for one, I say no. We desire to fear God. But there are. some it is prudent to watch against. And whom more than one already found very treacherous? Whom more than one that works by night? Whom more than one that professes to be light, and dwells in concealment with a deadly weapon, and a more fearful oath, to guard the approach to her dark lodge?

I am not afraid for Christianity; not for the free institutions of my country; not for the integrity and purity of brother Masons. The cause of religion will continue to advance; the cause of liberty is in a state of prosperity; and the intelligence and morality of this people, and of the world, is daily improving.

And what is Free Masonry, that we should fear it? A swelling bubble. Professor Robison was well acquainted with it; hear him. And do not be surprised, if, under his hands, it appears more justly contemptible than it has yet done.

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CHAPTER XLVII.

Containing General Views of Free Masonry, and of French Masonry.

INTRODUCTION to "Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies; collected from good authorities, by John Robison, A. M. Professor of Natural History, and Secretary to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [New-York, A. D. 1798.]

"In my early life I had taken some part in the occupations (shall I call them) of Free Masonry; and having chiefly frequented the lodges on the continent, I had learned many doctrines, and seen many ceremonials, which have no place in the simple system of Free Masonry, which obtains in this country. I had also remarked, that the whole was much more the object of reflection and thought, than I could remember it to have been among my acquaintances at home. There I had seen a Mason Lodge considered merely as a pretext for passing an hour or two in a sort of decent conviviality, not altogether void of some rational occupation. I had sometimes heard of differences of doctrines or of ceremonies, but in terms which marked them as mere frivolities. But, on the continent, I found them matters of serious concern and debate. Such, too, is the contagion of example, that I could not hinder myself from thinking one opinion better founded, or one ritual more apposite and significant, than another; and I even felt something like an anxiety for its being adopted, and a zeal for making it a gencral practice. I had been initiated in a ve

ry splendid lodge at Liege, of which the Prince Bishop, his Trefonciers, and the chief noblesse of the state, were members. I visited the French lodges at Valenciennes, at Brussels, at Aix-la-Chapelle, at Berlin, and Koningsberg; and I had picked up some printed discourses delivered by the brother orators of the lodges. At St. Petersburgh I connected myself with the English lodge, and occasionally visited the German and Russian lodges held there. I found myself received with particular respect as a Scotch Mason, and as an Elevé of the Lodge de la Parfaite Intelligence at Liege.* I was importuned by persons of the first rank to pursue my masonic career through many degrees unknown in this country. But all the splendour and elegance that I saw, could not conceal a frivolity in every part. It appeared a baseless fabric, and I could not think of engaging in an occupation which would consume much time, cost me a good deal of money, and perhaps excite in me some of that fanaticism, or, at least, enthusiasm, that I saw in others, and perceived to be void of any rational support. I

*In 1774, Professor Robison was invited by the magistrates of Edinburgh to the Professorship of Natural Philosophy, in the University of Edinburgh. In 1786, he was elected a member of the Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, over which Mr. Jefferson long presided. In 1797, he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Manchester. In 1799, the University of Glasgow, where he had received his education, conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. In 1800, he was unanimously elected a foreign member (of which they admit but six) of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg, Russia.

"His character in private life," says one writing from Edinburgh, “is so well established among those who know him best, that it would be ridiculous, here, to call in question his veracity or abilities.”—E. Smith.

His work, first published in the autumn of 1797, produced a powerful effect in Britain, and was a principal cause of the act of Parliament of 1799, which topped the light of Masonry in Great Britain.

Few intelligent gentlemen have had the intercourse with the lodges of the various capitals of Europe, which has fallen to the lot of Professor Robison. His Masonry was his letter of introduction; and he honoured it. Shall not such a man know its worth?

therefore remained in the English lodge, contented with the rank of Scotch Master, which was in a manner forced on me in a private lodge of French Masons, but is not given in the English lodge. My masonic rank admitted me to a very elegant entertainment in the female Loge de la Fidelité,* where every ceremonial was composed in the highest degree of elegance, and every thing conducted with the most delicate respect for our fair sisters, and the old song of brotherly love was chanted in the most refined strain of sentiment. I do not suppose that the Parisian Free Masonry of forty-five degrees could give me more entertainment."

Ten years had elapsed, and the interest of Professor Robison in Free Masonry had subsided, when the continental disputes of the German Masons, their meetings of delegates, their mystical doctrines, and open charges of corruption, copiously furnished in the German papers, aroused, in 1795, his attention to the subject anew.

"My curiosity was now greatly excited. I got, from a much respected friend, many of the preceding volumes of

The ladies claim right to come into our light,
"Since the apron, they say, is their bearing."

Book of Cons. p. 258.

Brethren may start at the mention of a female lodge: we shall hear more of them in the sequel.

Smith, in his treatise upon Free Masonry, is ardent for the extension of masonic privileges to females: so are others of that period, A. D. 1784. The celebrated Dr. Dodd, who was executed at Tyburn, 1777, for forgery, had this matter much at heart.

tion,

Whether this has been accomplished in England, is doubtful: but on the continent it is no longer a problem, whether a woman can be a Mason. Dr. Dalcho, the Sovereign Inspector General, in a note (p. 29.) to his ora"23d Sept. 5801," says: "Although in the symbolic lodge, no woman is admitted into a knowledge of their mysteries, yet in the superior degrees, there is a female lodge, handsomely calculated to interest the delicacy of a female mind. In this lodge none but females are admitted, and their officers are selected from among themselves."

the Religions Begebenheiten, in hopes of much information from the patient industry of German erudition. This opened a new and very interesting scene; I was frequently sent back to England, from whence, all agreed, that Free Masonry had been imported into Germany.* I was frequently led into France, and into Italy. There, and more remarkably in France, I found that the lodges had become the haunts of many projectors and fanatics, both in science, in religion, and in politics, who had availed themselves of the secrecy, and the freedom of speech maintained in these meetings, to broach their particular whims, or suspicious doctrines, which, if published to the world in the usual manner, would have exposed the authors to ridicule, or to censure. These projectors had contrived to tag their peculiar nostrums to the mummery of Masonry, and were even allowed to twist the masonic emblems and ceremonies to their purpose; so that, in their hands, Free Masonry became a thing totally unlike, and almost in direct opposition to the system (if it may get such a name) imported from England; and some lodges had become schools of irreligion and licentiousness."

Having spoken of the complaisance of the French, and their ambition to govern the fashions, and to control the opinions of Europe, he adds:

66

"I know no subject in which this aim at universal influence on the opinions of men, by holding themselves forth

"It is to be particularly remarked, that all our brethren abroad profess to have received the mystery of Free Masonry from Britain. This is surely a puzzle in the history; and we must leave it to others to reconcile this with the repeated assertions in Anderson's Book of Constitutions, "That the fraternity existed all over the world ;" and the numberless examples which he adduces of its exertions in other countries; nay, with his repeated assertions, that it frequently was near perishing in Britain, and that our princes were obliged to send to France, and other countries, for leading men, to restore it to its former energy among us. We shall find by and by that this is not a point of mere historical curiosity, but that much hinges on it."-Robison, p. 26.