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Article TREVILIAN ON FREEMASONRY. ← Page 17 of 34 →
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Trevilian On Freemasonry.
Order , who possessed all the qualifications for the task which the experience of a single visit to a lodge some thirty-five years before , may be supposed to have bestowed , —as though one should write a treatise on astronomy , whose knowledge of the subject was gained by his having once looked at a telescope . The announcement of this work excited no inconsiderable
curiosity amongst the fraternity ; those who were acquainted with the talents of the writer , anticipated much amusement , —others looked upon it in a very serious light , though half doubting whether any man could be found , in the ranks of gentlemen , capable of so gross a violation of truth and honour as such a publication necessarily implied . But the work was readfound utterly worthlesstoo wide
, , of the mark , to have even the semblance of a disclosure , and so entirely absurd that , but for the pain excited by its attacks on individuals , mirth and ridicule would have been its sole results . The immediate inducement to publication , if I remember rightly , —for the book is not now before me , —is stated to have been a remark drawn from a gentleman at a dinner tablewhere the Major
, was , as usual , indulging his virulent hatred of Masonry , accusing him in plain terms of perjury ; and if that gentleman is he whose name I have heard quoted as the accuser , he is oue to whom the most remote approach to falsehood would be abhorrent . But , nevertheless , the Major must stand acquitted of actual perjury : he
has violated no Masonic oath , has disclosed no Masonic secret , for he never took the one , or knew the other ; but he believed he knew the secret and proposed to publish it ; he thought he had taken a Masonic oath and intended to break it . A work written with such views , upon such principles , and founded on such qualifications , naturally excited the disgust of the Orderbut remained unnoticed by the members . It would have
, still continued in the obscurity of deserved contempt , but for a renewal of the attack on an individual , which in the Exeter Gazette of the 4 th of May assumed the form of an advertisement , professing to be occasioned by au obituary paragraph , relating to the late Rev . and revered Dr . Carwithen . I say professing to be so occasioned ; but is it not iu fact , a puffing advertisement , adopted as a last chance
of clearing the shelves of the Major's publisher of the rubbish which encumbers them ? If so , surely a less objectionable method might have been devised ; why did not the Major , whose inventive power is limited only by his talents , compose a few " OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ; " or if his invention was exhausted by the work itself , why did he not search among forgotten subjects of the day for such " Opinions " as his publishers may have thought calculated to give
currency to the book on its first appearance . He might readily have found in the pages of the Atheoiceum something to this effect , — " The revelations are few , and of provoking unimportance considering that a solemn oath had to be violated in order to their divulgeineut . " VOL . I . v
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Trevilian On Freemasonry.
Order , who possessed all the qualifications for the task which the experience of a single visit to a lodge some thirty-five years before , may be supposed to have bestowed , —as though one should write a treatise on astronomy , whose knowledge of the subject was gained by his having once looked at a telescope . The announcement of this work excited no inconsiderable
curiosity amongst the fraternity ; those who were acquainted with the talents of the writer , anticipated much amusement , —others looked upon it in a very serious light , though half doubting whether any man could be found , in the ranks of gentlemen , capable of so gross a violation of truth and honour as such a publication necessarily implied . But the work was readfound utterly worthlesstoo wide
, , of the mark , to have even the semblance of a disclosure , and so entirely absurd that , but for the pain excited by its attacks on individuals , mirth and ridicule would have been its sole results . The immediate inducement to publication , if I remember rightly , —for the book is not now before me , —is stated to have been a remark drawn from a gentleman at a dinner tablewhere the Major
, was , as usual , indulging his virulent hatred of Masonry , accusing him in plain terms of perjury ; and if that gentleman is he whose name I have heard quoted as the accuser , he is oue to whom the most remote approach to falsehood would be abhorrent . But , nevertheless , the Major must stand acquitted of actual perjury : he
has violated no Masonic oath , has disclosed no Masonic secret , for he never took the one , or knew the other ; but he believed he knew the secret and proposed to publish it ; he thought he had taken a Masonic oath and intended to break it . A work written with such views , upon such principles , and founded on such qualifications , naturally excited the disgust of the Orderbut remained unnoticed by the members . It would have
, still continued in the obscurity of deserved contempt , but for a renewal of the attack on an individual , which in the Exeter Gazette of the 4 th of May assumed the form of an advertisement , professing to be occasioned by au obituary paragraph , relating to the late Rev . and revered Dr . Carwithen . I say professing to be so occasioned ; but is it not iu fact , a puffing advertisement , adopted as a last chance
of clearing the shelves of the Major's publisher of the rubbish which encumbers them ? If so , surely a less objectionable method might have been devised ; why did not the Major , whose inventive power is limited only by his talents , compose a few " OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ; " or if his invention was exhausted by the work itself , why did he not search among forgotten subjects of the day for such " Opinions " as his publishers may have thought calculated to give
currency to the book on its first appearance . He might readily have found in the pages of the Atheoiceum something to this effect , — " The revelations are few , and of provoking unimportance considering that a solemn oath had to be violated in order to their divulgeineut . " VOL . I . v