of issues and identification of a part with the whole has characterised all the pronouncements.

Craft Freemasonry in its intellectual centres represents and mirrors of necessity the flux of modern opinion upon all speculative subjects, outside belief in a personal God and the other life of humanity-which are the fundamental part of its doctrine. Beyond this sphere it has no accredited opinions in matters of religion, while so far as the High Grades are concerned, those are few and unimportant which do not exact from their Candidates a profession of the Christian faith. We are therefore in a position to adjudicate upon the qualifications of the Trent Congress, which decided that the religious teachings of Freemasonry were those of Nature-worship, and that the public beliefs of Freemasons were those of Monism, Idealistic Pantheism, Materialism and Positivism, the connecting link between all being the identification of the universe with God. Doubtless Craft Freemasonry, even in England, includes in its ranks the shades of philosophical thought which correspond to these findings, but indubitably the same might be said of almost any large assembly, public or private, in any part of the world; and hereof is the folly of the judgment. Freemasonry also numbers spiritualists, theosophists and representatives innumerable of the higher schools of mysticism. If it does not include convinced Catholics-and as regards intellectual certitude, apart from formal practice, it does include them assuredly-it is because the obedience of the one through the intolerance of the other makes the dual obedience impossible, though in itself it is natural and reasonable within its own lines.

It follows, as one inference from all preceding considerations, that certain High-Grade Orders do carry a second sense in their symbolism, and so also do the great Craft Grades, as we have seen in the fullest sense through our long research. But it is neither of Natural Religion, Idealistic Pantheism, Monism, nor

much less of Materialism or Positivism. It is of that Great Experiment which is at the heart of all true religion, being the way of the soul's reintegration in God. I believe personally that the sacramentalism of the Christian scheme holds up the most perfect glass of reflection to the mystery of salvation, and that in this sense the Church contains the catholic scheme of the Mysteries; but I know, after another manner, which is yet the same manner at heart, that there are Mysteries which are not of this fold, and that it is given unto man to find the hidden jewel of redemption in more than one Holy Place. I say therefore, with the Welsh bards, that I despise no precious, concealed Mysteries, wherever they subsist, and above all I have no part in those Wardens of the Gates who deny in their particular enthusiasm that things which are equal to the same are equal to one another, since these Wardens are blind.

I have mentioned the anti-Masonic Congress which was once held at Trent, and the deliberations at the city of Great Council are memorable after their own manner as distinguishing the position from which the Roman Church has not deviated for something more. than a century. The Report of the Congress was issued in due course and is worth a word of reference for the reason which I have just indicated. Now the grey age of the Latin Church is not only within its own limits an astute and experienced age; it is also one of honour and sanctity, and in a land where there remains little real prejudice and practically no Protestantism, Freemasons will be perfectly well aware that, however false her conclusions in specific cases, and however misguided her policy as dictated by those conclusions, she is acting in accordance with her lights and is saved in respect of sincerity. The Report of the Congress does little more than italicise the salient points of the Humanum Genus Encyclical. In answer to that Encyclical, the Grand Lodge of England protested that Freemasonry in this

country had no opinions, political or religious, and if this is not precisely a correct statement it marked a definite attitude which is practically of universal knowledge. In politics it has of course the grace of perfect loyalty to the established order, and in religion Freemasonry is based on certain doctrines which are at the root of belief. Beyond this, in their official capacity, Grand Lodges cannot go, because their consciousness reaches no further. That the ANCIENT AND ACCEPTED SCOTTISH RITE was at one period, and in the place which is its head and centre, making a bid for recognition under wider warrants, is shewn by the writings of the late Albert Pike, Grand Commander of the Southern Jurisdiction in the United States. cerning the political aspect, I shall cite certain passages from his official reply to the Humanum Genus pronouncements, while as regards the religious views which he held personally, and designed to impress on Masons under the obedience of his Rite, very full information can be derived from the lectures attached by him to each of the thirty-three degrees included by the scheme of that Rite.

Con

The reply to the Encyclical of Pope Leo was, I believe, publicly available at the time of its appearance, but it is not well known in this country, at least at the present day. The summary of the political position is briefly this, that Freemasonry has at no time conspired against any polity entitled to its obedience or to the esteem of men generally. "Wherever now there is a Constitutional Government which respects the rights of men and of the people and the public opinion of the world, it is the loyal supporter of that government. It has never taken pay from armed despotism, or abetted persecution. It has fostered no Borgias; no stranglers or starvers to death of other Popes, like Boniface vII.; no poisoners like Alexander vi. and Paul III. It has no roll of beatified Inquisitors; and it has never in any country been the enemy of the people, the suppressor of scientific

truth, the stifler of the God-given right of free inquiry as to the great problems, intellectual and spiritual, presented by the universe, the extorter of confessions by the rack, the burner of women and of the exhumed bodies of the dead. . . . Its patron saints have always been St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, and not Pedro Arbues D'Epila, principal inquisitor of Zaragoza, who, slain in 1485, was beatified by Alexander vII. in 1664. The inferences from these statements are quite clear and simple, and I do not pretend to regard them as especially satisfactory either as a defence of Masonry or as a charge against the Church of Rome. They are in fact a declaration that governments, both political and religious, may abdicate their right to rule, and that a time. may come when men, whether Masons or not, neither

nor should continue to countenance, support or tolerate such institutions. Personally I should not have adopted this line of protestation, for the Church on its part might regard it as an open door through which its own accusations could obtain too easy entrance. The right of superseding corrupt governments is unquestionably an imprescriptible part of human liberty, but one does not with policy put forward the claim when attempting to prove that a particular body or fraternity has not intervened overtly for the revision of specific constitutions and the downfall of particular tyrannies. Furthermore, the Catholic Church claims to be a Divine Institution, over which there is no jurisdiction within the sphere of human liberty, and it is not therefore likely to concur in the validity of the line of argument. The two standpoints cannot be reconciled, for they represent the struggle of Divine Right in this or that of its two aspects against the right of free government and of free intellectual inquiry. On the one side, it is not more the struggle of the Catholic Church than it is of political autocracy; on the other, it is not more the opposing effort of Freemasonry than it is of any enslaved people demanding a constitution, or yearning and even plotting

for the downfall of some tyrannical dynasty. In continuation of his defence, Albert Pike affirmed that Freemasonry does not more condemn the excesses of the Papacy "than it does those of Henry VIII. of England, the murder of Sir Thomas More and that of Servetus, and those of the Quakers put to death in New England; than the cruel torturing and slaying of Covenanters and Nonconformists, the ferocities of Claverhouse and Kirk, and the pitiless slaughtering of Catholic priests by the revolutionary fury of France. It well knows and cheerfully acknowledges the services which some of the Roman Pontiffs and a multitude of its clergy have in the past centuries rendered to humanity. It has always done ample justice to their pure lives, their good deeds, their self-denial, their devotedness, their unostentacious heroism. . . . It has always done full justice to the memories of the faithful and devoted missionaries of the Order of Jesus and others, who bore the Cross into every barbarous land under the sun, to make known to savages the truths and errors taught by the Roman Church, and the simple arts of civilization. It has never been the insensate and unreasoning reviler of that Church." In particular, "there has never been any opposition on the part of Freemasonry to Catholicism as a religion" in America. The private instructions of the Grand Commander did not differ from his more public utterances. "It is not the mission of Masonry," he observed elsewhere, " to engage in plots and conspiracies against the civil government. It is not the fanatical propagandist of any creed or theory; nor does it proclaim itself the enemy of kings. It is the apostle of liberty, equality and fraternity; but it is no more the high priest of republicanism than of constitutional monarchy." Here again there is perhaps nothing more than the commonplaces and truisms of a particular pleading which involves the suggestion that in political or other intervention, if any, Freemasonry has been actuated by honest and laudable motives. If in certain