ENGLISH FREEMASONRY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 37, 19 June 1891, Page 19

ENGLISH FREEMASONRY.

(By Rkv. R. F. Clahkb, 8.J.)

In English-speaking countries it is of more importance to speak of Freemasonry than elsewhere. la Italy and France it is impossible to mistake the anti-religious character of the Freemason Lodges ; but in England and America it is quite different. Freemasonry there puts on the garb of religion ; it enlists in its ranks men who fill the highest places in Church and Btate ; it is essentially a Conservative institution, and professes to cling to English tradition, and to be a staunch upholder of Divine and human law. It has its chaplaini among Anglican dignitaries ; Ub offices are filled by Royal personages. When it lays the foundation-stone of gome new temple, God's blessing is invoked in solemn ritual. The Holy Bible occupies a conspicuous place in its assemblies ; in its proceedings Almighty God is recogoised with an outward show of honour and respect. Nor is English Freemasonryisatisfied with a mere negative hannlessness or with keeping aloof from all anti-religious movements on the part of foreign brethren. When the French and Italian lodges in 1878 disclaimed any official recognition of God and erased frosi the Masonic Creed their belief in Him, the English Grand Master on tbe part of the English Lodges, not oDly protested against the irreligious act, bat severed their connection with them altogether, so as to secure themselves againßt being held responsible for their future proceedings as members of the same society. But, in spite of their creditable protest, responsible they remained and still remain. Not perhaps directly responsible for the act, but responsible for the false principles of which the act was but the fruit, and which the English Masons did not disown. As long as they remained Masons, they remained faithful to the principles which underlie all Freemasonry, English or French, American, German, Italian, or Spanish. They still belong to the same tree whose poison had discovered itself in its deadly fruit. In order to recognise the tiue nature of Freemasonry, we must first of all examine what it really is. We may describe it as a secret society, whose members are bound by a solemn oath to an unswerving fidelity to their craft, offering to undergo the severest penalties if they shall ever disobey its lawß, reveal its secrete, act against its interests. 1. The first question that suggests itself about such a society is— For what end is it instituted ? If I join any society whatever, I mußt first know for what end it associates its members together, and till I know this I may not promise obedience by a solemn oath and under the severest sanctions. Any society in tbe world is bound to give this information to those who are admitted into it before their admission, and without such information it is ipso facto an unlawful society. If I join a cricket club I know that it associates it* members together for the purposes of healthy recreation ; if I join a literary association, it is for the object of intellectual culture. These en is are sanctioned by the laws of God and man, and are clearly set befyre me with all the rules and regulations before I join the association. It has a right therefore to my obedience as long as I belong to it. But Freemasonry has no such legitimate end, it binds me to I know not what, it requires me to join in promoting what I may be utterly aversa to, it exacts my submission to its authority without showing any justification for its claim to such authority. It does all this under a terrible threat, if I desert its ranks or reveal its Becrets. This is true of English Freemasonry just as much as of any otheti and therefore English Freemasonry is in its very essence a secret society, an unlawful society, a society subversive of the principles on which the moral order of the universe is based. 2. Secondly, th 6 Masonic oath is an unconditional oath. When an oath is administered to me by anyone who occupies an official

position in Church, or State, or human society, and therefore asts as God's delegate, the oath he administers carries with it implicitly the condition that nothing sinful shall be required of the person sworn. The moment that anything is asked of me that I am sincerely convinced is sinful, I am not only justified in neglecting the oath I have taken, but I am bound to do so under pain of sin, or to speak correctly, the oath vanishes as soon as such a case occurs, because it was in the first instance accompanied by the implicit condition of- its requirements beiog lawful. But the Masonic oath is unlawful, because it is of its own natcre totally unconditional. There is an assurance, it is alleged, given to every English Freemason before be is initiated that nothing will be required of him at variance with his loyalty to the Crown, his duty as a good cit ; zen, or the tenets of whatever religion he professes. Bnt an unconditional oath is not made conditional by the comforting assurance preceding it. It is none the less a leap in the dark. If I bind myßelf to work at a certain trade with the implied condition that I may give it up as soon as I find 1 am losing money by it, this is a very diffi rent thing from being first assured that it will be very profitable, and then binding myself unconditionally. The first is not a rash venture, the second necessarily is. If I neglect the conditional oath on the non-fulfilment of the condition, I do not in any way break the oath. If I neglect the unconditional oath, I violate the oath, whatever the circumstances may be which lead to its violation. Let us suppose that an English Mason visits Italy, and there, in a Masonic lodge, he heart the discussion of a proposal to " remove " some obnoxious statesman who is the friend of religion and the enemy of revolution and secret societies. The visitor is a Conservative Englishman, a religions man as far as his knowledge goes, a friend of law and order. He listens aghast, and his first impulse is to warn the intended victim. But than comes the thought of his Masonic oath, which, in spite of English disclaimers of the atheistic proceedings of the Paris and Italian lodges, binds him to inviolable secrecy respect ing the plots of the villains. It is of no use for him to urge that he was informed before joining in England that he never would be required to act against his conscience or to violate his duty as a good citizen. What care the Carbonari for the futile disclaimers of their English brethren ? If be protests too loudly, their bands play significantly about the handles of their stilettos, and a friend warns him to be careful not to be out alone after dark. 3. It is the boast of English Freemasonry that it unites in one common worship all who believe in the Supreme Architect of the Universe, that it presents the spectacle of men, divided in a thousand points of doctrine, setting aside their religious differences aud worshipping in union that God, whom under various aspects and under circumstances widely different, they one and all adore. Here we find the third great vice inherent in Freemasonry— it is esseutially a non-Christian society, recognising a religion, which, as the common religion of the various members of the lodge, necessarily excludes Jesus Christ altogether from its services, its prayers, its formulas of consecration, its solemn acts of ritual, and makes no mention of Him in the sermons and discourses of those appointed to be its chaplains. They must not even in the grace before or after meals mention the name of Christ. We wonder how those who call themselves Christian ministers do not shrink from a system which banishes Him whom they profess to regard as their Lord and Master, their King and God, ignoring Him who is the Life of our life, whom not to acknowledge is to deny, whom to confess is eternal life, whom to reject explicitly or implicitly is eternal death. The absence of the name of Christ our Lord from all Masonic proceedings, the elimination of all mention of Him from its prayers and formularies of consecration, is enough to condemn it without any need of further witness. No loyal Christian who realises the fall meaning of this single fact could ever regard Freemasonry with anything bnt hostility and abhorrence. God will never accept any prayer unless it is offered to Him in the name and through the merits of His Son. If we do not confess that Son, when we kneel in supplication to His Eternal Father, when axe we to confess Him? If we unite with Jews, Mahommedans and Deists when we come before the footstool of God, thrusting Jesus Christ ont of sight, compelled to say nothing about Him in whom the Christian should live and move and have his baing, what are we but cowards and renegades, nay, deserters to the enemy, who have no part or lot in Him f English Freemasonry, then, is essentially an anti-Ohrtstian Beet, for it offers Christless prayers and as a corporate body it practically renou nces Christ.