Freemasonry And Its Influence.

gation upon this fraternity is , that each member is to protect a brother by his authority , to advise by his ability : to edify him by his virtues , to assist him in an exigence , to sacrifice all personal resentment , and to seek diligently for everything that

may contribute to the pleasure and profits of the society . True it is that this society has its secrets , but let not those who are initiated laugh at the confession ; for those figurative signs aud sacred words

which constitute among Freemasons a language sometimes mute and sometimes eloquent , are only invented to prevent imposition , to communicate at the greatest distance , aud to know the true member from the false , of whatever country or tongue he may be . Another quality required by those who enter our sanctuaries is a taste for all useful

sciences and liberal arts of all kinds . Thus the decorum expected from each of its members is a work which neither academy nor university have so well established . The name of Freemason , therefore , ought not to be taken in a

literal sense , as if the institutors had been real workers in stone and marble . They were not only in their operative capacity able architects , but as speculative ; many princes , both warlike and religious , dedicated their talents and their fortunes under this banner , to the Most High . — Pomeroy ' s Democrat .

The Late Roman Government.

THE LATE ROMAN GOVERNMENT .

AN UNPLEASANT PICTURE OF TYRANNY , CORRUPTION , AND DEBAUCHEY . W . J . Stillman , for four years United States Consul in Rome , sends to the New York "Tribune " the following letter in reply to a communication

in that paper eulogizing the Papal Government at Eome : "I resided in Eome from 1861 to 1868 , and saw , in official and private capacity , as much as any one could see of the government .

" It was simply the most atrocious in existence except that of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte . Its traditions were as old as its authority , & ud the system of repression and espionage quite worthy of St . Petersburgh . Not to speak of vague and

general complaints , I know that spies were placed at the doors of the places of Protestaut worship , to see if anyEomans went in , and that one friend of mine , a surgeon iu the French hospital , was

The Late Roman Government.

arrested for having waited on his wife , ( an English woman ) and carried at night to the prison of the Holy Office , ( the euphonic for the inquisition ) , where he was menaced with severe punishment if he not only did not abstain from courtesies to

Protestantism , but compel his wife to leave the Anglican Communion and enter the Eoman ; and he finally escaped from them by an appeal to French protection as an employ . " The brother of one of my most , intimate

friends was arrested in his bed at night , carried off by officers of the Holy Office , and never heard of again until years after-, when a released prisoner came to tell the survivor that his brother had died in the prison and was buried in the earth of

the dungeon . " Another of my friends , Castellant , the jeweller , was under such severe police surveillance that for years he had not dared walk in the streets with any of his friends , and when his father died , the

body was taken possession of by the police at the door of the house , the coffin surrounded by a detachment of officials , carried to the church , and the next day buried , all tokens of respect to the deceased being forbidden , and all participation in the services by his friends . He and his sisters were liberals in opinion .

" The system of terrorism was such that liberal Romans dared meet only in public , and never permitted a stranger to approach them in conversation . I never dared enter the house of a Roman friend for fear or bringing on him a domiciliary

visit . " Masons knew very well the history of two brethren hanged and buried in the highway for no other offence than being Masons . When the lodge which meets in Eome , in spite of all , wished

to send an address of condolence ( o the Grand Lodge at Washington , on the occasion of Lincoln ' s death , they were obliged to transmit the document through our messengers , the last not affiliated , so great was their danger if discovered to be Masons .

"I can conceive no system of torture worse than this terrible espionage , under which every patriotic Eoman lay fearful of his owu breathoue scarcely daring to speak to another , except in tropes and iuuendoes . They suffered the penalty

of crime for the wish merely to be free . Had it not been for the system of counter-espionage kept up by the Roman Committee on the Govern-