THE TABLET ON FREEMASON BY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5633, 5 December 1879, Page 6

THE TABLET ON FREEMASON BY.

The Sen: Zealand Tablet, in a recent issue, referred to the fact that it was proposed to lay the foundation stone of the Supreme Court buildings at Wellington with Masonic: ceremonials, and it will be seen that Mr. Walter Johnston, who is a staunch Roman Catholic, but a question to the Minister of Justice on "\Y ednesday on the subject. Mr. Rolleston, however, as Minister of Just ce, could givn no information about Freemasonry. We quote a portion of the fiery article of ihe Tablet:—Freemasonry, then, has seized upon our law-courts also. Two or three weeks ago it consecrated to its service the Supreme Court buildings at Invercargill, and in about ten days hence it will hold a witches' Sabbath at Wellington for a similar purpose. It is time, indeed, that Catholics throughout the world should join together, as Lc Monde, the Parisian paper from which we last week quoted, summons them, and strongly resist this tyranny that casts the shadow of approaching persecution across their path. Our Parisian contemporary speaks truly; the order has gone out from one end of the world to the other through the secret councils of this power of darkness. Already its grip is strong upon tho education of the young. It holds it here and in Australia ; it is struggling for it in France. But, stranger still, so great is its cunning, its silence as to its secret depths, and its plausibility by which it even deceives the outer ranks of its own adherents, and stultifies them by the belief that they are assisting in all good works, that it has gained the upper hand in devoutly Catholic Belgium, and excluded God from the schools of a faithful people. .. . Smooth on the surface, but beneath a terrible current whirling mankind on into atheism. Such is Freemasonry, ever protest:ng, ever canting, ever sinking a sirens' song to entrap the unwary." But always seen to be present in the midst of whatever horrible dance of devils may appal the world. Paris might swarm with its members while the deels of a Sodom roused to internecine conflict were performed there, but yet it must be recognised as the benefactor of mankind. Let those who will recognise it as such ; but those who will also, we affirm, have good grounds to believe it was instigating and consenting gladly to the deeds of the fiends incarnate who worked its wicked will upon the church it so bitterly hates, the "dead body " it boasts to have at least carried a "few steps nearer the grave." For all its protestations we see it go redhand with these who murdered the archbishop, the poor old tottering witli-headed cure of the Madeleine and their companions, and more than murdered—mangled and slaughtered Tcre Olivaint and the other Jesuit Fathers. Sueli are the recollections that our fellow.Catholics at Wellington are to have brought upon them by tbe approaching festival iu their city—a festival to be observed by them with the closed doors and shuttered windows of a funeral occasion. But their disgti3i at the past must give way to their fears for the future ; their relentless enemy is openly seizing upon all the institutions of the country. It has taken possession of the schools as we arc warned from Paris ; but we did not need this warning, for moro than two years before it reached us the Bishop of Dunediu had publicly proclaimed the fact in this city ; he said at once the Bowen bill was part of the programme of Freemasonry, and now his words are well endorse !. Let our lawyers also who desire to become judges take a note of this, more especially the duller ones amongst them ; there is hope for the dullest if only he bo a good Mason—of which, perhaps, we already see a proof. Meantime, what steps do the Catholics of Wellington propose t ) adopt ? We need not warn them to absent themselves devoutly from the scene of the public insult and injury offered to them. We need not warn those of them who are volunteers to refrain from attending tho day's demonstration. To suppose any such advice necessary would be impertinently to offend them. But we hope to see their just indignation manifested in a remonstrance of some kiad. They arc being rudely thrust away from a public ceremony at which as taxpayers and citizens they have a right to be present, without being insulted by the flaring in their faces of all they associate with secret wickedness, the malediction of the church, and everything that is detestable.