FREEMASONRY

New Zealand Tablet, 30 August 1906, Page 13

FREEMASONRY

NON-CATHOLIC VERDICTS ON THE CRAFT

Some ill-instructed Catholics (says tlie New Yoik ' Freeman's Journal ") think the Church too severe in her legislation in reference to secret societies, imagining that she exaggerates the danger incident to them. For the benefit of those weak and ignorant members we will give some quotations fiom a letter of J. B. Corey, a . Protestant gentleman of Pittsburg, with whom we have been for some time back discussing Catholic principles. His letter is published in the ' Irish Pennsylvanian ' of June 14, 1906. Mr. Corey's letter is an account of his talk with a young lawyer who aspued to membership in the Knights Templars, giving his reasons why his young friend should let secret societies severely alone :— ' The young lawyer said : " Oh, Mr. Corey, ,you are too much prejudiced. The Knights Templars is a Christian Order. They got their principles from Chiist. The very best chuich members and best citizens are members of Masomy and the Knights Templar. George Washington and all the Presidents of the United States were Masons. You aie the first man I ever heard say anything against the Masonic Order. ' To this Mr. Corey, who seems to have studied the subject pretty thoroughly, said :— 1 Well, young man, 1 mut>t say you are not very well posted on the history of your country. If you have not aheady been led into the lodge, they are laying lopes to inveigle you into joining the lodge. You are the type of young men they lay for. They lead them to form the lvabit of drink. Now let me give you a few historical facts to answer that one stock of argument of the lodge champions that all the good church members and good citizens being niemifoers of Freemasomy ; this will gLve you the truth concerning Ueorg,c Washington. lie was initiated into Masonry when a young man, but in his mature years it was distasteful to him to be addressed even as a Maso-n'; and in leply to a letter from Dr. Snyder, declared that he had not been in a lodge but once or twice in cJO years. Governor Ritner, m response to a request of the Pennsylvania Legislatuie to iclieve Goerge Washington from the stigma of adherence to the lodge, proves from authentic documents : •' First, that in 17bS Washington ceased to attend the lodge. Second, that in 1798, shortly before his death, his opinions were the same as 30 years before, when ho was 36 yeais old. Third, that he never l ,was a Giand Master or Master of any lodge. Fouith, that by the recouls of King David's Lodge, Newport, R.1., it appears it was not agreeable to George Washington to be addressed even as a private Mason. Fifth, that all letters said to have been written by Washington are spurious." 1 think that disposes pretty fully of the Masonic fables regarding l Washington's Masonry. Now, let me lead you the published opinion of the Older ; from another of the Presidents of the United States ; and you will see how much truth there is in your statement that all the piesidents of the United States were Masons. ' His Excellency John Quincy Adams was one of the ablest presidents that ever sat in /the Presidential chair. It was from him that I first learned that the Order of Masonry was not the offspring of Hiram Tyre, or King Solomon ; but was organised in Apple Tree Tavern in 1717. I confess to you as I watch the procession marching down Fifth avenue, and called to mind that the Royal Arch, and Knights Templar degrees were all American Grafts upon the so-called Scottish three degrees of Masonry, I felt the procession of Knights Templar was a fitting tribute to the Apple Tree organisation.' Speaking of some Protestant ministers who hold high places in the Masonic Order, Mr. Corey says :— ' These preachers profess to he unafrle to understand why the men, especially the laboring classes, can no longer be induced to attend church ; so that they are compelled to resort to all manner of ex-p-edients, such as euchie parties,, ice cream and strawberry festivals, to get them to support their churches. In calling the editor of the * United Presbyterian's ' attention to the fact that Catholic churches were filled as early as 5 a.m. with men, he said they did not go to worship God. I said what do they go for ? He replied from fear of the priests. I asked him if it would not be a good thing for us Protestants to have our ministers inject a little of the terror of the Gospel into their ministry. I told him that it was such exhibitions of vanity as that

Methodist Sir Knight burlesquing the Gospel that kept intelligent men and women away trom their churches! Who would care to sit In a pew and listen to a minister of the Gospel portraying the blessing of the poor in spirit after witnessing him parade down the streets arrayed in such a head dress as that of the grand prelate ? But then it is just such an exhibition of vanity as you might expect from weak-mind-ed men capable of being towed, blind-folded and led around a darkened room, and taking an oath to have their. Throats Cut fiom Ear to Ear, their tongues pulled out by the roots should they paitake in initiating their mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, madman, or idiots, into a lodge of Freemasons. Now I ask you, would any man but a hermaphrodite take such an oalh '.' ' But let me read you what John Quincy Adams says, and as you aie a young lawyer aspiring to make an honorable record in life, you will have the opinion of not only an able jurist, but that of a young man who left aa example any young man can well follow. Heie is what he says of the entered apprentice's oath. '• If I had any right Of person or property in a court of justice, with a.n entered apprentice, o( Knights Templar for my adversary I should much disincline to see any man sworn upon a jury who had been present at the murder, and rcbuscitation of Hiram ALifi, and still more any " one who should have crawled upon all fours under the living arch. In other words, 1 do hold, as disqualified for an impartial juror, at least between a Mason and Anti-Mason, any one who has taken the Masonic oaths, and adheres to them ; not excepting the 1200 ccUifiers themselves. I have said to you that the institution of Frceimasoury was vicious in its first step, the initiation oath, obligation and penalty of t-he cntere-d apprentice to sustain this opinion, 1 asbigii you five reasons : — 4 " Ist.— Because they weic contrary to the laws of the land. 2nd.— ln violation of the po&iiive precepts of Jesus Christ. 3kl.— A pledge to keep secrets the swearer being; ignoiant of their nature. lth.— A pledge to the penally of death for a violation of the oath. sth.— A pledge to a mode of death, cruel, unusual, unfit for utterance, from human lips.".' ' Again Piesident Adams asks :— ' " Have I pioved that the entered apprentice's oath is a breach of law human and Divine, that its pionnse is undefined, unlawful, and nugatory, that its penalty is .barbaious, inhuman, murderous' in its teims, an-d in its least obnovious sense null and void •'. If so, my task is done. '1 be first step m Freemasoniy is a false step ; the obligation is a crime, and like all ciimes should be abolished." ' John Quincy Adams, Sixth President of the United States : "I am prepared to complete the demonstration before God and Man, that the Masonic oaths, obligations, and penalties, cannot, by any possibility, be reconciled to the laws of morality, of Christianity, or of the land." ' Daniel Webster, perhaps America's greatest statesman and jurist, said :— 1" 1 have no hesitation in saying; that however unobjectionable may have been the original objects of the institution, or however pure may be the motives and puiposes of the individual members, and notwithstanding the many gieat and good m-en 'who have from time to time belonged to the Order, yet, nevertheless, it is an institution which in my judgment is essentially wrong in the principle of its formation , that from, its very nature it is lia.ble to gjceat abuses ; t-liat among th-e obligations which are found to lye imposed on its members there are such as are entirely incompatible with the duty of good citizens; and that all secret associations, the members of which take upon themselves extraordinary obligations to one another, and are bound together by secret oaths, are naturally sources of jealousy and just alarm to others ; are especially unfavorable to harmony and mutual confidence among men living together under popular institutions, and are dangerous to the general cause of civil liberty and good government. Under the influence of this conviction it is my opinion that the future administration of) all such oaths and the formation of all such obligations should be prohibited by law."— Letter dated Boston' November 20, 1835. ' ' " Abraham Lincoln was not a Freemason. His well known character speaks eloquently against the Despotism and Illegal Obligations of such o-ath-tound secret societies as Freemasonry. He well knew that this nation can no more endure with two kinds of oaths in her court rooms the

civil and masonic—than she could • endure half free and half slave. 1 Notwithstanding this fact, the Masonic propaganda has seized upon Lincoln's name as one valuable to conjure with. • John Hay writes W. U. Curtis that Abraham .Lincoln was not a Mason. ' General U. S. Grant wrote in his autobiography : ' " All secret, oatlnliound political parttes are dangerous to any natio-n, no matter how pure or patriotic the motives and principles which first brine them together." ' Charles Sumner, eminent American statesman, senator and orator, wrote : '"' I fmd two powers here in Washington in harmony, and both are antagonistical to our free institutions, and tend to centralisation and anarchy—Freemasonry and Slavery— and they must both be destroyed if our country is to be the home of the free, as our ancestors designed it."— Letter to Samuel D Greene, Chelsea, Mass. 1 Charles Francis Adams said :— ' " Every man who takes a Masonic oath forbids himself from divulging aTiy criminal act," unless it might be murder or treason, that may be communicated to him under the seal of fraternal bond even though such concealment were to prove a burden upon his conscience and a violation of his bounden duty to society and to his God. A more perfect agent for the devising and execution of conspiracies agamst the church and state could scarcely have 'been conceived." 4 Judge Pliny Mcrrick, Worcester, Mass.—" It is true that a Royal Arch companion (to whioh degree I have been admitted and the highest office of whioh I have sustained) does swear that he will espouse the cause of a companion when engaged in any difficulty so far as to extricate him as such, murder and treason not excepted. I know these most odious clauses are part of the obligation of that degree, for I believe that I received that obligation and know that I have so heard it, and as high-priest of a chapter have so myself administered it to others " ' Mr. Corey (the ' Freeman's Journal' adds) states' that seventy-five per cent, of the officers of the government are Masons. For this statement however lie gives no statistics.