Freemasonry And The Pope.

FREEMASONRY AND THE POPE .

LONDON , SATURDAY , NOVEMBER ¦ % , 1865 .

It was m the eleventh , century and not in the nineteenth that the spiritual as well as the temporal power of the Vatican was asserted to be supreme , and men at that time tacitly acknowledged that the Sovereign Pontiff of Rome was

lord of the Universe , arbiter ofthe fate of empires , and supreme ruler of kings and princes upon earth ; and accordingly nothing was easier than to dispose of kingdoms , and to loose subjects from their allegiance , as instanced in tho history of

King John of England . Aspin , in " Lives of the Popes , " says , "At length they assumed the whole earth to be their property , as well where Christianity had been propagated , as where it had not . They finally pretended to be lords of the future

world also , and by licences , pardons , dispensations , and indulgences , wliich they sold to the best bidders , to have a power of restraining and , in some instances , of subverting even the Divine justice itself . " To arrogate so vast a power is

easy enough , but to enforce it in the present age is quite another matter . Strong writing breaks no bones , but is ineffective to maintain and enforce the laws without a strong arm iu support of authority . When the Spanish . Armada appeared on our coasts the Admiral carried with him an

instrument expected to be as effectual a weapon as a 200-pound Armstrong gim , and that was a papal bull consigning Queen Elizabeth and her abettors to hell fire , which did uot , however , much affect the successful resistance of Drake and Howard ,

nor prevent the defeat of the Invincible Armada . Bulls and edicts and papal allocutions , have in all ages been launched from Rome like harmless thunder on a summer's evening . Of late , however , Prance and Sardinia , who may be assumed as the most unfaithful of the faithful , have had several allocutions forwarded to their address . The

most recent one , the allocution delivered to the secret consistory on Sept . 25 th , may be accepted as growing out of the peculiar relations of these countries with the See of Rome . Eno-Hsh Freemasonry can scarcely bo said to be effected b y that

wholesale denunciation , except from the universality of the science . But the mystic allocution refers to what may be taken as meaning Fenian ism , which , for , as much as it is worth comes nearer home . The papal head must have a confused notion ot facts to mix up Fenianism with Freemasonry .

The regeneration of Ireland , the whisky agitators hot headed movement , stimulated by rowdies and loafers across the Atlantic , appear to our English minds to have nothing in common with a large school of unobtrusive men in all countries , who by

the laws of practice of their society abjure political and religious interference , and unite themselves for social and charitable objects . The Siecle says aptly enough , that at the lowest estimate there are two millions of Freemasons in

France , and the only result of their papal excommunication will be that they are thereby incapacitated to act as sponsors at the . baptismal font , which will be an immense economy of silver mugs and spoons . " A society which avoids the light of day must surely be impious and criminal . " The argument ,

however , is not conclusive . The society of Jesuits avoids the light of day ; the cloistered nun , the recesses of the confessional avoid the light of day , but because the outer world are not admitted to a participation in the secret operations , and perhaps

machinations of influences so unseen and yet so widely spread aud so deeply felt , the thoughtful man and even thoughtless mankind in general , do not stamp them as necessarily "impious and criminal . " A fervid and eloquent author Michelet

" Du Pretre , de la femme , de la famille , " affords an admirable corrollary to the denunciation of the Vatican . " Ce Pretre tout en disant que son royaume est la-haut , il a surpris adroitement la rijalite—d'ici bas . Recrimination is however , no argument , " comparaison n ' est pas raison , " and the subject will be again treated upon in these

pages . As from letters which , we have received from several correspondents , doubts would appear to exist as to the allocution having reference to the Graft alone ; and that Fenianism is also alluded to

by his Holiness . We deem it as well to reproduce in our pages the translation of the much talked of , document from a perusal of which our readers will find that it is Freemasonry alone that is rereferred to by his Holiness : —

Tim PAPAL ALLOCUTION . In the secret Consistory held at Rome on the 25 th Sept . the Pope delivered the following allocution : —¦ " Venerable brethren , —Among the numerous machinations and artifices by which the enemies of the Christian name have dared to attack the Church of God , and sought to shako and besiege it by efforts superfluous in truth , must undoubtedly be reckoned that perverse society of men vulgarly styled Masonic , which , at first confined to darkness and obscurity , now comes into