OPPOSITION OF THE CHURCH TO SECRET SOCIETIES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 150, 17 March 1876, Page 9

OPPOSITION OF THE CHURCH TO SECRET SOCIETIES.

"Was. Hawk," a correspondent, vouched for by the 'London Times,' ■writing on infernal machines, gives the following information about infernal societies. We ask any of our readers who may have had doubts about the wisdom of the Church in its condemnation of secret societies, to remember this extract. " Fortunately, in England, we have little to fear from these diabolical crimes, but if foreign countries intend to revise their laws to meet such cases, they should first discover carefully not only the powers of the secret societies, which are, in most cases, the inventors of such infernal machines, but they should also carefully consider why such powerful societies really exist in their midst, and remember that in an enlightened and educated country the surest mode of eradicating the evil is by giving to the subject that perfect freedom of thought and action which we ourselves enjoy. Most of the Italian secret societies were established for what we now consider a legitimate purpose — overthrow of the some of their many rulers; but these same societies, like those of others in other countries, are now degraded to bands of criminals only equalled by the garrotters of our own times whose whole life is spent in discovering some unique mode of performing some diabolical crime. If you will now permit me, I will say one word for myself. I have referred to crimes and my knowledge of the same as though I were the boon companion of cut-throats ; but what I refer to above are matters known to persons who are moving in the highest society in their respective countries. In Spain it is a well known fact that on the night on which Prim was assassinated, many of those who were present at his last reception had provided the money for and prepared the plot; that those gentlemen mixed freely with the fashionable assembly and pressed the hand of the man whose hours they had numbered. Ido not think that any one will venture to contradict this. In countries where crime, if it has the least shape of a political motive, is regarded almost as heroic, men of high standing will be found to aid societies some of the members of which are villains of the deepest dye, and therefore requisite. In my experience I have seen some curious cases, but as they do not effect either my own honor or the good of my country, I do not think my duty to foreign society requires me to turn informer."