Professor Robertson On Freemasonry.

PROFESSOR ROBERTSON ON FREEMASONRY .

LONDOSt , SATURDAY , OCTOBTSE 0 , 1866 ,

( Continued from page 24-1 . ) "In the year 1736 , on the departure of Lord Harnonester , second Grand Master of the Order in Prance , the court intimated that , if the choice to that dignity fell on a Frenchman , he should be

sent to the Bastile . The Duke cVAntin was , however , elected , and under him French Masonry attained to a certain consistence . Iu the year 1744 , during the presidency of the Duke de Clermont , a prince of the blood . Masonic lodges

were expressly prohibited by the Government ; but this prohibition served only to increase and spread them in the provinces . At length , the lodges in Paris emancipated themselves from all dependency on those in England .

"A Scotch gentleman , the Chevalier Ramsey , was one of the most zealous promoters of Freemasonry in France . He had been bred up in the principles of Calvinism , aud then , having fallen into a state of scepticism , had , in order to obtain

a solution of his religious doubts , travelled in Holland and France , where he was converted to the Catholic Church by the great Fenelon . As a Jacobite , he was attached to an association that , as he confesses , had rendered great services to

the House of Stuart , and , as tutor to the sons of the Pretender , he had the best opportunities for furthering its success . A zealous Catholic and a devoted royalist , the advocate and promoter of Freemasonry ! How repugnant is this fact to our modern nations ! "

We can scarcely imagine the thrill of horror which must have pervaded " the historical society connected with the Catholic university" at the mention of such an unnatural union as that of Catholic piety and loyalty on the one hand with

Freemasonry on the other . The professor , however , hastens to calm the perturbed spirits of his audience— " But observe the Church had as yet pronounced no judgment on the matter . "

" Ramsay , " we are told , " proposed , as Grand Master of the Order , to convene at Paris a council consisting of deputies from all the Masonic lodges in Europe ; but the Prime Minister , Cardinal Fleury , induced him to abandon this project . "

" The Society of I reemasons , says a living Italian historian , " retained iu Great Britain a serious character ; but in other countries it was soon converted into convivial meetings , and became a sort of gay heresy , apparently innoxious ,

and which even by acts of beneficence sought to render itsolf useful . Its mysteriousness served to attract and to excite the imagination . The visionary thought to perceive in the Order a school of chimerical perfection and of

transcendental mysticism ; the charlatan , an abundant source of illusions ; some , under the mantle of its name , practised knavery ; but a greater number looked on this Institution as a means for the relief of

indigence . It was impossible that governments should not look with distrust on these secret assemblies , and on that mysterious understanding between men belonging to different countries . Hence , all Masonic lodges were proscribed , first

in France , in the year 1729 , then in Holland , in 1735 , and successively in Flanders , in Sweden , in Poland , in Spain , iu Portugal , in Hungary , and in Switzerland . At Vienna , in the year 1743 , a lodge was burst into by soldiers . The

Freemasons had to give up their swords , and were conducted to prison , or set at large on their parole . As personages of high rank were of the number , great sensation was excited , and rumours were rife . But the Masons declared , that as they

were bound by the promise of secrecy , they were unable to reply to auy judicial interrogatory . The government , satisfied with this plea , set the prisoners free , and contented itself with prohibiting any more assemblies of that kind .- "

"Already in 1738 , Pope Clement tho Twelfth had excommunicated the Freemasons in Italy . Benedict the Fourteenth renewed the auathemas ; and thereupon in the kingdom of Naples , where the Order was widely spread , Charles the Third

applied to the members of this society the penalties enacted against all disturbers of the public peace . Other princes followed a like policv . "

" Such , " says Professor Robertson , " is a brief historical sketch of the rise and progress of Freemasonry . We have seen how this modern sect grew out of the corporations of the purely architectural Masons of the Middle A ^ e ; how it

gradually assumed a political character ; and how in England , in the seventeenth century , it was the refuge and the defence of tho partisans of monarchy , in their endeavours to throw off a detested revolutionary yoke . We have seen , too ,