Freemasons And The Church Of Rome.

and thousands m its despotic territory ; audit is a curious fact , that the Emperor Alexander was made a Mason iu the Canongate Kilwinning Lodge of Edinburgh . Freemasonry has become an active principle on the Continent , not working like

the Carbonari , and such despicable institutionswhich it abhors most cordially , ancl which it destroys in a more effective manner than thejrffete thunders of the Vatican—for self aggrandisement or revolutionary principles , but for the

advancement of th © interests of mankind , which naturally embrace the propagation of civilisation , true religion , and the science and arts . It is a melancholy duty , it is the unkindest cut of all , to have to brand the Church of Rome with

originating these destructive societies ( not Freemason ) , whose existence it now deplores , and would fondly annihilate . For its own purposes , in former years , it called them into existence , * but when they began to act , in vulgar parlance , on

their own hook , then did the Vatican find it had evoked a Frankenstein spirit which it could not control , but which threatened in its turn to overturn and overwhelm the Church of Eome , its own and sole creatrix . And now , to show how

Freemasonry was the darling of the Papacy , and how , when it refused to prostitute its principles to the interests of Eome , the Vatical started rival institutions . For this purpose , it will be necessary to consider how Freemasonry arose , ancl likewise what its doctrines are .

At what time , in what place , and under what circumstances Freemasonry arose and became au institution , are questions upon which history is silent . Tradition and fable , tho popular mode of transmitting historical deeds from age to age , has

nothing to say about this wonderful science ; its doings are only to be traced by those ina-rldngs on the stones , known but to Masons , in the magnificent ruins of Baalbec , the gigantic temples of Egypt , the gorgeous cathedrals of Europe , and

the strange remains of Mexican grand jur . Patronised from the earliest days by king and noble , secret and unseen , its doctrines spread , rumour alone vaguely hinting at the leaders of the Order ; yet nothing certain , nothing tangible .

Man , plunged in ignorance and crime , raising altars to Baal , and passing his innocent babes through the fire to Moloch , is a spectacle alike beastly aud disgusting * . Gods , fashioned like man , with appetites and passions that shamed the most depraved of human beings , were the

received protectors of mortals , and the objects of praise ancl prayer . Except among the Jews , and in a manner among philosophers of heathen countries , the knowledge of God was lost , or scattered into a thousand divergent rays by the

prism of fancy , and the disposition of the votary . Man , as an excuse for plunging into the wildest excesses and the darkest crimes , invented a mythology which gave him precedents of iniquity in his gods that he could scarcely expect to equal ,

ancl certainly never to excel . In this manner arose such deities as Zeus ancl Aphrodite among the Greeks , Iris and Osiris among the Egyptians , Bacchus and Mars among the Romans , and the savage worship of Thor among the Scandinavians .

What man would , for an instant , hesitate to follow the impulse of passion , so congenial to its own nature , rather than the dictates of reason ? We suspect that the pretty tale of Hercules choosing Virtue in preference to Pleasure , was neither

more nor less than a bitter satire upon the life of that hero , who could lay claim to little of the former , while his existence was lapped up in the seductions of the latter . Tet , now and then , some giant mind , earnest in the search for truth ,

and spurning the immoralities and impurities of the popular worship , caught faint glimmerings of the one " I Am . " Such were Socrates , Bion , Plato , and many others of the Greek philosophers . But to have enunciated such doctrines would have

been , as they were in the case of Socrates , death to the daring professor ; -and these enlightened minds had only to fall back upon themselves , ancl others similarly disposed , for assistance in the search after truth . Thus arose philosophy , and

thus arose Freemasonry . The East has been the prolific mother of many mysteries , and divers religions . From the same place issued the rays of truth and the clouds of error—Christianity ancl the disgusting worship of the Hindoos ancl the Mussulmans . The Eastern

mind , gigantic m its capacity , has ever been mysterious . The simplest fact became , by their figurative mode of language and writing , in course of time distorted and defaced by the multitudinous symbols under which it was hid , till succeeding

generations could not discover the original meaning and purport of their own worship . The sowing of seed iu spring , and the sprouting of the blade in summer , with the annual death ancl revival of the vegetable kingdom , gave rise to the legend of Pluto and Proserpine , aud the mysteries