universal, and that the lodges of Free Masonry had be come the places for making proselytes to every strange, obnoxious doctrine, Theurgy, Cosmogony, Cabala, and many whimsical and mystical doctrines, which have been grafted on the distinguishing tenets, and the pure morality of the Jews and Christians, were subjects of frequent discussion in the lodges.

"These facts and observations fully account for the zeal with which all this patch-work addition to the simple Free Masonry of England was prosecuted in France. It surprises us Britons, who are accustomed to consider the whole as a matter of amusement for us young men, who are glad of any pretext for indulging in conviviality. We generally consider a man, advanced in life, with less respect, if he shows any serious attachment to such things. But, in France, the civil and religious restraint on conversation, made these secret assemblies very precious; and they were much frequented by men of letters, who there found an opportunity of expressing in safety their dissatisfaction with those restraints, and with that inferiority of rank and condition to which they were subjected, and which appeared to themselves so inadequate to their own talents and merits.

"The Avocats de Parlement, the young men of no fortune, the unbeneficed Abbés, and the soi-disant philosophers, formed a numerous band, frequented the lodges, and there discussed every topic of religion and politics. Specimens of this occupation appeared, from time to time, in Collections of Discourses delivered by the brother orator. I once had in my possession two volumes of these discourses, which I now regret that I left in a lodge on the continent, when my relish for Free Masonry had forsaken me. One of these is a discourse by Brother Robinet, delivered in the Loge des Chevaliers Bienfaisants de la Sainte Cité at Lyons, at a visitation by the Grand Master the Duc de Chartres, afterwards Orleans, and Egalité. In this discourse we have the germ and substance of his noted work, the Systeme de la Nature, ou l'Homme moral et phy

sique. In another discourse delivered by Brother Condorcet in the Loge des Philalethes, at Strasburg, we have the outlines of his posthumous work, Le Progres de l'Esprit humain and in another, delivered by Mirabeau, in the Loge des Chevaliers Bienfaisants at Paris, we have a great deal of the levelling principles, and cosmopolitism,* which he thundered from the tribunes of the National Assembly. But the most remarkable performances of this kind are, the Archives Mystico-Hermetiques, and the Des Erreurs, et de la Verité. The first is considered as an account historical and dogmatical, of the procedure and system of the Loge des Chevaliers Bienfaisants at Lyons. This was the most zealous and systematical of all the cosmopolitical lodges in France. It worked long under the patronage of its Grand Master the Duc de Chartres, afterwards Orleans, and at last, Ph. Egalité. It sent out many affiliated lodges, which were erected in various parts of the French dominions. The daughter lodges at Paris, Strasbourg, Lille, Thoulouse, took the additional title of Philalethes. There arose some schisms, as may be expected, in an association where every man is encouraged to broach, and to propagate, any the most singular opinion. These schisms were continued with some heat, but were, in a great measure, repaired in lodges which took the name of Amis reunis de la Verité. One of this denomination at Paris became very eminent. The mother lodge at Lyons extended its correspondence into Germany, and other foreign countries, and sent constitutions or systems by which the lodges conducted their ope

rations.

"The book Des Erreurs et de la Verité must, therefore, be considered as a classical book of these opinions. We know that it originated in the Loge des Chev. Bienfaisants at Lyons. We know that this lodge stood, as it were, at

*Citizenship of the world, from the Greek words Cosmos, world, and Polis, a city.

the head of French Free Masonry, and that the fictitious order of Masonic Knights Templars was formed in this lodge, and was considered as the model of all the rest of this mimic chivalry.* They proceeded so far in this mummery, as even to have the clerical tonsures. The duke of Orleans, his son, the elector of Bavaria, and some other German princes, did not scruple at this mummery in their own persons. In all the lodges of reception, the brother orator never failed to declaim on the topic of superstition, blind to the exhibition he was then making, or indifferent as to the vile hypocrisy of it. We have, in the lists of orators and office-bearers, many names of persons, who have had an opportunity at last of proclaiming their sentiments in public. The Abbé Sieyes was of the lodge of Philalethes at Paris, and also at Lyons. Lequinio, author of the most profligate book that ever disgraced a press, the Prejuges vaincus par la Raison, was warden in the lodge Compacte Sociale. Despremenil, Bailly, Fauchet, Maury, Mounier, were of the same system, though in different lodges. They were called Martinists, from a St. Martin who founded a schism in the system of the Chevaliers Bienfaisants, of which we have not any very precise account. Mercier gives some account of it in his Tableau de Paris, and in his Année, 1888. The breach alarmed the brethren, and occasioned great heats. But it was healed, and the fraternity took the name of Misa du Renis, which is an anagram of des Amis Reunis. The bishop of Autun, Abbé Perigord, the man so bepraised as the benevolent citizen of the world, the friend of mankind and of good order, was senior warden of another lodge at Paris, established in 1786,

*This is the favourite order of knighthood with American Masons; and its ritual, as published in 1821, claims for it an origin in Jerusalem, A. D. 1118; and the order of the Red Cross, in the court of Darius, during the Babylonish captivity!-Templar's Chart, pp. 9 and 28. When will this contempt of truth and of common sense receive proper chastisement?

(I think chiefly by Orleans and himself,) which afterwards became the Jacobin club. In short, we may assert with confidence, that the Mason lodges in France were the hotbeds, where the seeds were sown and tenderly reared, of all the pernicious doctrines which soon after choked every moral and religious cultivation, and have made the society worse than a waste; have made it a noisome marsh of human corruption, filled with every rank and poisonous weed.

"These lodges were frequented by persons of all ranks, and of every profession. The idle and the frivolous found amusement, and glittering things to tickle their satiated fancies. There they became the dupes of the declamations of the crafty and licentious Abbés, and writers of every denomination. Mutual encouragement in the indulgence of hazardous thoughts, and opinions which flatter our wishes or propensities, is a lure which few minds can resist. I believe that most men have felt this in some period of their lives. I can find no other way for accounting for the company that I have seen in a Mason lodge. The lodge de la Parfaite Intelligence, at Liege, contained, in December 1770, the prince bishop and the greatest part of his chapter; and all the office-bearers were dignitaries of the church; yet a discourse given by the brother orator was as poignant a satire on superstition and credulity, as if it had been written by Voltaire. It was under the auspices of this lodge, that the collection of discourses which I mentioned above was published; and there is no fault found with brother Robinet, nor brother Condorcet."

CHAPTER XLVIII.

Giving some account of German Masonry, and of the embassy in pursuit of the Masonic secret to the caves of Old Aberdeen.

(P. 53.) "BUT it is now time to turn our eyes to the progress of Free Masonry in Germany, and the north of Europe; there it took a more serious turn. Free Masonry was imported into Germany somewhat later than into France. The first German lodge that we have any account of, is that at Cologne, erected in 1716, but very soon suppressed. Before the year 1725, there were many, both in Protestant and Catholic Germany. Those of Wetzlar, Frankfort on the Maine, Brunswick, and Hamburg, are the oldest, and their priority is doubtful. All of them received their institution from England, and had patents from the mother lodge in London. All seem to have got the mystery through the same channel, the banished friends of the Stuart family. Many of these were Catholics, and entered into the service of Austria and the Catholic princes.

"The true hospitality, that is no where more conspicuous than in the character of the Germans, made this institution a most agreeable and useful passport to these gentlemen; and as many of them were in military stations, and in garrison, they found it a very easy matter to set up lodges in all parts of Germany. These afforded a very agreeable pastime to the officers, who had little to occupy them, and were already accustomed to a subordination which did not affect their vanity on account of family distinctions.

As