The Moral And Religious Origin Of Freemasonry:

THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ORIGIN OF FREEMASONRY :

OF ITS MISSION AND THE POSITIVE EPOCH OF ITS MATERIAL INSTITUTION . By Count S . d $ Giorgi Bertola , Knight of Christ and . Member of Freemasonry according to the French and Scottish Rites . TRANSLATED BY N . E . KENNY . THIS brochurededicated " A son Altesse Royalele Due de SussexGrand

, , , Maitre de I'Ordre Maconnique de Trois Royaumes de la Grand Bretagne , Colonies , " etc ., etc ., etc . ( the abbreviations are the author ' s ) , was printed for Count Bertola , without the medium of a publisher , and only a few copiesexemples de luxe—were taken from the press . Had the text been as faultless as the binding , the task of translation would have presented few difficulties . But foreigners have often reason to complain where their productions are not

subjected to the critical eye of an efficient " corrector of the press . " This was notably the case with Signor Salvini ' s Italian version of his plays of Shakespeare , printed with such marvellous inaccuracy in Paris , and afterwards so accurately produced here in London . THE TRANSLATOR .

ALMOST all those who have written on Freemasonry have themselves erred , or have desired to set others astray through leading them by false pathways . Some have seen in it merely a subordinate institution of the Knights Templar ; others make its origin go back to Solomon and to the ancient Patriarchs ; some make it descend from the Crusades ; some only wish to see in it a disorganised association , instituted by Manes , or by the Old Man of the Mountain ;

and , again , there are others who judge it as anti-religious and heresiarchal ; and , finally , others regard it as a political secret institution in permanent conspiracy against all the constituted powers of the State . The natural cause of these errors should be attributed , not only to the changes and alterations which this famous association has experienced , according to the different circumstances iu which it has found , itself since its origin , but also to the interests of certain selfish castes , jealous to preserve an oppressive and antisocial domination over the masses .

The first of human institutions was the constitution of family , in which the father exercised , without dispute , the natural ri ght of ruling . Afterwards came the assemblage of two or more families , preserving to each chief his natural authority in the inner council , and naming amongst them a kind of . arbitrator or supreme chief , who often took the name of Patriarch . Those kinds of communities having , in process of time , multip lied and enlargedwere followed by bodies of peoplesome stationaryothers nomadsto

, , , , whom they gave the general designation of tribes . It was not until after the formation of the tribes that the words " people " or " nation " could be reasonably enunciated for the first time ; and even , in order that the application of these terms might he correct , it was necessary that those tribes should bind themselves together by general interests , by uniformity of language , and by territorial residence . It is the sedentary tribes

alone , then , speaking the same tongue , and occupying the same region , who could be really termed nationalities . Nomad hordes , wandering from one country to another , in order to arrive at nationality , employed for the most part violence and numerical superiority , or created a new nation in the climates of their choice , or amalgamated themselves with nations alread y established , and few amongst them continued to