, the face, or an extraordinary object, all seemed to them to possess a good or bad omen, so it is true that the ignorant will receive any desired impression when the secret of their wish is found. (Hobbes' de homine, Chap. 12, pp. 58-59.)

CHAPTER V
OF MOSES

I
The ambitious, who have always been grand masters of the art of trickery, have always followed this method in expounding their laws, and to oblige the people to submit to them they have persuaded them that they had received them either from a God or a Goddess.

Although there was a multitude of Divinities, those who worshipped them called Pagans had no general system of Religion. Each republic, each state and city, each particular place had its own rites and thought of the Divinity as fancy dictated. Following this came legislators more cunning than these first tricksters, and who employed methods more studied and more certain for the propagation and perpetuity of their laws, as well as the culture of such ceremonies and fanaticism as they deemed proper to establish.

Among the great number Arabia and its frontiers has given birth to three who have been distinguished as much by the kind of laws and worship which they established, as by the idea they have given of a Divinity to their followers, and the means they have taken to cause this idea to be received and their laws to be approved.

Moses is the most ancient; Jesus coming after labored after his manner in preserving the foundation of his laws while abolishing the remainder; and Mahomet appearing later on the scene has taken from one and the other religion to compose his own, and therefore he is declared the enemy of all the Gods.

Let us see the character of these three Legislators, examine their conduct, and then judge afterwards who are the best founded: those who revered them as Holy men and Gods, or those who treated them as schemers and impostors.

II

The celebrated Moses, grandson of a great magician, [This word must not be taken in the ordinary sense, for what is called a magician among learned people means an adroit man, a skillful charlatan, and a subtle juggler whose entire art consists in dexterity and skill, and not in any compact with the devil as the common people believe.] by the account of Justin Martyr, had all the advantages proper for what he afterwards became. It is well known that the Hebrews, of whom he became the Chief, were a nation of shepherds whom King Pharaoh Orus I. received in his country in consideration of services that he had received from one of them in the time of a great famine, He gave them some lands in the east of Egypt in a country fertile in pasturage, and consequently adapted for their flocks.

During 200 years they rapidly increased, because, being considered foreigners they were not required to serve in the armies of Pharaoh, and because of the natural advantages of the lands which Orus had granted them. Some bands of Arabs came to join them as brothers, for they were of a similar race, and they increased so astonishingly that the land of Goshen not being able to contain them they spread all over Egypt, giving Pharaoh Memnon II. good reason to fear that they might be capable of some dangerous attempt in case Egypt was attacked (as happened soon after) by their active enemies, the Ethiopians.

Thus a policy of state compelled this Prince to curtail their privileges, and to seek means to weaken and enslave them. Pharaoh Orus II. surnamed Busiris because of his cruelty, and who succeeded Memnon, followed his plan regarding the Jews. Wishing to perpetuate his memory by the erection of the Pyramids and building the city of Thebes, he condemned the Hebrews to labor at making bricks, the material in the earth of their country being adapted for this purpose. During this servitude the celebrated Moses was born, in the same year that the King issued an edict to cast all the male Hebrew children into the Nile, seeing that he had no surer means of exterminating this rabble of foreigners.

Moses was exposed to perish in the waters in a basket covered with pitch, which his mother placed in the rushes on the banks of the river. It chanced that Thermitis, daughter of Orus, was walking near the shore and hearing the cries of the child, the natural compassion of her sex inspired her to save it.

Orus having died, Thermitis succeeded him, and Moses having been presented to her, she caused him to be educated in a manner befitting the son of a Queen of the wisest and most polished nation of the universe. In a word he was tattered in all the science of the Egyptians, and it is admitted, and they have represented Moses to us as the greatest politician, the wisest philosopher and the most famous magician of his time. It followed that he was admitted to the order of Priesthood, which was in Egypt what the Druids were in Gaul, that is to say -- everything.

Those who are not familiar with what the government of Egypt was, will be pleased to know that the famous dynasties having come to an end, the entire country was dependent upon one Sovereign who divided it into several provinces of no great extent. The governors of these countries were called monarchs, and they were ordinarily of the powerful order of Priests, who possessed nearly one-third of Egypt. The king named these monarchs, and if we can believe the authors who have written of Moses and compare what they have said with what Moses himself has written, we may conclude that he was monarch of the land of Goshen, and that he owed his elevation to Thermitis, who had also saved his life.

We see what Moses was in Egypt, where he had both time and means to study the manners of the Egyptians, and those of his nation: their governing passions, their inclinations, and all that would be of service to him in his effort to excite the revolution of which he was the promoter.

Thermitis having died, her successor renewed the persecution against the Hebrews, and Moses having lost his previous favor, and fearing that he could not justify several homicides that he had committed, took the precaution to flee.

He retired to Arabia Petrea, on the confines of Egypt, and chance brought him to the home of a tribal chief of the country. His services, and the talents that his master remarked in him, merited his good graces and one of his daughters in marriage. It is here to be noted that Moses was such a bad Jew, and knew so little of the redoubtable God whom he invented later, that be wedded an idolatress, and did not even think of having his children circumcised.

It was in the Arabian deserts, while guarding the flocks of his father-in-law and brother-in-law, he conceived the design of avenging the injustice which had been done him by the King of Egypt, by bringing trouble and sedition in the court of his states; and he flattered himself that he could easily succeed in this by reason of his talents, as by the disposition which he knew he would find in his nation already incensed against the government by reason of the bad treatment that they had been caused to suffer.

It appears by the history which he has told of this revolution, or at least by the author of the books attributed to Moses, that Jethro, his brother-in-law, was in the conspiracy, as well as his brother Aaron and his sister Mary, who had remained in Egypt, and with whom he could arrange to hold correspondence. As may be seen by the sequel he had formed a vast plan in good politics, and he could put in service against Egypt all the science he had learned there, and the pretended Magic in which he was more subtle and skillful than all those at the Court of Pharaoh who possessed the same accomplishments. It was by these pretended miracles that he gained the confidence of those of his nation that he caused to rebel. He joined to them thousands of mutinous Egyptians, Ethiopians and Arabs. Boasting the power of his Divinity and the frequent interviews he held with Him, and causing Him to intervene in all the measures he took with the chiefs of the revolt, he persuaded them so well that they followed him to the number of 600,000 combatants -- besides the women and children -- across the deserts of Arabia, of which he knew all the windings.

After a six days march on a laborious retreat, he commanded his followers to consecrate the seventh to his God by a public rest, to make them believe that this God favored him, that he approved his sway, and that no one could have the audacity to contradict him.

There were never any people more ignorant than the Hebrews, and consequently none more credulous. To be convinced of this profound ignorance, it is only necessary to recall the condition of these people in Egypt when Moses made them revolt. They were hated by the Egyptians because of their pastoral life, persecuted by the Sovereign and employed in the vilest labor.

Among such a populace it was not very difficult for Moses to avail himself of his talents. He made them believe that his God (whom he sometimes simply called an angel) -- the God of their Fathers -- appeared to him, that it was by his order that he took care to lead them, that he had chosen him for Governor, and that they would be the favored people of this God, provided they believed what he said on his part.

He added to his exhortations on the part of his God, the adroit use of his prestige, and the knowledge that he had of nature. He confirmed what he said to them by what might be called miracles, always easy to perform, and which made a great impression on an imbecile populace.

It may be remarked above all, that he believed he had found a sure method for holding this people submissive to his orders, in making accessory of the statement that God himself was their leader: by night a column of fire and a cloud by day. But it can be proved that this was the grossest trick of this impostor, and that it might serve him for a long time. He had learned during his travels that he had made in Arabia, a country vast and uninhabited, that it was the custom of those who traveled in companies to take guides who conducted them in the night by means of a brazier, the flame of which they followed, and in the day time by the smoke of the same brazier which all the members of the caravan could see, and consequently not go astray. This custom prevailed among the Medes and Assyrians, and it is quite natural that Moses used it, and made it pass for a miracle, and a mark of the protection of his God. If I may not be believed when I say that this was a trick, let Moses himself be believed, who in Numbers, Chap. x. v. 29-33, asks his brother-in-law, Hobab, to come with the Israelites, that he may show them the roads, because he knew the country. This is demonstrative, for if it was God who marched before Israel night and day in the cloud and the column of fire could they have a better guide? Meanwhile here is Moses exhorting his brother-in-law by the most pressing motives of interest to serve him as Guide. Then the cloud and the column of fire was God only for the people, and not for Moses, who knew what it was.

These poor unfortunates thus seduced, charmed at being adopted by the Master of God, as they were told, emerging from a hard and cruel bondage, applauded Moses and swore to obey him. His authority was thus confirmed. He sought to perpetuate it, and under pretext of establishing divine worship, or of a supreme God of whom he said he was the lieutenant, he made his brother and his children chiefs of the Royal Palace, that is to say, of the place where miracles were performed out of the sight and presence of the people.

So he continued these pretended miracles, at which the simple were amazed and others stupefied, but which caused those who were wise and who saw through these impostures to pity them. However skillful Moses was, and how many clever tricks he knew how to do, he would have had much trouble to secure obedience if he had not a strong army. [He remained from time to time in a solitary place under pretext of privately conferring with God, and by this pretended intercourse with the Divinity he taught them a respect and obedience which was, in the meanwhile, unlimited.] Deceit without force has rarely succeeded.

It was in order to have assured means to maintain obedience against the discerning that he continued to place in his own faction those of his tribe, giving them all the important charges and exempting them from the greater part of the labors. He knew how to create jealousies among the other tribes, some of whom took his part against the others. Finally assuring adroitly to his interest those who appeared the most enlightened, by placing them in his confidence, he secured them by giving them employment of distinction.

After that he found some of these idiots had the courage to reproach his bad faith; that under his false pretense of justice and equity he was seizing everything. As the sovereign authority was vested in his blood in such manner that no one had a right to aspire to it, they considered finally that he was less their father than their tyrant.

On such occasions Moses by cunning policy confounded these 'free-thinkers' and spared none who censured his government.

With such precautions, and cloaking his punishments under the name of Divine vengeance, he continued absolute, and to finish in the same way he began, that is to say by deceit and imposture, he chose an extraordinary death. He cast himself in an abyss in a lonely place where he retired from time to time under pretext of conferring with God, and which he had long designed for his tomb. His body never having been found, it was believed that his God had taken him, and that he had become like Him.

He knew that the memories of the patriarchs who preceded him were held in great veneration when their sepulchers were found, but that was not sufficient for an ambition like his. He must be revered as a God for whom death had no terrors, and to this end all his efforts were directed since the beginning of his reign when he said that he was established of God -- to be the God of Pharaoh. Elijah [See Book of Kings, Chapter II.] gave his example, also Romulus, [Romulus drowned himself in the morass of Cherres, and his body, not being found, it was believed that he was raised to heaven and deified.

When Romulus was reviewing his forces in the plain of Caprae there suddenly arose a thunderstorm during which he was enveloped in so thick a cloud that he was lost to the view of his army: nor thereafter on this earth was Romulus seen. Livy 1. I, c. 16.] Empedocles [Empedocles, a celebrated philosopher, threw himself into the crater of Mount Etna, to cause the belief that, like Romulus, he was raised to heaven.] and all those who from a desire to immortalize their names, have concealed the time and place of their death so that they would be deemed immortal.

CHAPTER VI
OF NUMA POMPILIUS
To return to the law-givers, there were none who, having attributed their laws to Divinity, did not endeavor to encourage the belief that they themselves were more than human.
Numa, having tasted the delights of solitude, did not wish to leave it for the throne of Rome, but being forced by public acclamation, he profited by the devotion of the Romans. He informed them that he had talked with God, and if they desired him for King they must observe the Divine laws and institutions which had been dictated to him by the nymph Egeria. [It is recorded by Livy (liber II., c. 21,) that there is a grove through which flowed a perennial stream, taking its origin in a dark cave, in which Numa was accustomed to meet the goddess, and to receive instructions as to his political and religious institutions.]

Alexander wished to be considered a son of Jupiter. Perseus pretended to be a son of the same God and the virgin Danae; Plato, of Apollo, and a virgin, which, perhaps, is the cause of the belief among the Egyptians that the Spirit of God "AvE'Dpa Tea-(" [Breath or inspiration of the Gods.] could get a woman with child as the wind did the Iberian mares. [The Tartars assert that Genghis Khan was born of a virgin, and that Foh, according to the Chinese belief, derived his origin from a virgin rendered pregnant by the rays of the sun.

Since the introduction of the umbrella or sun-shade into the Central Flowery Kingdom occurrences like the latter have been infrequent.]

CHAPTER VII

OF JESUS CHRIST
Jesus Christ, who was not unacquainted with the maxima and science of the Egyptians, among whom he dwelt several years, availed himself of this knowledge, deeming it proper for the design which he meditated. Considering that Moses was renowned because he commanded an ignorant people, he undertook to build on a similar foundation, and his followers were only some idiots whom he persuaded that the Holy Spirit was his Father, and his Mother a Virgin. [NOTE: Celsus says, in Origen, that Jesus Christ was a native of a little hamlet in Judea, and that his mother was a poor villager who only existed by her labor. Having been convicted of adultery with a soldier named Pandira, she was induced to flee by her betrothed, who was a carpenter by trade, who condoned their offence, and they wandered miserably from place to place. She was secretly delivered of Jesus, and finding themselves in want, they were constrained to flee to Egypt. After several years, his services being of no value to the Egyptians, he returned to his own country, where, quite proud of the miracles he knew how to perform, he proclaimed himself God.
Human nature was at those times not fundamentally different from what it is now, and we need, therefore, not be surprised to hear that one of the stalwart Roman warriors, whose name was Pandira, fell in love with one of the dark-eyed daughters of Nazareth, and that the fruit of their "illegitimate" union was a son whom they called Jehoshua, and who inherited from his father the manly pride of the Roman, and from his Jewish mother his almost feminine beauty and modesty.

Of Jehoshua's mother, little is to be said. * * * Ignorant, innocent, and of modest manners, uneducated but kind, sympathetic and beautiful, Stada, like many others of her sex, was guided more by the decision of her heart than by the calculations of her intellect. Her heart yearned for love and she hoped to find in Pandira the realization of her ideal. -- Life of Jehoshua, The Prophet of Nazareth, an Occult Study and a Key to the Bible. Franz Hartmann, M.D., Boston, 1889.] These good people being accustomed to be satisfied with dreams and fancies, adopted this fable, believed all that he wished, and even more willingly that a birth out of the natural order was not so marvelous a circumstance for them to believe. To be born of a Virgin by the operation of the Holy Spirit, [A beautiful dove overshadowed a virgin; there is nothing surprising in that. It happened frequently in Lydia, and the swan of Leda is the counterpart of the dove of Mary.

When a pretty dove under her wing
Happens to conceal a Virgin,
There is nothing surprising in that.
The same thing is known in Lydia,
For the beautiful swan of Leda
Is just as good as Mary's pigeon.] was, in their estimation, as wonderful as what the Romans said of their founder, Romulus, who owed his birth to a Vestal and a God.
This happened at a time when the Jews were tired of their God, as they had been of their judges, [In the book of Samuel, chap. vii, it is related that the Israelites being discontented with the sons of Samuel who judged them, demanded a King, the same as other nations, with whom they wished to conform.] and wished to have a visible God like other nations. As the number of fools is infinite, he found followers everywhere, but his extreme poverty was an invincible obstacle to his elevation. The Pharisees, delighted with the boldness of a man of their sect, A while startled at his audacity, elevated or depressed him according to the fickle humor of the populace, so that when it became noised about concerning his Divinity, it was impossible -- he being possessed of no power -- that his design could succeed. No matter how many sick he cured, nor how many dead he raised, having no money and no army, he could not fail to perish, and with that outlook it appears that he had less chance of success than Moses, Mahomet, and all those who were ambitious to elevate themselves above others. If he was more unfortunate, he was no less adroit, and several places in his history give evidence that the greatest fault in his policy was not to have sufficiently provided for his own safety. So it may be seen that he did not manage his affairs any better than those two other legislators, of whose memory exists but the remains of the belief that they established among the different nations.

CHAPTER VIII.
OF THE POLICY OF JESUS CHRIST.
I
Is there anything, for example, more dexterous than the manner in which he treated the subject of the woman taken in adultery? (St. John, c. viii.) The Jews having asked if they should stone this unfortunate, instead of replying definitely, yes or no, by which he would fall in the trap set by his enemies: the negative being directly against the law, and the affirmative proving him severe and cruel, which would have alienated the saints. Instead of replying as any ordinary person but him would have done, he said, "whoever is without sin, let him cast the first stone," a skillful response, which shows us his presence of mind.

II

Another time being asked if it was lawful to [By this Norman reply he eluded the question. A Norman never says yes, or no. Blason populaire de la Normandie.] Pay tribute to Caesar, and seeing the image of the Prince on the coin that they showed him, he evades the difficulty by replying that they should "render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and unto God what belongs to God." The difficulty consisted in that he would be guilty of lese majeste if he had said it was not permitted, and by saying that it was, he would reverse the law of Moses which he always protested he would not do, because he felt that he was either too weak, or that he would be worsted in the endeavor. So he made himself more popular, by acting with impunity after the manner of Princes, who allowed the privileges of their subjects to be confirmed while their power was not well established, but who scorned their promises when they were well enthroned.

III

He again skillfully avoided a trap that the Pharisees had set for him. They asked him -- having in their minds thoughts which would only tend to convict him of lying -- by what authority he pretended to instruct and catechize the people. Whether he replied that it was by human authority because he was not of the sacred body of Levites, or whether he boasted of preaching by the express command of God, his doctrine was contrary to the Mosaic law. To relieve this embarrassment, he availed himself of the questioners themselves by asking them in the name of whom they thought John baptized? The Pharisees, who for policy opposed the baptism by John, would be condemned themselves in avowing that it was of God. If they had not admitted it they would have been exposed to the rage of the populace, who believed the contrary. To get out of this dilemma, they replied that they knew nothing of it, to which Jesus answered that he was neither obliged to tell them why, nor in the name of whom he preached.

IV

Such were the skillful and witty evasions of the destroyer of the ancient law and the founder of the new. Such were the origins of the new religion which as built on the ruins of the old or to speak disinterestedly, there was nothing more divine in this than in the other sects which preceded it. Its founder, who was not quite ignorant, seeing the extreme corruption of the Jewish republic, judged it as nearing its end, and believed that another should be revived from its ashes. The fear of being prevented by one more ambitious than himself, made him haste to establish it by methods quite opposed to those of Moses. The latter commenced by making himself formidable to other nations. Jesus, on the contrary, attracted them to him by the hope of the advantages of another life, which he said could be obtained by believing in him, while Moses only promised temporal benefits as a recompense for the observation of his law. Jesus Christ held out a hope which never was realized. The laws of one only regarded the exterior, while those of the other aimed at the inner man, influencing even the thoughts, and entirely the reverse of the law of Moses. Whence it follows that Jesus believed with Aristotle that it is with Religion and States, as with individuals who are begotten and die, and as nothing is made except subject to dissolution, there is no law which can follow which is entirely opposed to it. Now as it is difficult to decide to change from one law to another, and as the great majority is difficult to move in matters of Religion, Jesus, in imitation of the other innovators had recourse to miracles, which have always been the peril of the ignorant, and the sanctuary of the ambitious.

V

Christianity was founded by this method, and Jesus profiting by the faults of the Mosaic policy, never succeeded so happily anywhere, as in the measures which he took to render his law eternal. The Hebrew prophets thought to do honor to Moses by predicting a successor who resembled him. That is to say, a Messiah, grand in virtue, powerful in wealth, and terrible to his enemies; and while their prophecies have produced the contrary effect, many ambitious ones have taken occasion to proclaim themselves the promised Messiah, which has caused revolts that have endured until the entire destruction of their republic.

Jesus Christ, more adroit than the Mosaic prophets, to defeat the purpose of those who rose up against him predicted (Matthew xxiv. 4-5-24-25-26. II. Thessalonians ii. 3-10. John ii. 11-18) that such a man would be a great enemy of God, the delight of the Devil, the sink of all iniquity and the desolation of the world. After these fine declarations there was, to my mind, no person who would dare to call himself Anti-Christ, and I do not think he could have found a better way to perpetuate his law. There was nothing more fabulous than the rumors that were spread concerning this pretended Anti-Christ. St. Paul said (11. Thessalonians xi. 7) of his existence, that "he was already born," consequently was present on the eve of the coming of Jesus Christ while more than twelve hundred years have expired since the prediction of this prophet was uttered, and he has not yet appeared.

I admit that these words have been credited to Cherintus and Ebion, two great enemies of Jesus Christ, because they denied his pretended divinity, but it also may be said that if this interpretation conforms to the view of the apostle, which is not credible; these words for all time designate an infinity of Anti- Christ, there being no reputable scholar who would offend by saying that the [Vide Boniface VIII. (1294) and Leo X. (1513) Boniface said that men had the same souls as beasts, and that these human and bestial souls lived no longer than each other. The Gospel also says that all other laws teach several virtues and several lies; for example, a Trinity which is false, the child-birth of a Virgin which is impossible, and the incarnation and transubstantiation which are ridiculous. I do not believe, continued he, other than that the Virgin was a she-ass, and her son the issue of a she-ass.

Leo X. went one day to a room where his treasures were kept, and exclaimed "we must admit that this fable of Jesus Christ has been quite profitable to us.] history of Jesus Christ is a fable, and that his law is but a tissue of idle fancies that ignorance has put in vogue and that interest preserves.

VI

Nevertheless it is pretended that a Religion which rests on such frail foundations is quite divine and supernatural, as if we did not know that there were never persons more convenient to give currency to the most absurd opinions than women and idiots.

It is not strange, then, that Jesus did not choose Philosophers and Scholars for his Apostles. He knew that his law and good sense were diametrically opposed. [The belief in the Christian doctrine is strange and wild to reason and human judgment. It is contrary to all Philosophy and discourse of Truth, as may be seen in all the articles of faith which can neither be comprehended nor understood by human intellect, for they appear impossible and quite strange. Mankind, in order to believe and receive them, must control and subject his reason, submitting his understanding to the obedience of the faith, St. Paul says that if man considers and hears philosophy and measures things by the compass of Truth, he will forsake all, and ridicule it as folly.

That is the avowal made by Charron in a book entitled "The Three Truths," page 180. Edition of Bordeaux, 1593, -- this inserted note is written on the back of a portion of a letter addressed to "Prince graaft by de Sepigel straat. A Amsterdam," postmarked Ce 4e. Aout. 1746] That is the reason why he declaims in so many places against the wise, and excludes them from his kingdom, where were to be admitted the poor in spirit, the silly and the crazy. Again, rational individuals did not think it unfortunate to have nothing in common with visionaries.

CHAPTER IX
OF THE MORALS OF JESUS CHRIST.
As for his Morals, we see nothing more divine therein than in the writings of the ancients, or rather we find only what are only extracts or imitations. St. Augustine (ch. 9 and v. 20 of the Confessions, Book 7,) even admits that he has found in some of their works nearly all of the beginning of the Gospel according to St. John. As far as may be seen, that Apostle is believed, in many places, to have stolen from other authors, and that it was not difficult to rob the Prophets of their enigmas and visions to make his Apocalypse. Whence comes the conformity which we find between the doctrine of the Old Testament and that of Plato? to say nothing of what the Robbins have done, and those who have fabricated the Holy Writings from a mass of fragments stolen from this Grand Philosopher.
Certainly the birth of the world has a thousand times more probability in his Timaeus than in Genesis, and it cannot be said that that comes from what Plato had read in the books of the Jews during his travels in Egypt, for according to St. Augustine himself, (Confessions, Book 7, ch. 9, v. 20,) Ptolemy had not yet translated them. The description of the country of which Socrates speaks to Simias in the Phaedon (?) has infinitely more grace than the Terrestrial Paradise (of Eden) and the Androgynus [Hermaphrodites.] is without comparison, better conceived than what Genesis says of the extraction of Eve from one of the sides of Adam. Is there anything that more resembles the two accidents of Sodom and Gomorrah than that which happened to Phaeton? Is there anything more alike than the fall of Lucifer and that of Vulcan, or that of the giants cast down by the lightnings of Jupiter? Anything more similar than Samson and Hercules, Elijah and Phaeton, Joseph and Hippolitus, Nebuchadnezzar and Lycaon, Tantalus and the tormented rich man (Luke xvi, 24), the manna of the Israelites and the ambrosia of the Gods? St. Augustan -- quoted from God, Book 6, chap. 14, -- St. Cyrile and Theophylactus compare Jonah with Hercules, surnamed Trinsitium (?Trinoctius), because he had dwelt three days and three nights in the belly of a whale. The river of Daniel, spoken of in the Prophets, ch. vii, is a visible imitation of Periphlegeton, which is mentioned by Plato in the Dialogue on the "Immortality of the Soul."

Original, sin has been taken from Pandora's box, the sacrifice of Isaac and Jephthah from the story of Iphigenia, although in the latter a hind was substituted. What is said of Lot and his Wife is quite like the tale which is told of Baucis and Philemon. In short, it is unquestionable that the authors of the Scriptures have transcribed word for word the works of Hesiod and Homer.

II

But it seems that I have made quite a digression which, however, may not be unprofitable. Let us return then to Jesus, or rather, to his Morals.

Celsus proves, by the account of Origen (Book VI, against Celsus), that he had taken from Plato his finest sentiments, such as that which says (Luke, c. xviii, v. 25), that a camel might sooner pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man should enter the Kingdom of God. It was the sect of Pharisees of which he was, and who believed in him, which gave birth to this. What is said of the Immortality of the Soul? of the Resurrection, of Hell, and the greater part of his Morals, I see nothing more admirable than in the works of Epictetus, Epicurus and many others. In fact, the latter was cited by St. Jerome (Book VIII, against Jovian, ch. viii), as man whose virtue puts to the blush better Christians, observing that all his works were filled with but herbs, fruits and abstinence, and whose delights were so temperate that his finest repasts were but a little cheese, bread and water. With a life so frugal, this Philosopher, pagan as he was, said that it was better to be unlucky and rational, than rich and opulent without having good sense, adding, that it is rare that a fortune and wisdom are found in the same individual, and that one could have no knowledge of happiness nor live with pleasure unless felicity was accompanied by prudence, justice and honesty, which are qualifications of a true and lasting delight.

As for Epictetus I do not believe that any man, not excepting Jesus himself, was more austere, more firm, more equitable, or more moral. I say nothing but what is easy to prove, and not to pass my prescribed limit I will not mention all the exemplary acts of his life, but give one single example of constancy which puts to shame the weakness and cowardice of Jesus in the sight of death. Being a slave to a freeman named Epaphroditus, captain of the guards of Nero, it took the fancy of this brute to twist the leg of Epictetus. Epictetus perceiving that it gave him pleasure said to him, smiling, that he was well convinced that the game would not end until he had broken his leg; in fact, this crisis happened. "Well," said Epictetus with an even smiling face, "did I not say that you would break my leg?" Was there ever courage equal to that? and could it have been said of Jesus Christ had he been the victim? He who wept and trembled with fear at the least alarm, and who evinced at his death a lack of spirit that never was witnessed in the majority of his martyrs.

I doubt not but what it might be said of this action of Epicteus what the ignorant remark of the virtues of the Philosophers, that vanity was their principle, and that they were not what they seemed. But I say also that those who use such language are people who, in the pulpit, say all that comes into their heads -- either good or evil -- and they want the privilege of telling it all. I know also that when these babblers, sellers of air, wind and smoke, have vented all their strength against the champions of common sense they think they have well earned the revenues of their livings: that they have not merited a call to instruct the people unless they have declared against those who know what common sense and true virtue is.

So it is true that nothing in the world approaches so little to the manners of true scholars as the actions of the ignorant who decry them and who appear to have studied only to procure preferment which gives them bread; and which preferment they worship and magnify when this height is attained, as if they had reached a condition of perfection, which, to those who succeed, is a condition of self-love, ease, pride and pleasure, following nothing less than the maxims of the religion which they profess.

But let us leave these people who know not what virtue is, and examine the divinity of their Master.

CHAPTER X
OF THE DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST.
I
After having examined his policy and morals we have seen nothing more Divine than in the writings and conduct of the ancients. Let us see if the reputation which followed him after his death is an evidence that he was God. Mankind is so accustomed to false reasoning that I am astonished that any one can reach a sane conclusion from their conduct. Experience shows that there is nothing they followed that is in any wise true, and that nothing has been done or said by them which gives any evidence of stability. In the meanwhile it is certain that common opinions are continually surrounded with chimeras notwithstanding the efforts of the learned, which have always opposed them. Whatever care has been taken to extirpate follies the people have never abandoned them only after having been surfeited with them. Moses was proud to boast himself the Lieutenant of the Lord of Lords, and to prove his mission by extraordinary signs. If ever so little he absented himself (which he did from time to time to confer, as he said, with his God, as Numa and other lawgivers also did) he only found on his return traces of the worship of the Gods which the Israelites had seen in Egypt. He successfully held them forty years in the wilderness that they might lose the idea of those they had abandoned, and not being yet satisfied they obeyed him who led them, and bore firmly whatever hardship they were caused to suffer in this regard.

Only the hatred which they had conceived for other nations, by an arrogance of which most idiots are susceptible, made them insensibly forget the Gods of Egypt and attach themselves to those of Moses whom they adored, and sometimes with all the circumstance marked in the laws. But when they quitted these conditions little by little to follow those of Jesus Christ, I cannot see what inconstancy caused them to run after the novelty and change.

II

The most ignorant Hebrews having given the most vogue to the law of Moses were the first to run after Jesus, and as their number was infinite and they encouraged each other, it is not marvelous that these errors spread so easily. It is not that novelty does not always beget suffering, but it is the glory that is expected that one hopes will smooth the difficulties. Thus the Disciples of Jesus, miserable as they were, reduced at times to nourish themselves with grains of corn which they gathered from the fields (Luke vi., 1), and seeing themselves shamefully excluded from places where they thought to enter to ease their fatigue (Luke ix., 52-53) they began to be discouraged with living; their Master being without the pale of the law and unable to give them the benefits, glory and grandeur which he had promised them.

After his death his disciples, in despair at seeing their hopes frustrated, and pursued by the Jews who wished to treat them as they had treated their Master, made a virtue of necessity and scattered over the country, where by the report of some women (John xx, 18) they told of his resurrection, his divine affiliation and the rest of the fables with which the Gospels are filled. [Which determined the Emperor Julian to abandon the sect of Nazarenes whose faith he regarded as a vulgar fiction of the human mind, which he found based solely on a simple tale of Perdiccas.] The trouble which they had to make progress among the Jews made them resolve to pass among the Gentiles, and try to serve themselves better among them; but as it was necessary to have more learning for that than they possessed -- the Gentiles being philosophers and too much in love with truth to resort to trifles -- they gained over a young man (Saul or St. Paul) of an active and eager mind and a little better informed than the simple fishermen or than the greater babblers who associated with them. A stroke from Heaven made him blind, as is said (without this the trick would have been useless) and this incident for a time attracted some weak souls., By the fear of Hell, taken from some of the fables of the ancient poets, and by the hope of a glorious Resurrection and a Paradise which is hardly more supportable than that of Mahomet; all these procured for their Master the honor of passing for a God which he himself was unable to obtain while living. In which this kind of Jesus was no better than Homer: six cities which had driven the latter out with contempt and scorn during his life, disputed with each other after his death to determine with whom remained the honor of having been his birth-place.

By this it may be seen that Christianity depends, like all other things, on the caprice of men, in whose opinion all passes either for good or bad, according as the notion strikes them. Further, if Jesus was God, nothing could resist him, for St. Paul (Romans, v. 19), is witness that nothing could overcome his will. Yet this passage is directly opposed to another in Genesis (iv, 7), where it is said that as the desires and appetites of man belong to him, who is the Master, so it is agreed to accord free-will to the master of animals, that is to say, man, for whom it is said God has created the universe.

But without wandering in a maze of errors and positive contradictions, of which we have discoursed sufficiently, let us say something of Mahomet, who founded a law upon maxims totally opposed to those of Jesus Christ.

CHAPTER XI
OF MAHOMET

I
Hardly had the Disciples of Jesus abandoned the Mosaic law to introduce the Christian, than mankind, with their usual caprice and ordinary inconstancy, suddenly changed their sentiments, and all the East was seen embracing the sentiments of the celebrated Arius, who had the boldness to oppose the fable of Jesus, and prove that he was no more a God than any other man. Thus Christianity was almost abolished, and there appeared a new law-giver, who, in less than ten years time, formed a considerable sect. This was Mahomet. [A friend of the celebrated Golius having asked what the Mahometans said of their prophet, this wise professor sent him the following extract which contains an abridgement of the life of that Impostor taken from a manuscript in the Turkish language: "The Lord Mahomet Mustapha, of glorious memory, the greatest of the Prophets, was born in the fortieth year of the Empire of Anal Schirwan, the just. His holy nativity happened the twelfth day in the second third of the month Rabia. Now, after the fortieth year of his age had passed, he was divinely inspired, received the crown of prophecy and the robe of Legation, which were brought him from God by the faithful messenger Gabriel, with instructions to call mankind to Islamism. After this inspiration from God was received, he dwelt at Mecca for thirteen years. He left there aged fifty-three years the eighth day of the month Rabia, which was a Friday, and took refuge at Medina. Now, it was there, after his retreat the twentieth day of the eleventh month, and the sixty-third year of his blessed life, he succeeded to the enjoyment of the divine presence. Some say that he was born while Abelaka, (These names, Abdul-Motallab and, Abdallah, in Arabic, seem to be rendered Abdo-Imutalib and Abelaka in the Turkish language. -- A.N.) his father, was yet living, others say after his death. Lady Amina, a daughter of the Wahabees, gave him for nurse lady Halima, of the tribe of Beni- Saad. Abdo Imutalib, his grandfather, gave him the blessed name of Mahomet. He had four sons and four daughters. The sons were Kasim, Ibrahim, Thajib and Thahir, and the daughters, Fatima, Omokeltum, Rakia and Zeineb. The companions of this august envoy of God were Abulekir, Omar, Osman and Ati, all of sacred memory,]

To be well acquainted with him, it must be known that the part of Arabia where he was born, was commonly called "the Happy," by reason of its fertility, and being inhabited by people who formed several Republics, each Republic being a family called a "tribe," and having for its head the chief of the principal family, among those which composed the "tribe."

That in which Mahomet was born was named the Tribe of Koreish, of which the principal family was that of Hashem, of which the chief was then a certain Abdul Motallab, grandfather of Mahomet, whose father, eldest son of Abdul Motallab, was named Abdallah.

This tribe inhabited the shores of the Red sea, and Abdul Motallab was High Priest of the Temple of Mecca where were worshipped the Idols of the country. As Chief of his Tribe he was Prince of this country in which quality he had sustained the war against the King of Persia and the Emperor of Ethiopia, which shows that Mahomet was not of the riff-raff of the people.

His father dying before his grandfather, his tender years caused him to lose the rights he had to the Sovereignty, which one of his uncles usurped. It was for this reason, not being able to succeed to the title of Prince, that he was reduced to the humble condition of shop-boy in the employ of a wealthy widow for whom he became afterwards factor. Having found him to her liking she married him and made him one of the richest citizens of Mecca. He was then about 30 years of age, and seeing at hand the means to enforce his rights, his ambitions awakened, and he meditated in what manner he could reestablish himself in the dignity of his grandfather.

The correspondence that he had had with Christians in Egypt and Jews in Judea, where he had traded a long time for his wife while he was only her factor, gave him an opportunity of knowing who Moses was and also Jesus Christ. He also had remarked into how many different sects their Religion was divided, and which produced such diversity of opinions, and the zeal of each sect. By this he profited, and he believed he could better succeed in the interest of establishing a new Religion. The conditions of the time when he formed this design were very favorable to him, for nearly all of the Arabs, disgusted with the worship of their Idols, were fallen into a species of Atheism. Thus Mahomet began by leading a retired life, being exemplary, seeking solitude, and passing the greater part of the day in prayers and meditations. He caused himself to be admired for his modest demeanor, and commenced to speak of revelations and visions. By such action is gained the credence of the populace, and by such methods Moses and Jesus commenced. He called himself a prophet and an envoy of God, and having as much skill as his predecessors in working miracles, he soon gained attention, then admiration, and soon after the confidence of the people. A Jew and a Christian monk who were in his conspiracy aided him in his dexterous moves, and he soon became powerful enough to resist a vigorous man named Corais, a learned Arab, who endeavored to expose his imposture.

During this time his uncle, the governor of Mecca, died, and not being yet strong enough to assume the authority of sovereign, he was obliged to yield to one of his kinsmen who, penetrating his designs, obliged him to flee from Mecca and take refuge at Medina, where one party in the city who were Arian Christians joined him.

Then he ceased to support his authority by argument, and persuaded his disciples to plant the Mussulman faith at the point of the sword. Having strengthened his party by alliances, marrying his daughters to four of the principal citizens of Medina, he was in condition to place armies in the field who subjugated the various tribes, one after the other, and with whom he finally seized Mecca. He did not die until after he had accomplished his purpose by his hypocrisy and imposture, which elevated him to the dignity of sovereign, which he transmitted to his successors, and his faith so well established that there has been no evidence of its failure for six hundred years, and yet it may be upon the eve of its destruction.

III

Thus Mahomet was more fortunate than Jesus Christ. After having labored during twenty-three years in the establishment of his Law and Religion, he saw its progress before his death, and having an assurance which Jesus Christ had not, that it would exist a long time after his death, since he prudently accommodated the genius and passions of his followers.

Such was the last of these three impostors. Moses threw himself into an abyss by an excess of ambition to cause himself to be believed immortal. Jesus Christ was ignominiously hung up between two thieves, being covered with shame as a recompense for his imposture, and lastly, Mahomet died in reality in his own bed, and in the midst of grandeur, but with his bowels consumed by poison given him by a young Jewess, to determine if he really was a prophet.

This is all that can be said of these four [This includes Numa Pompilius. -- A.N.] celebrated impostors. They were just as we have painted them after nature, and without giving any false shading to their portraits, that it may be judged if they merited any confidence, and if it is excusable to be led by these guides, whom ambition and trickery have elevated, and whom ignorance has destroyed.

SENSIBLE AND OBVIOUS TRUTHS.
I
It is not sufficient to have discovered the disease if we do not apply a remedy. It would be better to leave the sick man in ignorance. Error can only be cured by Truth, and since Moses, Jesus and Mahomet were what we have represented them, we should not seek in their writings for the veritable idea of the Divinity. The apparitions and the divine conformation of the former and the latter, and the divine filiation of the second, are sufficient to convince us that all is but imposture.

II

God is either a natural being or one of infinite extent who resembles what he contains, that is to say, that he is material without being, nevertheless, neither just nor merciful, nor jealous, nor a God in any way as may be imagined, and as a consequence is neither a punisher nor a remunerator. This idea of punishment and recompense only exists in the minds of the ignorant who only conceive that simple being called God, under images which by no means represent him. Those who use their understanding without confounding its operations with those of the imagination, and who are powerful enough to abandon the prejudice of a limited education, are the only ones who have sound, clear and distinct ideas. They consider him as the source of all beings which are produced without distinction: one being no more than another in His regard, and man no more difficult to produce than a worm or a flower.

III

That is why it is not to be believed that this natural and infinite being which is commonly called God, esteems man more than an ant, or a lion more than a stone, or any other being more than a phantasy, or who has any regard for beauty or ugliness, for good or bad, for the perfect or imperfect. Or that he desires to be praised, prayed, sought for or caressed, or that he cares what men are, or say, whether susceptible of love or hate, or in a word that he thinks more of man than of any other creatures of whatever nature they be. All these distinctions are only the invention of a narrow mind, that is to say, ignorance has created them and interest keeps them alive.

IV

Thus there is no good sensible man who can be convinced of hell, a soul, spirits or devils, in the manner of which they are commonly spoken. All these great senseless words have only been contrived to delude or intimidate the people. Let those then who wish to know the truth read what follows, with a liberal spirit and an intention to only give their judgment with deliberation.

V

The myriads of stars that we see above us are allowed to be so many solid bodies which move, and among which there is not one designed as the Court Divine where God is like a King in the midst of his courtiers; which is the abode of the blest, and where all good souls fly after leaving this body and world. But without burdening ourselves with such a rude and ill-conceived opinion, and that it may not be entertained by any man of good sense, it is certain that what is called Heaven is nothing but the continuation of our atmosphere, more subtitle and more refined, where the stars move without being sustained by any solid mass more than the Earth on which we live, and which like the stars is suspended in the midst of space.

VI

As may be imagined, a Heaven intended for the eternal abode of the happy and of God, was the same among the Pagans. Gods and goddesses were also represented in the same way, also a Hell or a subterranean place where it was pretended that the wicked souls descended to be tormented. But this word "hell" taken in its proper and natural signification means nothing but a "lower place," which poets have invented to oppose the dwelling of the celestial inhabitants, who are said to be very sublime and exalted. That is what the Latin word Infernus or inferi signifies, and also the Greek word @#@% [Hades.] that is to say, an obscure place like the sepulchre, or any other low and hidden place. All the rest of what has been said is only pure fiction and the invention of poets whose symbolical discourses are taken literally by feeble, timid and melancholy minds, as well as by those who are interested in sustaining this opinion.

OF THE SOUL
I
The Soul is something more delicate and more difficult to treat of than either Heaven or Hell. That is why it is proper to satisfy Your Majesty's curiosity, to speak of it a little more at length. Before saying what I desire on this subject, I will recall in a few words what the most celebrated Philosophers have thought of it.

II

Some have said that the Soul is a spirit or an immaterial substance; others, a kind of divinity; some, a very subtle air, and others a harmony of all parts of the body. Again, others have remarked that it is the most subtle and fine part of the blood, which is separated from it in the brain and is distributed by the nerves: so that the source of the Soul is the heart where it is produced, and the place where it performs its noblest function is the Brain, because there it is well purified from the grosser parts of the blood. These are the principal opinions which have been held concerning the Soul, but to render them more perceptible let us divide them into material and spiritual, and name the supporters of each theory that we may not err.

III

Pythagoras and Plato have said that the soul is spiritual, that is to say, a being capable of existence without the aid of the body, and can move itself: that all the particular souls of animals are portions of the universal soul of the world: that these portions are spiritual and immortal, and of the same nature, as we may conceive that one hundred little fires are of the same nature as the great fire at which they have been kindled.

IV

These philosophers believed the animated universe a substance, spiritual, immortal and invisible, pursuing always that which attracts, which is the source of all movements, and of all Souls which are small particles of it. Now, as Souls are very pure, and infinitely superior to the body, they do not unite immediately, but by means of a subtle body, such as flame, or that subtle and extensive air which the vulgar take for heaven. Afterwards they take a body less subtle, then another a little more impure, and always thus by degrees, until they can unite with the sensible bodies of animals, whence (sic) they descend like into dungeons or sepulchers. The death of the body, they say, is the life of the soul wherein it was buried, and where it exercises but weakly its most beautiful functions.

Thus at the death of the body the soul comes out of its prison untrammelled by matter, and reunites with the soul of the universe, from whence it came. Thus, following this thought, all the Souls of animals are of the same nature, and the diversity of their functions comes only from the difference in the bodies that they enter.

Aristotle admits further, a universal understanding common to all beings, and which acts in regard to particular intelligences as light does in regard to the eyes; and as light makes objects visible, the universal understanding makes objects intelligible. This philosopher defines the Soul as that which makes us live, feel, think and move, but he does not say what the Being is that is the source and principle of these noble functions, and consequently we must not look to him to dispel the doubt which exists concerning the Nature of the Soul.

V

Dicearchus, Asclesiade (?Esculapius), and in some ways Galen, have also believed the soul to be incorporeal, but in another manner, for they have said that it is nothing more than the harmony of all parts of the body, that is to say, that which results in an exact blending and disposition of the humors and spirits. Thus, they say, health is not a part of him who is well, however it be his condition, so that, however, the soul be in the animal, it is not one of its parts, but a mutual accord of all of which it is composed. On which it is remarked that these authors believe the soul to be incorporeal, on a principle quite opposed to their intent, by saying that it is not a body, but only something inseparably attached to a body, that is to say, in good reasoning, that it is quite corporeal, since corporeality is not only that which is a body, but all which is form or accident that cannot be separated from matter.

These are the philosophers who have believed the soul incorporeal or immaterial, who, as you see, are not in accord with themselves, and consequently do not merit any belief. Let us now consider those who have avowed it to be a body.

VI

Diogenes believed that it was formed of air, from which he has inferred the necessity of breathing, and defines it as an air which passes from the mouth through the lungs to the heart, where it is warmed, And from whence it is distributed through the entire body.

Leucippus and Democritus have claimed that it was Fire, as that element is composed of atoms which easily penetrate all parts of the body, and makes it move. Hippocrates has said that it is a composition of water and fire. Empedocles says that it includes the four elements. Epicurus believed like Democritus, that the soul is composed of fire, but he adds that in that composition there enters some air, a vapor, and another nameless substance of which is formed a very subtle spirit, which spreads through the body and which is called the soul.

VII

Not to shuffle, as all these philosophers have done, and to have as perfect an idea as is possible of the souls of animals, let us admit that in all, without excepting man, it is of the same nature, and has no different functions, but by reason of the diversity of organs and humors; hence we must believe what follows.

It is certain that there is in the universe a very subtle spirit, or a very delicate matter, and always in motion, the source of which is in the Sun, and the remainder is spread in all the other bodies, more or less, according to Nature or their consistency. That is the Soul of the Universe which governs and vivifies it, and of which some portion is distributed among all the parts that compose it. This Soul, and the most pure Fire which is in the universe does not burn of itself, but by the different movements that it gives to the particles of other bodies where it enters, it burns and reflects its heat. The visible fire has more of this spirit than air, the latter more than water, and the earth much less than the latter. Among the mixed bodies, plants have more than minerals, and animals more than either. To conclude, this fire being enclosed in the body, it is rendered capable of thought, and that is what is called the soul, or what is called animal spirits, which are spread in all parts of the body. Now, it is certain that this soul being of the same nature in all animals, disperses at the death of man in the same manner as in other animals, from whence it follows that what Poets and Theologians sing or preach of the other world, is a chimera which they have invented, and which they narrate for reasons that are easy to guess.

OF SPIRITS WHICH ARE CALLED DEMONS.
I
We have fully commented on how the belief in Spirits was introduced among men, and how these Spirits were but phantoms which existed in their imagination. The ancient Philosophers were not sufficiently clear to explain to the people what these phantoms were, and did not allow themselves to say that they could raise them. Some seeing that these phantoms dissolved and had no consistence, called them immaterial, incorporeal, forms without matter, or colors and figures, without being, nevertheless, bodies either colored or defined, adding that they could cover themselves with air like a mantle when they wished to render themselves visible to the eyes of men. Others said that they were animated bodies, but were composed of air, or some other more subtle matter which condensed at their will when they wished to appear.

These two kinds of Philosophers being opposed in the opinion which they had of phantoms, agreed in the name which they gave them, for all called them Demons, in which they were but little more enlightened than those who believed they saw in their sleep the souls of the dead, and that it is their soul which they see when they look in a mirror, and who also believed that they saw (reflected) in the water the souls of the stars. After this foolish fancy they fell into an error which is hardly less supportable, that is, the current idea that these phantoms had infinite power. An absurd but ordinary belief with the ignorant who imagined that whatever they did not understand was an infinite power.

III

This ridiculous opinion was no sooner published than the Sovereigns began to use it to support their power. They established a belief concerning spirits which they called Religion, so that the fear which the people possessed for invisible powers would hold them to their obedience. To have it carry more influence they distinguished the demons as good and bad. The latter to encourage men to obey their laws, and the former to restrain and prevent them from infringing them. Now to learn what these demons were it is only necessary to read the Greek poets and their histories, and above all what Hesiod says in his Theogony where he fully treats of the origin and propagation of the Gods.

IV

The Greeks were the first who invented them, and by them they were propagated through the medium of their colonies, and their conquests in Asia, Egypt and Italy. The Jews who were dispersed in Alexandria and elsewhere got their acquaintance with them from the Greeks. They used them as effectively as the other peoples but with this difference, they did not call them Demons like the Greeks, but good and bad spirits; reserving for the good Demons the name of Spirit of God, and calling those Prophets who were said to possess this good spirit called the Divine, which they held as responsible for great blessings, and cacodaemons or Evil spirits on the contrary those which were provocative of great Evil.

V

This distinction of good and evil made them name as Demoniacs those whom we call lunatics, visionaries, madmen and epileptics, and those who spoke to them in an unknown tongue. A man ill-shaped and of evil look was to their notion possessed of an unclean spirit, and a mute of a dumb spirit. Now, these words spirit and demon became so familiar to them that they spoke of them on all occasions, so that it is evident that the Jews believed like the Greeks, that these phantoms were not mere chimeras and visions, but real beings that existed independent of imagination.

VI

So it happens that the Bible is quite filled with these words Spirits, Demons and Fiends, but nowhere is it said when they were first known, nor the time of their creation, which is hardly pardonable in Moses, who is earnest in depicting the Creation of Heaven, Earth and Man. No more then is Jesus Christ who had such close intimacy with them, who commanded them so absolutely according to the Gospel, and who spoke so often of angels and good and bad spirits, but without saying whether they were corporeal or spiritual; which makes it plain that he knew no more than the Greeks had taught other nations, in which he is not less culpable than for denying to all men the virtue of faith and piety which he professed to be able to give them.

But to return to the Spirits. It is certain that the words Demon, Satan and Devil, are not proper names which designated any individual, and which never have any credence but among the ignorant; as much among the Greeks who invented them, as among the Jews where they were tolerated. So the latter being overrun by them gave them names -- which signified enemy, accuser, inquisitor, -- as well to invisible powers as to their own adversaries, the Gentiles, whom they said inhabited the Kingdom of Satan; there being none but themselves, in their own opinion, who dwelt in that of God.

VII

As Jesus Christ was a Jew, and consequently imbued with these silly opinions, we read everywhere in the Gospels, and in the writings of his Disciples, of the Devil, of Satan and Hell as if they were something real and effective. While it is true, as we have shown, that there is nothing more imaginary, and when what we have said is not sufficient to prove it, but two words will suffice to convince the most obstinate. All Christians agree unanimously that God is the first principle and the foundation of all things, that he has created and preserves them, and without his support they would fall into nothingness. Following this principle it is certain that God must have created what is called the Devil, and Satan, as well as the rest, and if he has created both good and evil, why not all the balance, and if by this principle all evil exists, it can only be by the intervention of God.

Now can one conceive that God would maintain a creature, not only who curses him unceasingly, and who mortally hates him, but even who endeavors to corrupt his friends, to have the pleasure of being cursed by a multitude of mouths. How can we comprehend that God should preserve the Devil to have him do his worst to dethrone him if he could, and to alienate from his service his elect and his favorites? What would be the object of God in such conduct? Now what can we say in speaking of the Devil and Hell. If God does all, and nothing can be done without him how does it happen that the Devil hates him, curses him, and takes away his friends? Now he is either agreeable, or he is not. If he is agreeable, it is certain that the Devil in cursing him only does what he should, since he can only do what God wills. Consequently, it is not the Devil, but God in person who curses himself; a situation to my idea more absurd than ever.

If it is not in accord with his will then it is not true that he is all powerful. Thus there are two principles, one of Good, the other of Evil, one which causes one thing and the other that does quite the contrary. To what does this reasoning lead us? To avow without contradiction that there is no God such as is conceived, nor Devil, nor Soul, nor Paradise, such as has been depicted, and that the Theologians, that is to say, those who relate fables for truth, are persons of bad faith who maliciously abuse the credulity of the ignorant by telling them what they please, as if the people were capable of nothing but chimera or who should be fed with insipid food in which is found only emptiness, nothingness and folly, and not a grain of the salt of truth and wisdom. Centuries have passed, one after the other, in which mankind has been infatuated by these absurd imaginations which have been combatted; but during all the period there have also been found sincere minds who have written against the injustice of the Doctors in Tiaras, Mitres and Gowns, who have kept mankind in such deplorable blindness which seems to increase every day.

FINIS
By permission of the Lord Baron de Hohendorf I have compiled this epitome out of the manuscript Library of his Most August Highness, Duke Eugene of Sabaudio, in the year 1716.

Cubical Stone: Information.........

2010-06-24T08:13:00.004-04:00

Written by Samael Aun Weor
http://gnosticteachings.org/the-teachings-of-gnosis/kabbalah/sephiroth
Sephirah is from the Hebrew ספירה, which means enumeration or jewel. The plural is ספירת, sephiroth.

The ten Sephiroth of universal vibration emerge from the Ain Soph, which is the Microcosmic Star that guides our interior. This Star is the Real Being of our Being.

Ten Sephiroth are spoken of, but in reality there are twelve; the Ain Soph is the eleventh, and its tenebrous antithesis is in the Abyss, which is the twelfth Sephirah.

These are twelve spheres or universal regions that mutually penetrate and co-penetrate without confusion. These twelve spheres gravitate in the central atom of the sign of the infinite. Solar humanity unfolds in these twelve spheres. We have said that the sign of the infinite is in the center of the earth, in the heart of the earth. The Sephiroth are atomic. The ten Sephiroth can be reduced into three tables:

1.A quantum table of the radiant energy that comes from the sun.
2.An atomic weight table of the elements of nature.
3.A molecular weight table of compounds.
This is Jacob’s Ladder which goes from earth to heaven. All of the worlds of cosmic consciousness are reduced to the three tables.

•••

A Sephirah cannot be understood only in one plane because it is of a quadruple nature. Therefore, the Kabbalists clearly express the fact that there are Four Worlds.

1.Atziluth: the Archetypal World or World of Emanations. It is the Divine World.
2.Briah: the World of Creation, also called Khorcia or the World of Schema.
3.Yetzirah: the World of Formation and of the Angels.
4.Assiah: the World of Action, the World of Matter.
•••

Three Sephiroth of form are found in the Pillar of Severity (Binah, Geburah, and Hod).

Three Sephiroth of energy are found in the Pillar of Mercy (Chokmah, Chesed, and Netzach).

The Pillar of Equilibrium is between these two pillars, where all of the distinct levels of consciousness are found (Kether, Tiphereth, Yesod, and Malkuth).

The ten known Sephiroth come from Sephirah, the Divine Mother, who resides in the heart temple. The mantra of the Divine Mother is IO which is the 10 emanations of Prakriti, in other words, the 10 (Ten) Sephiroth.

Kether is the Father within us, a breath from the Absolute, profoundly unknowable to Himself. Kether is the Ancient of Days. Each one of us, in our depth, is a blessed Ancient of Days.

Chokmah is the Son, the atomic Christ in us.

Binah is the Mother in us, the Holy Spirit in us.

Kether, Chokmah, and Binah are our Sephirothic Crown.

The very beloved Father, the very adored Son, and the very wise Holy Spirit live within the profundities of our superlative consciousness, waiting for the supreme instant of our realization.

The Holy Spirit is our Divine Mother that dresses with a blue mantle and a white tunic of exquisite splendors.

The Mother holds in her hand a precious lamp. This lamp is the Innermost who burns within the depth of our hearts. The Innermost is contained within a fine and transparent glass of alabaster. This glass is our own superlative consciousness; it is our Buddhi.

The Innermost is the Sephirah Chesed, and Buddhi is the Sephirah Geburah.

The Innermost and Buddhi express themselves through the Human Soul.

The Human Soul is Tiphereth, willpower, beauty.

Therefore, the Innermost, with his two Souls, the Divine and Human, officiates on his throne, which is the cerebrospinal nervous system.

The Innermost is crowned with the Sephirothic Crown. The Innermost abides in his temple. The temple of the Innermost has two columns, Jachin and Boaz. Jachin is the mind and Boaz is the Astral Body. The mind is the Sephirah Netzach and the Astral Body is the Sephirah Hod. These two columns of the temple are sustained upon the Cubic Stone of Yesod. This Cubic Stone also serves as a foundation for the Kingdom, Malkuth.

This Cubic Stone is the Ethereal Body. Malkuth is the physical body.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Foundation

(Title-page to Scripta in Naturali et Universali Philosophia, 1653.)

Foundation (Hebrew, Yesod), also known as Generation, is associated symbolically with the generative organs. It constitutes the will-power that puts thought into action. Once we decide to do something, we do it. This is will-power. It is, therefore, the foundation of all action and cosmic existence. It is the generative power that lies behind all our actions and enables action to take place. In this sense, it is action. The ultimate action is the act of true love, and this is truly the foundation of the universe. It is associated with the lower self, the personality, as distinct from the soul, but is an expression of the principle Beauty in terms of the lower self. Victory, Glory and Foundation form a trinity relating to the desires, thoughts and actions of the person, and at their best they are love, understanding and service (or faith, hope and charity). Whereas Beauty signifies the act of love of the soul, Foundation is the act of love of the personality, the ‘mask’ of the soul.

Representing the Foundation in this Baconian picture is the cubical altar stone. It is white, signifying its purity. It is square, polished and true, on all its faces. It supports the world of Beauty. The world is a sphere: the stone is a cube. In this symbolism lies a great truth.

U.S. Recognition of French Grand Lodges in the 1900s

2010-06-02T08:47:00.002-04:00

[published in Heredom: The Transactions of the Scottish Rite Research Society -- volume 5, 1996, pages 221-244]

http://bessel.org/masrec/france.htm

by Paul M. Bessel, 32°

[HEREDOM, vol. 5, 1996, page 265 says: Paul M. Bessel, 32°, is a lawyer in the Washington, D.C., area and a member of the Valley of the District of Columbia. He is the 1997 Master of Skidmore Daylight Lodge No. 237 and of the Civil War Lodge of Research No. 1865, both in Virginia. He is the Librarian of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, chairman of the Library and Museum Committee of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, and Secretary of the Masonic Library and Museum Association. He is Assistant Grand Secretary of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the District of Columbia, and Secretary of Mount Pleasant Chapter No. 13 in the District. Paul is also the Executive Secretary of the Masonic Leadership Center founded by the late Allen E. Roberts, 33.]

Nothing seems to cause as much dispute among American Freemasons as the subject of recognition and regularity (with the possible exception of race and freemasonry).1 Yet masons need more facts to understand these subject. The purpose of this article is to provide some of these facts about the recognition of French grand lodges by United States grand lodges in the 1900s, and to suggest questions for further thought and research.

There are many grand lodges in France.2 According to the 1996 edition of Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia, the largest is the Grand Orient of France (GOF) with about 27,000 members. The second largest, with about 22,000 members, is the Grand Lodge of France (GLF), which Coil's says is the "fastest growing grand lodge in France … its membership has doubled in size over the last ten years and the rate of growth itself is rapidly increasing."3 The third largest is the National Grand Lodge of France (GLNF), which has about 13,000 members and is the only French body currently recognized by American grand lodges.4 All three claim an honorable masonic history and say they are active and important in today's masonic world.5

[p. 222] Some claim that the GLF and the GOF are irregular and clandestine,6 alleging they do not have the Bible on lodge altars; do not require their candidates to express a belief in God; have women members or visitors; engage in political activities; and do not use masonic ritual. Some say that even if the GLF and GOF may claim these things are not true, they are not being truthful,7 and if they have rules such as requiring lodges to have the Bible on lodge altars, they do not enforce them adequately.8 It is widely believed by American masons that in 1877 the GOF abandoned the "regular" masonic requirements concerning the Great Architect of the Universe and Bibles on altars, that American grand lodges then withdrew recognition of the GOF, and that in 1913 some French masons saw the error of the ways of the GOF, and of the GLF, and, in a "miracle," they broke away to form the GLNF, which today is the only acceptable grand lodge in France.9

The facts show that this description is misleading at best, and in some respects completely inaccurate. The major issue to be explored in this article is recognition of the GLF and GOF by U.S. grand lodges in the 1900s, long after the GOF changed its rules about religious requirements. How did United States grand lodges justify these actions, in view of the comments made by some about the lack of "regularity" of the GOF and GLF, both in the past and today?

U.S. Recognition of the GLF and the GOF in the 1900s

It will probably surprise most American masons to find out that during the 1900s the GLF was recognized, or mutual visitations by members were approved, by twenty-three -- almost half -- of all United States grand lodges.10 Since the GOF is said to be totally outside the pale of freemasonry and "flagrantly irregular"11 since the 1870s, it is even more surprising to find that twelve -- more than a quarter -- of United States grand lodges recognized or approved mutual visitations by members with the GOF during the twentieth century. Tables showing which United States grand lodges were in each of these categories are included at the end of this paper.

Recognition of both the GLF and GOF

Both the GLF and the GOF were fully recognized by eight grand lodges starting at the time of World War I. This could have been the result of the War and the desire to support our French allies, as that is mentioned in a July 20, 1917, letter from four GLF officials to United States grand lodges which was written "to extend to your Grand Lodge an invitation to enter into official relations with us and to cement those relations by an exchange of representatives."12 [p. 223] However, many American grand lodges considered and rejected recognition, and many that granted recognition did so only after detailed study and careful consideration. It is clear that grand lodges in the United States made thoughtful and serious decisions on this subject.

Appropriately, Louisiana led American grand lodges in recognizing the GLF and re-recognizing the GOF. Louisiana had caused the other American grand lodges to break their ties with the GOF fifty years earlier.

Grand lodges in the United States withdrew their recognitions of the GOF after 1868, when the GOF recognized a masonic group called the "Supreme Council of the A. and A.S. Rite of the State of Louisiana," which was not recognized by the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. The Louisiana Grand Master called this a "strange perversion" by the GOF. The Grand Lodge of Louisiana considered this an invasion of its territory, withdrew its recognition of the GOF, and called on other grand lodges to do the same.13 It is very significant, when we remember the time period of this action, that the GOF decree and report, as printed in the Louisiana Proceedings, states that one of the reasons the GOF recognized this "Supreme Council of … Louisiana" is because that group allowed the initiation of men "without regard to nationality, race, or color." The GOF report mentioned "civil and political equality … between the white and colored races," opposition to slavery, and the necessity of its abolition.14 "The split of French Masonry with that of America actually came in 1869 when the Grand Orient [GOF] passed a resolution that neither color, race, nor religion should disqualify a man for initiation."15

Since Louisiana had caused other United States grand lodges to sever their relations with the GOF in 1868, it was especially significant that the Grand Lodge of Louisiana enthusiastically recognized the GLF and re-recognized the GOF on February 5, 1918.16

The adoption of the resolutions restoring fraternal relations with the Grand Orient of France and recognizing the Grand Lodge of France was followed by an outburst of applause, the national colors of the United States and France being displayed, one on each side of the station of the Grand Master, and national airs of each of the countries pealed forth from the Cathedral organ.17

Other grand lodges that followed the Grand Lodge of Louisiana in recognizing the GLF and re-recognizing the GOF were New Jersey (April 17, 1918),18 Rhode Island (May 20, 1918) which said that the United Grand Lodge of England and other grand lodges also recognized the GLF,19 and Iowa (June 2, 1918) which said the masonry of the GLF is "legitimate and regular." Iowa's Grand Master's address in 1918 contains detailed information about French masonry, [p. 224] well worth reading to understand this subject better.20 The Grand Lodges of Nevada (June 12, 1918),21, Alabama,22 Arkansas,23 and North Dakota (June 17, 1919)24 also recognized both the GLF and the GOF. The Grand Lodge of Alabama specifically found that the GLF is a "regular, legitimate and independent governing body of symbolic masonry,"25 and the Grand Lodge of North Dakota recognized the GLF and GOF "by a large majority" after a discussion that was described as "interesting and spirited."26

Intervisitations with both the GLF and GOF

Grand lodges from four states approved intervisitations between their jurisdictions and both the GLF and the GOF: New York (September 10, 1917),27 Kentucky (October 16, 1917),28 Colorado (May 1, 1918), which printed a very good report about this subject,29 and Wyoming (September 11, 1918).30

Recognitions of the GLF but not the GOF

The GLF, but not the GOF, was additionally recognized by eight United States grand lodges, starting with the Grand Lodge of Texas (December 4, 1917),31 and the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia. The District recognized the GLF on December 19, 1917, without a single dissenting vote, saying it is sovereign and no more connected with the GOF (which the District of Columbia and some other grand lodges felt should not be recognized) than grand lodges in the United States are with each other.32

In 1918 the GLF was recognized by the Grand Lodges of South Dakota (June 11, 1918),33 Oregon (June 14, 1918),34 and California (October 9, 1918). The Grand Lodge of California said the GLF "recognizes the existence of God, requires the 'Book of the Law' upon its altars, prohibits religious and political discussions, and exercises jurisdiction over only the three degrees of Symbolic Masonry."35 California also pointed out that in Latin countries each Grand Body is sovereign and supreme not throughout the territory it occupies, but over its subordinate lodges and their members; American grand lodges have no more right to demand that they use exclusive territoriality than they can demand we accept concurrent jurisdiction.36

Other states that followed in recognizing the GLF, but not the GOF, were Minnesota (January 21-22, 1919), and Utah (January 22, 1919). Utah first considered, and then printed, an extensive survey of what other American grand lodges had done and why.37

While all the recognitions mentioned so far took place in the World War I era, the Grand Lodge of Wisconsin recognized the GLF on June 9, 1958.38

[p. 225] Intervisitations with the GLF, but not the GOF

Another group of United States grand lodges approved intervisitations of members with the GLF, but not the GOF: Florida (January 15, 1918),39 Georgia (May 1, 1918),40 and Indiana (May 29, 1918).41

Some of the grand lodges that eventually recognized the GLF and GOF, or just the GLF, initially approved intervisitations with one or both of them. For example, the Grand Lodge of Utah approved intervisitations January 15, 1918, and then recognized the GLF and GOF a year later, and Rhode Island's grand lodge allowed visitations with both French grand bodies November 19, 1917, and recognized them May 20, 1918.42

Other Grand Lodge Positions on the GLF and GOF

Some other American grand lodges took positions that are of interest. The Grand Lodge of Connecticut considered the issue of recognition of the GLF and the GOF and adopted a motion on February 6, 1918, saying that if those two bodies would require the Bible on the altars of their lodges and their candidates to believe in God, a special meeting of the Connecticut grand lodge would be held to consider, and likely grant, recognition.43 The Grand Lodges of Maine44 and Montana45 looked into this subject carefully, producing reports with majority and minority views, indicating that these issues received careful attention, but did not result in changes in their policies.

Other grand lodges that considered their relationships with the GLF and GOF, without changing them, were Arizona,46 Massachusetts,47 North Carolina,48 Tennessee,49 Washington,50 Nebraska,51 Oklahoma,52 and Vermont.53 The Grand Lodge of Virginia rejected recognition or intervisitation of members with the GLF on February 12, 1918, based on an obvious mistake. Their Proceedings contain a letter which the Virginia Committee on Foreign Correspondence said showed that the GLF claimed to be an integral part of the GOF, but the letter clearly does not include any such claim.54

As this review shows, there were many U.S. grand lodges that recognized or allowed intervisitations of members with the GLF and the GOF, or with just the GLF, long after the GOF eliminated required references to God in its ritual and to the use of the Bible by all its lodges. Some of these recognitions, of the GLF in particular, lasted for many decades. This raises some questions.

Regular, Irregular, Clandestine, and Recognized

First, there are questions about definitions. What is regular versus irregular? What does clandestine mean, and who does the recognizing?

[p. 226] Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia defines a regular lodge as one that has been legally constituted and conforms to the laws of "a recognized" grand lodge. Every grand lodge is recognized by some grand lodges, so does this mean every lodge that complies with the rules of any grand lodge is "regular?" Almost every attempt to find a clear definition of a "regular" lodge or grand lodge leads to such complexity that the word confuses rather than clarifies discussions.

"Regular" might mean a grand lodge follows the ancient landmarks of freemasonry, the ones said to be unchangeable. But what are those ancient landmarks? Every grand lodge has a different answer. Some list dozens of landmarks ( Kentucky has fifty-four, Nevada thirty-nine, Minnesota twenty-six, Connecticut nineteen), some list just a few (Vermont has seven), and some do not have any list but say that masons should observe the landmarks without saying what they are (sometimes adding that they are unchangeable, while at the same time considering and sometimes adopting changes in them).55 In some grand lodges it is simply unclear, even to Grand Secretaries, what the policy of that grand lodge is concerning the ancient landmarks.56 If there is no agreement on what are the ancient landmarks of freemasonry, and if "regular" means grand lodges that follow the landmarks, there cannot be universal, or even close to universal agreement on what constitutes regular masonry.

Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia defines "clandestine" as a body that does not hold a charter from a superior body having power to grant it, but makes it clear that this word is often misleading and certainly unclear.57 The Freemasons' Guide and Compendium says a clandestine lodge is one that has not been properly warranted or chartered by any grand lodge.58 Thus, a lodge could be regular in its workings, but clandestine because it was not chartered properly. Or, it could be irregular because in someone's eyes it does not follow "proper" masonic practices, although it is not clandestine because it was properly chartered by a grand lodge, even if it is a grand lodge that a particular other grand lodge does not recognize.

There are no clear rules that allow anyone to decide which grand lodges are regular or irregular, or clandestine, and use of these words simply confuses reasonable discussions. Each grand lodge makes its own decisions about which grand lodges it will recognize, based on various considerations. The only useful terms are "grand lodges that are recognized by a particular grand lodge at a particular time" and those which are not.

GLF and GOF Rules about the Bible and Belief in God

The GLF says it has a strict requirement that the Bible must be open at all its lodge meetings, that all candidates must express a belief in God, and that they [p. 227] adhere to the other landmarks generally recognized by American grand lodges.59 Their Constitutions begin with a Declaration of Principles which states in its first Articles, "(1) The Grand Lodge of France works to the Glory of the Grand Architect of the Universe; (2) In conformity with the tradition of the Craft, Three Great Lights are placed on the Altar of the Lodges: The Square, the Compass and the Volume of the Sacred Law." This Declaration of Principles also appears on the standard application form, so all petitioners are aware of it. The GLF requires that each of its lodge meetings begin with the reading of a verse from the Bible. The "declaration of Lausanne" of the GLF says, "The Freemason reveres God under the name of the Grand Architect of the Universe. Whatever religion he may profess, the Freemason practices the most complete tolerance towards those who have other convictions."60

The GOF is different. They say they have a diFferent view of the power of a grand lodge than United States grand lodges do, and some grand lodges agree with the GOF on this point. The GOF view is that each lodge should make its own decisions and not have their grand lodge set all policies. If a GOF lodge wants to have the Bible on its altar and require candidates to express a belief in God, they can do that, just as other GOF lodges can have diFferent policies. Americans are not used to this, as our grand lodges make almost all the important rules for each lodge, but this is not the universal masonic practice. In England, each lodge decides what ritual to use, while American lodges must strictly follow every word in the ritual set forth by their grand lodge.

The GOF and some other grand lodges say its attitude toward the Bible and religion is more in keeping with Anderson's 1723 Constitutions of the Free-Masons than that of grand lodges in England and the United States today. The great principle of freemasonry in the 1700s was that it allowed men much greater freedom of conscience than most institutions had until that time, and this included tolerance of all religious attitudes within masonry.61 It was not until 1760 (forty-three years after the premier grand lodge was formed ) that the Grand Lodge of England changed its rules to require the Bible on lodge altars (until then Anderson's Constitutions was acceptable), and originally candidates were not asked to express a belief in God ("the laws and ritual of the original Grand Lodge in 1723 required no more of its initiates on the subject of religion than that they should be good men and true, men of honor and honesty, obeying the moral law").62 A California grand lodge committee said the inclusion of the Bible in masonry, "as dear as this alleged landmark is to the hearts of American masons," was an "innovation in the body of Masonry."63 The GOF went along with this "innovation" in 1849, but changed back to the original language in 1877, after France had undergone several savage foreign and civil wars, with French religious leaders often siding with the oppressors.64

[p. 228] Grand lodges in England and America were upset by the GOF action in 1877, but the post-1877 GOF rules were the same as its pre-1849 rules about the role of religion in freemasonry, and English and American grand lodges had recognized the GOF in the earlier period.65 The GOF was surprised that English and American grand lodges were so very upset with them for merely returning to their earlier language, which had been acceptable to the English and Americans. The Grand Secretary of the GOF wrote to an English brother:

The Grand Orient of France has not abolished the masonic formula, "To the glory of the Great Architect of the Universe," as you appear to believe, still less have they made profession of atheism. In their general assembly of September, 1877, they purely and simply proclaimed absolute liberty of conscience as a right belonging to every man, and out of respect for this liberty they expunged from their Constitution a dogmatic formula, which seemed to a great majority of the members to be in contradiction with liberty of conscience.

In modifying an article of its statutes the Grand Orient of France by no means intended to make profession of either atheism or materialism, as would seem to be understood. No alteration has been made either in the principles or the practice of Masonry; French Masonry remains what it has always been -- a fraternal and tolerant brotherhood.66

According to the Grand Lodge of Alabama Committee on Foreigh Correspondence, the inclusion of the Bible in masonic lodges was an innovation in the body of freemasonry, and we are often told that no such innovations are permissible. Moreover, in masonic lodges the Bible is used as a symbol, masons are not required to believe its teachings, and some other book may be substituted for it. Therefore, "the removal of the Bible and replacing it with some other symbol of Truth may surely be done without altering the essential character of the Fraternity. The Grand Orient did not, therefore, place itself outside the masonic pale by substituting for it the Book of Masonic Law."67

In any event, no matter what one feels about the GOF's position on this, the GLF's policy is different from the GOF. The GLF follows the same rules as American grand lodges concerning the Bible in lodge rooms and candidates' required statement of belief in God.

Female Members and Visitors

The GLF Constitution, Article 1, says, "Freemasonry is an initiatic order consisting of men.…" The GLF does not permit women to become members of their lodges or to visit. In France, and in many other countries (including the United States), there are some lodges performing masonic ritual and promoting [p. 229] masonic philosophy that are exclusively for men, some exclusively for women, and some that have both men and women as members.68 The GLF and GOF do not have women as members or visitors in their lodges, because women in France can Find other grand lodges that will accept them.

Some also point out that in the United States it is acceptable, even encouraged, for men and women to meet together in the Order of the Eastern Star, and ask how this is different from men and women meeting together in masonic lodges. Even Albert Pike attempted to create a female branch of freemasonry in the United States.69 Also, if some American masons are fearful that women might attempt to bring pressure or start lawsuits to force masonic lodges to accept women (and this is a reasonable fear in view of court decisions),70 one way to deflect this pressure is to have recognized branches of masonry for men only, for women only, and for men and women jointly, so everyone would have a choice and none could be said to be left out.

The Doctrine of Exclusive Territorial Jurisdiction

The doctrine of exclusive territorial jurisdiction is often misunderstood. First, only in the United States is it mentioned as a rule. Other grand lodges take it for granted that they will recognize more than one, sometimes many grand lodges in a territory.71 Even in the United States, grand lodges today and in the past recognized more than one grand lodge having jurisdiction in a geographic area, such as in Alaska, where the Grand Lodges of Alaska and Washington both have lodges, and in the twenty-five states (as of July 1997) where grand lodges recognize Prince Hall Grand Lodges that have their own lodges in the same states.72 Stewart W. Miner, Past Grand Master of Virginia and currently the Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia and the Secretary of the Conference of Grand Secretaries of North America, made the following observations about the doctrine of exclusive territorial jurisdiction: "(a) that the Doctrine, as originally conceived, no longer exists; (b) that the historic application of the Doctrine, especially in the 19th Century, has been selective; (c) that inconsistent applications of the Doctrine have encouraged challenge, and (d) that when it has seemed prudent, American grand lodges have modified their interpretations of the Doctrine to satisfy challenges at hand. This process, I believe, is irreversible, and despite the attempts of a few grand lodges to stem the tide by punitive action, their efforts will fail, in the long run, and change will unquestionably prevail."73

What does this doctrine really say? The most influential American group dealing with this subject is the Commission on Information for Recognition of the Conference of Grand Masters of Masons in North America. The [p. 230] Commission has existed since 1952, making recommendations on standards for recognition as well as specific suggestions about whether grand lodges in North America should or should not recognize each foreign grand lodge.74 The Commission's definition of the doctrine of exclusive territorial jurisdiction is different from what most masons think it is.

There can be no question about Exclusive Jurisdiction. It is a basic principle that a Grand Lodge must be autonomous and have sole and undisputed authority over its constituent Lodges. This cannot be shared with any other Masonic council or power. But the question of exclusive territorial jurisdiction is not so clear cut. In some European and Latin American countries, a geographical or politically self-contained unit may be served by two or more Grand Lodges. If these Grand Lodges and hence their constituent Lodges are working in amity, and both are worthy of recognition in all other respects, this joint occupation of a country, state or political subdivision should not bar them from recognition.75 (Emphasis added)

In other words, exclusive territorial jurisdiction means that all the Lodges under a grand lodge give their loyalty only to that grand lodge. There can be several grand lodges in a single country, all with many lodges under them, each giving its loyalty to only one of the grand lodges, and the doctrine of exclusive territorial jurisdiction is not violated, according to the Commission. The Commission did add, "If these Grand Lodges and hence their constituent Lodges are working in amity.…" and neither the GLF nor the GOF and the GLNF are in amity. Still, that did not stop many United States grand lodges from recognizing both the GLF and the GLNF at the same time for several decades. In 1960, the Grand Lodges of Alabama, California, District of Columbia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Vermont, and Wisconsin still recognized both the GLF and the GLNF.76 Many of these grand lodges recognized the GLNF after they already recognized the GLF, yet today some claim it is not possible to recognize the GLF since the GLNF is already recognized. Why was this permissible one way a short time ago, but not the other way now? "It is evident … that 'exclusive jurisdiction' no longer means that all lodges within a defined territory must belong to the same grand lodge."77

Past Grand Master N. Dean Rowe of Vermont said, "We should yield to many of the customs and usages of the country where each [Grand Lodge] is located. We base our decisions on legitimacy rather than injecting our own theories of 'exclusive jurisdiction' into the picture, which we feel is of minor importance. Finally, our belief is that the main object of recognition is to extend the right hand of fellowship to all legitimate Masons without being hidebound by technicalities."78 (emphasis in original)

[p. 231] The doctrine of exclusive territorial jurisdiction does not prevent any grand lodges from recognizing more than one grand lodge in any state or country. Any grand lodge that wants to recognize both the GLF and the GLNF at the same time could rely on a good deal of masonic precedent for its actions.

Conclusion

The subject of recognition of foreign grand lodges is much more complicated that most masons think at First. There is no clear definition of which ones are regular, irregular, or clandestine, and the use of these terms can lead to personal vituperation and useless fighting among freemasons. Rather than claiming that some grand lodges are irregular or clandestine, which only raises questions and arguments about what those terms mean to different people, and whether they are insulting, the only thing that can or should be said about the relation between grand lodges is that certain ones are recognized, as of now, by my grand lodge (or yours, or someone else's).

Every grand lodge in the United States has its own standards for recognition (written or unwritten, strictly followed or not so strictly, unchangeable or often changed), and each has its own list of which grand lodges it recognizes, and these lists change every year.79 Some American grand lodges have withdrawn recognition of other United States grand lodges, for various reasons. Louisiana withdrew recognition from Connecticut in 1989,80 and Oregon in 1991 took away its recognition of Idaho in a bitter dispute.81

The GLF and the GOF should be dealt with separately. The GOF does not require (but allows) use of the Bible in its lodges, and does not require its candidates to say they believe in God. They, and some masonic writers and American grand lodges in the past, have said this is in conformity with original masonic Constitutions and with the original fundamental masonic principles before innovations were introduced, and some U.S. grand lodges in the past have recognized the GOF.

The GLF requires the Bible on its lodges' altars, requires candidates to express a belief in God, and has males only in its lodge meetings. The Commission on Information for Recognition said, "There can be no question as to the regularity of both of these Grand Lodges in France [GLNF and GLF], apart from the regrettable circumstance of the relations of the Grand Lodge with the Grand Orient of France."82

The relationship between the GLF and the GOF was the reason given for withdrawal of recognition of the GLF, on the recommendation of the Commission on Information for Recognition, by the nine U.S. grand lodges that recognized the GLF until the 1960s, when the GLF and the GOF were said to [p. 232] have agreed to exchange some limited information, such as the names of rejected candidates.83 But neither the Commission nor any of the grand lodges list as a requirement for recognition that a grand lodge not be in communication with another grand lodge that is not recognized. If that were the case, since every grand lodge in the world has a different list of recognized grand lodges, no grand lodge could recognize any other. Unless the reason is that the GOF is so much worse than any other grand lodge, and is outside the pale,84 that merely talking or having anything to do with them is cause to de-recognize a grand lodge. That raises additional questions.

Hitler and the Nazis had a particular hatred of freemasonry, and they attempted to wipe it out during the 1930s and 1940s. When the Nazis conquered France they persecuted masons, sometimes putting them in concentration camps, not stopping to ask or care whether they were with the GOF, GLF, or GLNF.85 The Nazis arranged large well-attended exhibits to whip up antimasonic feelings which were already strong and deep among the French people.86 After the War some French masons considered it reasonable to talk to and to be cordial with those in the GOF, in view of their common persecution under the Nazis, while other masons considered it improper to have anything to do with the GOF even under these circumstances. It is very difficult for anyone who did not suffer this unimaginable persecution to say who is right.87

* * *

Discussion of grand lodge recognition is often emotional because it defines what freemasonry is and ought to be. Since freemasonry encourages all masons to learn, and explore all ideas, we should be enthusiastic about finding out more facts on all subjects to help us make reasonable conclusions. The purpose of this paper has been to provide more facts and to suggest more areas for thought and research.

A study of grand lodge proceedings shows that American grand lodges initially withdrew their recognition of French masonry in the 1800s because of a jurisdictional dispute, not because of a later change in the GOF's policy concerning the place of religion in freemasonry. About fifty years later, a large number of U.S. grand lodges recognized the GLF, and a significant number also the GOF, long after the GOF had changed its policy on religion, and the American grand lodges made detailed studies and were fully aware of the policies of the French bodies they were recognizing. Many U.S. grand lodges continued to recognize the GLF, and some the GOF, from the 1920s through the 1960s, while those French bodies had policies and ritual that are the same as the ones they have today.

The GLF ritual includes references to the Great Architect of the Universe, requires its candidates to express a belief in a Supreme Being, requires the [p. 233] Bible on its lodge altars, and even starts its meetings with readings from the Bible. The GOF, on the other hand, allows each of its lodges to establish their own rules, and historically its position is probably closer to the original masonic practices (and less of an innovation) than those used today in many other lodges. Neither the GLF nor the GOF permits women members. And, the doctrine of exclusive territorial jurisdiction does not, and never has, prevented grand lodges, even in the United States, from recognizing more than one grand lodge in a particular territory. Many U.S. grand lodges recognized the GLF first, and later recognized the GLNF while continuing to recognize the GLF.

It would be useful if more masons explored these areas of research, and if more thought about the important subjects of who should be recognized, and the closely related question of who should be considered a Freemason.

The reception of Voltaire among the Freemasons

2010-06-01T08:00:00.002-04:00

Just a few extracts from the address by the Worshipful Master to Voltaire, who was seated by an unusual distinction in the East.

"Very dear Brother, the era most flattering for this Lodge will be henceforth marked by the day of your admission. It brings an Apollo to the Lodge of the Nine Sisters. She finds in him a friend of humanity who reunites all the titles of glory that she is able to desire for the ornamentation of Freemasonry. A King (Frederick the Great of Prussia), of whom you have long been the friend, and who is known as the Illustrious Protector of our Order, had inspired in you the taste for entering it; but it was to your own country that you reserved the satisfaction of initiating you to our mysteries. After having received the applause and the cheers of the nation, after having seen its enthusiasm and its raptures, you come to receive, in the Temple of friendship, of virtue, and of letters, a crown less brilliant but equally solacing to the heart and the soul. The emulation that your presence undoubtedly will spread and enforce, giving a new lustre and a new activity to our Lodge, will redown to the profit of the poor she solaces, of the studies she encourages, and of all the good she ceases not to do. What citizen has so well served as you the nation in the illumination of duty and of true interests, in rendering fanaticism odious and superstition ridiculous, in recalling good taste to its true principles, history to its real purpose, the laws to their chief integrity.

We Brethren promise to come to the succor of our friends; but you have been the creator of a multitude who adore you and who give a voice to your good deeds. You have raised a Temple to the Eternal; but that which we value even more, we have seen near this Temple and asylum, a refuge for men outlawed but useful, that a blind zeal had repelled. Thus, my dear Brother, you were a Freemason before that time when you formally received that designation, and you were fulfilling Masonic duties before you had taken the obligation between our hands. The square that we bear is the symbol of the rectitude of our actions; the apron represents a life of labor and of useful activity; the white gloves express candor, innocence, and the purity of our actions; the trowel serves to cover up the defects of the Brethren; all these are relating to benevolence and love of humanity, and consequently, only expressing the qualities that distinguish you. We are but able to unite you with us, and of receiving you with the tribute of our admiration and of our recognition."

The Kodesh Hakodashim, "Holy of Holies"..........

2010-05-01T14:22:00.006-04:00

The Kodesh Hakodashim, "Holy of Holies", the most sacred site in traditional Judaism, is the inner sanctuary within the Tabernacle and Temple in Jerusalem when Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple were standing. Traditional Judaism regards the location where the inner sanctuary was originally located, on the Temple Mount in Mount Moriah, as retaining some or all of its original sanctity for use in a future Third Temple. The exact location of the Kadosh Hakadashim is a subject of dispute.

The Kadosh Hakadashim was located in the westernmost end of the Temple building, being a perfect cube: 10 cubits by 10 cubits, by 10 cubits. The inside was in total darkness and contained the Ark of the Covenant, gilded inside and out, in which were placed the Tablets of the Covenant, the Rod of Aaron and a pot of manna. The Ark was covered with a gilded lid known as the "mercy seat" for the Divine Presence. When the Temple was rebuilt after the Babylonian captivity, the Ark was no longer present in the Holy of Holies; instead, a portion of the floor was raised slightly to indicate the place where it had stood. Josephus records that Pompey profaned the Temple by insisting on entering the Holy of Holies.

The Holy of Holies was hidden by a veil, and no one was permitted to enter except the High Priest, and even he could only enter once a year on Yom Kippur, to offer the blood of sacrifice and incense before the mercy seat.

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Solomon's strong alliance with Hiram I, King of Tyre, greatly assisted him in his numerous undertakings. Many of the materials and professional craftsmen for the construction of the Temple, were brought over from Tyre, including the chief architect, also named Hiram, who was sent especially to Jerusalem by the King of Tyre to assist in the construction. The description of the Temple is remarkably similar to that of surviving remains of other temples of the time, and it is certainly plausible, that Solomon was influenced by the architecture of the region.
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Only High Priests were allowed into the Holy of Holies.
Hiram Abiff was not a High Priest.
Hiram Abiff was an architect, not a "mason/laborer".

Could Hiram Abiff been trespassing on Holy grounds every day at noon?
Could the 3 Ruffians have been guards of the Holy of Holies, and since Hiram was not a MM nor a High Priest, he could not have had the Password nor the right to tread on such Holy Grounds?

So, when confronted by the Ruffians/Guards of the Sanctum Sanctorum, and asked for the secret/password, he had no answer, and tried to escape/flee and was caught?

THE INVISIBLE CARPENTER

2010-04-16T08:25:00.009-04:00

Let us suppose that a carpenter wishes to build a house wherein to live. He selects a place whereon to build and brings the materials thither, then with the tools of his trade he commences to lay the foundation. Gradually the walls are put up, the roof put on, the inside completed and the structure finished.

During all the time while he is working, a dog,

which is an intelligent spirit belonging to another and later life-wave of evolution, watches his actions and the whole process of construction and sees the house gradually take shape and reach completion. But it lacks the proper understanding of what he is doing and of what is the ultimate purpose in his mind.

Let us now suppose that the dog were unable to see the carpenter or to hear the noise made by his hammer and other tools. Then it would be in the same relation to this builder, as humanity at large is to the Architect of the Universe and the forces which work under His command. For the dog would then see only the materials coming together slowly and taking shape,

finally forming a finished structure.

Humanity
also sees the silent growth of plant, of beast and of bird, but is unable to understand what causes this physical growth and the changes in the visible universe, for it does not see the immense army of invisible workmen who are silently toiling in the soundless silence to bring about these results.
Nor do they respond to the call of anyone who has not the sign and the word of power, no matter how high his standing or station in the world.

2 Chronicles 7 The Dedication of the Temple

2010-04-15T08:24:00.009-04:00

2 Chronicles 7
The Dedication of the Temple

" 1 Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the LORD filled the house.

2 And the priests could not enter into the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD had filled the LORD's house.

3 And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the LORD upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever.

4 Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD.

5 And king Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty and two thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep: so the king and all the people dedicated the house of God.

6 And the priests waited on their offices: the Levites also with instruments of musick of the LORD, which David the king had made to praise the LORD, because his mercy endureth for ever, when David praised by their ministry; and the priests sounded trumpets before them, and all Israel stood.

7 Moreover Solomon hallowed the middle of the court that was before the house of the LORD: for there he offered burnt offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings, because the brasen altar which Solomon had made was not able to receive the burnt offerings, and the meat offerings, and the fat.

8 Also at the same time Solomon kept the feast seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt.

9 And in the eighth day they made a solemn assembly: for they kept the dedication of the altar seven days, and the feast seven days.

10 And on the three and twentieth day of the seventh month he sent the people away into their tents, glad and merry in heart for the goodness that the LORD had shewed unto David, and to Solomon, and to Israel his people.

11 Thus Solomon finished the house of the LORD, and the king's house: and all that came into Solomon's heart to make in the house of the LORD, and in his own house, he prosperously effected.

12And the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice.

13 If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people;

14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

15 Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place.

16 For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there for ever: and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.

17 And as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and shalt observe my statutes and my judgments;

18 Then will I stablish the throne of thy kingdom, according as I have covenanted with David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man to be ruler in Israel.

19 But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them;

20 Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations.

21 And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it; so that he shall say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and unto this house?

22 And it shall be answered, Because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them."

The one question I have, is who was the Lord referencing when making this staement in Line 19: 'But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them;"

Who are these Gods that Jehova is jealous of?

FREEMASONRY IN THE LIFE AND TIMES OF POPE PIUS IX

2010-04-07T07:31:00.004-04:00

FREEMASONRY IN THE LIFE AND TIMES OF POPE PIUS IX
by Father Leonard Feeney
M. I. C. M.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IN THE YEAR 1792, on May thirteenth, in the ancient Italian seaport town of Sinigaglia, high up on its perch overhanging the Adriatic Sea, there was born to the Mayor of the city, Count Girolamo Mastai-Ferretti and his wife, the Countess Caterina, their seventh child, Giovanni-Maria Giovanni-Battista Pietro Isidoro. The year 1792 was an ominous one, as far as the world outside the castle of the Mastai-Ferretti’s was concerned, and it would forever overshadow the life of little John Mary Mastai-Ferretti, one day to become the great Pope Pius IX and to rule the Church of Jesus Christ from the throne of Peter for thirty-two years, the longest pontificate of any Pope except Peter.
He would, this boy born in the tragic year of 1792 — gently nurtured, sensitive, generous, gay, loving, pure, true-hearted, possessing great charm and great good looks, taught as a child to revere the poor, deeply devoted to the Church and known for his constant and absorbing love of the Blessed Virgin Mary — live all his days surrounded by revolution; revolution diabolically planned and sustained, the like of which never before was seen. The unbelievably horrible French Revolution, the first in the satanic plan to tear down the thrones and altars of Christendom, was already three years old in the year 1792, when John Mary Mastai-Ferretti was born.

It is not at all surprising that the French Revolution, about which we in America, as if by a gigantic conspiracy, have been taught so little of the real truth, should be visited upon the land which had allowed its king — in his mad passion to place himself above and beyond the jurisdiction of the Vicar of Christ — to cause the death of Pope Boniface VIII. It is true that France remained nominally Catholic both during and after the Protestant revolt, but it never as a nation quite returned, even in the periods of Catholic revival, to its old purity of Faith and its old filial devotion to the Popes, which had been its crowning mark before the outrage and death of Pope Boniface VIII in 1303.

It was France’s voice which, in the fifteenth century, through the University of Paris and its sons, John Gerson and Peter d’Ailly, was loudest in proclaiming the Pope inferior to, and therefore subject to, a general council of the Church! It was France’s “Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges” which not only insisted on the supremacy of a council over the Pope, but practically deprived the Pope of any jurisdiction over the French Church. “Gallicanism,” or the equivalent of what would amount to a French National Church, independent of the Holy See, was not very far off, after that.

It was the traitorous political ambition of France which set up Protestantism permanently in Europe. It was France’s Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642), Prime Minister and real ruler of the country under Louis XIII, who, to ensure the political victory of France in Europe, took the side of the Protestant Princes of Germany against the Catholic Emperor, Ferdinand II, at the most critical moment of the Thirty Years’ War between the forces of Protestantism and Catholicism. Cardinal Richelieu hired the Protestant military genius, Gustavus Adolphus, for five tubs of gold (approximately two million dollars), to enter the war against the Catholics. The defeat of Ferdinand made forever impossible his dream of a Europe united again as one family by the Faith, so close to realization but for the treachery of the French Cardinal.

It was France who, in 1682, under its absolute monarch, Louis XIV and his subservient clergy, more loyal to their King than to their God, passed the famous Four Gallican Articles, which again not only practically withdrew France from the jurisdiction of the Pope, but declared in effect that Christ’s Vicar was not infallible. And even though Louis XIV withdrew the articles after two Popes had condemned them and his country had been interdicted, Gallicanism was by then deeply and firmly established in the thought of the people. It would, along with the Jansenist heresy (a species of Calvinism within the Church) — and the shocking looseness of morals both of Louis XIV and his great-grandson and successor, Louis XV, of their courts and of French society generally — disastrously weaken the Faith and prepare France for the religious skepticism and free thought already prevailing in England and Germany.

In the literary hands of the Freemason Voltaire and the equally anti-Christian writer Rousseau, along with the French Encyclopedists who were in the pay of Frederick the Great of Prussia, also a Freemason, this “free thought” would usher in the “Age of Enlightenment” in France and lead straight to the sheer atheism and diabolical mockery of God of the terrible French Revolution.

It was precisely at the hour in history when France, now the leading nation of the world, was giving to that world the spectacle of a dissolute Catholic King, Louis XV, who with his court lived lives of such shameless corruption that they rivaled in depravity even the notoriously wicked courts of Catherine of Russia and Frederick of Prussia — when the vices of royalty had passed down through the nobles and bourgeoisie even to the poor, and the seed of Lucifer gave every appearance of triumphing over the seed of Mary — that God allowed a scourge to come upon Europe, just as He had permitted the scourge of Mohammedanism to ravage the heretical and sinful East in the seventh and succeeding centuries. Indeed, the scourge which brought about the temporary chastisement of Europe in the eighteenth century, although it crossed the Channel and entered the Continent decked out in new clothes carefully refashioned and tailored in London, had its origins very definitely in the East. Its symbols, its ceremonies, its dress, its traditions, its rituals, all were Eastern. William Thomas Walsh, writing in his book, Philip II, said of the degrees and rituals of Freemasonry that they “are shot through with Jewish symbolism: the candidate is going to the East, towards Jerusalem, he is going to rebuild the Temple, destroyed in fulfillment of the prophecy of Christ ... The official coat of arms of the English Grand Lodge, even to this day, is the one made in 1675 by Rabbi Jacob Jehuda Leon, known as Templo, who went from Holland to England that year.”

Modern Freemasonry — for such is the scourge — came into being in England in 1717, when the ancient Catholic guild of working masons, Protestantized long since in England, but existing in Great Britain and Europe for many centuries, was revised. Its professional, laboring character was dropped, and it emerged a philosophical, pseudo-religious secret society, its formulas, ceremonies and traditions all pointing to a Jewish origin, although its new constitutions and ritual were drawn up by a Scotch Presbyterian minister, James Anderson, and a Huguenot refugee minister, John T. Desaguliers, and its Grand Master, in 1722, was the profligate, thoroughly immoral Duke of Wharton who everywhere was reputed to be “from no vice exempt.”

It was in 1725 that the new Freemasonry spread to Paris, in 1728 to Madrid, in 1729 to Ireland, in 1731 to the Hague, in 1733 to Hamburg, in 1736 to Germany, and so on, to Italy.

Voltaire became a Freemason in England, around 1727, and on his return to France did everything in his power to spread it among the nobility and intellectuals. Unspeakably immoral, both in his life and in his writings, the intimate of Frederick the Great, because of the use Frederick could make of his extraordinary ability to write, Voltaire shared the Prussian King’s consuming hatred of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church. It was their constant cry that the “Christian religion is an infamous religion. It must be destroyed by a hundred invisible [sic] hands. It is necessary that the philosophers should course through the streets to destroy it as missionaries course over the earth and sea to propagate it. They ought to dare all things, risk all things, even to be burned, in order to destroy it. Let us crush the wretch! Crush the wretch! Écrasez l’infâme!”

Freemasonry spread like wildfire over Europe. It became the rage in Paris. The nobility and some members of the higher clergy — especially in France where Gallicanism and Jansenism had, in the century before, as we have seen, prepared the ground for the perpetual ridicule of religion and all its institutions, including even holy matrimony, which, in the 1700’s, was the order of the day — were perversely fascinated by the doctrines of Freemasonry, and they entered its lodges in great numbers. Later, many of them, when all their theoretical dreams were come true, at the height of the Revolution found themselves mounting the bloody steps to the guillotine, ruefully facing at last the bitter truth that they had, along with the downfall of the Pope and the existing order, plotted their own destruction.

The teachings of Freemasonry spread far and wide the spirit of revolt not only against the authority of the Vicar of Christ, but against the authority of the State, as well. In the third quarter of the 1700’s, a new and even more sinister element was added. This was the “Illuminism,” so-called, of Adam Weishaupt, a professor of canon law in the University of Ingolstadt, in Bavaria, which gave to Masonry the mold and lasting form by which it has, despite all opposition, come down to us today and by which “it will advance until its final conflict with Christianity must determine whether Christ or Satan shall reign on this earth to the end.”

Weishaupt’s way, which is still the way of the Masonic lodges today, was first to entice men into his organization through its lowest degrees. As Monsignor Dillon explained in his famous Edinburgh lectures:

A man, though in Masonry, may not be willing to become an atheist or a Socialist, for some time at least. He may have in his heart a profound conviction that God exists, and some hope left of returning to that God at or before his death. He may have entered Masonry for purposes of ambition, for motives of vanity, from mere lightness of character. He may continue his prayers and refuse, if a Catholic, to give up the Mother of God and some practice of piety loved by him from his youth. But Masonry is a capital system to wean a man gradually away from all these things. It does not at once deny the existence of God, nor at once attack the Christian dispensation. It commences by giving the Christian idea of God an easy and, under semblance of respect, an almost imperceptible shake. It swears by the name of God in all its oaths. It calls Him, however, not a Creator, only an architect — the great Architect of the universe. It carefully avoids all mention of Christ, of the Adorable Trinity, of the unity of Faith, or of any faith. It protests a respect for the convictions of every man, for the idolatrous Parsee, for the Mohammedan, the heretic, the Jew, the schismatic, the Catholic. By and by, in higher degrees, it gives a ruder shock to the belief in the Deity, and a gradual inducement to favor Naturalism.
As time goes on, the man who manifests any real religious depth or signs of conscience never goes beyond the lower degrees. He remains instead a member of the rank and file of Masonry, of the respectable front presented to the world, but he and his kind are never trusted with the real secret. On the other hand, those who meet the Masonic requirements, who are possessed of no fine moral sensibilities, proceed in the ways of irreligion, immorality, espionage and occult science until they arrive at the advanced degrees and are let in on more and more of the frightfully guarded secrets of the Order.
But, and this is more than ever true in our day, the visible leaders of Masonry — and of all the secret societies which are but subsidiary to it — are never the real leaders! For beyond the visible leaders there is an inner circle, organized on Masonic lines, whose members are hidden and unknown to the public. Beyond this inner circle, there is another and still more secret ring. At last, at the very top, there sits the lone head and his small — six at most — carefully chosen coterie of advisers, who direct the invisible government, not only of Masonry, but of the world. These men are known to but very few on Earth.

At the great coming together of the Masonic bodies from all over the world at the so-called Congress of Wilhelmsbad on July 16, 1782, Adam Weishaupt gained control of all the secret societies of the Congress, which at that time — only sixty-five years after Masonry’s modern revision — represented the amazing total, of three million members! Weishaupt next succeeded in allying Illuminism and Freemasonry, an alliance which has been of the darkest significance for the world. It is impossible to exaggerate the depths of its power for evil. For the face which has looked out upon the world from behind the mask of Illuminized Freemasonry, from that day to this, is none other than the face of Lucifer himself.

This is the enemy whom Pope Leo XIII saw in the vision which caused him to faint in terror for the world. This is the enemy whom he named in his encyclical, Humanum Genus, in which he wrote to his sons, the Bishops:

We wish it to be your rule first of all to tear away the mask from Freemasonry, and to let it be seen as it really is, and by sermons and pastoral letters to instruct the people as to the artifices used by societies of this kind in seducing men and enticing them into their ranks ...
This it was which caused Pope Saint Pius X to cry out in his very first encyclical:
So extreme is the general perversion that there is room to fear that we are experiencing the foretaste and beginnings of the evils which are to come at the end of time, and that the Son of Perdition, of whom the Apostle speaks, has already arrived upon Earth.
This it was which caused the Editor of the Acta Sanctae Sedis (Acts of the Holy See), writing for the July 13, 1865 issue, to say:
If one takes into consideration the immense development which these secret societies have attained; the length of time they are persevering in their vigor; their furious aggressiveness; the tenacity with which their members cling to the association and to the false principles it professes; the persevering mutual cooperation of so many different types of men in the promotion of evil; one can hardly deny that the Supreme Architect of these associations (seeing that the cause must be proportioned to the effect) can be none other than he who in the sacred writings is styled the Prince of the World; and that Satan himself, even by his physical cooperation, directs and inspires at least the leaders of these bodies, physically cooperating with them.
It was at the Congress of Wilhelmsbad that Masonry became “one organized atheistic mass, while being permitted to assume many fantastic shapes.” The Knights Rosicrucian, the Templars, the Knights of Beneficence, the Brothers of Amity, and many, many others, subversive and irreligious as each was in its own right, now were united to the body of Illuminized Freemasonry. All would have, under whatever name and whatever form they chose, the same counterfeit respect for religion, the same apparent acceptance of the Bible, the same outward zeal for the care of widows and orphans, the ill and the destitute. All would have the same terrible oaths of secrecy; all would have some variety of the same fantastic, Asiatic, Hebrew and Turkish ceremonial, “to which any meaning from the most silly to the deepest and darkest could be given.” All would have the same ascending degrees, although the number might vary, and all would have the same fearful death penalty for the violation of secrets, for indiscretion, and for treason.
All the high initiates would have, unknown to their brothers of lower degrees, the same program for the annihilation of all religion, of all love of country and all loyalty to sovereigns. All would strive for the abolition of monarchy and ordered government, the abolition of private property and inheritance, the abolition of marriage and morality, and the institution of required government education of children. (This plan, as we know, is being fully worked out in our time.)

It was at the Congress of Wilhelmsbad that the Jews were emancipated, as the result of a carefully produced wave of pro-Semitism which broke over Europe in the wake of a book, Upon the Civil Amelioration of the Condition of the Jews, written by a man named Dohrn under the direction of Moses Mendelssohn and brought out in August of 1781. “This book,” we are told, “had a considerable influence on the revolutionary movement. It is the trumpet call of the Jewish cause, the signal for the step forward.”

The Jews, whose function of abettor and overseer at the births of Freemasonry and Illuminism had been performed in the role of privileged servant, were now, at the Congress of Wilhelmsbad, admitted on full equality to the family circle. And the Jewish influence, as Father Edward Cahill, S. J., brings out in his book, Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement, soon became one of the main driving forces behind Masonry. It is the influence which today dominates the whole organization.

At Wilhelmsbad, it was decided to move the headquarters of Illuminized Freemasonry to Frankfurt, significantly at that time the headquarters of Jewish finance, with the familiar name of Rothschild already well in the lead. It was at Frankfurt that the incredible plans for world revolution were perfected, with France chosen to be first on the list and Italy soon to follow. It was at Frankfurt that the deaths of Louis XVI of France and Gustavus III of Sweden were resolved upon.

The diabolical certainty with which all these schemes of the enemies of Christianity came off, exactly on schedule, is startling! They did achieve the French Revolution, and it was the most atrocious, cruel and bloody massacre the world had ever seen up to that time. In 1792, the year in which Pope Pius IX was born, in the “September Massacres,” three hundred assassins from the Paris underworld and Paris jails, mad with dope and drink and lust for blood, massacred, amidst indescribable orgies and satanic abandon, the Archbishop of Arles, two bishops, four hundred priests and monks, one thousand Catholic nobles, and eight thousand citizens, in Paris alone. At Meaux, Châlons, Rennes and Lyons, similar scenes were taking place.

They did, these enemies of Jesus Christ, during all of the next century — particularly in 1830, 1848 and 1870 — cause revolutions all over Europe and the world. They did attack Italy. They did seize the Papal States and conquer Rome. They boasted that the papacy was no more, and in that they were, and always will be, devastatingly wrong, but they did bring off their scheduled revolution in Russia, in 1917, and the unparalleled revolution of the First World War, in 1914, when twenty-seven nations were joined in bloody combat and 37,508,686 men were killed, wounded, crippled and taken prisoner; when the Masonically conceived League of Nations was foisted on the world by the President of the United States, the Freemason Woodrow Wilson, under the influence of his fellow Masons, Colonel E. M. House and Mr. Bernard Baruch. Mr. Baruch ever since, as the publicized “Elder Statesman and Adviser to Presidents,” has directed from behind the scenes the government of the United States, whether Democratic or Republican.

They did, these terrible enemies of the Church, achieve the revolution of the Second World War, in 1939, and its carefully directed outcome, that twin sister of the League of Nations, the even more sinister United Nations, through which every country of the world lies now in imminent danger of losing its sovereignty and becoming part of the long planned, diabolically schemed, One World Government, whose aim is finally to enslave the whole Earth!

That the French Revolution of 1789 was plotted and carried out by the Illuminized Freemasons, there is no need to establish since the Masons openly boast about it themselves. All of the Revolution’s apostles and leaders were Masons: Voltaire, Rousseau, Lafayette — the American Revolutionary War hero of whom Marie Antoinette, after many betrayals of the King at his hands, cried out, “Better perish than be saved by Lafayette!” Talleyrand — the apostate Catholic bishop who consecrated the first constitutional bishops of the Revolution in spite of the decree of Pope Pius VI in 1791 declaring the automatic suspension of any priest or bishop who took the oath to maintain the civil constitution drawn up for the Church in France by the Revolutionary government, for the sole purpose of completely subjecting the Church to the domination of the State. “Separation of Church and State” has ever meant but one thing to the revolutionaries: Control of the Church by the State, and to that end they have, successfully, popularized their slogan, “Separation of Church and State,” until Catholics look upon it almost as a dogma.

The members of the terrible Jacobin Club of Paris and the leaders of the Reign of Terror, Danton, Marat and Robespierre, all were Masons. The throne was betrayed by Philip, Duke of Orleans, the first Grand Master of the Grand Orient Lodge of France, and blood relative of King Louis XVI.

It was well known in every country of Europe that the cause of the French Revolution could not be attributed to the abuses of the ancient regime. In Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette — despite the tower of calumnies raised against the beautiful Queen of France by the powerful Masonic enemies who plotted the country’s downfall through this lively and charming daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, calumnies perpetuated by the biased and silly English literature through which the story of her life has come to Americans — France had at last a thoroughly good King and Queen. They were good Catholics, this tragic husband and wife, good sovereigns, and good parents to their beloved children. And they had worked hard, the King to wipe out abuses and the Queen to dispense charity to the poor, whom she loved. She did not, at any time, ever say of the poor those foolish words which are, in America, a byword whenever her name is mentioned, “Let them eat cake!”

The Revolution’s purpose was not to uproot abuses, but to destroy the monarchy and overthrow Christian society. And it accomplished both. The Revolution took the lives of the King and Queen of France, both of whom died nobly. “I forgive the authors of my death,” Louis said, “may my blood never be avenged upon France.” And it is told of Marie Antoinette that she carried herself, during the last days of her life and during the terrible hours before her execution, with the heroic fortitude of a martyr and the calm dignity of a saint. Their little son, Louis XVII, died miserably later, in a cobbler’s shop.

America knew, in 1798 at least, the cause of the French Revolution. After the Terror had spent itself — after the terrible de-Christianizing of France, when its churches had been desecrated and closed, the adorable Sacrament of the Altar blasphemed, a notorious prostitute adored on the main altar of Notre Dame as the Goddess of Reason, when “streetwalkers dressed in chasubles, and donkeys laden with sacred relics had passed through the streets,” when the rivers and roads ran red with the blood of the guillotined, when Danton, and Marat and Robespierre, at last had followed each other to the death they had so mercilessly dealt out day after day to countless poor victims, when the National Convention had given way to the Directory, and the Directory was about to give way to the Consulate of Napoleon — Timothy Dwight, President of Yale, addressed the people of New Haven:

No personal or national interest of man has been uninvaded [in the French Revolution]; no impious sentiment of action against God has been spared; no malignant hostility against Christ and His religion has been unattempted. Justice, truth, kindness, piety, and moral obligation universally have been not merely trodden underfoot ... but ridiculed, spurned and insulted. ... For what end shall we be connected with men of whom this is the character and conduct? ... Is it that our churches may become temples of reason, our Sabbath a decade, and our psalms of praise Marseillaise hymns? ... Shall our sons become the disciples of Voltaire and the dragoons of Marat, or our daughters the concubines of the Illuminati?
It was in such a world of revolution that Pope Pius IX grew to manhood. In 1798, when he was but six years old, a French army, for the third time in two years, marched into Italy. It entered Rome, pronounced Pope Pius VI deposed as temporal sovereign, and proclaimed the Papal States a Republic! While the Pope was pleading with his captors to be allowed to remain and die in Rome — he was then eighty years old — and his enemies, having insolently refused him, were plundering his room and tearing from his finger his episcopal ring, outside in the Roman streets a statue, of the goddess of liberty trampling underfoot the papal tiara and the sacred symbols of the Faith, was being set up at an entrance to the Bridge of Sant’ Angelo; the papal coat of arms was being painted, amid howls of lewd laughter, on the drop curtain of a popular Roman theater; the sacred vessels which had been stolen from the altars of churches were being used in the wild orgies which were going on all over Rome to celebrate the Republic. The Revolution, indeed, had moved on, according to plan, from Paris to Rome!
Pope Pius VI died, in 1799, at Valence, on the Rhone River, a prisoner of the French. And hearts were heavy with sorrow and foreboding in the castle of the Mastai-Ferretti’s, high up in Sinigaglia, on the Adriatic Sea, in the Papal State of the Marches.

Pope Pius VII, whose pontificate opened on March 14, 1800, and closed with his death on August 20, 1823, when he was eighty-three years old, was to prove the greatly loved father and friend of Giovanni-Maria Mastai-Ferretti. Pope Pius VII, like his predecessor whose name he had taken, would also suffer exile and imprisonment at the hands of the masters of revolution. And for all of the long and weary twenty-three years of Pius’ pontificate, Giovanni-Maria Mastai-Ferretti — as a schoolboy of thirteen in the college of Volterra, in Tuscany, as a lad of seventeen stricken with epilepsy at the height of all his young promise — would be poignantly aware of his Holy Father’s suffering, humiliation and trial, little realizing that he was to follow upon the same road, bearing the same burdens, occupying even the same bishopric of Imola, on his way to the bishopric of Rome.

Pope Pius VII was to suffer, as had Pope Pius VI, and as would Pope Pius IX, the loss of the patrimony which for fifteen centuries had belonged to the Popes, the saviors of Rome and the founders of Western Civilization. But to Pio Nono, as Pope Pius IX was affectionately called by the whole world, the patrimony of Saint Peter would not be given back.

Although popularly it has been said that the French Revolution and its anti-Christian program came to a close with the rise of Napoleon and the restoration by him of the practice of the Catholic Faith, forbidden under the Directory, the Revolution, as planned for the world, was very far from ended in 1800, when the pontificate of Pope Pius VII opened and the consulate of Napoleon Bonaparte began. For Napoleon, military genius though he might be and remarkable leader of men, was a Freemason, a member of the lodge of the Templars, the extreme Illuminated Lodge of Lyons. He had been created by Masonry, and he must do its bidding. As long as he was obedient to his masters, France would be his, all Europe would be his. His armies would meet with the fabulous success which has ever since been the talk of the world, for, coupled with his own extraordinary gifts, Masonry’s all-seeing, all-knowing eye would have taken care that, as Father Dillon says:

... the resources of the enemies of Napoleon were never at hand, the designs of the Austrian and other generals opposed to him were thwarted, treason was rife in their camps, and information fatal to their designs was conveyed to the French commander. ... But when Masonry had reason to fear that Napoleon’s power might be perpetuated; when his alliance with the Imperial Family of Austria, and above all, when the consequence of that alliance, an heir to his throne, caused danger to the universal republic ... when, too, he began to show a coldness for the sect, and sought means to prevent it from the propagandism of its diabolical aims, then it became his enemy, and his end was not far off. ... His opponents began to get that information regarding his movements, which he had obtained previously of theirs. Members of the sect urged on his mad expedition to Moscow. His resources were paralyzed; and he was ... sold by secret, invisible foes into the hands of his enemies.
And so we see that it was not for the honor and glory of God that Napoleon had, in 1802, made Catholic worship once more lawful in France, but rather because his appointed mission was to restore order again to the country, and he knew that it was only with the aid of the Church that he would, for the time being, be able to accomplish it. It is interesting to note that among the decrees which Napoleon added to the Concordat of 1802 between France and the Holy See (but which additions were never accepted by Pope Pius VII) there appear the old Gallican Articles of 1682, which were to be taught in the schools of theology; clergy violating these articles were to be punished by the State!
Actually, despite the ban of the Popes, the Gallican Articles were being taught at the time in all the French theological schools, and it is upon Gallicanism that the great French Catholic, the Count de Maistre, lays the blame for “the withering of Catholicism in France and all the evils which have befallen her, and, through her, all of Europe.” Gallicanism, indeed! Gallicanism, the old sin of Lucifer, whose “I will not serve!” is the battle cry of Hell. Gallicanism amply paved one of the great highways leading to the Judaized Freemasonry of the eighteenth and subsequent centuries.

And so it is not surprising to find that Napoleon’s whole aim, after the Concordat, was to secure for the State full control over all relations between the French Church and the Holy See. Insult to the Holy Father followed upon insult. In 1809, the troops of Napoleon — First Consul no longer, but Emperor since 1804 — occupied the Papal States, which then became part of the French Empire. Pope Pius VII excommunicated Napoleon after that, and the Emperor, enraged, wrote to his wife Josephine’s son, Eugene, whom he had made Viceroy of Italy, “Does he not know that the times are greatly changed? Does he mistake me for Louis the Mild? Or does he think that his excommunications will cause the arms to drop from the hands of my soldiers?”

Four years later, in 1813, the arms did drop from the hands of Napoleon’s soldiers, become either too weak or too frozen any longer to clasp them, as the hitter cold and gnawing famine of the terrible retreat from Moscow took toll, not only of their arms, but of their lives. And in April of 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte, who had ill learned the wisdom of the old French proverb: “Qui mange le Pape, meurt!” (Who eats the Pope, dies!), signed his abdication in the very Castle of Fontainebleau where for so long he had held Christ’s Vicar, Pope Pius VII, a prisoner.

The month following Napoleon’s abdication, Pope Pius VII returned in triumph to Rome. He had stopped on his way at Sinigaglia, where he was treated with great reverence by the Mastai-Ferretti family. Giovanni-Maria accompanied the hero-Pontiff on the remainder of his journey, and he rejoiced when the Pope’s party went out of its way to stop at the Holy House of Loreto, to pay homage to God’s Mother, for it was in her own little Nazareth house, now tenderly enshrined in the handsome basilica built at Loreto to hold it, that Our Lady had answered miraculously the prayers of Giovanni-Maria and his mother, and had cured his epilepsy.

It was Pope Pius VII who, in 1819, when Giovanni-Maria’s ordination was in question because of the impediment of epilepsy, said to him as he knelt before him awaiting his final decision, “We grant you what you ask, dear son, because it is our conviction that this disease will never again afflict you.” And never again did the dread malady trouble the life of Giovanni-Maria Mastai-Ferretti — never, through all his succeeding years, as priest in Rome, as counselor to the Apostolic Delegate to Chile, as domestic prelate, as Archbishop of Spoleto, as Bishop of Imola, and as Cardinal-Archbishop.

He was very much beloved by his people in each of these assignments. When he was transferred from Spoleto to Imola, in February, 1833, so heartbroken were the people of Spoleto at losing him that they sent a delegation of citizens to Rome to beg Pope Gregory XVI to send some other bishop to Imola and leave with them their greatly loved shepherd. But the Holy Father was forced to refuse them, for the choice of the Archbishop of Spoleto for the see of Imola had been very carefully made. Imola, and the whole north of Italy, was seething with revolt — the backlash of the Masonically planned revolutions which had occurred throughout Europe in 1830 — and it was of the most urgent necessity that bishops be sent to the turbulent cities who would be able to win the love of the people and keep them safe from the designs of the secret societies.

For Italy was honeycombed with secret societies. Masonry had done its work with amazing success. The revolutionary clubs, which sprang up every month somewhere in the Italian States during the boyhood of Giovanni-Maria, and the many planned revolutionary movements within the Papal States, had gradually but thoroughly indoctrinated the Italian people. Everywhere now, in 1833, the false ideals of Liberalism — the name by which the revolutionary anti-Christian movement was most popularly known — were become indeed the breath and bone and thought and sinew of the once gay and happy Italian people. And as the century advanced, new Liberal fronts were opened up. Intellectual, Economic, Social, Political and Religious Liberalism, all fused together to make the nineteenth century the “Age of Liberalism.”

Liberalism’s roots are, it is true, to be found in Philip the Fair’s overthrow of papal authority, in the spirit of the Renaissance, and in the Reformation, but its evil flower came to full blossom under the satanic aegis of Freemasonry. Liberty, in the Masonic sense of license to do what one wants in every territory of life — with no spiritual restrictions — in the hands of the Masonic propagandists overturned, one after the other, the ancient institutions of Christendom. In vain, did the Popes say, “Human liberty does not mean the right to do anything one desires. It means, rather, freedom from restraint in doing what one ought to do; freedom to do what is right; freedom to obey the laws of God as laid down in Divine Revelation and as interpreted by His Vicar, His voice on Earth, the Holy Roman Pontiff.”

Religious Liberalism, perhaps we should pause to say, has three forms.

The first, Absolute Religious Liberalism, stems straight from the Freemason Rousseau, and is the fulfillment of all that Gallicanism — and its counterparts in other countries — ever implied. It advocates the complete subordination of the Church to the State, the Church being permitted to exist only so long as it continues to serve the temporal prosperity of the State!

The second form is Moderate Religious Liberalism. Its slogan, “a free Church in a free State,” is the one which Pope Pius IX fought so strenuously during all the long years which followed his exile in Gaeta. Moderate Liberalism does not speak of subordinating the Church to the State. It speaks only of separating the two, a concept which has been condemned by Pope Pius IX again and again, as we shall see.

The third form of Religious Liberalism is Catholic Liberalism, condemned many times by Pope Pius IX, even in his first encyclical, Qui pluribus, written on November 9, 1846, when he said of Catholic Liberalism, “ ... To this end is directed the dreadful system of religious indifference ... by means of which these crafty men, putting aside all distinction between virtue and vice, truth and error, honesty and baseness, deceitfully pretend that men can attain eternal salvation in the practice of any religion, just as if there could be any common part of justice with iniquity, or any fellowship of light with darkness, and an agreement of Christ with Belial ... ”

Pope Pius X, when he was Patriarch of Venice, warned his clergy:

Let priests be on their guard against accepting any doctrines of that Liberalism which, under pretext of good, aims at effecting a reconciliation between right and wrong.
Liberal Catholics are the great interfaith devotees, the one-religion-is-as-good-as-another advocates, who “have good friends among the Masons, and, papal pronouncements to the contrary notwithstanding, can vouch for them individually and collectively as being above reproach.” They know many Jews who, unbaptized and infidel though they be, are sure to go to Heaven!
And yet it is told about Pope Pius IX that, although appointment to the see of Imola had more often than not held for its bishop the promise of a cardinalate, Pope Gregory XVI waited for eight years before making Archbishop Mastai-Ferretti Cardinal-Archbishop (which he did in 1840), because Rome was uneasy about his reputed Liberalism. And it is true that when, on the sixteenth of June, 1846, in the fifty-fifth year of his life and the twenty-eighth of his priesthood, Cardinal Mastai-Ferretti, exceedingly handsome, gracious, kindly, smiling, and plentifully endowed with the gentle, winning courtesy of the true Italian, was elected Pope, the Liberal world — the world of revolution — rejoiced, and the truly Catholic world groaned.

The world of revolution rejoiced that at last a Liberal Pope had come to the Chair of Peter! The orthodox Catholic world groaned because it had learned from long experience the tragic lesson of which Pio Nono did not seem to be aware, namely, that there is no way of winning, by kindness in any form, the satanic hordes which, masked behind the deceptive, soothing, seductive lure of promises of progress, democracy, constitutionality, liberty, equality and fraternity, were tearing from their thrones every Catholic king in Christendom, were abolishing monarchies because monarchies had always been the support of individualism, were reducing to a low, common level every high Christian ideal, were confiscating monasteries, closing convents, legislating for government education of children, sending priests to state universities, dictating the course of studies in seminaries, filling episcopal sees without the authorization of the Pope, while — in order eventually completely to control them — they were flattering “the people” by telling them that the world was theirs to rule by divine right, theirs apart from any influence or restriction on the part of the Church, which Church, they assured them, had always been their enemy.

And when, immediately after his election, Pio Nono gave orders that the Jews should be let out of the ghetto, when he emptied the jails of the thousands of political prisoners placed there for the safety of society and turned loose upon the world incorrigible men who, entirely given over to the revolution and the Devil, would stop at no evil — mass murder, torture, rape, sacrilege, arson, calumny, intrigue, devil-worship — to effect the downfall of the Pope and the Church and the whole Christian order, and when the mobs, in a frenzy of gratitude and entirely mistaking his full purpose, milled around at night in the square before the Quirinal awaiting Pio Nono’s blessing, filling the air with their cries of “Evviva Pio Nono!” wise heads in Europe bowed in fear and consternation.

When Pope Pius IX had made the notoriously Liberal Cardinal Gizzi his Secretary of State, when his reforms included — besides his excellent provisions for the welfare of the Papal States and the education of children — a law establishing a free press, little realizing that the hundreds of newspapers which immediately sprang into being would, under Judaized Masonry’s control, be largely responsible for the downfall of his own civil authority as ruler of the Papal States and the vicious attacks made on his spiritual power; when he had relaxed the restrictions placed upon the Jews by his predecessors and had allowed them even to share in the Papal charities — the same Jews who would later join with the revolutionaries against him; when he had given in to the Liberals’ desire that laymen should replace the clergy in the Papal government posts; when he had approved a new Council of State made up of the younger prelates; when he had instituted one constitutional reform after another, into which the most inflamed revolutionaries underhandedly insinuated themselves — the Liberal and Protestant world applauded. England praised him to the skies, and he became the most fantastically acclaimed and popular man in the whole world!

And up in Austria, its wise, prudent and able old Chancellor, Prince Metternich — who, practically single-handed and alone, had, ever since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, staved off the enslavement of the Catholic Church and the countries of Europe, even though he was called a “reactionary” for doing so — shook his experienced head. He issued warning after warning to his Holy Father, Pope Pius IX, all of which went unheeded, and all of which a brokenhearted Pio Nono lived later to realize would have saved the day for his Papal States.

Finally, when Pope Pius IX granted a Civic Guard for Rome, even Cardinal Gizzi resigned, realizing what the Pope, in his credulous enthusiasm did not see, that putting arms in the hands of the people was tantamount, at that time, to arming the revolutionaries. Metternich completely despaired. Nor did the stories of the Pope’s angelic personal life, his purity, charity, preaching, devotions, console him. The old statesman wrote, in 1847, from the depths of his anguish:

The Pope reveals himself every day more and more lacking in practical sense. Born and nurtured in a liberal family, he has been formed in a bad school. A good priest, he has never turned his mind toward matters of government ... he has allowed himself, since he has assumed the tiara, to be taken and ensnared in a net from which he does not any longer know how to disentangle himself. And if matters follow their natural course now, he will be driven out of Rome.
Tragic and deplorable as all this is — for Metternich’s prophecy came true — we have the glad relief of knowing that Pio Nono’s Liberalism was political and not religious, except for two flares of unfortunate utterance which, characteristically, no one regretted more than he and no one tried harder to undo. And although, man being one and integral, life cannot ever be so departmentalized that thought in one territory does not flow over and influence another, nevertheless, in his allocution Ubi primum, given in secret consistory on the seventeenth of December, 1847, Pope Pius IX showed himself deeply distressed that he should have been declared to be Liberal in matters of the Faith.
Many enemies of the Catholic Faith direct their efforts in our time mainly to trying to bring to the same level of the doctrines of Christ any monstrous and extravagant opinions, or they try to mix these opinions with Catholic doctrine. And so they plot to propagate more and more that impious system of religious indifferentism. Finally — frightful to say — there are some who have offered such insult to our name and Apostolic dignity as not to hesitate to make us appear as sharers of their folly and as celebrated promoters of this wicked system.
These people ... conclude that we entertain kind feelings toward any manner of men, in such a way that we think that not only the sons of the Church, but others also, however foreign they may remain to Catholic unity, are equally on the way of salvation and can attain to eternal life. Words fail us, from very horror, in detesting and abhorring this new and horrible insult against us. ... Let, therefore, those who wish to be saved come to the pillar and ground of truth ... to the true Church of Christ which has, in its bishops and in the Supreme Head of all, the Roman Pontiff, a never-interrupted succession of Apostolic authority, whose first office it is to preach, to guard and to protect with all its might the doctrine preached by the Apostles in accordance with the commandment of Christ; which [Church] therefore has grown from the time of the Apostles in the midst of difficulties of every sort, and has flourished renowned through the whole Earth by the splendor of its miracles, enlarged by the blood of its martyrs, ennobled by the virtues of its confessors and virgins, strengthened by the testimonies and most wise writings of its Fathers, and will flourish in all the regions of the Earth, and will shine forth perfect in the unity of its Faith, of its Sacraments and of its sacred government. We who, though unworthy, govern in this supreme Chair of Peter the Apostle, in which Christ Our Lord placed the foundation of this His Church, shall never at any time whatsoever abstain from any pains and labors so as to bring, through the grace of Christ Himself, those who are ignorant and erring, to this one and only way of truth and salvation. Let them, moreover, who are against us remember, that Heaven and Earth shall indeed pass away, but nothing can ever pass away from the words of Christ, nor can anything be changed in the doctrine which the Catholic Church received from Christ to guard, protect and preach.

Pope Pius IX had already, in his first encyclical, Qui pluribus, of November 9, 1846, renewed the condemnations of his predecessors against “those baneful secret sects who have come forth from the darkness for the ruin and the devastation of the Church and State,” and in the same encyclical he condemned:
the dreadful doctrines ... by which men pretend that they can obtain eternal salvation in the observance of any religion whatsoever.”
He then exhorted his bishops to foster, with great firmness, in everyone “union with the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation, and obedience towards the Chair of Peter, on whom, as on a firm foundation, the whole Faith of our most holy religion rests.”
These are most reassuring proofs of orthodoxy, with no hint of religious Liberalism. As the year 1848 opened, however, Pope Pius IX was genuinely alarmed. For 1848 was again the year of Revolution, carefully dated, painstakingly planned and diabolically carried out. And the Pope, to his profound dismay, found himself everywhere acclaimed as on the side of the revolutionaries, everywhere counted as one with them, as everywhere the insurrectionists advanced to the cry of Viva Pio Nono! Throne after throne toppled, in the year 1848. Catholic ruler after Catholic ruler, whether he be the chancellor behind the throne or the president of a country, was forced to flee.

For the order had been sent out, the fuse had been lighted, by the supreme, secret head of Freemasonry, who at this time was none other than the to-all-appearances highly respectable, exquisitely appointed, last man in the world to suspect, British Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston! It was Lord Palmerston who made and broke the Masonic rulers of Europe. It was he who set up and hurled down the Freemason Emperor Napoleon III of France, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. It was Lord Palmerston who made and broke Mazzini — he of the great sad eyes, ascetic countenance, slender frame, and mien of a mystic and visionary, but who actually was Lucifer’s able first agent, the head of the dreaded secret society of the Carbonari, the lone founder of the bitterly anti-Catholic Young Italy, and the successor of the corrupt Italian nobleman who went under the assumed name of Nubius (whom Mazzini is said to have poisoned), who was the Grand Master of the Alta Vendita, which, as Monsignor Dillon tells us, “ruled the blackest Freemasonry of France, Germany and England.”

It was Lord Palmerston who aided the extraordinary rise of the Prussian Chancellor Prince Otto von Bismarck, and set the stage for his victory over Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War, the war which brought into being the German Empire of the Kaisers at the expense of the defeated Catholic Austria and France. It was Lord Palmerston who provided the Freemason Cavour, Prime Minister of Sardinia, with the money whereby that poor little Italian state, comprising Sardinia and Piedmont, would later war on Pio Nono and annex the Papal States, all Italy and finally Rome itself, and set up in the place of the Pope-King the rotund, bewhiskered little man, Victor Emmanuel, who, while claiming to be a Catholic, would, like any common thief, rob the Holy Father of the patrimony which was Saint Peter’s!

It was Palmerston’s England which would open its arms and accord a hero’s welcome to Mazzini and Garibaldi, fresh from the pillage and plunder and ravage of Italy. Garibaldi, whose face was “so like the face of the Christ of the Renaissance pictures that the students of Italy could not help but follow him,” and of whom the infamous, revolutionary 1866 Catechism in Italy uttered the following appalling blasphemy by way of diabolical parody:

Make the sign of the cross: In the name of the Father of my country, the Son of the people and the Spirit of liberty, Amen.
Q. Who has created you a soldier?

A. Garibaldi has created me a soldier.

Q. Who is Garibaldi?

A. Garibaldi is a spirit most generous, blessed of Heaven and Earth.

Q. How many Garibaldis are there?

A. There is only one Garibaldi.

Q. How many persons in Garibaldi?

A. In Garibaldi there are three persons really distinct: the Father of his country, the Son of the people and the Spirit of liberty.

Q. Which of the persons became man?

A. The second, i.e., the Son of the people.

Q. How was he made man?

A. He took a body and soul as we did in the most blessed womb of a woman of the people.

Some awful premonition of all this was in the heart of Pio Nono as the year 1848 began to unfold. In January, revolt broke out in Sicily, moved on from there to Naples, and finally included practically every Italian city, from Lombardy to the tip of the Peninsula. The Paris revolution, which for a while threatened to rival the days of 1789, broke out on the twenty-fourth of February. In March came the revolution in Vienna, and the flight, at last, of Metternich. One by one, the rulers of the small kingdoms and duchies and republics which comprised Italy — and upon the precarious existence of which the Supreme Directory of the Masons had placed their hopes for the eventual absorption of the Papal States in a Masonically controlled and united Italy under one carefully chosen head — were forced to grant constitutions, the first step in the whole plan. The Revolution’s leaders reasoned that once the Pope’s temporal power was over, his spiritual power soon would follow, and the institution of the papacy would be no more.
Finally, in March also, the sadly awakening, overly generous and trusting Pope found himself forced, too, to give in. On March 15, 1848, he granted a constitution to the Papal States. And the end was in sight! In April, the Piedmontese General, Durando, made a proclamation to his troops, deliberately and on his own authority placing Pope Pius IX behind a war against Austria (calculated to take advantage of the revolution going on in that country), and naming him as the leader of a crusade of all Italy against foreigners, with the end that Italy should become a united republic with the Pope as President!

All during April, matters went from bad to worse. The lay ministers of the papal government beseeched the Pope to declare war against Austria. The Cardinals in consistory opposed it. The ministry resigned, and Rome was immediately filled with armed men and milling, riotous mobs. The mobs were soon joined by the Pope’s Civic Guard! Pio Nono was virtually a prisoner in the Quirinal, and it was necessary to place a guard at the residences of the Cardinals day and night. The press and the Masonic clubs, which very much resembled the Jacobin clubs of the French Revolution, openly discussed an alliance with the Piedmontese Government and the necessity of abolishing then and there the papal rule!

It was at this moment that the scales fell from the eyes of the hitherto lavishly loved and popular “Liberal Pope,” Pio Nono. It was at this moment that the various masks fell from the face of the whole anti-Christian conspiracy, and Pope Pius IX saw beneath the Liberal, Radical, Progressive, Socialist-Communist fronts to the Thing that beneath all of them was plotting for the souls of men and the overthrow of the Church with malignant malice and consuming hatred. And the Holy Father at last realized that never could peace be made with It, never could It be converted, never could It be baptized, for the choice of the Father of Lies, the Progenitor of Evil and the Dispenser of Spiritual Deformity, in every one of its monstrous, hideous, revolting forms, is forever fixed against Him Who is All Truth, All Beauty and All Goodness.

* * * * *
Pio Nono was never again the same. In the thirty years which were to follow, he presented to the hordes of the ancient enemy of his beloved Blessed Virgin Mary a face of such implacable, unrelenting resistance that he became as universally hated by the Liberals, Protestants and Radicals all over the world as he had formerly been lauded by them.

On April 29, 1848, in an act of supreme courage, with reports of revolution coming to him, it seemed from every corner of the Earth, its roar reaching his ears most threateningly from beneath his own windows in the Quirinal, Pope Pius IX published the allocution which froze the smiles of adulation on the faces of the Liberals and the Radicals and turned them, in the space of seconds, into grim, deadly and dangerous enemies. For the Pope not only refused to declare war on Austria, since the Austrian people were one in the “undivided sentiment of his fatherly love,” but he disavowed any connection with Mazzini’s sly schemes for an Italian republic and he broke, once and for all, with the Risorgimento (Resurgence), the name given to the Italian Nationalist movement.

He warned all Italians against the “perfidious designs and counsels of men who would detach them from the obedience due their respective sovereigns.” “As to ourselves,” he went on, “we declare in the most solemn manner that all our thoughts, our cares, our endeavors, as Roman Pontiff, aim at enlarging continually the Kingdom of Christ, and not at extending the boundaries of the temporal principalities which Providence has bestowed on the Holy See for the sole dignity and free exercise of its supreme apostleship.”

Violence followed upon violence when it was fully realized that Pio Nono had served notice on the world that he was neither the knowing nor the unknowing leader of Liberalism. Young Italy and the secret societies under Mazzini raged, conspired and plotted. So did Cavour, the Prime Minister of Sardinia, for the interests of the Piedmontese. Lord Palmerston worked openly through his special envoy in Rome, Lord Minto, whose policy it became to encourage the most dangerous revolutionaries in Italy. Pio Nono was fully aware of all this, and to those who had the honesty and courage to reproach him with the folly of his former credulous and childlike trust in the success of his “reform program,” his vain belief that he could win by kindness where his predecessor, Pope Gregory XVI, had failed by severity, and his misplaced confidence in the “gratitude of the people,” he would answer simply that he was “very like the unwise and doting parents who had made over their goods to their children before their death, and are turned out of their house and home in their old age!”

“I am like the little shepherd boy,” he said, “who had for companion a great necromancer. The boy had seen him again and again call up the Devil, and had learned the formula of incantation. So he too one night tried the power of the spell. The evil one arose at his call, and the frightened child would fain have got rid of him, but he had not, however, learned the spell that could lay the fiend, who henceforth haunted and tormented him.”

September came, in that dreadful year of 1848, and on the sixteenth of the month Pio Nono appointed, as his Prime Minister, Count Pellegrino Rossi, the extraordinary man who, although born in Tuscany, had been, in turn, a revolutionary, a political exile, a Swiss politician, a professor of law at Paris, a member of the French Chamber of Peers, French Ambassador to Rome until the Paris revolution of 1848, confidant and close friend of Pio Nono, and now his Prime Minister. And by September, that month apparently so prized of revolutionaries, Mazzini’s “war of the people” had gotten well under way. In the streets of the cities of the north, hired revolutionaries were slaughtering government officers before the eyes of the people. Men were being hunted down like beasts, their bodies left to lie rotting where they had fallen.

Nevertheless, Count Rossi was able to get in long hours of work, straightening out the affairs of the Papal States. During all of October, the war was moving down from the north, and Rome was being agitated by every kind of wild rumor and political intrigue. The air was tense with mystery and the foreboding of evil. Rossi was warned early in November that revolt, bloody and terrible, was planned for the fifteenth, the day set for the opening of the Chambers at the Palace of the Cancelleria.

And as the month advanced and the number of the calumnies circulated about him multiplied — for the revolutionaries knew him to be a strong man and the greatest opposition to their plans for the seizure of the Papal States — and as the people everywhere, in the streets, restaurants, bars, the army and the Civic Guard, were more and more taken in by the inflammatory lies, the warnings to Rossi became more frequent and alarming. But the brave Minister remained firm in his resolve to open Parliament on the appointed day, and to open it himself in the name of the Pope-King.

By way of precaution, he reviewed the Carabinieri — the mounted soldiery — on the fourteenth, in the open square in front of Saint Peter’s, and he had them parade through the streets of Rome, little suspecting that every man had been won over to the enemy! During the night of the fourteenth, warning after warning reached him. “Do not go to the council hall! Death awaits you there!” wrote the Countess de Menon. “Do not leave your house! You shall be murdered!” the Duchess di Rignano begged him. But he continued, late into the night, to add the finishing touches to the speech which he had prepared for his delivery on the morrow.

And over in the slums of the Trastevere, across the Tiber, two leaders of Mazzini’s deadly Young Italy, Dr. Pietro Sterbini and Luigi Brunetti, the latter the son of the wily and evil “Ciceruacchio” whom Pio Nono had once unwittingly trusted, were practicing on the dead body of a recently murdered Italian precisely where and how to strike so as to divide the great artery of the neck, and so insure the instant death of the victim.

Morning came, and with it more warnings to Rossi and to his poor tortured wife. The Pope also had been warned, and threatened. He tried to persuade his Minister from going to the Parliament, and when finally he failed he begged him, “At least, do not be rash and expose yourself needlessly. You must spare our enemies a great crime, and me a sorrow that nothing could remedy!”

“I have no fear, Your Holiness,” Rossi answered him. “These men are cowards and will not dare carry out their threats. Only bless me, most Holy Father, and all shall be well.”

“I defend the cause of the Pope,” he told the Monsignor who stopped him at the door with still another warning, “and the cause of the Pope is the cause of God. I must and will go.”

At quarter past twelve, his carriage rumbled into the courtyard of the Palace of the Cancelleria. A battalion of the Civic Guard was drawn up in the square. And in the courtyard, a hissing, howling, completely hostile mob watched him step out and, with calm and unperturbed countenance and steady step, make for the stairs leading to the Council Chamber. Immediately, they pressed about him. Somewhere, a cry for help rang out, and as the attention of the guard was directed toward it, Ciceruacchio’s son, Luigi Brunetti, drove his waiting knife straight into the throat of the brave Minister of the Papal States.

But one man rushed to aid him, Righetti, the deputy minister of finance who had accompanied him. He raised him in his arms, the great, gaping hole in his neck visible for all to see, and he bore him to the rooms of Cardinal Guzzoli, nearby. A priest from a neighboring church reached him in time to give him the Last Sacraments. And a few moments later, he died.

Righetti, with tremendous courage, then rode through the mad crowd in the courtyard and the square, to the Quirinal, to the anguished Pope, the blood of the dead Premier still wet upon his clothes, his hands and his face. That night, lest his body be outraged in death, they secretly buried the fallen defender of the Vicar of Christ. And that night, too, the murderer of her husband was paraded in triumph before the home of the Countess Rossi, as she sat stunned and broken, with her children. The mob compelled her servants to light her house in celebration of their deed, as they venerated the knife which had achieved their purpose.

Pope Pius IX was now in the hands of his enemies. He was now completely in the power of the carefully planned Revolution, which sought not only his death, but the death of the papacy. One by one his Government had deserted him. The Carabinieri had gone over to the Revolution, broken open the jails and released upon the city frenzied and vicious criminals eager to shed the blood of one or many, for money. The Roman senators, Italian nobles, magistrates and officials, all of whom were indebted in one way or another to the Holy Father, abandoned him and fled to their estates in the country. Only the diplomatic corps were faithful. When they beheld the mob milling dangerously in the streets before the Quirinal on the day after the murder of Count Rossi, and the soldiers acting suspiciously, they came in a body to Pope Pius IX, prepared to lay down their lives to protect him — all, that is, with the exception of the ministers from Great Britain, Sardinia and America! They were conspicuously absent.

The Ambassadors arrived at the Quirinal just in time. When the republican deputies, headed by Galletti, the close personal friend of Mazzini, and the notorious Sterbini, the leader now of Young Italy, together with their “guard of honor” (twenty thousand of the Pontiff’s own troops) burst in upon the Pope — determined to force upon him the five impossible demands they had drawn up, consent to which would mean the end of the Papal States and cooperation with Mazzini’s anti-Christian regime — they found him surrounded by the pitiful few in all Rome who remained faithful in this terrible hour: one hundred of the Swiss Guard, two Cardinals — one the brave Cardinal Antonelli, who would follow the Holy Father into exile and serve as his Secretary of State through the desperate, sorrow-filled years ahead — a few priests, a few servants. Pio Nono was walking calmly up and down in the midst of them, prepared to die rather than give in.

He refused to treat with the revolutionaries. “Go, gentlemen,” the angry Ambassador from Spain, Martinez de la Rosa, told them, then. “And tell the leaders of this revolt that if they persist in their odious project they must march over my dead body to reach the sacred person of the Sovereign Pontiff. But tell them, too, that the vengeance of Spain will be terrible!”

Galletti went out, and on the very spot where Pio Nono had been wont to give them his blessing, during the days in which they thought he would give them everything they wanted — even eventually to handing over the Church which Jesus Christ had founded unto the end of time — the intimate of Mazzini told the people that the Pope had refused their demands. Immediately, a reign of terror broke out. The terrifying beat of drums sounded from every section of the city. It reached the ears of the Pope and his embattled few over the ominous thunder of the crowd. Soldiers, on foot and on horseback, Civic Guardsmen, crack troops back from war, all stormed the papal palace. Men scaled the walls of the Quirinal on long ladders. Twice the mob set it on fire. Bullets were aimed at the windows, and the valiant Swiss Guard returned the fire.

A group of sharpshooters sent a rain of rifle shot into the windows of the Pope’s anteroom, and at four O’ Clock in the afternoon, Bishop Palma was shot dead as he looked out, for a moment, from the window of his apartment. At eight O’ Clock, after the Civic Guard had brought up two heavy pieces of field artillery and trained them on the front gate, the Pope received a deputation bringing to him the “people’s ultimatum,” which was, that if he did not consent to the adoption of the five points previously submitted, they would break into the Quirinal and put to death every person found inside it with the single exception of His Holiness himself.

It was then that Pope Pius IX addressed the Ambassadors. He announced to them that, to avoid bloodshed and still more horrible crimes, he was forced to yield to the choice of a ministry his enemies had selected, which included Mazzini’s friend, Galletti, as Premier, and Sterbini as Minister of Commerce. “But at the same time,” the Holy Father declared in formal protest, “I wish you and all Europe to know that I do not even nominally take any part in the government, and that I remain absolutely a stranger to its acts. I have forbidden any abuse of my name. I have even forbidden the future use of the ordinary formulas.”

The Holy Father had not affixed his signature to the five-point program; that he would never do. On the eighteenth of November, the revolutionary government dismissed the Swiss Guards in spite of their protests, and the Vicar of Christ was left in the care of the murderous men who made up the Civic Guard. On the evening of the twenty-fourth of November, the French Ambassador, the Duke d’Harcourt, arrived in state at the Quirinal, and demanded an audience with His Holiness on urgent business. He was admitted to the Pope’s apartment and engaged him at once in earnest conversation.

Presently there came forth from the rooms of the Pontiff a simple parish priest in the company of Pio Nono’s servant, Filippani. They both entered, very quietly, a private passage, long and winding, leading to a small door which opened upon a dark and little-used corner of the Quirinal courtyard, in which, on this night, there was waiting an old horse-drawn cab. But first, before the cab could be reached, it was necessary to get the door open, and the two quiet figures encountered some very bad moments when it was discovered that the servant had forgotten to pick up the key and nothing remained but for him to return to the Pope’s rooms and get it.

Filippani sped down the corridor, and as swiftly flew back along the fortunately deserted passage, and when he came in sight of the old courtyard door once again, he beheld on his knees before it his companion, lost in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament which he bore upon his breast, in the pyx in which a Pope before him, Pope Pius VI, had carried his Lord with him into captivity. For it was Pius IX, Bishop of Rome and Vicar of Christ who, in disguise and at the risk of his life, adored his God at the most tense moment of his pontificate. Once in the cab, Filippani directed the driver by the spies and sentries and out through the less frequented streets of the city to the spot where the Bavarian Ambassador, Count Charles de Spaur and his chasseur, both fully armed for battle, awaited them. They left the faithful Filippani behind them, and proceeded to Albano, where the Countess de Spaur with her son and his tutor had been awaiting them since early morning (it was now nine in the evening), through what she later described as the most torturous hours of her life. After safely passing through a grueling challenge from the guards at Lariccia, the fugitives drove on at high speed to the border of the Papal States, and thence to Gaeta, in the Kingdom of Naples — and freedom.

Back in Rome, in His Holiness’ apartment in the Quirinal, the Ambassador of the French, the magnificently brave Duke d’Harcourt, continued for two long, endless hours to read in a loud voice to the echoing walls of an empty room. He then announced to the guard outside in the corridor that His Holiness was retiring for the night and did not wish to be disturbed. He left the palace in his usual brisk manner and, again in his state coach, flanked with outriders and torchbearers, he set out swiftly upon the road leading to the sea.

It was not until morning that Rome discovered that the Pope, disguised as a simple priest, had fled through the night and put himself well beyond the reach of those God-hating men who, with him in their evil possession, would have spoken to the world and to the Catholic faithful all over the Earth, slyly and subtly robbing them of their Faith and their heritage, in the name of the Vicar of Jesus Christ.

A little outside Gaeta, some days later, after Mass celebrated by the superior of the Sanctuary of the Most Adorable Trinity, and attended by the King and Queen of Naples, the princes, cardinals and foreign ministers, Pope Pius IX, at the moment reserved for his solemn benediction, walked instead to the altar, and kneeling there, prayed aloud:

Eternal God, my august Father and Lord, behold at Thy feet Thy unworthy Vicar, who entreats Thee with his whole heart to pour out upon him from Thy eternal throne Thy divine benediction. O my God! direct his steps, sanctify his intentions, guide his mind, govern his actions. May he be here, where Thou hast led him in Thy admirable providence, or in any other portion of Thy fold to which he may go, a worthy instrument of Thy glory and that of Thy Church, which, alas! is assailed by Thy enemies. If, to appease Thy wrath so justly enkindled by the many indignities that are offered to Thee, in word, in action, and by the abuse of the press, his own life may be an agreeable holocaust to Thy Divine Heart, he consecrates it to Thee from this moment. Thou hast given it to him; to Thee only belongs the right of taking it away when it may please Thee; but O my God! let Thy glory triumph, let Thy Church be victorious! Preserve the good, support the feeble, and may the arm of Thy Omnipotence arouse all who are slumbering in darkness and the shadow of death. .. Bless the cardinals, the bishops, and all the clergy, that they may accomplish, in the peaceful ways of Thy law, the sanctification of the people. Then may we hope, not only to be delivered during our mortal pilgrimage from the snares of the impious and the machinations of wicked men, but to reach that place which affords eternal safety.
The congregation wept audibly, as children, until they thought their hearts would break, from love, from grief, from joy — from realization of God.

* * * * *
Pope Pius IX returned to Rome on April 12, 1850, under the protection of the French Army, after Mazzini’s Republic of Rome had fallen. He took up his residence, no longer in the Quirinal, but in the Vatican Palace. He made Cardinal Antonelli his Secretary of State, and for the remaining twenty-eight years of his extraordinarily long pontificate, Pope Pius IX, every trace of his former Liberalism vanished, struck out, in allocutions, encyclicals and infallible pronouncements, against the more than ever active enemies of the Church.

He brought down upon his head, by his direct, forceful and uncompromising utterances, the bitter hatred of the revolutionaries, Protestants and Liberals, but he earned, throughout the Catholic world, the lasting and devoted love of the people. They flocked to Rome from all over the world, in pilgrimage after pilgrimage, to do him honor. They rose to do battle for him when his enemies oppressed him the hardest. They watched with grief the Rome of Pio Nono, its existence threatened more and more with each passing year as the armies of Cavour’s King Victor Emmanuel — with the secret support of England’s Lord Palmerston and the contemptible Napoleon III (who as a Catholic betrayed his Holy Father) — gobbled up the Papal States one after the other until, on March 13, 1861, the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, with Victor Emmanuel its king and Florence its temporary capital, and the Pope left with only the old duchy of Rome, the ancient Patrimony of Saint Peter.

However, all this was still in the future when, in 1850, Pope Pius IX, to the intense chagrin of great numbers in England who thought the papacy dead and buried forever since 1848, re-established an ecclesiastical hierarchy in England, with Nicholas Wiseman as Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster and head of the new bishops. Later, the Holy Father did the same thing for Holland, with the same resultant anti-Catholic demonstrations in that country.

On December 8, 1854, having spent all of his holy life — his boyhood, his priesthood, as bishop, cardinal and Pope — at the feet of the Mother of God, the most Blessed Virgin Mary, and having deeply considered also, in his exile at Gaeta, the earnest petitions of Catholics all over the world in its behalf, Pope Pius IX defined, ex cathedra, in the glorious Basilica of Saint Peter’s before one hundred and seventy bishops and innumerable pilgrims come literally from the ends of the Earth, the divine dogma of Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception. The voice of the Sovereign Pontiff broke and tears filled his eyes as he paused before uttering the infallible words:

We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first instant of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of mankind, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and therefore should firmly and constantly be believed by all the faithful ...
As the Holy Father finished speaking, the cannon of the Castle of Sant’ Angelo boomed and the bells of the basilicas and churches of Rome long rang out the glorious news, which ushered in the Age of Mary — the last age of the world. The Catholic faithful rejoiced, and grace flooded their souls as they prayed the prayer Our Lady herself had given twenty years before to Catherine Labouré, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.”
In May, 1860, although Victor Emmanuel’s insulting order that he surrender Umbria and the Marches had just reached him, and he was also aware that Garibaldi was preparing to land in Sicily, Pope Pius IX serenely beatified Blessed John Sacander, the martyr, Blessed Canonico de Rossi and Blessed Benedict Joseph Labre. On the feast of Pentecost, on June 8, 1862, in the presence of three hundred cardinals, patriarchs, primates, archbishops and bishops, with the little duchy of Rome now perilously threatened by Victor Emmanuel and the south no longer the territory of his beloved son, the King of Naples, who had received him so gratefully in his exile, Pope Pius IX nevertheless solemnly and with visible and supernatural joy canonized the glorious Japanese martyrs who had been crucified for the Faith at Nagasaki in 1597, among whom were the three Japanese Jesuits, Paul Miki, John de Goto and James Kisai.

And then, on the tenth anniversary of the definition of the Immaculate Conception, on the eighth of December, 1864, he published the encyclical Quanta cura and its accompanying Syllabus of Errors, which rocked the world, Catholic and anti-Catholic, and raised up a storm of hatred against him which as yet has not, in some quarters, fully subsided! The Syllabus, compiled by Cardinal Bilio from the encyclicals, allocutions and apostolic letters of Pope Pius IX during the eighteen years of his pontificate, was a condemnation by the Holy Father of the errors growing out of the false principles and teachings of the age of Liberalism which, unwittingly absorbed even by Catholics who thought themselves pillars of the Church, were eating away the foundations of the Faith, all Christian government, all Christian morality, and, under the guise of “modern progress, modern science, modern social institutions, liberty and liberalism, enlightenment and civilization,” were ushering in the reign of Antichrist.

There is no question in the mind of anyone who innocently and chastely reads the writings and utterances of Pope Pius IX but that he believed, without any qualification, the fundamental doctrine that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. In the year 1863, when he was faced with all the arguments which the Liberals were pushing against him concerning the poor ignorant native who, through invincible ignorance, must be saved outside the body of the Church, Pope Pius IX, in his encyclical, Quanto conficiamur, declared that he knew about this ignorant native, all the arguments in favor of his deliverance from eternal damnation, he had heard all about this invincible ignorance — about which the Liberals were so hopeful — but despite all this, he held that, unless this ignorance in a person of good will were dissolved and clarified by the light of Faith, it could not bring him to salvation. The strong, unchangeable utterance of the Faith, that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, must still be maintained and dogmatically uttered even when we are thinking of the ignorant native on the desert island.

The modem Liberals of our time in Catholic life have never paid any attention to anything else which Pope Pius IX has said except this little half-bow of charity toward the ignorant native. And that the Holy Father knew, that the Liberals of his own day were misunderstanding him, is made clear by the Syllabus of Errors, which was issued in the following year, in which he sets down, without qualification, that it is condemned even to hope for the salvation of such men without the Faith.

Nothing but a desire to live comfortably in non-Catholic society, not to offend and not to make enemies, and a gradual, often unconscious, succumbing to the perpetual and appealing propaganda of newspapers and magazines put out by the rich and powerful anti-Christians, can explain the Catholic Liberals’ selection, in our time, of two or three vaguely worded sentences in all the volumes of Pope Pius’ utterance, and the use of these sentences to build up a whole new Liberal attack on a many times defined dogma of the Church, thereby entering well into the plans of the Church’s enemies. Pope Pius IX, who, by going even halfway politically with the enemies of Christ in the beginning of his pontificate, by the concessions he then made to the Liberals, lost for himself and his successors the temporal power of the Popes — and who learned at such bitter cost that Liberalism in any of its forms, and religious Liberalism in particular, leads to chaos and revolution — strove during every year of his reign to place before the faithful the truths of salvation.

His constant message to his bishops and archbishops was ever the same as the one which he wrote from Naples on December 8, 1849, in his encyclical Nostis et nobiscum:

You must indeed especially see to it that the faithful themselves have firmly fixed in their minds that dogma of our most holy religion, namely, the absolute necessity of the Catholic Faith for obtaining salvation ... that dogma received from Christ and inculcated by the Fathers and the Councils, which is found in the formulas of Profession of Faith in use among the Latins and the Greeks and other oriental Catholics ...
He told Werner de Mérode, the brother-in-law of Count de Montalembert, in November, 1863, that it was a sin to believe that there was salvation outside the Catholic Church.
On six different occasions, between 1846 and 1873, he condemned Freemasonry and its kindred secret sects. “You are from your father the devil,” he said to them in Singulari quadam, “and it is the works of your father that you wish to do.” He writes, in November, 1865, in Ex epistola, of the rulers of the various countries who had failed to suppress the Masonic sects: “Would that they had not shown such negligence in so serious a duty; we would not then have to deplore such great wars and movements of revolt by which all Europe has been set ablaze. ...” And he goes on to condemn the false but widespread opinion, arising from ignorance of the facts, that Freemasons are a harmless and philanthropic body, and that the Church has nothing to fear from them.

On November 21, 1873, in Etsi multa — deploring the persecutions which had come upon the Church in Rome and throughout the whole world, the anti-Catholic activities of the German imperial government (Bismarck’s Kulturkampf and the notorious Falk Laws which were, incidentally, the cause of bringing to America so many fine Germans, forced to flee because of them from their homeland), and the revolutions and anti-Catholic movement in South America — Pope Pius IX attributed them all to the Masonic and allied sects, “of which the Synagogue of Satan that is now mobilizing its forces against the Church of Christ is composed.” He warned his bishops to point out constantly to the faithful the fallacy of those “who, whether deceived themselves or striving to deceive and ensnare others, still presume to assert that these dark associations aim only at social betterment and human progress and the practice of beneficence, pointing out, at the same time, that it is not alone the Masonic body in Europe that is referred to, but also the Masonic associations in America and in whatever part of the world they may be.”

The anxious Pope had already given Jacques Crétineau-Joly (1803-1875), the journalist and historian, permission to publish in his book, The Church and the Revolution, copies of the documents and correspondence of the Alta Vendita which had been seized by the Pontifical Government of Pope Gregory XVI. The Alta Vendita was commonly believed to be, at that time, under the over-all direction of Palmerston, the governing center of Freemasonry. The program for society and the instructions for carrying it out, revealed in these papers, blanched the face of many a strong man.

* * * * *
On June 29, 1868, the Holy Father, having witnessed during the past two years the bitter passion of the Church in practically every land in Christendom, and with Garibaldi’s besieging army but temporarily driven back in its drive on Rome, nevertheless with tremendous courage issued a Bull convoking an ecumenical council to open in the Vatican Basilica on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1869.

This time, the fury of the Church’s foes knew no bounds. The international press acknowledged no restraints on its mingled resentment, scorn, hatred, anger, satire, maledictions and dire prophesies of plots, subplots and dark papal intrigues. They surmised, and published it far and wide — with all sorts of insinuations — that Pio Nono was about to proclaim the doctrine of infallibility. The Liberals and Radicals, the Greek Orthodox and the Protestants raged, in print and on the platform. Did not Pius know that he was the last Pope? And with the fall of the temporal power not far distant, did he not realize that the papacy at long last would be at an end? What was he thinking of, calling an ecumenical council! They suspected, and were prepared for, the worst.

The Gallicans in every country came to life again, and produced their stock in trade, their adamant assurance of the superiority of a council over a Pope. The Catholics, on the other hand, alternately argued that this was not the time to call, of all things, an ecumenical council, and that there never was any real attack on the doctrine of infallibility — real enough to require defining — for had not Pio Nono himself defined ex cathedra the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, and had not the Council of Florence, in 1438, proclaimed definitely the Primacy of the Pope?

The great mass of the Catholic faithful abroad thought only that the year 1869 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Holy Father’s priesthood, and millions offered their Mass and Holy Communion for his intentions on the Sunday of the Good Shepherd, the day on which the happy anniversary fell. His great trials had but endeared him all the more to the loving hearts of his people. “No Pope has ever entered into such close and universal relations with the heart of humanity,” the Archbishop of Cologne wrote of Pio Nono on that day.

And in Rome, during the months preceding the Council, the bishops and theologians prepared the subjects to come under discussion, and the question of infallibility was not among them. For it had not been the Holy Father’s express intention of convening a council in order to define infallibility, but rather in order that “a supreme remedy might be applied to the supreme dangers that threaten Christianity,” and because he was resolved, this fearless Pope, “to build up in the eyes of the whole human race the edifice of Catholic dogma, in a form so complete, so beautiful that ... the whole Earth must admire it and exclaim that the hand of God is there!”

The great Vatican Council, the first ecumenical council held in the Church since the Council of Trent three centuries before, opened on December 8, 1869, with over seven hundred Fathers present, from all over the world. Eighty thousand people jammed Saint Peter’s, a living, breathing testimony to the hostile enemies outside of the unquenchable spirit of the Church of Jesus Christ, revivified at every second of its existence by the Third Person of the Adorable Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, and constantly watched over by His matchless Spouse, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the tender Mother of all those incorporated in the Body and Blood of her Son.

Even though the doctrine of infallibility was not included in the matters for discussion, it was, nevertheless, in the minds of all as the Council opened. When it became known that no place had been given in the drafts (or schemata prepared for discussion) to the question of papal infallibility, the majority of the Fathers deliberated, since such a hue and cry had for so long been raised against it in the press, whether neglect to define now might not raise a question of its truth in many minds. And so, in April, five months after the opening of the Council — at the urgent appeal of Cardinal Manning, speaking for himself and a large body of the bishops — Pope Pius IX directed that the question of infallibility be prepared for immediate consideration by the Council.

It goes without saving that during the discussions which followed it never once occurred to the Fathers to debate the divinity of the doctrine, the fact of its divine revelation. They were concerned simply with the question of the opportuneness of the time — violently anti-Catholic and revolutionary — in which, not to change or add to the dogma in any way, for that never could be done either by Pope or council, but to reaffirm and state it in unmistakable language.

On July 18, 1870, despite the overwhelming, hysterical and desperate protest in the press all over the world, the Dogmatic Constitution Pastor aeternus, defining the infallibility of the Pope, was adopted. On that day, the Holy Father, Pope Pius IX, solemnly defined:

Faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian Faith, for the glory of God our Savior, the exaltation of the Catholic religion, and the salvation of the Christian people, the Sacred Council approving, we teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra — that is, when in the discharge of the office of pastor and teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the Universal Church — is, by the divine assistance promised him in Blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals; and that, therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church.”
A violent thunderstorm, threatening since early morning, broke over Rome just as the voting on the doctrine began. For an hour and a half, peals of thunder shook the vast Basilica, and flashes of lightning lit up the faces of the Fathers as each rose, in his turn, to pronounce his assent. The altar appeared out of the pitch darkness, as the lightning lingered upon it, and the great congregation was filled with awe as Our Lord’s Words to Saint Peter, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church,” inscribed on the base of the dome, suddenly stood out clearly for all to read. To many present it recalled the thunders which rolled and the lightnings which flashed round Sinai, while Moses within the storm cloud on the mountain top received the law from the Eternal God.
As the voices of the congregation were raised in the glorious praise of the Te Deum, the storm ceased, and the sun broke through the clouds. It shone with an especially golden radiance, unusual even for Italy, directly upon the exalted face of the Holy Father, revealing the fine, sensitive features of Giovanni-Maria Mastai-Ferretti grown strong with the exceeding strength he had summoned, with the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in order to bring safely, through the violent storms which for almost twenty-five years had at every moment beset it, the precious barque of Peter. It revealed, this light of the sun, the personal holiness of the “good Pio Nono”! And it revealed, through the supernatural joy which now was habitual to him, no matter how great his trials, the lines of suffering worn deep into his countenance, for indeed he had been well-named by Saint Malachy, “Crux de Cruce,” Cross upon Cross.

Even the hostile London Times, whose columns daily had been filled with articles which gave much pain to the Holy Father, was forced to report of the transcendently moving scene: “The Benediction followed. The entire congregation fell on their knees, and the Pope blessed them in those clear sweet tones distinguishable among a thousand.”

And then, perfectly in keeping with the story of his whole pontificate, on the very same day as the glorious triumph of the Vatican Council, on the very same July 18, 1870, news reached him that war had been declared between France and Prussia.

Within a month. Napoleon III had withdrawn the remnants of the French Army still in Rome. This was the opportunity for which Victor Emmanuel and his advisers had been waiting, and on the twentieth of September, after bombarding the gates of the city, his troops at last entered Rome by a breach in the Porta Pia. “You are whited sepulchres,” the Holy Father told Victor Emmanuel’s envoy. “I know you not, and cannot know you or treat in any manner with you!”

After that, Rome was no longer the City of the Popes. It was become, this chosen city of Peter, the capital of an Italy controlled by anti-Christian forces. The time would come when the Prime Minister of Italy would be the Grand Master of the Italian Masons, Crispi, and the mayor of Rome would be Nathan, a Jew. How Saint Peter must have grieved, even in Heaven, to see his Master crucified anew in the city of his predilection, the new Jerusalem!

In May, 1871, the Italian Government passed the incredible “Law of Guarantees” which, among many other things, after stripping the Holy Roman Pontiff of all of his possessions, proclaimed him a guest of the government and allowed him “to enjoy the apostolic palaces of the Vatican and the Lateran, as well as the Villa de Castel Gandolfo”! — while it went on with the inevitable confiscation of monasteries and convents, abolition of religious teaching in the schools, legislation on marriage, interference with the training of priests in the seminaries, and the rest of the program of the whole anti-Christian regime once it comes into power. The Law of Guarantees made the Pope, indeed, the creature of the State.

Pope Pius IX refused to acknowledge the Law of Guarantees, and became a prisoner in the Vatican, since to step outside it would necessitate crossing the territory held by the Italian Government and would constitute a recognition of its right to that territory. That the imprisonment of the Pope was a real as well as a voluntary one, we know. When, on the twentieth of June, 1874, on the twenty-eighth anniversary of his coronation, Pio Nono appeared at a window of the Vatican, the more than a hundred thousand persons in or around the Vatican Basilica for the Te Deum and Benediction which concluded the ceremonies in his honor, broke into cheers at the sight of him. Victor Emmanuel’s troops immediately rushed into the square, summarily dispersed the crowds and dragged off to prison all those whose outraged souls had caused them to protest. These were many, among them ladies from the oldest and noblest families in Rome. Long prison terms were given four men who had cried out, “Evviva il Papa Ré!”

Pope Pius IX adjourned the Vatican Council one month after the seizure of Rome; it has never since been reconvened. The gloriously intransigent Pope lived on, a prisoner in the Vatican, for almost seven more years. When his faithful Catholics, who flocked to Rome in thousands to pay him honor, would address him as Pius the Great, he answered that God alone was great, and refused the title. When they would offer him a golden throne, he begged that the money be used to ransom theological students from military service. He continued to live as he had always lived, sleeping in “one of the smallest of the eleven thousand rooms at his command,” providing for the poor even in his own great poverty, spending long hours in prayer and meditation, counseling the proud and the intellectual in words similar to those he addressed, at the time of the Vatican Council, to Bishop Dupanloup of France, “Return, brother, I pray you, to that golden simplicity of little ones.” He kept his words of burning love for the poor, of the caliber of the poor women of Rome who, thirteen thousand strong, came and read to him one day their address, “To the Father of the Poor.” They laid at his feet a sum of money “made up of the cents lovingly given by hands and hearts which Pius IX had often bounteously filled.”

He instituted the feast of the Precious Blood. He declared Saint Joseph Patron of the Universal Church. He made Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, Saint Hilary of Poitiers, and Saint Francis de Sales, Doctors of the Church. No Pope before him in the history of the Church beatified more blessed and canonized more saints than did Pope Pius IX. He raised the Church in the United States from the status of a mission, and established, between 1847 and 1853, the archbishoprics of St. Louis, New York, Cincinnati, New Orleans and San Francisco. In 1875, he named Archbishop John McCloskey of New York the first American Cardinal.

On the seventh of February, 1878, at the age of eighty-six, having served his Lord, Jesus Christ, as His Vicar just four months short of the thirty-two years of Saint Peter’s pontificate, the glorious Pope Pius IX died, consoled and comforted to the last by that other great foe of Liberalism, Cardinal Manning. Pio Nono was mourned by true Catholics all over the world and hated to the end by the Church’s enemies — always the sign of a good Pope. “I have loved justice and hated iniquity,” the great Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII, had said, “therefore I die in exile.”

Pope Pius IX died, still a prisoner in the Vatican. And sure proof that his strong and valiant fight against the seed of Lucifer had stopped Our Lady’s deadly and powerful enemy short of his all but complete victory over Christ’s Church is seen in the diabolical hatred and malice with which the fiendish mob, inspired by the Masonic clubs of Rome, attacked his coffin in an attempt to desecrate his body as it was being moved, three years after his death, from the Vatican to his chosen last resting place in the Church of Saint Lawrence-outside-the-walls. The reason for this outrage was not, as some have said, that Pio Nono had allowed foreign troops (the French) to protect him in Rome for so many years, but rather because he had stood out to the last against the Liberals and Radicals, the Socialists and Communists, the apostles of false progress, false liberty and the unlimited power of the State — all of whom preached so compellingly, with all the power of the press of the world behind them — and because he would not refrain from denouncing them whenever the opportunity offered, under whatever name they might assume or whatever mask they might wear.

The tragedy of all tragedies, however, is that Pope Pius IX has not been allowed to rest in peace. The Catholic Liberals, on whom he made unrelenting war during his entire pontificate, have in our day tried to make him the father of the modern heresy! But we can trust the Immaculate Mother of God to take care of this trial as she has all others in the life of her devoted son. One by one, he beheld his greatest enemies die before him, broken and humiliated. And today, what Pio Nono foretold of Victor Emmanuel has come true. “Again I tell you,” he said, “you shall not long enjoy your violence.” The Kingdom of Italy is no more. Nor is the Imperial Germany of Bismarck. The sun has set, at last, on Palmerston’s Britain. There is no longer a French Emperor. Europe is paying the price of its sins against its ancient Father, to whom it owes all that it has ever been, for today it is in the hands of those who are the secret foes even of Masonry.

And the Papal States? That which was lost in 1870 was not the papacy, as the anti-Christian world had planned and thought, but only the land which had guaranteed the independence of the papacy in the performance of its spiritual mission. Some of this land has been returned, and Pope Pius XII, the Pope of our day, is exercising his sublime office from the tiny territory of Vatican City.

And Pio Nono? The glorious Pope Saint Pius X, who took his name and who was ever in joyous admiration of his sanctity, opened the process for the beatification of Pope Pius IX on the eleventh of February, 1907. We pray that it may come quickly, for the triumph of Pope Pius IX is the triumph of the Church. It was the thought of the Church which filled his last moments, and it was concerning the Church that he spoke his last words. “Guard the Church,” he said to the Cardinals kneeling at his bedside. “Guard the Church I loved so well and sacredly.”

FINIS

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I found this to be an interesting article regarding Freemasonry's history and its dealings with the Church over in Europe.

A Wise Freemason Once Said:

2010-02-19T08:01:00.011-05:00

"The credit belongs to the Man who is actually in the arena, whose
face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who
errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort
without error or short coming, but who knows the great enthusiams, the
great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause;

who, at best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the
worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly,

so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew
neither victory nor defeat."

Brother Teddy Roosevelt

This is response to experiencing many a critic who have never "participated" in the so-called area of critique. I had to listen to a yenta chatter away with abusive comments towards a friend of mine, where she was being debasing in an area where she had no expertise, and no room to talk, but repeatedly continued her abusive behavior where I eventually had to ask to to PLEASE stop the abusive commentary to a friend not present to defend himself,
plus, from a female who had never herself attempted the so called tasks she was being so NEGATIVE about,

In other words: STFU if you've never battled for or against anything in the given area of your criticism.

SMIB

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

2010-01-20T08:01:00.009-05:00

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

by Henry David Thoreau

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs
least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and
systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I
believe – "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when
men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which
they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most
governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes,
inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing
army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also
at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is
only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which
is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will,
is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act
through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively
a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in
the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.

This American government – what is it but a tradition, though a recent
one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each
instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and
force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his
will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is
not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some
complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea
of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully
men can be imposed upon, even impose on themselves, for their own
advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet this government
never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with
which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It
does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent
in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it
would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got
in its way. For government is an expedient, by which men would fain
succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it
is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and
commerce, if they were not made of India-rubber, would never manage to
bounce over obstacles which legislators are continually putting in
their way; and if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of
their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve
to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put
obstructions on the railroads.

But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call
themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government,
but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of
government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward
obtaining it.

After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the
hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period
continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the
right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because
they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the
majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as
men understand it. Can there not be a government in which the
majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? –
in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of
expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in
the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has
every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and
subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the
law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a
right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly
enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of
conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made
men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the
well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and
natural result of an undue respect for the law is, that you may see a
file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates,
powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and
dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense
and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and
produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a
damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably
inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and
magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the
Navy Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government
can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts – a mere
shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and
standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral
accompaniment, though it may be,

"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero was buried."

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as
machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the
militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases
there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral
sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and
stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the
purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a
lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and
dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.
Others – as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and
office-holders – serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as
they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve
the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few – as heroes,
patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men – serve the
state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for
the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise
man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be "clay,"
and "stop a hole to keep the wind away," but leave that office to his
dust at least:

"I am too high born to be propertied,
To be a second at control,
Or useful serving-man and instrument
To any sovereign state throughout the world."

He who gives himself entirely to his fellow men appears to them
useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is
pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.

How does it become a man to behave toward the American government
today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with
it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as
my government which is the slave's government also.

All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to
refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny
or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that
such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the
Revolution of '75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad
government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its
ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about it, for
I can do without them. All machines have their friction; and possibly
this does enough good to counter-balance the evil. At any rate, it is
a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to
have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let
us not have such a machine any longer. In other words, when a sixth of
the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of
liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and
conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think
that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize.
What makes this duty the more urgent is that fact that the country so
overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.

Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions, in his chapter
on the "Duty of Submission to Civil Government," resolves all civil
obligation into expediency; and he proceeds to say that "so long as
the interest of the whole society requires it, that is, so long as the
established government cannot be resisted or changed without public
inconveniencey, it is the will of God. . .that the established
government be obeyed – and no longer. This principle being admitted,
the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to a
computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the one
side, and of the probability and expense of redressing it on the
other." Of this, he says, every man shall judge for himself. But Paley
appears never to have contemplated those cases to which the rule of
expediency does not apply, in which a people, as well and an
individual, must do justice, cost what it may. If I have unjustly
wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I
drown myself. This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient. But he
that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose it. This people
must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost
them their existence as a people.

In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does anyone think
that Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present crisis?

"A drab of state,
a cloth-o'-silver slut,
To have her train borne up,
and her soul trail in the dirt."

Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are
not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred
thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in
commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not
prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I
quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home,
co-operate with, and do the bidding of, those far away, and without
whom the latter would be harmless. We are accustomed to say, that the
mass of men are unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few
are not materially wiser or better than the many. It is not so
important that many should be good as you, as that there be some
absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.
There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the
war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who,
esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down
with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to
do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of freedom to the
question of free trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with
the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall
asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and
patriot today? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they
petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will
wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no
longer have it to regret. At most, they give up only a cheap vote, and
a feeble countenance and Godspeed, to the right, as it goes by them.
There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one
virtuous man. But it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a
thing than with the temporary guardian of it.

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a
slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral
questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the
voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but
I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am
willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never
exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing
for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should
prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance,
nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but
little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall
at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they
are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery
left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves.
Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own
freedom by his vote.

I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or elsewhere, for the
selection of a candidate for the Presidency, made up chiefly of
editors, and men who are politicians by profession; but I think, what
is it to any independent, intelligent, and respectable man what
decision they may come to? Shall we not have the advantage of this
wisdom and honesty, nevertheless? Can we not count upon some
independent votes? Are there not many individuals in the country who
do not attend conventions? But no: I find that the respectable man, so
called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his
country, when his country has more reasons to despair of him. He
forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected as the only
available one, thus proving that he is himself available for any
purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of
any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may have been
bought. O for a man who is a man, and, my neighbor says, has a bone in
his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are
at fault: the population has been returned too large. How many men are
there to a square thousand miles in the country? Hardly one. Does not
America offer any inducement for men to settle here? The American has
dwindled into an Odd Fellow – one who may be known by the development
of his organ of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and
cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief concern, on coming into
the world, is to see that the almshouses are in good repair; and,
before yet he has lawfully donned the virile garb, to collect a fund
to the support of the widows and orphans that may be; who, in short,
ventures to live only by the aid of the Mutual Insurance company,
which has promised to bury him decently.

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to
the eradication of any, even the most enormous, wrong; he may still
properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at
least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer,
not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other
pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not
pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him
first, that he may pursue his contemplations too. See what gross
inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, "I
should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection
of the slaves, or to march to Mexico – see if I would go"; and yet
these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so
indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The
soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those
who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the
war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards
and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that degree that
it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree
that it left off sinning for a moment. Thus, under the name of Order
and Civil Government, we are all made at last to pay homage to and
support our own meanness. After the first blush of sin comes its
indifference; and from immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and
not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made.

The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested
virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which the virtue of
patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most likely to incur.
Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a
government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly
its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious
obstacles to reform. Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the
Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not
dissolve it themselves – the union between themselves and the State –
and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in
the same relation to the State that the State does to the Union? And
have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union
which have prevented them from resisting the State?

How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy
it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is
aggrieved? If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor,
you do not rest satisfied with knowing you are cheated, or with saying
that you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your
due; but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount,
and see to it that you are never cheated again. Action from principle,
the perception and the performance of right, changes things and
relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist
wholly with anything which was. It not only divided States and
churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual,
separating the diabolical in him from the divine.

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we
endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or
shall we transgress them at once? Men, generally, under such a
government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have
persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should
resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault
of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It
makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for
reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and
resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to
put out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it
always crucify Christ and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and
pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?

One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of its
authority was the only offense never contemplated by its government;
else, why has it not assigned its definite, its suitable and
proportionate, penalty? If a man who has no property refuses but once
to earn nine shillings for the State, he is put in prison for a period
unlimited by any law that I know, and determined only by the
discretion of those who put him there; but if he should steal ninety
times nine shillings from the State, he is soon permitted to go at
large again.

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of
government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth –
certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or
a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps
you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil;
but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of
injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a
counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at
any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

As for adopting the ways the State has provided for remedying the
evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man's
life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this
world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live
in it, be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but
something; and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary
that he should be petitioning the Governor or the Legislature any more
than it is theirs to petition me; and if they should not hear my
petition, what should I do then? But in this case the State has
provided no way: its very Constitution is the evil. This may seem to
be harsh and stubborn and unconcilliatory; but it is to treat with the
utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit that can appreciate
or deserves it. So is all change for the better, like birth and death,
which convulse the body.

I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists
should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and
property, from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they
constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail
through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their
side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right
than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.

I meet this American government, or its representative, the State
government, directly, and face to face, once a year – no more – in the
person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which a man
situated as I am necessarily meets it; and it then says distinctly,
Recognize me; and the simplest, the most effectual, and, in the
present posture of affairs, the indispensablest mode of treating with
it on this head, of expressing your little satisfaction with and love
for it, is to deny it then. My civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is
the very man I have to deal with – for it is, after all, with men and
not with parchment that I quarrel – and he has voluntarily chosen to
be an agent of the government. How shall he ever know well that he is
and does as an officer of the government, or as a man, until he is
obliged to consider whether he will treat me, his neighbor, for whom
he has respect, as a neighbor and well-disposed man, or as a maniac
and disturber of the peace, and see if he can get over this
obstruction to his neighborliness without a ruder and more impetuous
thought or speech corresponding with his action. I know this well,
that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name –
if ten honest men only – ay, if one HONEST man, in this State of
Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from
this co-partnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it
would be the abolition of slavery in America. For it matters not how
small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done
forever. But we love better to talk about it: that we say is our
mission. Reform keeps many scores of newspapers in its service, but
not one man. If my esteemed neighbor, the State's ambassador, who will
devote his days to the settlement of the question of human rights in
the Council Chamber, instead of being threatened with the prisons of
Carolina, were to sit down the prisoner of Massachusetts, that State
which is so anxious to foist the sin of slavery upon her sister –
though at present she can discover only an act of inhospitality to be
the ground of a quarrel with her – the Legislature would not wholly
waive the subject of the following winter.

Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just
man is also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which
Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less despondent spirits,
is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her
own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles.
It is there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on
parole, and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race should
find them; on that separate but more free and honorable ground, where
the State places those who are not with her, but against her – the
only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.
If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their
voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be
as an enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is
stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he
can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person.
Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole
influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority;
it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs
by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in
prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which
to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this
year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be
to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent
blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if
any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other public
officer, asks me, as one has done, "But what shall I do?" my answer
is, "If you really wish to do anything, resign your office." When the
subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned from
office, then the revolution is accomplished. But even suppose blood
shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man's real
manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting
death. I see this blood flowing now.

I have contemplated the imprisonment of the offender, rather than the
seizure of his goods – though both will serve the same purpose –
because they who assert the purest right, and consequently are most
dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time in
accumulating property. To such the State renders comparatively small
service, and a slight tax is wont to appear exorbitant, particularly
if they are obliged to earn it by special labor with their hands. If
there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State
itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man – not to
make any invidious comparison – is always sold to the institution
which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less
virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains
them for him; it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it. It puts
to rest many questions which he would otherwise be taxed to answer;
while the only new question which it puts is the hard but superfluous
one, how to spend it. Thus his moral ground is taken from under his
feet. The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as that
are called the "means" are increased. The best thing a man can do for
his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes
which he entertained when he was poor. Christ answered the Herodians
according to their condition. "Show me the tribute-money," said he –
and one took a penny out of his pocket – if you use money which has
the image of Caesar on it, and which he has made current and valuable,
that is, if you are men of the State, and gladly enjoy the advantages
of Caesar's government, then pay him back some of his own when he
demands it. "Render therefore to Caesar that which is Caesar's and to
God those things which are God's" – leaving them no wiser than before
as to which was which; for they did not wish to know.

When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive that,
whatever they may say about the magnitude and seriousness of the
question, and their regard for the public tranquillity, the long and
the short of the matter is, that they cannot spare the protection of
the existing government, and they dread the consequences to their
property and families of disobedience to it. For my own part, I should
not like to think that I ever rely on the protection of the State.
But, if I deny the authority of the State when it presents its tax
bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me
and my children without end. This is hard. This makes it impossible
for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in
outward respects. It will not be worth the while to accumulate
property; that would be sure to go again. You must hire or squat
somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and eat that soon. You must
live within yourself, and depend upon yourself always tucked up and
ready for a start, and not have many affairs. A man may grow rich in
Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the
Turkish government. Confucius said: "If a state is governed by the
principles of reason, poverty and misery are subjects of shame; if a
state is not governed by the principles of reason, riches and honors
are subjects of shame." No: until I want the protection of
Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port,
where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building
up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse
allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It
costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to
the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less
in that case.

Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the Church, and
commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman
whose preaching my father attended, but never I myself. "Pay," it
said, "or be locked up in the jail." I declined to pay. But,
unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I did not see why the
schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest
the schoolmaster; for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but I
supported myself by voluntary subscription. I did not see why the
lyceum should not present its tax bill, and have the State to back its
demand, as well as the Church. However, as the request of the
selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as this in
writing: "Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do
not wish to be regarded as a member of any society which I have not
joined." This I gave to the town clerk; and he has it. The State,
having thus learned that I did not wish to be regarded as a member of
that church, has never made a like demand on me since; though it said
that it must adhere to its original presumption that time. If I had
known how to name them, I should then have signed off in detail from
all the societies which I never signed on to; but I did not know where
to find such a complete list.

I have paid no poll tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on
this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of
solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a
foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not
help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which
treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked
up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was
the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself
of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone
between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to
climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was. I
did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste
of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid
my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like
persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment
there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to
stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not but smile to see
how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which
followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really
all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved
to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person
against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the
State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her
silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and
I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.

Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man's sense,
intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed
with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I
was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us
see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can
force me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become like
themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that
by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a
government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I
be in haste to give it my money? It may be in a great strait, and not
know what to do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I do.
It is not worth the while to snivel about it. I am not responsible for
the successful working of the machinery of society. I am not the son
of the engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall
side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other,
but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best
they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If
a plant cannot live according to nature, it dies; and so a man.

The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The prisoners in
their shirtsleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the
doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said, "Come, boys, it is time
to lock up"; and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their
steps returning into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was
introduced to me by the jailer as "a first-rate fellow and clever
man." When the door was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and
how he managed matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month;
and this one, at least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and
probably neatest apartment in town. He naturally wanted to know where
I came from, and what brought me there; and, when I had told him, I
asked him in my turn how he came there, presuming him to be an honest
an, of course; and as the world goes, I believe he was. "Why," said
he, "they accuse me of burning a barn; but I never did it." As near as
I could discover, he had probably gone to bed in a barn when drunk,
and smoked his pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the
reputation of being a clever man, had been there some three months
waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to wait as much
longer; but he was quite domesticated and contented, since he got his
board for nothing, and thought that he was well treated.

He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw that if one stayed
there long, his principal business would be to look out the window. I
had soon read all the tracts that were left there, and examined where
former prisoners had broken out, and where a grate had been sawed off,
and heard the history of the various occupants of that room; for I
found that even there there was a history and a gossip which never
circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only
house in the town where verses are composed, which are afterward
printed in a circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a
long list of young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape,
who avenged themselves by singing them.

I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I should never
see him again; but at length he showed me which was my bed, and left
me to blow out the lamp.

It was like travelling into a far country, such as I had never
expected to behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me that I
never had heard the town clock strike before, not the evening sounds
of the village; for we slept with the windows open, which were inside
the grating. It was to see my native village in the light of the
Middle Ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and
visions of knights and castles passed before me. They were the voices
of old burghers that I heard in the streets. I was an involuntary
spectator and auditor of whatever was done and said in the kitchen of
the adjacent village inn – a wholly new and rare experience to me. It
was a closer view of my native town. I was fairly inside of it. I
never had seen its institutions before. This is one of its peculiar
institutions; for it is a shire town. I began to comprehend what its
inhabitants were about.

In the morning, our breakfasts were put through the hole in the door,
in small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, and holding a pint of
chocolate, with brown bread, and an iron spoon. When they called for
the vessels again, I was green enough to return what bread I had left,
but my comrade seized it, and said that I should lay that up for lunch
or dinner. Soon after he was let out to work at haying in a
neighboring field, whither he went every day, and would not be back
till noon; so he bade me good day, saying that he doubted if he should
see me again.

When I came out of prison – for some one interfered, and paid that tax
– I did not perceive that great changes had taken place on the common,
such as he observed who went in a youth and emerged a gray-headed man;
and yet a change had come to my eyes come over the scene – the town,
and State, and country, greater than any that mere time could effect.
I saw yet more distinctly the State in which I lived. I saw to what
extent the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good
neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather
only; that they did not greatly propose to do right; that they were a
distinct race from me by their prejudices and superstitions, as the
Chinamen and Malays are that in their sacrifices to humanity they ran
no risks, not even to their property; that after all they were not so
noble but they treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by
a certain outward observance and a few prayers, and by walking in a
particular straight through useless path from time to time, to save
their souls. This may be to judge my neighbors harshly; for I believe
that many of them are not aware that they have such an institution as
the jail in their village.

It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out
of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their
fingers, which were crossed to represent the jail window, "How do ye
do?" My neighbors did not thus salute me, but first looked at me, and
then at one another, as if I had returned from a long journey. I was
put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which
was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish
my errand, and, having put on my mended show, joined a huckleberry
party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in
half an hour – for the horse was soon tackled – was in the midst of a
huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and
then the State was nowhere to be seen.

This is the whole history of "My Prisons."

I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous
of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject; and as for
supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow countrymen
now. It is for no particular item in the tax bill that I refuse to pay
it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and
stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace the course of
my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man a musket to shoot one with –
the dollar is innocent – but I am concerned to trace the effects of my
allegiance. In fact, I quietly declare war with the State, after my
fashion, though I will still make use and get what advantages of her I
can, as is usual in such cases.

If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sympathy with
the State, they do but what they have already done in their own case,
or rather they abet injustice to a greater extent than the State
requires. If they pay the tax from a mistaken interest in the
individual taxed, to save his property, or prevent his going to jail,
it is because they have not considered wisely how far they let their
private feelings interfere with the public good.

This, then is my position at present. But one cannot be too much on
his guard in such a case, lest his actions be biased by obstinacy or
an undue regard for the opinions of men. Let him see that he does only
what belongs to himself and to the hour.

I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they are only ignorant;
they would do better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this
pain to treat you as they are not inclined to? But I think again, This
is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer
much greater pain of a different kind. Again, I sometimes say to
myself, When many millions of men, without heat, without ill will,
without personal feelings of any kind, demand of you a few shillings
only, without the possibility, such is their constitution, of
retracting or altering their present demand, and without the
possibility, on your side, of appeal to any other millions, why expose
yourself to this overwhelming brute force? You do not resist cold and
hunger, the winds and the waves, thus obstinately; you quietly submit
to a thousand similar necessities. You do not put your head into the
fire. But just in proportion as I regard this as not wholly a brute
force, but partly a human force, and consider that I have relations to
those millions as to so many millions of men, and not of mere brute or
inanimate things, I see that appeal is possible, first and
instantaneously, from them to the Maker of them, and, secondly, from
them to themselves. But if I put my head deliberately into the fire,
there is no appeal to fire or to the Maker for fire, and I have only
myself to blame. If I could convince myself that I have any right to
be satisfied with men as they are, and to treat them accordingly, and
not according, in some respects, to my requisitions and expectations
of what they and I ought to be, then, like a good Mussulman and
fatalist, I should endeavor to be satisfied with things as they are,
and say it is the will of God. And, above all, there is this
difference between resisting this and a purely brute or natural force,
that I can resist this with some effect; but I cannot expect, like
Orpheus, to change the nature of the rocks and trees and beasts.

I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to
split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as better
than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for
conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to
them. Indeed, I have reason to suspect myself on this head; and each
year, as the tax-gatherer comes round, I find myself disposed to
review the acts and position of the general and State governments, and
the spirit of the people to discover a pretext for conformity.

"We must affect our country as our parents,
And if at any time we alienate
Out love or industry from doing it honor,
We must respect effects and teach the soul
Matter of conscience and religion,
And not desire of rule or benefit."

I believe that the State will soon be able to take all my work of this
sort out of my hands, and then I shall be no better patriot than my
fellow-countrymen. Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution,
with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are very
respectable; even this State and this American government are, in many
respects, very admirable, and rare things, to be thankful for, such as
a great many have described them; seen from a higher still, and the
highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth looking
at or thinking of at all?

However, the government does not concern me much, and I shall bestow
the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many moments that I live
under a government, even in this world. If a man is thought-free,
fancy-free, imagination-free, that which is not never for a long time
appearing to be to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally
interrupt him.

I know that most men think differently from myself; but those whose
lives are by profession devoted to the study of these or kindred
subjects content me as little as any. Statesmen and legislators,
standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and
nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but have no
resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience and
discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful
systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and
usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to
forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency.
Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with
authority about it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who
contemplate no essential reform in the existing government; but for
thinkers, and those who legislate for all time, he never once glances
at the subject. I know of those whose serene and wise speculations on
this theme would soon reveal the limits of his mind's range and
hospitality. Yet, compared with the cheap professions of most
reformers, and the still cheaper wisdom and eloquence of politicians
in general, his are almost the only sensible and valuable words, and
we thank Heaven for him. Comparatively, he is always strong, original,
and, above all, practical. Still, his quality is not wisdom, but
prudence. The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a
consistent expediency. Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is
not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with
wrong-doing. He well deserves to be called, as he has been called, the
Defender of the Constitution. There are really no blows to be given
him but defensive ones. He is not a leader, but a follower. His
leaders are the men of '87. "I have never made an effort," he says,
"and never propose to make an effort; I have never countenanced an
effort, and never mean to countenance an effort, to disturb the
arrangement as originally made, by which various States came into the
Union." Still thinking of the sanction which the Constitution gives to
slavery, he says, "Because it was part of the original compact – let
it stand." Notwithstanding his special acuteness and ability, he is
unable to take a fact out of its merely political relations, and
behold it as it lies absolutely to be disposed of by the intellect –
what, for instance, it behooves a man to do here in America today with
regard to slavery – but ventures, or is driven, to make some such
desperate answer to the following, while professing to speak
absolutely, and as a private man – from which what new and singular of
social duties might be inferred? "The manner," says he, "in which the
governments of the States where slavery exists are to regulate it is
for their own consideration, under the responsibility to their
constituents, to the general laws of propriety, humanity, and justice,
and to God. Associations formed elsewhere, springing from a feeling of
humanity, or any other cause, have nothing whatever to do with it.
They have never received any encouragement from me and they never
will." [These extracts have been inserted since the lecture was read
-HDT]

They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its
stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the
Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humanity; but
they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool,
gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward
its fountainhead.

No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are
rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and
eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his
mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of
the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth
which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators
have not yet learned the comparative value of free trade and of
freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation. They have no genius
or talent for comparatively humble questions of taxation and finance,
commerce and manufactures and agriculture. If we were left solely to
the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected
by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints of the
people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations. For
eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it,
the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who
has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light
which it sheds on the science of legislation?

The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to –
for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I,
and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well – is
still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction
and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person
and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an absolute
to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a
progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese
philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of
the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement
possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further
towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never
be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to
recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which
all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him
accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last which can
afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect
as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own
repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor
embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow
men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop
off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more
perfect and glorious State, which I have also imagined, but not yet
anywhere seen.

Published in 1849 by the Massachusetts essayist and radical as
"Resistance to Civil Government."

Tea Extinguishes Fire on Cuyahoga River!

2009-12-30T08:48:00.011-05:00

This post is in response to Brother Christopher Hodapps post: "Cleveland is Burning Again"
http://freemasonsfordummies.blogspot.com/2007/11/cleveland-is-burning-again.html,
over at Freemasons for Dummies blog. There was a Fire raging that has now been virtually extinguished. Thanks to all who followed this case and believe in Lodge sovereignty.

Just in time for Christmas there's a reason for the brothers of Halcyon Lodge,
http://www.halcyontemple.org/,
in Cleveland, Ohio to celebrate. Earlier today the following was posted on the Clerk of Courts website for Cuyahoga County.

DEFENDANTS' MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT ARE GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. SUMMARY JUDGMENT IS GRANTED IN FULL AS TO NON-OFFICERS MICHAEL HOWARD, JOEL MICHALEK, CHRISTOPHER MICHALEK, TOME COSTE, HALCYON CHARITIES. SUMMARY JUDGMENT IS GRANTED IN PART AS TO DEFENDANT OFFICERS CHRIS SNOW, TODD WARMINGTON, LYNN ERIC CHIPPS, SCOTT KELLY. ONLY ISSUE THAT REMAINS FOR TRIAL IS RETURN OF "PERSONAL PROPERTY MASONIC IN NATURE AND UNPAID DUES." ALL OTHER CLAIMS FAIL. DEFENDANTS OWED NO FIDUCIARY DUTY TO GRAND LODGE AND DEFENDANTS ACTED IN GOOD FAITH TO PRESERVE ASSETS OF LODGE. THE COURT FINDS THAT THE VOTE TO TRANSFER ASSETS WAS DONE IN ACCORDANCE WITH BYLAWS. IN REGARDS TO NOTICE, ALL HAD NOTICE OF THE STATED (NOT SPECIAL) MEETING AND NO EVIDENCE WAS PRESENTED THAT ANYONE COMPLAINED. THE COURT ALSO DETERMINES THAT WRITTEN NOTICE OF THE ACTION WAS NOT REQUIRED BEFORE THE VOTE ACCORDING TO BYLAW 21.04, WHICH REQUIRES NOTICE ONLY FOR SPECIAL MEETINGS NOT STATED MEETINGS. FINALLY, THE COURT CONCLUDES THAT BYLAW 9.01 IS NOT APPLICABLE AS "ANY OTHER SUCH POLICY OF TEMPLE OWNERSHIP *** SUBMITTED TO TEMPLE COMMITTEE" AS THE ACTION WAS NOT FINANCING OR CREATING INDEBTEDNESS. PRE-TRIAL SET FOR 01/12/2010 AT 02:45 PM. PRETRIAL SET TO SCHEDULE ADDITONAL COURT DATES INCLUDING TRIAL DATE. CLPAL 12/22/2009 NOTICE ISSUED

Some believe the their actions were akin to the Boston Tea Party's rebellious Spirit!

According to the court's ruling, the brothers of Halcyon Lodge acted in accordance with the Masonic bylaws and in good faith.

Our congratulations to the brothers of Halcyon Lodge.
http://www.gomasons.org/

Case #CV-08-649002
Link: http://cpdocket.cp.cuyahogacounty.us/p_CV_Docket.aspx
Search on "Halcyon Lodge"

The Importance of Bowing

2009-12-02T08:16:00.004-05:00

"The bow is done to show humility and is used to express a lack of arrogance. In addition, it serves as a sign of mutual respect between teachers and students and between opponents."

Master Carlos Gracie Jr.

The bow is perhaps one of the most misunderstood traditions in martial arts. Many people may think of it as a religious affiliation or as a sign of a master-slave type relationship between an instructor and his or her student. This interpretation is false. Instead, the bow is done to show humility and is used to express a lack of arrogance. In addition, it serves as a sign of mutual respect between teachers and students and between practitioners and opponents. If you were to compare the Asian bow to a Western tradition, it would most closely represent the handshake. In BJJ as well as in many other martial arts, the bow can be done from a standing position or a kneeling position.

Now that you know why some Martial Artist practitioners bow, let's look at when the bow is appropriate. You should bow when you enter the Academy or Dojo. At that time, you are clearing your mind of daily problems and events, and "emptying your cup" so that you are concentrating on BJJ(or your specific Art) and able to absorb the martial arts material you are about to learn. Just as you bow when you enter the Academy or dojo, you should bow when you leave the dojo. This signifies that your training on the mat has finished.

Some BJJ classes are started by bowing toward the front of the Academy or dojo. We bow toward the middle of the mat because that is where our instructor is and where the work is done. We bow to our instructor to show our respect and gratitude for his teachings, and to signify the full attention of practicing. Alertness is emphasized in martial arts training because of the inherit danger of learning and practicing combat. Therefore, the bow is important because it signifies that we are concentrated on the task and training ahead.

Bowing should be done between two people prior and immediately after sparring. Sparring partners often shake hands too. The bowing that occurs here indicates to each other that the practitioners are alert and ready. The bow after the sparring match shows gratitude to the other person. Each person learns something about himself, his opponent, and combat through a sparring match. The ending bow is thanking the other person for the learning.

We also bow to the instructor at the end of class, walk in belt rank to give another personal bow, hand shake and hug to the instructor and each other.

BJJ originated from the Japanese, so there are some Japanese ways that are involved in BJJ training. Especially if you are training with Brazilians. They are more formal when it comes to training. They are not that removed from the Japanese influence the Gracie's learned. The old school BJJ teachers also have a heavy Judo influence.

Bows Are Not Simply "Japanese Handshakes"

It is common knowledge that bowing is customary in Japan. Watching the Japanese bow at any place and any time can appear amusing to our foreign eyes. Conversely, do we find watching people shake hands amusing? In the Western world, we typically offer our hands when we wish to be perceived as showing sincerity. The Japanese prefer to bow. Like the handshake, the bow can convey a salutation, a farewell, or an expression of thanks and gratitude.

The bow, although, is not the exact equivalent of the handshake. Handshakes have little variation, other than length of time and the strength employed. This may tell one very little, other than one or both persons have strong hands. On the other hand, the bow can convey a number of different things to its partakers and observers alike. Various bows have different meanings. As well, the type and level of emotions that may be involved and the nature of the relationship between the persons bowing can be observed. Correct bowing is complex. There are different nuances involved with the type of bow and situation in which it is used. The depth of the bow depends on the relationship between the two people meeting. Bows can range from shallow nods to kneeling bows where one's head touches the floor. This latter bow, however, is seldom practiced or seen these days. As well as replacing the handshake, a bow can replace "thank you", "please" and other commonly used terms of gratitude and respect.

Many Japanese appear to bow with little conscious thought. This can be seen when a Japanese person is immersed in a telephone conversation and is bowing to the unseen party. It is incorrect to assume that all Japanese understand the fine distinctions of bowing. With globalization and the Westernizing of Japan, etiquette classicists note that many Japanese know only the rudimentary elements of correct bowing.

Bowing is Not About Religion

When we reviewed the kanji for "rei," we noted that it appeared as a pictogram for a person kneeling at an altar. This does not necessarily connote a person "in prayer." As was noted, Japanese kanji have many meanings and "rei" is no exception. Although bows are used in prayer in Japan and form integral parts of many religions, the bow used in the dojo is not part of a religious ceremony.

Interestingly, the bow is not solely a Japanese gesture used in a religious context. This particular act of submission originated in Christianity. In fact, there is still exists an ancient order that prostates the complete body on the floor facing the East. Islam is well-known for its bowing.

In Japanese culture, however, we see the bow used more for business and social interactions than religious ones. To this end, it is more akin to our Western handshake than to Eastern religion.

Historical Martial Arts Bowing - A Lesson in Self Defence

The densho (tradition) of the Confucian-inspired Japanese rules of demeanor has continued until present in the various dojos throughout the world. Originally the exclusive domain of the warrior class samurai, many of these structured and formal rules of etiquette have been codified, including how one should bow, since the time of the Minamoto no Yoritomo, who founded the Kamakura Shogunate approximately 800 years ago. The Ogasawara Reiho taught to the Kamakura Shogunate was adopted nationally as a standardized form of etiquette. Even today, there exists an Ogasawara Ryu, which is a school of etiquette. The rules of etiquette, though, pre-date the Kamakura Shogunate. It is notable that etiquette and specifically bowing is copied from warrior behaviors.

I find it truly sad when my fellow martial artists berate or disparage the use of at least some traditional Japanese etiquette, including bowing, in the dojo. It is interesting that many of these teachers are quick to note that they teach "jujutsu" or "karate", but outside of the actual words "jujutsu" or "karate" and the use of the unique practice uniform ("gi"), there is little else that distinguishes the school as a Japanese martial arts dojo. Perhaps these schools should call their arts "fighting" or "self-defense" and skip the rather tenuous links to Japanese martial arts. However, I digress.

There are many reasons for beginning to study the martial arts. One the main reasons that a person may initially enter a dojo is self-defense. Surprisingly, several Japanese martial arts masters note that the purpose of etiquette, and its expression through the use of the bow, is self defense. This is not to suggest that one should bow to an incoming mae geri (front kick). When one reflects more deeply on this supposition it becomes clear that reigi saho (etiquette manners) is self defense. On its face, we know that etiquette has a dictionary definition of "long-observed behavior proper to a specific context whose effect is to ensure social order."

Keeping with this definition, we are familiar with Japanese etiquette and particularly bowing as a "long observed" behavior that is used in a "specific context." With respect to it having the effect "to ensure social order", we need only review some historical warrior behaviors. For example, the sword is carried and drawn from the left side. A samurai would place his sword on his right side as a symbol of his peaceful intent. This placement made it tough to access the weapon quickly, thus rendering it ineffective. Failure to complete this customary behavior whilst in the presence of a superior ranking party was a grave breach of etiquette that could result in immediate execution.

These warriors had many strict protocols including how they entered rooms, to where they were seated in these rooms when superiors or other warriors were present, to how they removed and put on their swords in the presence of others. These protocols were strictly observed so that the warrior appeared to pose no threat. This etiquette code of behavior helped ensure the safety of others around the warrior. Moreover, it was a form of self-defense for the warrior since all were subject to these etiquette protocols; hence, the warrior had the ability to interact with others free of the fear of being exposed to a lethal risk

These patterns of behavior are not strictly the domain of historical Japanese culture. Two pieces of Western lore appear to support the notion of etiquette being central to self defense. In the first, medieval knights, when greeting each other, took hold of the other's right hand, which was the weapon hand. This was the forerunner of the modern handshake. Unlike the modern handshake, the knights kept hold of one another's arm while interacting at such a close distance. This ensured mutual safety while at close distance. Secondly, although unsubstantiated, it has been held that the modern day military-style salute showed that one's weapon hand was empty and therefore posed no threat. Others dispute this claim and note it is performed this way (right hand touching the forehead) historically in medieval tournaments. At these events, the two knights opened the fronts of their helmets to show their faces to their opponent and to the audience. Suffice it to state, the salute has military origins as does the bow.

GOUSA Council of Order, 9/19/2009 @ Halcyon Temple

2009-09-21T09:38:00.014-04:00

I hope to be able to express how this weekends Council of Order meeting of the GOUSA impacted myself, the others who attended and the future of Orient Free-Masonry in America.

The idea that men from different obediences can come together without prejudice or segregation.
We had Free Masons from 6 different orders able to meet all on the Level, accomplish an historical business meeting, Alchemically Wed Halcyon and the GOUSA together with the rest of its members, and initiate two quality individuals into a Triangle in Washington DC.

Masons were able to see and feel what Halcyon Temple can mean to Freemasonry and that is was worth the struggles we have faced as a group. From afar, many questioned Halcyons stance to defend their Temple from destruction, but once inside, any True mason would have done the same.

http://www.halcyontemple.org/temple.htm

It had a feeling of what it might have been like in 1717, where there were not any Grand Lodges existing yet, to have been able to put forth rules and edicts that seperate masons by terms of regularity or irregularity and beliefs. It truly was wonderful and enlightening. It was wonderful to have men from all over the country congregate at our facility to embark on this journey.

The main thing for me that was accomplished was that the GOUSA cemented the fact American Grand Orient Free Masonry is a 3 degree system only. We will all be Master Masons who meet on the Level, not 32nds, Knigh Templars, KYCH's, Royal Arch Masons and whatever other "High" Grade that has been invented by men to create an unlevel environment. All Higher degrees can be studied for Light, not a Title or point of recognition where some Grand Priory or Grand High Coucil doles out degrees's above Master Mason.

It was fascinating to see, as well as to be a part of the old ritual we conferred on the two aspirants from DC. I could only imagine the impact this ritual would have on a sincere aspirant, and the effect it would have made on a man centuries ago. The trials of the Elements, CoR, cast of characters that are needed to portray this ritual and the willingness of all the brothers to initiate the aspirants was humbling!

Brother Peace and the Brothers of Sirius, who have worked this ritual for awhile, really do a great job and exude a zeal for initiation that was absent in our pasts. This ritual is not for the lazy and disinterested. It takes certain character to be able to stay focused and remain interested in a potential 3-4 hour initiation!

Here is small portion of the group gathering for a photo I took with my cell phone:

It was memorable, and I look forward to future gatherings and the working of different rituals when we come together in the future. The Light that was gained after this weekend can only grow brighter within all who participated and hopefully it will spread to others!

I want to thank all who attended, and also to those who sent postive thoughts to us from afar, it was felt and appreciated.

To my French Brothers, I cannot wait to break bread with you again, and meet with all your brother's from Lafayette 89, Washington, D.C. ,GOdF!

It was great to hear the French accents in the ritual... it was a great addition!

PS: The Spirits of Halcyon surely smiled upon us this weekend!

As it is stated on our Temple: This building is dedicated and consecrated to the Spirit of Freemasonry!

That was accomplished this weekend!
So Mote It Be