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gitsta to Contspnkirts * Several reports and communications stand over .

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Now Ready . THE NEW MARK TRACING BOARD , 36 m . by 23 m . Price 42 s . To be had at Bro . Kenning's Masonic Depots , Little Britain and Fleet-street , London .

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Second Edition , Now Ready , 1 / 6 . A MASONIC MUSICAL SERVICE . In the key of C . for A ., T ., T ., B . Opening and Closing Odes . Craft Ceremonies . Royal Arch Ceremony . Consecration Ceremony . Grace before and after Meat . COMPOSED BV DR . j . C . BAKER , NO . 241 . LONDON . —Geo . Kenning , 198 , Fleet-street ; and 2 , 3 , and 4 , Little Britain . „ R . Spencer , 26 , Great Queen-street . LIVERPOOL . —Geo . Kenning , 2 , Monument-place . MANCHESTER . —E . Henry & Co ., 59 , Deansgate . DUBLIN . —C . Hedgelong , 26 , Graf ton-street . GLASGOW . —Geo . Kenning , 14 c , Areyle-street .

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MADAME TUSSMJD'S EXHIBITION BAKER STREET . Now added , PORTRAIT MODELS of the SHAH of PERSIA , Marshal MacMahon , M . Thiers , and the late Charles Dickens . The ori ginal autograph and testimonial written and presented by the Shah to Messrs . Tussaud , July 3 , 1873 , is exhibited . Admission is . Children under ten , Cd . Extra Rooms , fid . Open from ten a . m . to ten p . nv

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The Freemason , SATURDAY , FEBR . UAR . V - 14 , 1874 .

Freemasonry In Italy And The Roman Catholic Church.

FREEMASONRY IN ITALY AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH .

Such is the heading of a very severe attack on the Italian Freemasons , by the Tablet , a Roman Catholic journal , and which is printed in the Church Herald of January 4 th , without one word of comment , or one expression of doubt . Indeed it would seem as if the conductors of

that paper , professedly a Church of England serial , entirely agreed with the views , thus put forward . The article though somewhat long for our columns , we have deemed it right to reprint " in extenso , " and our readers will , we think ,

see at once , why we have thought well to recur to the subject : — " In Great Britain the Society of Free and Accepted Masons is regarded by many Protestants as a harmless institution . The members

of the various lodges are for the most part wellto-do , respectable men , who are supposed to be linked together by some secret bond or oath , which engages them to do something mysterious and not to be explained , at some indefinite

period . 1 he Masons themselves—except a very few—are supposed to be ignorant of the real secret of their Craft , and the only thing concerning Masonry which is known to the public with certainty is that Masons are convivial , charitable ,

and benevolent , and help each other in danger or distress . The objectionable feature in Freemasonry in England , supposing it to be otherwise harmless , is its secrecy . No association , which is a secret one , can escape suspicion . The

civil power is of course jealous of all organisations which possess no well-known and wellapproved object , but in Great Britain many of the governing class belong to Freemasonry , and in consequence that association enjoys protection

and exemption from hostile interference on the part of the state . The Catholic Church makes no compromise with Freemasonry , or with any other secret society . Nor is it easy to understand how the Church could tolerate an

association which has no honestly declared purpose , and which at the same time possesses a formidable and extensive organization , capable of being upon occasion turned into a terrible implement for the overthrow of society and order . Moreover , the

real nature of Freemasonry and its hostility to religion are well known by the declarations and the conduct of continental Masons . The head of Freemasonry in Italy is Guiseppe Garibaldi , whose public speeches and writings leave no

doubt as to the infidel and blasphemous disposition of that extraordinary man . His cry is " Extermination to the Pope and to his Priests . " The Cross—the sign ot salvation among Catholicsis to Freemasons a " sinister and dolorous

symbol . " We shall never make a step in advance "—said Guiseppe Ferrari—" except through the downfall and ruin of the Cross . " The Church and Freemasonry , while they are adverse to each other ,

exhibit a . striking contrast . The sectsas a deep thinker has pointed out— " form an infernal parody upon the monastical institutions of Christendom "— "infernal porodia delle istituzioni monastiche del Christianesimo . " " In

each of these institutions I see "—says Delia Motta—one chief and ruling princip le , which engages man to be harsh to himself , and trains him to be the docile instrument of a superior power . There is an organization which forms

of the entire body , either an asylum for particular doctrines , or a potent lever for some work or undertaking . But on the one hand , while those religious or political institutions which make a

part of Christian or of civil society , in so far as they are docile instruments in the hands of the ruling power , become its safeguard ar . d its defence ; so on the other hand the sects which enshroud themselves in mystery and stand in

Freemasonry In Italy And The Roman Catholic Church.

opposition to society and to the social power , becomes its danger and its scourge . " The very terms of Freemasonry are copied from those of the Christian communities . There is the Order of Freemasons , and there are Brethren , just as t ' aere are Orders and Brethren , or Friars , or

Benedictines , Franciscans or Augustinians . As if to travesty the nomenclature of the Catholic Church , the Freemasons in Italy divide their " National Communion " into " Consistories , " Conclaves and Chapters . Of consistories the re are three , those namely at Rome , Naples and Palermo .

The Conclaves are eight in number , and there are twenty-seven Chapters . There are besides 171 lodges . The Grand Dignitaries ofthe Order are twelve in number , and the first among them is Guiseppe Garibaldi , who is a Honorary Grand Master for life . Five Deputies to the Italian

Parliament are among these Dignitaries ; the Grand Treasurer being Luigi Pianciani , the Syndic of Rome . The titles of some the . lodges are suggestive . Four or five are named after Garibaldi , and three after Mazzini . . There is one lodge called " Free Thought , " another called

" Progress" and there are two called " Aspromonte . " There are also the lodges " Venti Settembre , " " Mazzini Risorto , " and " Dio e Popolo . " The danger to which the Church s exposed from these secret societies was plainly shown by His Holiness in his last Encyclical .

"Perhaps , " said Pius IX ., " some people may . feel surprised that so extensive a war against-the Catholic Church has broken out in our days . But whoever understands the " character , aims and purposes of the sects—be those sects MaSonic or called by any other name—and compare them

with the character , purpose , arid magnitude of this battle which the Church is now forced to sustain throughout nearly the entire world , cannot doubt but that the cause of the present calamity must be attributed to the frauds and machinations ofthe same sects . For they

compose that Synagogue of Satan which marshals its forces , unfolds its banners , and forms its alliances against the Church of Jesus Christ . " And Freemasons themselves are prompt to avow their enmity to the Ghurch and to Pius IX . The Freimaurer Zeitung , of Leipsic , in a recent

article , proclaims open war against the Pontiff ^ and adopts the German Emperor as champion of the Order . When two adversaries stand forth for conflict , such as the Emperor , who in his Masonic quality esteems and protects the order , and the Pope

who prescribes and condemns it , Freemasonry must of necessity declare its proper position . It must range itself with those among whom it is understood- and believed , and it must raise its voice against the man who treats it as the sworn foe of all faith and virtue . For Masonry the

question is one of life or death . " The same article compares the two old men—the Pope and the Emperor . It calls the prisoner in the Vatican " that old man , who , although declared to be infallible , is yet ignorant of the noblest actions of history and of nations , and whose

range of vision is still bounded by the horizon of the ages which are past . " The other old man of Berlin is , on the contrary , a "hero , whose ever-buoyant genius has . strength to comprehend his own times to their very depths , " The Emperor—so proceeds the Freemason organ

— " wields , with us and for us , the hammer of strength , the compass of combined inspiration , and the square of wisdom , which served to regulate , according to an ideal pattern , actions truly worthy of humanity . " He is the "noble old man , who has known how to combat the

power of darkness , which would else annihilate our designs . " Whatever may be the designs of the Freemasons , and whatever be the true drift of their mysterious jargon , it is quite clear that the welfare of Christianity is not one of the objects at which they aim . It is also manifest that the Prussian Emperor and his Freemasons are

determined to overcome the Catholic Church , which ther describe as the " power of darkness . " It is to be feared they will find many assistants in Italy in their work of combating the Church . In Rome the Prussian lodges are doubl y represented . The Grand Mother Lodge of Berlin has its local officer in Rome in the person or Cesare Donati , who holds a high post under the Italian Minister of Public Instruction .