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"Reformations are in vain for my fatherland. A new Luther must arise and work out a broader and bolder Reformation. The last has but substituted one creed for another-Germany festers with the unburied curses of those who have been slain in the war of Creeds. The Reformation only agitated the atmosphere in which Kings and Priests swelter into bloated power. It left the Poor where it found them. There, under the hoof of Priest and King, doomed to dig and die, whether a Pope or a Synod reigns. Earth calls to God for a new Reformation, which shall overlook the world, as with the eye of God himself, and behold in God but the common, Father of all mankind; in nations and races, however divided or styled, but a common family of Brothers."

As the German took his seat, upon a ledge of rock, near the central torch, a murmur of deep emphasis filled the cavern.

Then, one by one, the members of the little band arose, and spoke the thoughts of their souls, freely, and with no fear upon their faces. The Spaniard rose

"In Spain exists the Inquisition-___"9

As if these words comprised all that man can know of degradation, all that Priests can inflict, or Kings contrive, in the form of Murder, he said no more.

Next the Frenchman—

"St. Bartholomew's corses have not yet mouldered into dust," he said, and was silent.

After a moment, an Irishman arose. He had no word to utter, or perchance his heart was too full for words. He laid upon the rock, in the rays of the light, some leaves of withered shamrock, and a broken Harp. The withered leave and the broken harp were stained with blood.

Without a word, the Irishman glided into the shadows again.
Then the voice of the Englishman was heard-

"Sometime ago, there was a war in my native land. The People, that vulgar race, whose life is comprised in three words-We are born, we suffer, we die!-The People, I say, came up bravely to that war, and spoke with an ominous murmur, to an anointed King, telling him in their rude way, that he was but a Man; that forgetting his Manhood in his Kingship, he had committed murders enough to have hurled a thousand men to the scaffold. Therefore, said the People, King as you are, with the royal blood of twenty generations in your veins, with the anointing oil of all the Priests in the land upon your brow, you must die.

"They put their King to death upon the scaffold, and said in the face of God and Man-' We will have no more to do with Kings. They had the world long enough for their Murder ground-long enough have they set men at one another's throats, and turned the Image of God into an Engine of Carnage.' This was a brave thing, which the English People said, but the time was not yet come; they had not yet learned the great lesson of our Order. First, Union, then Freedom, and last Brotherhood.

"They could not yet recognise in God but a loving Father of all mankind, nor in nations and races, but a family of Brothers.

VOL. II.-10

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"Therefore, after having put their King to death, and buried the word 'King' with his headless body, they became the slaves of Faction. They quarreled about creeds and forms, leaving the great fact of all Truth-BROTHERHOOD AMONG MEN-a dumb and mangled thing beneath their bloody feet.

"At this time, a bold Son of the People cast his eyes about him, and saw the danger of his brethren. He saw the word King!' start into life again from the headless body of Charles the First-he saw the People once more kneeling in their blood, under the iron feet of Power. "He determined to save his race, but alas! Pity us, good Lord, for we are weak! He could think of no better way of saving his people from the name of King,' than by usurping the Power without the Name.

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"Therefore, the Lord delivered him, not into the hands of his enemies, but to the Remorse of his own soul. Delivered his great heart to the terror of the Assassin's steel-delivered his giant intellect, blinded and bound, like the Samson of old, to that terror which fears a shadow, and trembles at a sword.

"At last, he died, and England, forgetful of the blood which had been shed to achieve her freedom-forgetful even of the greatness of that Brewer who had made the name of Protector nobler than the name of Emperor-England, I say, forgetful of the brave men who had died by tens of thousands, to redeem her from the name of King-England rushed to the grave of Charles the First, and took the Crown from his fleshless skull, and put it on the head of Charles the Second, and hailed him- King!'

"Yes, my brothers, Charles the Second is King in England now, and while he reigns, there is a headless trunk amid the offal of the ditch; there is a bleeding head, nailed up to scorn, upon the gate of London. That headless trunk, and that bleeding head, once embodied the Soul of Oliver Cromwell."

The Englishman could say no more. Charles the Second on the Throne, and Oliver Cromwell's body cast forth to feed the hunger of dogs, Oliver Cromwell's head nailed up to the gate of London—it was enough.

The Representatives of the Nations uttered a groan for fallen England.

Then, one by one, these men gathered from the quarters of the globe, -assembled at the mandate of some Invisible Chief, or by the watchword of an Universal brotherhood-arose, and told in various ways, in every tongue, the same story.

Kings everywhere, Priests everywhere, and everywhere Slaves.

It was a horrible catalogue of enormities, which fell from the lips of these brethren.

Indeed, it seemed as if the World-its men and women, its little children, and its babes unborn-had been given up by some ferocious Destiny, in the hands of Superstition and Murder.

The Turk, the Arab, the Hindoo, and the Swede, all told the same story in various forms. In every land a King, and for the People nothing but chains and graves. There was a black man in the throng;

from his voice and manner, it appeared that he had received the education of the white race.

The story that the black man told was of petty Kings on the soil of Africa, selling the flesh and blood of Africa to eternal bondage in a New World-a bondage that had no parallel in the history of crime, for under the name of Servitude it comprised, Murder, Incest, Blasphemy.

As the word "New World" fell from the black man's lips, a shudder agitated the throng.

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Slavery in the New World!" cried the German-" Alas! Alas! that God has indeed given the earth into the power of Satan

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"Do not blaspheme," said the voice of an aged Swede. "The New World is the last altar of Brotherhood left on the surface of a desolated globe. We have looked to the East for light-it will come from the East, but it is in the West that the light will reveal to us the perfect image of human brotherhood."

At this word the Representative from the New World arose. Every one was silent; they all gazed upon his rugged features and backwoodsman attire with an absorbing interest.

"The New World, the last altar of human brotherhood?" he said, echoing the words of the aged Swede." There was a band of friendless exiles, driven from the shores of England by the lash of persecution. They sought a Home and an Altar in the forests of the New World. They landed one day, on a Rock, which they called Plymouth, and the red men of the woods bade the wanderers welcome.-Brothers, this was not many years ago, and yet I stand among you, an exile, and an outcast from the New World

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"An Exile and an outcast from the New World?" his words were echoed on every side.

"He has committed some horrible crime"-and the aged Swede shrunk from the side of the Colonist.

"Yes, I am guilty of crime-a horrible crime. I could not believe in my neighbor's creed. I could not think that Murder was any the less Murder, because it was done by grim Priests, in the name of God, and the victims were old men and defenceless women. Yes, yes I have stood upon the soil of the New World, and seen men given up to the 、cord and scaffold, because they could not believe in an Orthodox Protestant' creed, even as

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-"I, a Spaniard, have seen them racked and burnt in the Act of Faith of an Inquisition!"

"But I have seen that Image which we love in a Wife, reverence in a Sister, adore in a Mother-I have seen the Image of Woman lashed naked through the streets, amid the jeers and prayers of cadaverous Priests, who saw the blood start from the quivering flesh, and shouted, 'Scorn to the Heretic, Praise to our God.' This on the soil of the New World-this in the land which God hath set apart as the most sacred altar of human brotherhood!"

Bathed in tears and blushes the American crouched into a seat. One groan quivered from the hearts of the listeners.

"We all looked to the New World for light, and lo! we have it, but

it is the light from the fagot of persecution, the lurid blaze which Bigotry has stolen from the fires of hell."

From the verge of the circle which the brothers formed, as they clustered around the light, a sombre form advanced. It was a man clad in a blanket, with a wampum belt round about his waist, a man of aquiline nose and high cheek-bones, eyes like sparks of flame, and skin that resembled the deep red of autumnal leaves.

"I am an Indian," he said in a guttural tone-" But the language of your Brotherhood has become my language. The altar at which you worship is also mine. I am an Indian. Twenty winters ago, I dwelt among my people, beside the river which flows from the forest to the sea. Our numbers were as the leaves by the forest, as the sands by the shore. From the wood to the river extended our wigwams, thick as the birds in the sky, when the sun is low. The White Man came; he was attired in black. There was a Cross upon his breast. He taught my People a new Religion; he built his temple in our midst. The Great Spirit whom we had seen in the sky, we now behold in a Cross, and worshipped in the form of a Silver Cup. And yet his Religion made the heart warm within us, for it spoke of a Great Being, who had come from the sky, so that he might suffer among men, and die despised and scorned upon a tree, in order that all men might love one another. It was a beautiful Religion, and we loved it. Our warriors knelt at the foot of the Cross-our maidens placed that Cross upon their bosoms, and set it, bound with flowers, amid their raven hair. We loved the Religion, and the man in the dark robe, who taught us to love it, grew white-haired among us.

"One morning in summer, as we were gathered in the temple near the river shore, as the old man lifted the Cup on high, while our nation knelt at his feet-a bullet pierced his hair. He fell at the foot of the Cross. A red blaze streamed through every window-there was a sound like an hundred thunder-claps in the air. There were an hundred dead bodies on the floor of the temple.

"The grass without the temple was burdened with the dead-the river, near us, grew red with blood on every wave.

"From the rocks on the opposite shore streamed one incessant sheet of flame.

"Evening came at last. The sun was setting. I was the only living man, and I stood alone amid the harvest of death.'

of horror pervaded the cavern.

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A cry "Who was it that did this deed? Who were the murderers-the savages of other tribes, your foes among the red men ?"

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They were white men who did this deed. They believed in the same Being, whom the man in the dark robe taught to us." "Wherefore this murder?" asked the Swede.

and

"These white men, who came upon us, as we knelt in prayer, shot us down, and stabbed us, as we rose upon the river's wave, and pierced our skulls as we crept into the bushes-these white men believed in the same Cross in which the old man believed, but—” A sad smile stole over the red features of the Indian.

"They only believed in the Cross as it was written in a Book, while the

old man believed in it, as it was carved in wood or sculptured on stone. Therefore they murdered us."

There was a pause of stillness unbroken by a sound.

"Brothers," cried the Indian, "I come to you in the name of the Red Men. We melt away before the white race like snow before the flame. They kill us with the sword, they poison us with fire-water, they sweep us away with the plague. Help, or we are dead."

The appeal of the Red Man touched every heart.

An Italian, with every line of his animated countenance stamped by thought and endurance next arose.

"Italy," he exclaimed, "is palsied by a Nightmare, which couches upon her breast, and slowly drinks the blood from her heart. The Nightmare changes its form every instant: now it is a Priest, now it is a King, now the Priest and King combined in one, realize the idea of an Incarnate Devil. Help for Italy, ere the last drop of her blood is spent!"

Then by the side of the Italian appeared the dark figure of a Jesuit. Every one shuddered to behold him there-all wondered why he had dared intrude upon the band of brothers; not a man but shrunk away from him, afraid of the very folds of his dark robe.

"Help for the Catholic church," he exclaimed, "Help, Brothers of Love, for that church which once overspread the earth, and sheltered all men under the wings of her Divine Unity! She now lies bleeding in the hands of Princes, who call themselves Priests; of Murderers, who call themselves Pastors!"

The smile which had agitated every face when he commenced, died away in a look of sympathy as his last words fell on the ears of the brethren. They extended their hands; they encircled him.

"There is hope for Man when the Jesuit invokes the aid of Brotherhood in behalf of the Church!"

And all the while that solitary figure stood veiled, speechless, and motionless, near the rock, alone amid the throng.

Only one in the secret band knew his name and history. The time now came for that man to speak.

He came from the shadows, and stood disclosed in the light, his tall form arrayed in the gray garb of a peasant, standing distinctly into view. His features were darkened by exposure to the wind and sun; his large brow projected over eyes which shone steadily with an unchanging lustre. Those eyes shone into every heart, and all the brethren in the cavern felt that a Great Soul was embodied in their light.

This man in the coarse peasant garb, leaned one hand, cramped and knotted by toil, upon the shoulder of the veiled form. In a voice harsh and abrupt, he began to speak.

He spoke of a secret order extending over all the earth, and dating its origin back to that dim time when history became a fable, and chronology a shadow. Of the rites, symbols, and customs of the order, which spoke to the heart through the eye, and formed an universal language, intelligible to Brothers of every race and clime. Of the most sacred sign of the order, which was written on the pyramids of Egypt and the Monuments of Mexico, and stamped upon the dumb stone and mortar of past ages in every quarter of the globe; that most sacred sign,

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