[i]

THE
WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH
AND
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

[ii]

The following pages contain the substance of two Lectures given a few months ago in Edinburgh. The selection of the subjects upon which they treat, and, indeed, the fact of their being delivered at all, were, it may be said, accidental. The author, a missionary priest, was, after over twenty years’ labour in Australia, compelled for health reasons to visit Europe; and during the past season took advantage of an opportunity to make a tour through Scotland. His object in visiting that historic land was first to gratify his Scotch friends and converts in Australia by a sojourn, however brief, in a country, and in several special localities of it, which he knew to be very dear to them; and next to satisfy his own desire of seeing the progress of religion in that as well as in the other portions of the British Islands which he had already visited. The condition of the Church in Ireland, and her advance amidst the adverse influences with which she has to contend in England and Scotland, are of intense interest to Australian Catholics; and an Australian missionary who visits these countries is supposed to bring back much information regarding the state of religion in each one of them. Scotland besides is so full of historic reminiscences, and so favoured by nature with splendid scenery, that a visit to Europe is incomplete without a look upon its rugged hills, its romantic lakes and lovely valleys, now made so interesting [viii]by the works of Sir Walter Scott and other writers. The land once evangelized by Columba and his bands of missionary saints, has besides an indescribable charm for a Catholic missionary. He went, therefore, with great pleasure to Scotland, and he cannot speak too highly or too thankfully of the kindness which the Venerable Archbishop of Glasgow, the Bishops and the Clergy he happened to meet with showed him. But, with the exception of a Sunday sermon to oblige the good pastor of whatever locality he happened to pass through, it was his fixed intention not to speak publicly during his rather rapid progress through the country. It happened, however, that on coming to Edinburgh he found an old and very dear friend and College companion in charge of the most populous Catholic district of the metropolis, and in deference to the earnest solicitations of that friend, he departed from his resolution and gave during the few days his stay lasted, first, a lecture on Secret Societies for the benefit of a large and flourishing Catholic Association for men; and secondly, as a sequel to that, a lecture on the Spoliation of the Propaganda.

Both lectures were delivered extemporaneously; that is to say, so far as the language which conveyed their substance was concerned. The matter, however, had been made familiar to the speaker by many years of observation and reading. Very flattering, and, in some cases, very full reports of them appeared in Catholic newspapers. The report of the principal Protestant organ of public opinion in Edinburgh (the Scotsman) was [ix]very fair, but another paper bitterly resented what it chose to consider an attack on “Freemasonry and Freedom.” It was not, however, so much in the hope of diverting Protestants from Freemasonry as in the desire to show to Catholics that all kinds of secret societies were as bad as, if not worse than, Freemasonry—were, in fact, united with, and under the rule of the worst form of Freemasonry—that the lecturer essayed to speak at all upon the subject. If what he said could influence anyone outside the Church from joining the worse than folly of British Masonry, he would rejoice at the result; but his principal aim was to save his own co-religionists from an evil far more pernicious to them than British Masonry has ever been to Protestants. In this latter design, he was glad to learn that he had considerable success; and amongst those who heard or read his utterances, very many expressed a desire to see what he happened to have said in a permanent form. Notwithstanding the difficulties of doing this with any effect during a vacation tour, he determined, at whatever cost to himself, to gratify their wishes, and therefore took advantage of a few weeks’ rest, while spending Christmas in his Alma Mater—All Hallows’ College, Dublin—to put both lectures into the shape in which he now presents them to such as may desire to read them.

It must, however, be remembered that these lectures are nothing more than what they were originally; that is, casual discourses, and not formal and exhaustive treatises on the subjects upon which they touch. For convenience he [x]has divided each one into separate headings; and where necessary to illustrate the text, he has added notes. These are necessary in order to form a clear idea of the whole matter treated. Notes, however, are not always proofs; and proofs however difficult to be obtained against opponents intent on concealment, must, nevertheless, be forthcoming in order to convince. He has, therefore, embodied in the text several documents which were only referred to, or but partially quoted in the spoken lectures. Those now occupy many pages of the lecture upon Secret Societies, and will, he believes, be read with considerable interest by such as have not previously been acquainted with them. “The Permanent Instruction” and the letters of Vindex and Piccolo Tigre, originally published by M. Cretineau-Joly from the archives of the Alta Vendita, after they were fortunately discovered by the Roman police, are of this class. Certain extracts are also given of equal value. Most of those documents have been translated into English from French translations of the original Italian and German; and one passage, that of Mr. Robison on Freemasonry as the cause of the first French Revolution, is taken from a translation from the English into French, re-done into English, as it was impossible to find the original English work of Mr. Robison, which, though extremely valuable, is, he believes, long out of print. The documents regarding the Spoliation of the Propaganda have been translated from the Latin and Italian originals. He has endeavoured to translate all such documents as literally as possible, so as to preserve their value as evidences.

[xi]

The first lecture, which he has entitled the war of Antichrist with the Church and Christian Civilization, is intended to treat, in as brief space as possible, the whole question of Secret, Atheistic Organization, its origin, its nature, its history in the last century and in this, and its unity of satanic purpose in a wonderful diversity of forms. To do this with effect, it was necessary to go over a large area of ground, and to touch upon a great variety of topics. The writer was conscious that much of this ground and many of these topics would be very much better known to a large number of his readers than to himself. Nearly every matter he had to speak about had been already very frequently handled ably and exhaustively in our Catholic reviews, magazines and newspapers. But notwithstanding this fact, very few, if any, attempts have been made in our language to treat the subject as a whole. Many articles which he has seen, proposed to treat some one feature only of the Atheistic conspiracy—for example, Freemasonry; or the Infidel war upon Christian education and Christian institutions; or the Revolution in Italy; or the efforts of sectaries against the Temporal Power of the Pope, and against the welfare of Christian States generally. Several writers appeared to assume as known that which was really unknown to very many; and few touched at all upon the fact—a fact, no doubt, difficult to prove from the strict and ably guarded secrecy which protects it—of the supreme direction given to the universality of secret societies from a guiding, governing, and—even to the rank and file of the members of the secret [xii]societies themselves—unknown and invisible junta ceaselessly sitting in dark conclave and guiding the whole mass of the secret societies of the world.

If it be difficult at this moment to point out the place of meeting and the members of that powerful body its existence can be proved from past discoveries of the secret workings of the Order, and from present unity of action in numberless occurring circumstances amongst a vast multitude of men, whose essential organization consists in blind obedience to orders coming down through many degrees from an unknown source which thinks and orders for the purposes of the whole conspiracy. The great object, in order to understand the nature of such a conspiracy, is to find out the ends for which those who framed or adopted it, took it up. For instance, Infidelity, as it is now known in the world, never, it may be said, existed to any appreciable extent before the time of Voltaire. Voltaire devoted his whole life to spread Infidelity and destroy Christianity. When we see Voltaire and his disciples eagerly seize upon Freemasonry, and zealously propagate it, as a means to their ends, we may reasonably infer, it was because they judged Masonry fitting for their Infidel and anti-Christian purposes. This is further confirmed when we see Masonry adopted by all men of their principles without exception. And it becomes proved to demonstration when we see its organization seized upon as the basis of further and more complex planning for the avowed purposes of ruining Christianity and placing Atheism in its stead. French [xiii]Atheism using Masonry thus perfected, produced what it aimed at during the Reign of Terror in France, which, as we shall see, is only a prelude to what it means one day to accomplish throughout the entire world.

In order to make these facts clear, the writer, so far as the form of a single lecture would allow, has given as much of the history and character of both Voltaire and Freemasonry, as might serve to show the adaptability of the latter to the designs of the former. He has spoken of the union and illuminism of Masonry through the instrumentality of Weishaupt, and has shown the immediate consequences of the organization and influence of that arch-conspirator in the first French Revolution and its outcome, the Consulate and the Empire. He deemed it a duty to dispel the glamour of false glory which many Christian writers have aided in throwing over Napoleon I., a real child of Freemasonry and Revolution, and to represent him in his true colours. For though it cannot be denied that Napoleon restored the Church, it is equally true that his half-hearted measures in favour of religion tended to deaden that strong reaction against Atheism which even Robespierre’s attempts could not control; while the encouragement he gave to Freemasonry caused that organization to so powerfully permeate Europe that it has since controlled the civilized world with a subtle, powerful force which nothing has been able to stay save the Catholic Church alone.

Under the headings mentioned, the author has given the salient phases of the action of the whole dread [xiv]conspiracy. He has dwelt at considerable length on its efforts in Italy and in Europe generally. He has given in extenso documents of the dark directory which rules all the secret societies of the world. These documents give the key to that satanic policy which guides the Revolution to this day. He adopts the opinion of Eckert, Deschamps, Segur, and other grave Continental authorities, as to the fact that Lord Palmerston succeeded Nubius as Chief of the “Inner Circle,” and consequently Grand Patriarch of all the secret societies of the world; and he judges this not only from the testimony of Henry Misley, one of the Alta Vendita under Nubius and Palmerston, but much more from the suicidal, revolutionary policy which Palmerston adopted when Foreign Minister of England, and which leaves that country now without an ally in the world. This policy suited the conspirators of Europe; but no man should have known better than Palmerston that it could not suit Great Britain. It was the reversal of all that the best British statesmen had adopted as safeguards against the recurrence of Bonapartism and revolution, after the peace obtained at Waterloo. But Palmerston was made a monarch to become a slave to the secret sects, and for their views he unceasingly laboured, regardless of country or of any other consideration.

The existence of two parties in secret-society organization is a fact not generally known; but it explains many things in events daily occurring both on the Continent and at home, which would be otherwise [xv]inexplicable. It explains how ministers like Cavour can sometimes—in play, of course—imprison generals like Garibaldi, how Thiers could crush the Commune, and how Ferry can make show of being adverse to anarchists in Paris. Nevertheless, the anarchists are the children of the Sovereign Directory. Their highest leaders are men of the “Inner Circle.” If policy requires a revolution or an outrage, anarchists of the rank and file are led on to make it; and are generally left also to their fate—a fate, in its turn, made use of for the purposes of the general Revolution. The Inner Circle of high conspirators, in the solitude of their dark plottings, manage all and find uses for all. Politics, with them, are mere playthings. Upon great social movements, upon discontented populations, upon corruption, distraction, and contention, they rely to bring their one redoubted enemy, the Catholic Church, to what they call the tomb.

There are few people on earth more concerned with this fact than the Irish people.

The Irish people are now found not only in Ireland, but outside Ireland in large centres of industry, where the action of the International Association of Workmen, and other kindred working men’s associations, have most influence. It must be borne in mind that the amelioration in the condition of the working man is never attempted by the International without coupling with it the strongest hatred for Christianity. Nothing proves more clearly its origin and its connection with the Supreme Directory of the Cosmopolitan Atheistic Conspiracy against [xvi]religion and order than this one fact. In 1870, the society had on its rolls ten millions of members. Its numbers have yearly increased since. At the famous International Congress, held in Geneva in 1868, it formulated the following declaration, which has since been more than once acted on by its members on the Continent:

“Manifesto.

“The object of the International Association of Workmen, as of every other Socialist Association, is to do away with the parasite and the pariah. Now, what parasite can be compared to the priest who takes away the pence of the poor and of the widow by means of lying. What outcast more miserable than the Christian Pariah.

“God and Christ, these citizen-Providences have been at all times the armour of Capital and the most sanguinary enemies of the working classes. It is owing to God and to Christ that we remain to this day in slavery. It is by deluding us with lying hopes that the priests have caused us to accept all the sufferings of this earth.

“It is only after sweeping away all religion, and after tearing up even to the last roots every religious idea, Christian and every other whatsoever, that we can arrive at our political and social ideal.

“Let Jesus look after his heaven. We believe only in humanity. It would be but to fail in all our duties were we to cease, even for a second, to pursue the monsters who have tortured us.

[xvii]

“Down, then, with God and with Christ! Down with the despots of heaven and earth! Death to the priests! Such is the motto of our grand Crusade.”

This address gives the true spirit and aim of the International League, which has emissaries everywhere striving to decoy working men into secret-society intrigues. In America it has already led Irish Catholic labourers into lamentable excesses. It has under its control some seemingly laudable benefit societies which it uses as a means to draw Catholics gradually from the influence of the Church. The necessity therefore of being prepared for its efforts must be evident to everyone.

From the general consideration of secret societies, the author turns to their action amongst ourselves. He gives the most salient features of British Freemasonry, its oaths, passwords, and signs. He shows to what extent it differs from Continental Masonry, and how it is essentially unlawful and dangerous. He then passes to the principal point of his lecture, so far as his auditory were concerned—Fenianism.

All that he had stated before, here becomes of use as explanatory of the nature of that mischievous conspiracy, which had its rise, development, and ending—if, indeed, it has ended—while the author was engaged upon the Australian mission. But he has given ample proof of its designs from admitted authorities. The history of its founders he has taken from a source that cannot be impugned, the works of the late Mr. A. M. Sullivan, of the Nation. The other articles, on the sad ending of [xviii]conspirators, and the wonderful indestructibility of Irish Faith rest upon their own merits.

A discourse which aimed at illustrating the words of our Holy Father Leo XIII. could not be complete without a reference to such societies as the wisdom of the great Pontiff has pointed out as fitted for Christian men. The author, therefore, speaks in favour of the excellent Temperance Society he found already in action, connected with the Catholic Institute, as a sovereign antidote against secret societies of every description, and as the best remedy for those ills he could not help witnessing when passing through Edinburgh, and other great centres of population in England and Scotland. He plainly refers to the evil which certain idle agitators bring in those cities amongst poor, good-natured, but credulous, Irish Catholic working men. He believes that nine-tenths of the pabulum which keeps such pernicious seducers in employment would be destroyed if Irish working men could be removed from the influence of persons who make profit out of their unfortunate drinking habits; and that misfortune of nearly every temporal kind would cease for them, if they became temperate and continued to practise those virtues which Catholic confraternities with strict sobriety as a first rule, foster. He has therefore given his aid in advocacy of such societies as are calculated to keep the Irish in England and in Scotland, and indeed everywhere, sober,—a quality which, with habits of industry, economy, and thrift, enables them to live happily, and to bring up families educated, fairly provided for, and [xix]a credit, instead of a shame, to the country and the religion of their parents.

The necessity of compressing a large amount of matter into the small space at his disposal, has caused many of the topics touched upon to be treated very inadequately considering their claims to attention. He has, however, given as much fact and matter as he could, even at the risk of occasionally sacrificing smoothness and ease in writing. His desire was to give within the shortest limits, as full, complete, and consecutive a view as possible of the whole subject he undertook to treat. Under any one of the headings given, a volume, and in some cases, a very large and interesting volume, could be written. Facts, however, tell for themselves, and in most instances he has left to the intelligent reader the task of drawing the inferences.

Indeed, his principal object in printing these lectures at all, and his chief hope, has been to direct the attention of those whom it most concerns to the question of secret organization as a whole; to point out the fact that there exists an able, vigilant body of men, trained for years in the work of conspiracy, who never cease to plot for the destruction of Christianity, and of Christian social order amongst mankind; and that the success of these men has hitherto arisen mainly from their astute and ceaseless efforts to remain concealed. The world in all its past history has never been accustomed to deal with such a body. The sworn secret society anywhere, is, what Mr. A. M. Sullivan tells us it is, in his admirable description [xx]of its action in Dublin in his time. Its policy, then, was to stifle every form of Irish public opinion except that which supported its own views. Every other expression was to be prevented by emissaries, who found their way into every popular gathering, and by secret concert, known to themselves alone, and not even so much as suspected by others, were able to make “public opinion” seem to be in favour of the policy of their chiefs. If these emissaries failed, others of the secret brotherhood menaced the adverse popular leaders with loss of business and character, with violence, and even death. With every one of these evils the secret-society men of the time threatened Mr. Sullivan. He, however, foiled their astuteness, and braved their menaces. He succeeded in escaping; but it was much more owing to the conscience remaining amongst some of the Irish Fenians than to the mercy of the organization itself.

This incident, which is related at length in Mr. Sullivan’s “New Ireland,” gives a true idea of the action of every secret-society organization, working, under many apparent public pretences, for the ends of its chiefs. The ruses of a bird to draw away attention from the nest of its young, is but a faint resemblance of what every secret society does to avoid detection, either of itself or of its intentions or doings. It scruples to commit no crime, not even murder, to divert suspicion, and to remain concealed. Concealment is, and has been from the beginning, the very essence of its inward organism and of its outward [xxi]policy. It is vain therefore to suppose that because no visible manifestation of its presence appears, or because some evidences—always suspicious when they are shown—of its dying out, or becoming ridiculous, impotent, or dead, appear, that there is no further danger to be dreaded from its attempts. It has the cunning of the serpent, and the patience too. It can feign itself dead to save its head from being crushed. The author of these pages was assured in Rome, that it was all nonsense to suppose that secret societies any longer existed in Ireland; that they were things of the past which Irish Faith had banished. In a few days after, however, the world was startled by the deeds of the Invincibles, led on, as was subsequently discovered, by a miscreant who had used the cloak of the most sacred practices of religion to conceal his real character, and to win confederates, and then victims, to his infernal designs.

Now, if the following pages prove anything, it is that over the whole world there exists a formidable conspiracy—the War of Antichrist—carried on by a secret directory ruling every form of secret society on earth, and losing no chance of seducing men from God by first bringing them, under some pretence or other, within its ranks. It is certain that this directory will not lose sight of the Irish race in the future, any more than in the past; that most likely in the future its plans for seducing them from, or turning them, for political or other reasons, against the Church, will be laid more astutely and less visibly than ever. The methods by which these high conspirators [xxii]deceive, change continually; and in the constantly recurring political agitations of Ireland, a wide field is open which they are certain to cultivate to the best advantage for the ruin of souls. Unceasing vigilance is required, therefore, to guard against their machinations and unceasing diligence in exposing their aims.

The Holy Father, in his late celebrated Bull, Humanum Genus, has, therefore, manifested his desire that the bishops, the clergy, and even the laity of the Church should join in exposing Freemasonry and other such societies. But without a proper knowledge of the conspiracy as a whole that cannot be done. The author attempts to give such knowledge; but he hopes that his efforts may be improved upon by others more able than himself, and that he may have the happiness before long of seeing some compendium of the whole subject in English which might form a text book for seminarists and others to whom the future fate of the people of God in dangerous days is to be committed. All he could do in the time at his disposal was to give a popular idea of the subject. The works which he has chiefly used for this purpose are those of Cretineau Joly, Eckert, Segur, Dupanloup, and Deschamps (as edited by M. Claude Janet), together with the current information given in the Civiltà Cattolica and other Catholic reviews and periodicals. He believes moreover, that, as philosophical studies of the soundest kind on the basis of St. Thomas have, through the care of the Holy Father, assumed their proper influence in ecclesiastical [xxiii]education, seminarists, and others also, should study the practical growth of those Pantheistic and immoral principles to which that philosophy is opposed. The fundamental basis of Freemasonry, as perverted or “illuminated,” by Weishaupt, is Pantheism; and Positivism and all the “isms” which the philosophers of the sect have since introduced, are meant ultimately to cause Pantheism and its attendant practical immorality to dominate over the earth. It is a new form of the oldest seduction: “eat the forbidden fruit and ye shall be as gods knowing good from evil,” and is always accompanied with that other lie, of “the liar and the murderer from the beginning,” “No, ye shall not die the death.”

Furthermore, it must be remembered that secret societies have little dread of mere denunciation. Exposition, calm and just, is that of which they are most afraid. The masses in them are nearly always in that sad condition through deception. The light thrown vividly upon the real nature of the secret sect; the gentle, kind indulgence of the Church mourning over the ruin and yearning for the return of her children, put before them, will do wonders to win back Irish victims from secret societies. Mere abuse does no good. For the rest, prevention is better than cure; and the time seems to have arrived when in schools, in preparation for first communion, in constant, well-judged recurrence in the instructions given to the people, in lectures and articles in our Catholic newspapers, the evil of secret societies—too sure to manifest itself in many countries—should [xxiv]be made known to all classes of the faithful, who can thus be easily trained in such a way as to treat the secret society or any emanation from it as their ancestors treated heresy, and reject, even at the peril of their lives, the “unclean thing.” Sound Catholic associations, temperance, and pious confraternities, are the remedies pointed out by the Holy Father, and these will preserve the portions of the flock already untainted, and retain those whom grace and zeal may bring back to the Fold of Christ.

Monsignor Smith, Rev. Fathers, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me, indeed, great pleasure to find the Catholic body in this great city possessed of such a valuable, and, I may add, magnificent block of buildings as that which forms this “Catholic Institute,” and to know that over nine hundred of the Catholic young men of Edinburgh are gathered together by its means for mutual improvement and for moral and religious aims. I feel proud of it as the work of my friend and fellow-student, Father Hannan, your respected pastor. I am sure his energies, which have been in other directions—in the erection and sustenance of your extensive Parochial Schools, for instance—so well employed, could not be afterwards put to better purpose than in forming and watching over such an institution. A Catholic Society founded on the spiritual lines of this Society, and enjoying its advantages in a temporal sense, is in fact, now-a-days, a necessity. It takes up and protects the Catholic boy at the most perilous and decisive period of his life—that is, when he leaves the employments and restraints of his school days to learn some trade or profession. It keeps him until manhood, well removed from those dangerous and seductive associations, so common in all large cities. It gives him rational amusement and the means of self-improvement. It causes him to frequent the sacraments, to practise prayer, to be provident, temperate, industrious, and, above all, religious. It places him in constant communication with, and therefore under, the special care of his [2]Pastor. It is, in fact, the special antidote which our present Holy Father—whom may God long preserve to us—advises the Bishops of the Catholic Church to employ throughout the world against the poisonous influence of those secret societies, which the demon has rendered so general and so disastrous in our days. Speaking of the operative classes, Leo XIII. says, in his celebrated Encyclical Humanum Genus of this year, “Those who sustain themselves by the labour of their own hands, besides being by their very condition most worthy above all others of charity and consolation, are also especially exposed to the allurements of men whose ways lie in fraud and deceit. Therefore, they ought to be helped with the greatest possible kindness, and be invited to join societies that are good, lest they be drawn away to others that are evil.”

Now, these words of the Holy Father came very forcibly to my mind when I was shown, on last Saturday, the fine hall in which we are now assembled—the library and study-rooms, and the various means for recreation and improvement attached to this building. I was specially pleased to see so many young men innocently enjoying themselves, or usefully employed, on a day, which, of all other days of the week, is the one which most invites the youth of our cities to dissipation and sin. And so it happened that when Father Hannan asked me to say “a few words”—by which, I suppose he meant the lecture advertised in this morning’s papers—on this Monday evening, I could not well refuse; and as the time for preparation was very short, I determined to say “the few words” on the conflict which during this, and the last century, has taken place between the Church of Christ and Atheism. My reason was, because I knew, that Atheism, closely masked, and astutely organized, not only has sought, but still seeks, the destruction of the Church, and the destruction of the souls which it is her mission to save; and as the Catholic Young Men’s Society of Edinburgh is one of those beneficent associations pointed out by the Vicar of Christ as the special means for defeating the designs of Atheism, I [3]believe I cannot do a more appropriate, or indeed a greater service, than by unfolding what these designs really are. In this, as in all matters of importance, “to be forewarned is to be forearmed,” and it is specially necessary to be forewarned when we have to contend with an adversary who uses secrecy, fraud and deceit. We shall see then, that all the organizations of Atheism appear at first as does their author, Satan, clothed in the raiment of angels of light, with their malignity, their Infidelity, and their ultimate designs always most carefully hidden. They come amongst all the faithful, but more especially amongst young men, to seduce and to ruin them, never showing, but when forced to do so, the cloven foot, and employing a million means to seem to be what they are not. It is, therefore, first of all, necessary to unmask them; and this is precisely what the Supreme Pontiff asks the pastors of the Universal Fold to do as the best means of destroying their influence. “But,” he says in the Encyclical already quoted, “as it befits our pastoral office that we ourselves should point out some suitable way of proceeding, we wish it to be your rule, first of all, to tear away the mask from Freemasonry, and to let it be seen as it really is, and by instructions and pastoral letters to instruct the people as to the artifices used by societies of this kind in seducing men and enticing them into their ranks, and as to the depravity of their opinions and the wickedness of their acts.”

In this extract the Holy Father makes special mention of Freemasonry; but, remember, not of Freemasonry only. He speaks of “other secret societies.” These other secret societies are identical with Freemasonry, no matter by what name they may be called; and they are frequently the most depraved forms of Freemasonry. And though what is known in these Islands as Freemasonry may not be so malignant as its kind is on the Continent—though it may have little or no hold at all upon the mass of Catholics in English-speaking countries, still we shall see that like every secret society in existence it is [4]a danger for the nation and for individuals, and has hidden within it the same Atheism and hostility to Christianity which the worst Continental Freemasonry possesses. These it develops to the initiated in the higher degrees, and makes manifest to all the world in time. The truth is that every secret society is framed and adapted to make men the enemies of God and of his Church, and to subvert faith; and there is not one, no matter on what pretext it may be founded, which does not fall under the management of a supreme Directory governing all the secret societies on earth. The one aim of this directory is to uproot Christianity, and the Christian social order as well as the Church from the world—in fact, to eradicate the name of Christ and the very Christian idea from the minds and the hearts of men. This it is determined to do by every means, but especially by fraud and force; that is by first using wiles and deceit until the Atheistic conspiracy grows strong enough for measures as violent and remorseless in all countries as it exercised in one country during the first French Revolution. I believe this secret Atheistic organization to be nothing less than the evil which we have been long warned against by Our Blessed Lord Himself, as the supreme conflict between the Church and Satan’s followers. It is the commencement of the contest which must take place between Christ and Antichrist; and nothing therefore can be more necessary than that the elect of God should be warned of its nature and its aims. With your permission, then, I shall glance to-night, first, at the rise and the nature of Atheism itself and its rapid advance amongst those sections of Christians most liable from position and surroundings to be led astray by it; and then at the use it has made of Freemasonry for its propagandism, and for its contemplated destruction of Christianity. We shall see its depravity perfected by what is called Illuminism. And we shall see that however checked it may have been by the reaction consequent upon the excesses of its first Revolution, it has not only outlived that reaction, but has grown wiser for doing an evil more extended [5]and more complete. We shall see how its chiefs have succeeded in mastering and directing every kind of secret association whether springing from itself or coming into existence by the force of its example only; and have used, and are using them all to its advantage. We shall see the sleepless vigilance which this organized Atheism exercises; and thus come to know that our best, our only resource, is to fly its emissaries, and draw nearer in affection and in effect to the teachings of the Church and her Supreme Visible Head on earth who can never deceive us, and whom the hosts of Satan never can deceive. We shall see that the voice of the Vicar of Christ has been raised against secret associations from the beginning to this hour, and that the directions which we receive from that infallible voice can alone save us from the wiles and deceits of a conspiracy so formidable, so active, so malignant, and so dangerous.

In order, then, to comprehend thoroughly the nature of the conspiracy I speak of, it will be necessary to go back to the opening of the last century and contemplate the rise and advance of the Atheism and Anti-Christianity which it now spreads rapidly through the earth. As that century opened it disclosed a world suffering from a multitude of evils. The so-called Reformation, which arose and continued to progress during the two preceding centuries had well nigh run its course. It had ceased to be a persecuting force on the Continent, and only for reasons of plunder continued to use the weapons of oppression in Ireland. Scarcely a shred of the original doctrines of Luther remained as he had left them; yet no signs of return to the Church were to be observed amongst his followers. Malignant hatred of the Spouse of Christ continued, when the reasons alleged for the malignity had departed. Amidst the multitude at that time calling themselves Protestants, little remained certain in Christian belief.

[6]

The principle of private judgment introduced in apparent zeal for the pure worship and doctrine of Christ, had ended in leaving no part of the teaching of Christ unchallenged. It had rendered His Divinity disbelieved in, and His very existence doubted, by many who yet called themselves His followers. Socinus and his nephew had succeeded in binding the various groups of Polish and German Protestants in a league where nothing was required but undying hatred and opposition to the Catholic Church. Bayle threw doubt upon everything, and Spinosa destroyed the little respect left for the Deity in the system of Socinus, by introducing Pantheism to the world. In effect, both the Deists and the Pantheists of that period were Atheists. Whether they held that everything was God, or that God was not such a God as Christians hold Him to be, they did away with belief in the true God, and raised up an impossible being of their own imagination in His stead. In life, in conduct, and in adoration of God, they were practical Atheists, and soon manifested that hatred for the truth which the Atheist is sure to possess. Their theories made headway early in the century throughout Central Europe and England. Bolingbroke, Shaftesbury, and the élite amongst the statesmen and literary aristocracy of the reign of Queen Anne were Infidels. Tindal, Collins, Wolston, Toland, and Chubbs were as advanced as Tom Payne was, later on, in the way of Atheism. But however much England and Germany had advanced their Protestantism to what was called Free-thinking, both were soon destined to be eclipsed in that sad progress by Catholic and monarchical France. France owes this evil pre-eminence to one individual, who, though largely assisted in his road to ruin by Bayle, and subsequently by association with English Infidels, had yet enough of innate wickedness in himself to outstrip them all. That individual was—

I shall have to occupy your attention, for some little time, with the career of this abandoned, unhappy, but most [7]extraordinary man. It was in his day and by his means that the Atheism which occupies us this evening became perfected, generalized, and organized for the destruction of Christianity, Christian civilization, and all religion. He was the first, and remains still, the greatest of its Apostles. There is not one of its dark principles which he did not teach and advocate; and from his writings, and by their means, the intellectual and every other form of war against the Catholic Church and the cause of Christ are carried on to this day and will be to the end. His real name was Francis Mary Arouet, but, for some reason which has never been clearly explained, he chose to call himself Voltaire. He was the son of good parents, and by position and education should have been an excellent Catholic. He was trained by the very Jesuits whom he afterwards so hated and persecuted. He was destined for the profession of the law, and made good progress in literary studies. But the corruption of the age in which he lived soon seized upon him, overmastered him, and bore him along in a current which in his case did not end in vice only, but in vice which sought its own justification in Infidelity. From the beginning, the fool said in his heart “there is no God,” and in the days of Voltaire the number of these fools was indeed infinite. Never before was vice so rampant in countries calling themselves Christian. If the Gospel was preached at all in that age it was certainly to the poor; for the rich, as a rule—to which there were, thank God, many exceptions—seemed so sunk in vice as not to believe in a particle of it. The Courts of Europe were, in general, corrupt to the core; and the Court of the Most Christian King was perhaps the most abandoned, in a wide sense, of them all. The Court of Catherine of Russia was a scene of unblushing lewdness. The Court of Frederick of Prussia was so corrupt, that it cannot be described without doing violence to decency, and even to humanity. The Regent Orleans and Louis XV. had carried licence to such an extent, as to render the Court of Versailles a veritable pandemonium. The vices of [8]royalty infected the nobles and all others who were so unfortunate as to be permitted to frequent Courts. Vice, in fact, was the fashion, and numbers of all classes, not excepting the poorest, wallowed in it. As a consequence, the libertines of the period hated the Church, which alone, amidst the universal depravity, raised her voice for purity. They took up warmly, therefore, the movements which, within or without her pale, were likely to do her damage. With a sure instinct they sided in France with Gallicanism and Jansenism; and they welcomed the new Infidelity which came over from England and Germany, with unconcealed gladness. Voltaire appeared in French society at this most opportune moment for the advancement of their views. Witty, sarcastic, gay, vivacious, he soon made his way amongst the voluptuaries who then filled Paris. His conduct and habit of ridiculing religion and royalty brought him, however, into disfavour with the Government, and at the age of twenty-seven we find him in the Bastile. Liberated from this prison in 1727, but only on condition of exile, he crossed over to England, where he finally adopted those Infidel and anti-Christian principles which made him, for the half century through which he afterwards lived, what Cretineau Joly⁠[1] very justly calls “the most perfect incarnation of Satan that the world ever saw.” The Society of Freemasons was just then perfected in London, and Voltaire at the instance of his Infidel associates joined one of its lodges; and he left England, where he had been during the years 1726-27 and ’28, an adept in both Infidelity and Freemasonry. He returned to the Continent with bitterness rankling in his breast against Monarchical Government which had imprisoned and exiled him, against the Bastile where he was immured, and, above all, against the Catholic Church and her Divine Founder. Christ and His Church condemned his excesses, and to the overthrow of both he devoted [9]himself with an ardour and a malignity more characteristic, certainly, of a demon than of a man.

A master of French prose hardly ever equalled and never perhaps excelled, and a graceful and correct versifier, his writings against morality and religion grew into immense favour with the corrupt reading-public of his day. He was a perfect adept in the use of ridicule, and he employed it with remorseless and blasphemous force against everything pure and sacred. He had as little respect for the honour or welfare of his country as he had for the sanctity of religion. His ruffian pen attacked the fair fame of the Maid of Orleans with as little scruple as it cast shame upon the consecrated servants of Christ. For Christ he had but one feeling—eternal, contemptuous hatred. His watchword, the concluding lines of all his letters to his Infidel confederates was for fifty years ecrasons nous l’infame, “let us crush the wretch,” meaning Christ and his cause. This he boasted was his delenda est Carthago. And he believed he could succeed. “I am tired, said he, of hearing it said that twelve men sufficed to establish Christianity, and I desire to show that it requires but one man to pull it down.” A lieutenant of police once said to him, that, notwithstanding all he wrote, he should never be able to destroy Christianity. “That is exactly what we shall see,” he replied. Voltaire was never weary of using his horrible watchword.

Upon the news of the suppression of the Jesuits reaching him, he exclaimed: “See, one head of the hydra has fallen. I lift my eyes to heaven and cry ‘crush the wretch.’” We have from himself his reason for using these blasphemous words. He says, “I finish all my letters by saying, ‘Ecrasons l’infame, ecrasez l’infame.’ ‘Let us crush the wretch, crush the wretch,’ as Cato used one time to say, Delenda est Carthago, Carthage must be destroyed.” Even at a time when the miscreant protested the greatest respect for religion to the Court of Rome, he wrote to Damilaville: “We embrace the philosophers, and we beseech them to inspire for the wretch all the horror [10]which they can. Let all fall upon the wretch ably. That which most concerns me is the propagation of the faith of truth, and the making of the wretch vile, Delenda est Carthago.”

Certainly his determination was strong to do so; and he left no stone unturned for that end. He was a man of amazing industry; and though his vanity caused him to quarrel with many of his confreres, he had in his life time a large school of disciples, which became still more numerous after his death. He sketched out for them the whole mode of procedure against the Church. His policy as revealed by the correspondence of Frederick II. and others⁠[2] with him, was not to commence an immediate persecution, but first to suppress the Jesuits and all Religious orders, and to secularize their goods; then to deprive the Pope of temporal authority, and the Church of property and state recognition. Primary and higher-class [11]education of a lay and Infidel character was to be established, the principle of divorce affirmed, and respect for ecclesiastics lessened and destroyed. Lastly, when the whole body of the Church should be sufficiently weakened and Infidelity strong enough, the final blow was to be dealt by the sword of open, relentless persecution. A reign of terror was to spread over the whole earth, and to continue while a Christian should be found obstinate enough to adhere to Christianity. This, of course, was to be followed by a Universal Brotherhood without marriage, family, property, God, or law, in which all men would reach that level of social degradation aimed at by the disciples of Saint Simon, and carried into practice whenever possible, as attempted by the French Commune.

In the carrying out of his infernal designs against religion and society, Voltaire had as little scruple in using lying and hypocrisy as Satan himself is accredited with. In his attacks upon religion he falsified history and fact. He made a principle of lying, and taught the same vice to his followers. Writing to his disciple Theriot, he says (Oeuvres, t. 52, p. 326): “Lying is a vice when it does evil. It is a great virtue when [12]it does good. Be therefore more virtuous than ever. It is necessary to lie like a devil, not timidly and for a time, but boldly and always.”

He was also, as the school he left behind has been ever since, a hypocrite. Infidel to the heart’s core, he could, whenever it suited his purpose, both practise, and even feign a zeal for religion. On the expectation of a pension from the King, he wrote to M. Argental, a disciple of his, who reproached him with his hypocrisy and contradictions in conduct. “If I had a hundred thousand men I know well what I would do; but as I have not got them, I will go to communion at Easter, and you may call me a hypocrite as long as you like.” And Voltaire, on getting his pension, went to communion the year following.⁠[3] It is needless to say that he was in life, as well as in his writings, immoral as it was possible for a man to be. He lived without shame and even ostentatiously in open adultery. He laughed at every moral restraint. He preached libertinage and practised it. He was [13]the guest and the inmate of the Court of Frederick of Prussia, where crime reached proportions impossible to speak of. And lastly, coward, liar, hypocrite, and pander to the basest passions of humanity, he was finally, like Satan, a murderer if he had the power to be so. Writing to Damilaville, he says, “The Christian religion is an infamous religion, an abominable hydra which must be destroyed by a hundred invisible hands. It is necessary that the philosophers should course through the streets to destroy it as missionaries course over earth and sea to propagate it. They ought dare all things, risk all things, even to be burned, in order to destroy it. Let us crush the wretch! Crush the wretch!” His doctrine thus expressed found fatal effect in the French Revolution, and it will obtain effect whenever his disciples are strong enough in men and means to act. I have no doubt his teachings have led to all the revolutions of this century, and will lead to the final attack of Atheism on the Church. Nor was his hatred confined to Catholicity only. Christians of every denomination were marked out for destruction by him; and our separated Christian brethren, who feel glad at seeing his followers triumph over the Church, might well ponder on these words of his: “Christians,” he says, “of every form of profession, are beings exceedingly injurious, fanatics, thieves, dupes, impostors, who lie together with their gospels, enemies of the human race.” And of the system itself he writes: “The Christian religion is evidently false, the Christian religion is a sect which every good man ought to hold in horror. It cannot be approved of even by those to whom it gives power and honour.” In fact, since his day, it has been a cardinal point of policy with his followers to take advantage of the unfortunate differences between the various sects of Christians in the world and the Church, in order to ruin both; for the destruction of every form of Christianity, as well as Catholicity, was the aim of Voltaire, and remains as certainly the aim of his disciples. They place, of course, the Church and the Vicar of Christ in the first line of attack, well knowing that if the great Catholic unity [14]could be destroyed, the work of eradicating every kind of separated Christianity would be easy. In dealing, therefore, with such a foe as modern Atheism, so powerfully organized, as we shall see it to be, Protestants as well as Catholics should guard against its wiles and deceits. They should, at least, regarding questions such as the religious education of rising generations, the attempted secularisation of the Sabbath and state-established, Christian Institutions, and the recognition of religion by the State, all of which the Atheism of the world now attempts to destroy, present an unbroken front of determined union. Nothing less, certainly, can save even the Protestantism, the national, Christian character of Great Britain and her colonies from impending ruin.

Although Voltaire was as confirmed and malignant a hater of Christ and of Christianity as ever lived, still he showed from time to time that his own professed principles of Infidelity were never really believed in by himself. In health and strength he cried out his blasphemous “crush the wretch!” but when the moment came for his soul to appear before the judgment-seat of “the wretch,” his faith was shown and his vaunted courage failed him.

The miscreant always acted against his better knowledge. His life gives us many examples of this fact. I will relate one for you. When he broke a blood vessel on one occasion, he begged his assistants to hurry for the priest. He confessed, signed with his hand a profession of faith, asked pardon of God and the Church for his offences, and ordered that his retractation should be printed in the public newspapers; but, recovering, he commenced his war upon God anew, and died refusing all spiritual aid, and crying out in the fury of despair and agony, “I am abandoned by God and man.” Dr. Fruchen, who witnessed the awful spectacle of his death, said to his friends, “Would that all who have been seduced by the writings of Voltaire had been witnesses of his death, it would be impossible to hold out, in the face of such an awful [15]spectacle.”⁠[4] But that spectacle was forgotten, and consequently, before ten years passed, the world saw the effects of his works.

Speaking of the French Revolution, Condorcet, in his “Life of Voltaire,” says of him, “He did not see all that which he accomplished, but he did all that which we see. Enlightened observations prove to those who know how to reflect that the first author of that Great Revolution was without doubt Voltaire.”

I have thus far spoken of Voltaire and his teachings in order to introduce with greater clearness the important subject to which I ask the favour of your attention this evening. It never was the intention of this man to let his teachings die, or beat the air, so to speak, with mere words. He determined that his fatal gospel should be perpetuated, and should bring forth as speedy as possible its fruits of death. Even in his lifetime, we have evidence that he constantly conspired with his associates for this end, and that with them he concocted in secret both the means by which his doctrines should reach all classes in Europe, and the methods by which civil order and Christianity might be best destroyed. St. Beauve writes of him and of his, in the Journal des Debats, 8 November, 1852:—“All the correspondence of Voltaire and D’Alembert is ugly. It smells of the sect, of the conspiracy of the Brotherhood, of the secret society. From whatever point it is viewed it does no honour to men who make a principle of lying, and who consider contempt of their kind the first condition necessary to enlighten them. ‘Enlighten and despise the human race.’ A sure watchword this, and it is theirs. ‘March on always sneering, my brethren, in the way of truth.’ That is their perpetual refrain.” But not only did he and his, thus conspire in a manner which might seem to arise naturally from identical sentiments and aims, but what was of infinitely greater consequence, the demon, just as their sad gospel was ripe for propagation, called into existence the most efficacious means possible for its extension amongst men, and [16]for the wished-for destruction of the Church, of Christian civilization, and of every form of existing Christianity. This was the spread amongst those already demoralized by Voltaireanism, of Freemasonry and its cognate systems of secret Atheistic organization.

This is the point upon which I am most anxious to fix your attention this evening.

Freemasonry, we must remember always, appeared generally and spread generally, too, in the interests of all that Voltaire aimed at, when it best suited his purpose. The first lodge established in France under the English obedience was in 1727. Its founder and first master was the celebrated Jacobite, Lord Derwentwater. It had almost immediate acceptance from the degenerate nobility of France, who, partly because of the influence of English and Scotch Jacobite nobles, and partly because of its novelty, hard swearing, and mystery, joined the strange institution. Its lodges were soon in every considerable city of the realm. The philosophers and various schools of Atheists, however, were the first to enter into and to extend it. For them it had special attractions and special uses, which they were not slow to appreciate and to employ. Now, though it very little concerns us to know much of the origin of this society, which became then and since so notorious throughout the world, still, as that origin throws some light on its subsequent history, it will not be lost time to glance at what is known, or supposed to be known, about it. Monsignor Segur,⁠[5] Bishop of Grenoble, who devoted much time to a study of Freemasonry, is persuaded that it was first elaborated by Faustus Socinus, the nephew of the too celebrated Lælius Socinus, the heresiarch and founder of the sect of Unitarians or, as they are generally called after him, Socinians. [17]Both were of the ancient family of the Sozini of Sienna. Faustus, like many of his relatives, imbibed the errors of his uncle, and in order to escape the vigilance of the Inquisition, to which both Italy and Spain owed much of the tranquillity they enjoyed in these troublesome times, he fled to France. While in that country at Lyons, and when only twenty years of age, he heard of the death of his uncle at Zurich, and went at once to that city to obtain the papers and effects of the deceased. From the papers he found that Lælius had assisted at a conference of Heretics at Vicenza, in 1547, in which the destruction of Christianity was resolved upon, and where resolutions were adopted for the renewal of Arianism—a system of false doctrine calculated to sap the very foundations of existing Faith by attacking the Trinity and the Incarnation. Feller, an authority of considerable weight, in his reference to this conference, says: “In the assembly of Vicenza, they agreed upon the means of destroying the religion of Jesus Christ, by forming a society which by its progressive successes brought on, towards the end of the eighteenth century, an almost general apostasy. When the Republic of Venice became informed of this conspiracy, it seized upon Julian Trevisano and Francis de Rugo, and strangled them. Ochinus and the others saved themselves. The society thus dispersed became only the more dangerous, and it is that which is known to-day under the name of Freemasons.” For this information Feller refers us to a work entitled “The Veil Removed,” Le Voile Levè, by the Abbé Le Franc, a victim of the reign of terror, in 1792. The latter tells us that the conspirators whom the severity of the Venetian Republic had scattered, and who were Ochinus, Lælius Socinus, Peruta, Gentilis, Jacques Chiari, Francis Lenoir, Darius Socinus, Alicas, and the Abbé Leonard, carried their poison with them, and caused it to bear fruits of death in all parts of Europe. The success of Faustus Socinus in spreading his uncle’s theories was enormous. His aim was not only to destroy the Church, but to raise up another temple into [18]which any enemy of orthodoxy might freely enter. In this temple every heterodox belief might be held. It was called Christian but was without Christian faith, or hope, or love. It was simply an astutely planned system for propagating the ideas of its founders; for a fundamental part of the policy of Socinus, and one in which he well instructed his disciples, was to associate either to Unitarianism or to the confederation formed at Vicenza, the rich, the learned, the powerful, and the influential of the world. He feigned an equal esteem for Trinitarians and anti-Trinitarians, for Lutherans and Calvinists. He praised the undertakings of all against the Church of Rome, and working upon their intense hatred for Catholicity, caused them to forget their many “isms” in order to unite them for the destruction of the common enemy. When that should be effected, it would be time to consider a system agreeable to all. Until then, unity of action inspired by hatred of the Church should reign amongst them.

He therefore wished that all his adherents should, whether Lutheran or Calvinist, treat one another as brothers; and hence his disciples have been called at various times “United Brethren,” “Polish Brothers,” “Moravian Brothers,” “Brother Masons,” and finally “Freemasons.” Mgr. Segur informs us, on the authorities before quoted, as well as upon that of Bergier, and the learned author of a work entitled, “Les Franc-Maçons Ecrasés,”—the Abbé Lerudan—printed at Amsterdam, as early as the year 1747, that the real secret of Freemasonry consisted, even then, in disbelief in the Divinity of Christ, and a determination to replace that doctrine, which is the very foundation of Christianity, by Naturalism or Rationalism. Socinus having established his sect in Poland, sent emissaries to preach his doctrines stealthily in Germany, Holland, and England. In Germany, Protestants and Catholics united to unmask them. In Holland, they blended with the Anabaptists, and in England, they found partisans amongst the Independents and various other sects into which the people were divided.

[19]

The Abbé Lefranc believes (Le Voile Levè, Lyons, 1821), that Oliver Cromwell was a Socinian, and that he introduced Freemasonry into England. Certainly, Cromwell’s sympathies were not for the Church favoured by the monarch he supplanted, and were much with the Independents. If he was a Socinian, we can easily understand how the secret society of Vicenza could have attractions for one of his anti-Catholic and ambitious sentiments. He gave its members in England, as Mgr. Segur tells us, the title of Freemasons, and invented the allegory of the Temple of Solomon, now so much used by Masonry of every kind, and which meant the original state of man supposed to be a commonwealth of equality with a vague Deism as its religion. This temple, destroyed by Christ for the Christian order, was to be restored by Freemasonry after Christ and the Christian order should be obliterated by conspiracy and revolution. The state of Nature was the “Hiram” whose murder Masonry was to avenge; and which, having previously removed Christ, was to resuscitate Hiram, by rebuilding the temple of Nature as it had been before.

Mgr. Segur, moreover, connects modern Freemasonry with the Jews and Templars, as well as with Socinus. There are reasons which lead me to think that he is right in doing so. The Jews for many centuries previous to the Reformation, had formed secret societies for their own protection and for the destruction of the Christianity which persecuted them, and which they so much hated. The rebuilding of the Temple of Solomon was the dream of their lives. It is unquestionable that they wished to make common cause with other bodies of persecuted religionists. They had special reason to welcome with joy such heretics as were cast off by Catholicity. It is, therefore, not at all improbable, that they admitted into their secret conclaves some at least of the discontented Templars, burning for revenge upon those who dispossessed and suppressed the Order. That fact would account for the curious combination of Jewish and conventual allusions to be found in modern [20]Masonry.⁠[6] Then, as to its British History, we have seen that numbers of the secret brotherhood of Socinus made their way to England and Scotland, where they found friends, and, perhaps, confederates. I have, therefore, no doubt but that the Abbé Lefranc is correct, when he says that Cromwell was connected with them. At least, before he succeeded in his designs, he had need of some such secret society, and would, no doubt, be glad to use it for his purposes. But it is not so clear that Cromwell was the first, as Lefranc thinks, to blend that brotherhood with the real Freemasons. The ancient guild of working masons had existed in Great Britain and in Europe for many centuries previous to his time. They were like every other guild of craftsmen—a body formed for mutual protection and trade offices. But they differed from other tradespeople in this, that from their duties they were more [21]cosmopolitan, and knew more of the ceremonies of religion at a period when the arts of reading and writing were not very generally understood. They travelled over every portion of England and Scotland, and frequently crossed the Channel, to work at the innumerable religious houses, castles, fortifications, great abbeys, churches and cathedrals which arose over the face of Christendom in such number and splendour in the middle and succeeding ages. To keep away interlopers, to sustain a uniform rate of wages, to be known amongst strangers, and, above all, amongst foreigners of their craft, signs were necessary; and these signs could be of value only in proportion to the secrecy with which they were kept within the craft itself. They had signs for those whom they accepted as novices, for the companion mason or journeyman, and for the masters of the craft. In ages when a trade was transmitted from father to son, and formed a kind of family inheritance, we can very well imagine that its secrets were guarded with much jealousy, and that its adepts were enjoined not to communicate them to anyone, not even to their wives, lest they may become known to outsiders. The masons were, if we except the clockmakers and jewellers, the most skilled artisans of Europe. By the cunning of their hands they knew how to make the rough stone speak out the grand conceptions of the architects of the middle ages; and often, the delicate foliage and flowers and statuary of the fanes they built, remind us of the most perfect eras of Greek and Roman sculpture. So closely connected with religion and religious architecture as were these “Brothers Masons,” “Friar,” “Fra,” or “Free Masons,” they shared to a large extent in the favour of the Popes. They obtained many and valuable charters. But they degenerated. The era of the so-called Reformation was a sad epoch for them. It was an era of Church demolition rather than of Church building. Wherever the blight of Protestantism fell, the beauty and stateliness of Church architecture became dwarfed, stunted, and degraded, whenever it was not utterly destroyed. The need of Brothers Masons had [22]passed, and succeeding Masons began to admit men to their guilds who won a living otherwise than by the craft. In Germany their confraternity had become a cover for the reformers, and Socinus seeing in it a means for advancing his sect—a method for winning adepts and progressing stealthily without attracting the notice of Catholic governments, would desire no doubt to use it for his purposes. We have to this day the statutes the genuine Freemasons of Strasbourg framed in 1462, and the same revised as late as 1563, but in them there is absolutely nothing of heresy or hostility to the Church. But there is a curious document called the Charter of Cologne dated 1535, which, if it be genuine, proves to us that there existed at that early period a body of Freemasons, having principles identical with those professed by the Masons of our own day. It is to be found in the archives of the Mother Lodge of Amsterdam, which also preserves the act of its own constitution under the date of 1519. It reveals the existence of lodges of kindred intent in London, Edinburgh, Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris, Lyons, Frankfort, Hamburg, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Madrid, Venice, Goriz, Koenigsberg, Brussels, Dantzic, Magdeburg, Bremen and Cologne; and it bears the signatures of well-known enemies of the Church at that period, namely—Hermanus or Herman de Weir, the immoral and heretical Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, placed for his misdeeds under the ban of the Empire; De Coligny, leader of the Huguenots of France; Jacob d’Anville, Prior of the Augustinians of Cologne, who incurred the same reproaches as Archbishop Herman; Melancthon, the Reformer; Nicholas Van Noot; Carlton; Bruce; Upson; Banning; Vireaux; Schroeder; Hofman; Nobel; De la Torre; Doria; Uttenbow; Falck; Huissen; Wormer. These names reveal both the country and the celebrity of all the men who signed the document. It was, possibly, a society like theirs, which the Venetian Government broke up and scattered in 1547, for we find distinct mention of a lodge existing at Venice in 1535. However this may be, Freemason lodges [23]existed in Scotland from the time of the Reformation. One of them is referred to in the Charter of Cologne, and doubtless had many affiliations. In Scotland, as in other Catholic countries, the Templars were suppressed; and there, if nowhere else, that Order had the guilds of working masons under its special protection. It is therefore possible, as some say, that the knights coalesced with these Masons, and protected their own machinations with the aid of the secrets of the craft. But while this and all else stated regarding the connection of the Templars with Masonry may be true, there is no real evidence that it is so. Much is said about the building of the Temple of Solomon; and that the Hiram killed, and whose death the craft is to avenge, means James Molay, the Grand Master, executed in the barbarous manner of his age for supposed complicity in the crimes with which the Templars were everywhere charged. There is tall talk about such things in modern Masonry, and a great deal of the absurd and puerile ritual in which the sect indulges when conferring the higher grades, is supposed to have reference to them. But the Freemasonry with which we have to deal, however connected in its origin with the Templars, with Socinus, with the conspirators of Cologne, or those of Vicenza, or with Cromwell, received its modern characteristics from Elias Ashmole, the Antiquary, and the provider, if not the founder, of the Oxford Museum. Ashmole was an alchemist and an astrologer, and imbued consequently with a love for the jargon and mysticism of that strange body so busied about the philosopher’s stone and other utopias. The existing lodges of the Freemasons had an inexpressible charm for Ashmole, and in 1646 he, together with Colonel Mainwaring, became members of the craft. He perfected it, added various mystic symbols to those already in use, and gave partly a scriptural, partly an Egyptian form to its jargon and ceremonies. The Rosecroix, Rosicrucian degree, a society formed after the ideal of Bacon’s New Atlantis, appeared; and the various grades of companion, master, secret master, perfect master, elect, and Irish master, were either remodelled or newly formed, as we know them [24]now. Charles I. was decapitated in 1649, and Ashmole being a Royalist to the core, soon turned English Masonry from the purposes of Cromwell and his party, and made the craft, which was always strong in Scotland, a means to upset the Government of the Protector and to bring back the Stuarts. Now “Hiram” became the murdered Charles, who was to be avenged instead of James Molay, and the reconstruction of the Temple meant the restoration of the exiled House of Stuart. On the accession of Charles II., the craft was, of course, not treated with disfavour; and when the misfortunes of James II., drove him from the throne, the partisans of the House of Stuart had renewed recourse to it as a means of secret organization against the enemy.

To bring back the Pretender, the Jacobites formed a Scotch and an English and an Irish constitution. The English constitution embraced the Mother Lodge of York and that of London, which latter separated from York, and with a new spring of action started into life as the Grand Lodge of London in 1717. The Jacobite nobles brought it to France chiefly to aid their attempts in favour of the Stuarts. They opened a lodge called the “Amity and Fraternity,” in Dunkirk, in 1721, and in 1725, the Lord Derwentwater opened the famous Mother Lodge of Paris. Masonry soon spread to Holland (1730), to Germany in 1736, to Ireland in 1729, and afterwards to Italy, Spain, and Europe generally. All its lodges were placed under the Grand Lodge of England, and remained so for many years.

I mention these facts and dates in order to let you see that precisely at the period when Freemasonry was thus extending abroad, the Infidelity, which had been introduced by Bayle and openly advocated by Voltaire, was being disseminated largely amongst the corrupt nobility of France and of Europe generally. It was, as we have already seen, a period of universal licence in morals with the great in every country, and the members of the Grand Lodge in England were generally men of easy virtue whose example was agreeable to Continental libertines.

Voltaire found, that the Masonry to which he had been [25]affiliated in London, was a capital means of diffusing his doctrines among the courtiers, the men of letters, and the public of France. It was like himself, the incarnation of hypocrisy and lying. It came recommended by an appearance of philanthropy and of religion. Ashmole gave it the open Bible, together with the square and compass. It called the world to witness that it believed in God, “the great Architect of the Universe.” It had “an open eye,” which may be taken for God’s all-seeing providence, or for the impossibility of a sworn Mason escaping his fate if he revealed the secrets of the craft or failed to obey the orders he was selected to carry out. It made members known to each other, just as did the ancient craft, in every country, and professed to take charge of the orphans and widows of deceased brethren who could not provide for them. But, in its secret conclaves and in its ascending degrees, it had means to tell the victim whom it could count upon, that the “Architect” meant a circle, a nothing;⁠[7] that the open Bible was the universe; and that the square and compass was simply the fitness of things—the means to make all men “fraternal, equal and free” in some impossible utopia it promised but never gave. In the recesses of its lodges, the political conspirator found the men and the means to arrive at his ends in security. Those who ambitioned office found there the means of advancement. The old spirit breathed into the fraternity by Socinus, and nourished so well by the heretical libertines of the England and Germany of the seventeenth century, and perfected by the Infidels of the eighteenth, was master in all its lodges. Banquets, ribald songs and jests, revelling in sin, constituted from the beginning, a leading feature in its life. Lodges became the secure home for the roué, the spendthrift, the man of broken fortunes, the Infidel, and the depraved of the upper classes. Such attractive centres of sin, therefore, spread over Europe with great rapidity. They were encouraged not only by Voltaire, but by his whole host of Atheistic writers, philosophers, encyclopædists, revolutionists, [26]and rakes. The scoundrels of Europe found congenial employment in them; and before twenty years elapsed from their first introduction, the lodges were a power in Europe, formidable by the union which subsisted between them all, and by the wealth, social position, and unscrupulousness of those who formed their brotherhood. The principles fashionable—and indeed alone tolerated—in them all, before long, were the principles of Voltaire and of his school. This led in time to—

With the aid of Voltaire, and of his party, Freemasonry rapidly spread amongst the higher classes of France and wherever else in Europe the influence of the French Infidels extended. It soon after obtained immense power of union and propagandism. In France and everywhere else it had an English, a Scotch, and a local obedience. These had separate constitutions and officers, even separate grades, but all were identical in essence and in aim. A brother in one was a brother in all. However, it seemed to the leaders that more unity was needed, and aided by the adhesion of the Duke de Chartres, subsequently better known as the Duke of Orleans, the infamous Philippe-Egalité, who was Grand Master of the Scotch Masonic Body in France, the French Masons in the English obedience desiring independence of the Mother Lodge of England, separated, and elected him the first Grand Master of the since celebrated Grand Orient of France. Two years after this, the execrable “Androgyne” lodges for women, called “Lodges of Adoption,” were established, and had as Grand Mistress over them all, the Duchess of Bourbon, sister of Egalité. The Infidels, by extending these lodges for women, obtained an immense amount of influence, which they otherwise never could attain. They thus invaded the domestic circle of the Court of France and of every Court in Europe. Thus, too, the royal edicts, the decrees of Clement XII. and Benedict XIV. against Freemasonry, and the efforts of [27]conscientious officers, were rendered completely inoperative. After the death of Voltaire, the extension of Freemasonry became alarming; but no State effort could then stop its progress. It daily grew more powerful and more corrupt. It began already to extend its influence into every department of state. Promotion in the army, in the navy, in the public service, in the law, and even to the fat benefices “in commendam” of the Church, became impossible without its aid;⁠[8] and at this precise juncture, when the political fortunes of France were, for many reasons, growing desperate, two events occurred to make the already general and corrupt Freemasonry still more formidable. These were the advent of the Illuminism of Saint Martin in France, and that of Adam Weishaupt in Germany, and the increased corruption introduced principally by means of women-Freemasons.

A Portuguese Jew, named Martinez Pasqualis, was the first to introduce Illuminism into the Lodge of Lyons, and his system was afterwards perfected in wickedness by Saint Martin, from whom French Illuminism took its name. Illuminism meant the extreme extent of immorality, Atheism, anarchy, levelling, and bloodshed, to which the principles of Masonry could be carried. It meant a universal conspiracy against the Church [28]and established order. It constituted a degree of advancement for all the lodges, and powerfully aided to make them the centres of revolutionary intrigue and of political manipulation which they soon became in the hands of men at once sunk in Atheism and moral corruption.

An idea of these lodges may be obtained from a description given of that of Ermanonville, by M. Le Marquis de Lefroi, in Dictionnaire des Errors Sociales, quoted by Deschamps, vol. ii., page 93.

“It is known,” he says, “that the Chateau de Ermanonville belonging to the Sieur Girardin, about ten leagues from Paris, was a famous haunt of Illuminism. It is known that there, near the tomb of Jean-Jacques, under the pretext of bringing men back to the age of nature, reigned the most horrible dissoluteness of morals. Nothing can equal the turpitude of morals which reigns amongst that horde of Ermanonville. Every woman admitted to the mysteries became common to the brothers, and was delivered up to the chance or to the choice of these true ‘Adamites.’” Barruch in his Memoires sur le Jacobinism, t. iv., p. 334, says, “that M. Leseure, the father of [29]the hero of La Vendee, having been affiliated to a lodge of this kind, and having, in obedience to the promptings of conscience, abandoned it, was soon after poisoned.” He himself declared to the Marquis de Montron that he fell a victim to “that infamous horde of the Illuminati.”

The Illuminism of Saint Martin was simply an advance in the intensity of immorality, Atheism, secrecy, and terror, which already reigned in the lodges of France. It planned a deeper means of revolution and destruction. It became in its hidden depths a lair in which the Atheists of the period could mature their plans for the overthrow of the existing order of things to their own best advantage. It gave itself very captivating names. Its members were “Knights of Beneficence,” “Good Templars,” “Knights of St. John,” &c. They numbered, however, amongst them, the most active, daring, and unscrupulous members of Masonry. They set themselves at work to dominate over and to control the entire body. They had no system, any more than any other sort of Masons, to give the world instead of that which they determined to pull down. The state of nature, goods and the sexes in common, no God, and instead of God a hatred for everything sustaining the idea of God, formed about the sum total of the happiness which they desired to see reign in a world, where people should be reduced to a level resembling that of wild cattle in the American prairies. This was the Illumination they destined for humanity; yet such was the infatuation inspired by their immoral and strange doctrines that nobles, princes, and monarchs of the period, including Frederick II. of Prussia and the silly Joseph II. of Austria, admitted to a part of their secrets, were the tools and the dupes, and even the accomplices, of these infamous conspirators.

But the Illuminism of Lyons was destined soon to have a world-wide and ineradicable hold on the Masonry of the world [30]by means of an adept far more able than Saint Martin or any of his associates. This was Adam Weishaupt, a Professor of Canon Law in the University of Munich. I shall detain you a while to consider this remarkable individual who, more than any of the Atheists that have arisen in Masonry, has been the cause of the success of its agencies in controlling the fate of the world since his day. Had Weishaupt not lived, Masonry may have ceased to be a power after the reaction consequent on the first French Revolution. He gave it a form and character which caused it to outlive that reaction, to energize to the present day, and which will cause it to advance until its final conflict with Christianity must determine whether Christ or Satan shall reign on this earth to the end.

Voltaire’s will to do God and man injury was as strong as that of Weishaupt. His disciples, D’Alembert, Diderot, Damilaville, Condorcet, and the rest, were as fully determined as he was, to eradicate Christianity. But they desired in its stead a system with only a mitigated antipathy for monarchy, and which might have tolerated for a long time such kings as Frederick of Prussia, and such Empresses as Catherine of Russia. But the hatred for God and all form of worship, and the determination to found a universal republic on the lines of Communism, was on the part of Weishaupt a settled sentiment. Possessed of a rare power of organization, an education in law which made him a pre-eminent teacher in its highest faculty, an extended knowledge of men and things, a command over himself, a repute for external morality, and finally, a position calculated to win able disciples, Weishaupt employed, for fifty years after the death of Voltaire, his whole life and energies in the one work of perfecting secret associations to accomplish by deep deceit, and by force when that should be practical, the ruin of the existing order of religion, civilization, and government, in order to plant in its stead his own system of Atheism and Socialism.

He found contemporary Masonry well adapted for his ends. His object was to extend it as far as possible as a means of [31]seducing men away from Christianity. He well knew that Masonry and the Church were in mortal conflict, and that the moment a man became a Mason, he, that instant, became excommunicated; he lost the grace of God; he passed into a state of hostility to the Church; he ceased to approach the Sacraments; he was constituted in a state of rebellion; he forfeited his liberty to unknown superiors; he took a dreadful oath—perhaps many—not to reveal the secrets then, or at any after time, to be committed to his keeping; and finally, he placed himself amongst men, all of whom were in his own position, and in whose society it was possible and easy for the astute disciples of Weishaupt to lead him farther on the road to ruin.

Weishaupt’s view, then, was first to entice men into Masonry—into the lowest degree. A great gain for evil was thus at once obtained. But a man, though in Masonry, may not be willing to become an Atheist and a Socialist, for some time at least. He may have in his heart a profound conviction that a God existed, and some hope left of returning to that God at or before his death. He may have entered Masonry for purposes of ambition, for motives of vanity, from mere lightness of character. He may continue his prayers, and refuse, if a Catholic, to give up the Mother of God and some practice of piety loved by him from his youth. But Masonry was a capital system to wean a man gradually away from all these things. It did not at once deny the existence of God, nor at once attack the Christian Dispensation. It commenced by giving the Christian idea of God, an easy, and, under semblance of respect, an almost imperceptible shake. It swore by the name of God in all its oaths. It called him, however, not a Creator, only an architect—the great Architect of the universe. It carefully avoided all mention of Christ, of the Adorable Trinity, of the Unity of the Faith, or of any faith. It protested a respect for the convictions of every man, for the idolatrous Parsee, for the Mahommedan, for the Heretic, the Schismatic, the Catholic. By-and-by, it gave, in higher degrees, a ruder shock to the belief in the Deity and a gradual [32]inducement to favour Naturalism. This it did gradually, imperceptibly, but effectually. Now, to a man who meditated the vast designs of social and religious destruction contemplated by Weishaupt, Masonry, especially the Masonry of his period, was the most effective means that could be conceived. In its midst, therefore, he planted his disciples, well versed in his system. These consisted of three classes, each class having subdivisions, and all of which were high degrees of Masonry. The first class of Illuminati, was that of preparation. It consisted of two degrees, namely, the degree of Novice and that of Minerval. The Minervals formed the great body of the order, and were under the direction of certain chiefs, who themselves were subjected to other agencies invisible to those instructed by themselves. Weishaupt instructed the teachers of the Minervals to propose each year to their scholars some interesting questions, to cause them to write themes calculated to spread impiety amongst the people, such as burlesques on the Psalms, pasquinades on the Prophets, and caricatures of personages of the Old Testament after the manner of Voltaire and his school. It is surprising with what exactitude these Minervals follow out the instructions of Weishaupt to this day. At this moment, in London, under the eyes of the Lord Chancellor, pamphlets, with hideous woodcuts, ridiculing David, “the man after God’s own heart,” are weekly published. One of these, which was handed to me in a public place, had a woodcut representing the “meek Monarch of Judea,” with a head just severed from a human body in one hand, and the sword that did the deed in the other. Another represented him amidst a set of ridiculous figures dancing. From this we can easily judge that illuminated Masonry is at work somewhere even in London, and that the Masonry in high quarters is blind to its excesses, exactly as happened in France a few years before the French Revolution. Now these Minervals, if they manifested what the German Masons call “religionary” inclinations, might indeed receive the first three Masonic degrees, but they were not to be further promoted in Illuminism. They were relegated to [33]the rank and file of Masonry, who were of use in many ways for the movement, but they were never to be trusted with the real secret. The teacher, without seeming to do so, was ordered to encourage, but not to applaud publicly, such blasphemies as the Minervals might make use of in their essays. They were to be led on, seemingly by themselves, in the ways of irreligion, immorality, and Atheism, until ripe for further promotion in evil progress. Finally, in the advanced grades of Illuminated Major and Minor, and in those of Scotch Knight and Epopte or Priest they were told the whole secret of the Order as follows, in a discourse by the initiator.

“Remember,” he said, “that from the first invitations which we have given you, in order to attract you to us, we have commenced by telling you that in the projects of our Order there did not enter any designs against religion. You remember that such an assurance was again given to you when you were admitted into the ranks of our Novices, and that it was repeated when you entered into our Minerval Academy. Remember also how much from the first grades we have spoken to you of morality and virtue, but at the same time how much the studies which we prescribed for you and the instructions which we gave you rendered both morality and virtue independent of all religion; how much we have been at pains to make you understand, while making to you the eulogy of religion, that it was not anything else than those mysteries, and that worship degenerated in the hands of the priest. You remember with what art, with what simulated respect we have spoken to you of Christ and of his Gospel; but in the grades of greater Illuminism, of Scotch Knight, and of Epopte or Priest, how we have known to form from Christ’s Gospel that of our reason, and from its morality that of nature, and from its religion that of nature, and from religion, reason, morality, and nature, to make the religion and the morality of the rights of man, of equality, and of liberty. Remember, that while insinuating to you the different parts of this system, we have caused them to bud forth from yourselves [34]as if your own opinions. We have placed you on the way; you have replied to our questions very much more than we did to yours. When we demanded of you, for example, whether the religions of peoples responded to the end for which men adopted them; if the religion of Christ, pure and simple, was that which the different sects professed to-day, we knew well enough what to hold. But it was necessary to know to what point we had succeeded to cause our sentiments to germinate in you. We have had very many prejudices to overcome in you, before being able to persuade you, that the pretended religion of Christ was nothing else than the work of priests, of imposture, and of tyranny. If it be so with that religion so much proclaimed and admired, what are we to think of other religions? Understand, then, that they have all the same fictions for their origin, that they are all equally founded on lying, error, chimera, and imposture. Behold our secret!

“The turns and counter-turns which it was necessary to make; the eulogies which it was necessary to give to the pretended secret schools; the fable of the Freemasons being in possession of the veritable doctrine; and our Illuminism to-day, the sole inheritor of these mysteries, will no longer astonish you at this moment. If, in order to destroy all Christianity, all religion, we have pretended to have the sole true religion, remember that the end justifies the means, and that the wise ought to take all the means to do good, which the wicked take to do evil. Those which we have taken to deliver you, those which we take to deliver one day the human race from all religion, are nothing else than a pious fraud which we reserve to unveil some day in the grade of Magus or Philosopher Illuminated.”—Segur Le Secret de la Franc-Maçonnerie, p. 49.

The above extract will serve to show you what manner of man Weishaupt was, and the quality of the teaching he invented. His organization—for the perfection of which he deeply studied the constitution of the then suppressed Society of Jesus—contemplated placing the thread of the whole conspiracy, destined to [35]be controlled by the Illuminati, in the hands of one man, advised by a small council. The Illuminati were to be in Masonry and of Masonry, so as to move amongst its members secretly. They were so trained that they could obtain the mastery in every form of secret society, and thus render it subservient to their own Chief. Their fidelity to him was made perfect by the most severe and complex system of espionage. The Chief himself was kept safe by his position, his long training, and by his council. It thus happened that no matter to what office or position the Illuminati attained, they had to become subservient to the general aims of the Order. Weishaupt, after being deprived of his professorship in Bavaria, found an asylum with the Prince of Coburg-Gotha, where he remained in honour, affluence, and security, until his death in 1830. He continued all his life the Chief of the Illuminati, and this fact may account, in large measure, for the fidelity with which the Illuminati of the Revolution, the Directory, the Consulate, the Empire, the Restoration, and the Revolution of 1830, invariably carried out his programme of perpetual conspiracy for the ends he had in view. It may also account for the strange vitality of the spirit of the Illuminati in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Spain, and of its continuance through the “Illuminated” reigns of Nubius and Palmerston, the successors of Weishaupt to our own day. This we shall see further on; but, meanwhile, we shall glance at the first step of Weishaupt to rule over Masonry through his disciples. This was by calling together the famous “General Council” of Freemasonry, known as—

From its rise Freemasonry appears as a kind of dark parody of the Church of Christ. The names taken by its dignitaries, the form of its hierarchy, the designations affected by its lodges and “obediences,” the language of its rituals, all seem to be a kind of aping after the usages of Christianity. When [36]Saint Martin wished to spread his Illuminism in France, he managed to have a meeting of deputy Masons from all the lodges in that country. This was designated the “Convent of the Gauls;” and Lyons the place of its meeting was called “The Holy City.” Weishaupt had more extended views. He meant to reach all humanity by means of Masonry, and looked for a “Convent” far more general than that of Lyons. When, therefore, he had matured his plans for impregnating the Masonry of the world with his infernal system, he began to cast about for means to call that Convent. The Illuminism of Saint Martin was in full sympathy with him, but it could not effect his purpose. What he wanted was, that a kind of General Council of the Masonry extended at the time throughout the earth, should be called together; and he hoped that, by adroitly manipulating the representatives whom he knew would be sent to it by the lodges of every nationality of Masons, his own Illuminism might be adopted as a kind of high, arch, or hidden, Masonry, throughout its entire extent. He succeeded in his design, and in 1781, under the official convocation of the Duke of Brunswick, acting as Supreme Grand Master, deputies from every country where Freemasonry existed were summoned to meet at Wilhelmsbad in council. They came from every portion of the British Empire; from the newly formed United States of America; from all the nations of Continental Europe, every one of which, at that period, had lodges; from the territories of the Grand Turk; and from the Indian and Colonial possessions of France, Spain, Portugal, and Holland. The principal and most numerous representatives were, however, from Germany and France. Through the skilful agency of the notorious Baron Knigg, and another still more astute adept of his, named Dittfort, Weishaupt completely controlled this Council. He further caused measures to be there concerted which in a few years led to the French Revolution, and afterwards handed Germany over to the French revolutionary Generals acting under the Girondins, [37]the Jacobins, and the Directory. I would wish, if time permitted, to enter at length into the proofs of this fact. It will suffice, however, for my present purpose, to state, that more than sufficient evidence of it was found by the Bavarian Government, which had, some five years later, to suppress the Illuminati, and that one of the members of the convent, the Count de Virene, was struck with such horror at the depravity of the body, that he abandoned Illuminism and became a fervent Catholic. He said to a friend:—“I will not tell you the secrets which I bring, but I can say that a conspiracy is laid so secret and so deep that it will be very difficult for monarchy and religion not to succumb to it.” It may be also of use to remark that many of the leaders of the French Revolution, and notably most of those who lived through it, and profited by it, were deputy Masons sent from various lodges in France to the Convent of Wilhelmsbad.

Before proceeding further with the history of Freemasonry, I shall stay a moment to consider a very remarkable feature in its strange composition, without which it scarcely ever appears. The world was never without wizards, witches, necromancers, jugglers, and those who really had, or through imposture, pretended to have, intercourse with demons. Masonry in its various ramifications is the great continuator of this feature of a past which we had thought departed for ever. Spirit-rapping, table-turning, medium-imposture, etc., distinguish its adepts in Protestant countries and in Catholic ones. We have almost incredible stories of the intercourse with the devil and his angels, which men like the Carbonari of Italy maintain. However, from the very beginning, Freemasonry has had a kind of peculiar dark mysticism connected with it. It loves to revel in such mysteries as the secret conclaves of the Jews used to practise in the countries in which they were persecuted, and which were [38]common amongst those unclean heretics, the Bulgarians, the Gnostics, the Albigenses, and the Waldenses. The excesses alleged against the Templars, were also accompanied by secret signs and symbols which Masonry adopted. But whatever may have been the extent of this mysticism in Masonry before, a spurious kind of spiritism became part of its very essence since the advent of the celebrated Cagliostro, who travelled all over Europe under the instructions of Weishaupt, and founded more lodges than did any individual Freemason then or since.

The real name of this arch-impostor was Balsamo. He was an inveterate sorcerer, and in his peregrinations in the East, picked up from every source, the secrets of alchemy, astrology, jugglery, legerdemain, and occult science of every kind, about which he could get any information. Like the Masonry to which he became affiliated at an early period, he was an adept at acting and speaking a lie. He suited Weishaupt, who, though knowing him to be an impostor, nevertheless employed him for the diffusion of Illuminism. Accompanied by his no less celebrated wife, Lorenza, he appeared in Venice as the Marquis Pelligrini, and subsequently traversed Italy, Germany, Spain, England, the Netherlands, and Russia. In the latter country he amassed, at the Court of Catherine II., an immense fortune. In France, assisted by the efforts of the Illuminati, he was received as a kind of demigod, and called the divine Cagliostro. He established new lodges in all parts of the country. At Bordeaux he remained eleven months for this purpose. In Paris he established lodges for women of a peculiarly cabalistic and impure kind, with inner departments horribly mysterious. At the reception of members he used rites and ceremonies exactly resembling the absurd practices of spirit mediums, who see and speak to spirits, etc., and introduced all that nonsense with which we are made now familiar by his modern followers. He claimed the power of conferring immortal youth, health, and beauty, and what he called moral and physical regeneration, by the aid of drugs and [39]Illuminated Masonry. He was the father and the founder of the existing rite of Misraim—the Egyptian rite in Masonry. The scoundrel became involved in the celebrated case of the “Diamond Necklace,” and was sent to the Bastile, from which he managed to pass to England, where, in 1787, he undertook to foretell the destruction of the Bastile, and of the Monarchy of France, the Revolution, and—but here he miscalculated—the advent of a Prince who would abolish Lettres de Cachet, convoke the States General, and establish the worship of Reason. All these measures were resolved on at Wilhelmsbad, and Cagliostro of course knew that well. His only miscalculation was regarding the Prince Grand Master. The Revolution went on a little too far for the wretched Egalité, who ended his treason to his house by losing his head at the guillotine. As to Cagliostro, he made his way to Rome, where the Inquisition put an end to his exploits on detecting his attempts at Illuminism. His secret powers could not deliver him from prison. He died there miserably, in 1795, after attempting to strangle a poor Capuchin whom he asked for as confessor, and in whose habit he had hoped to escape. This impostor is of course made a martyr to the Inquisition accordingly. Masonry does much to disown Cagliostro; but with a strange inconsistency it keeps the Egyptian rite founded by him, and clings to mysticism of the debased kind he introduced. It is wonderful how extremes thus meet,—how men who make it a sign of intellectual strength to deny the existence of the God that made them bow down stupidly and superstitiously before devils, real or imaginary. Necromancy is a characteristic of Antichrist, of whom we read, “that he will show great signs and wonders so as to deceive, if that were possible, even the elect.” He will be when he comes both a Cromwell and a Cagliostro.

I may here remark that the conspiracy of the Illuminati, and of Freemasonry generally, was far from being a secret to many of the Courts of Europe. But, then, just as at the present [40]moment, it had friends, female as well as male, in every Court. These baulked the wholesome attempts of some rulers to stay its deadly intrigues against princes, governments, and all order, as well as against its one grand enemy, the Church of Jesus Christ. The Court of Bavaria found out, as I have said, but only by an accident, a part of the plans of the Illuminati, and gave the alarm; but, strange to say, that alarm was unheeded by the other Courts of Europe, Catholic as well as Protestant. A Revolution was expected, but, as now, each Court hoped to stave off the worst consequences from itself, and to profit by the ruin of its neighbours. The voice of the Holy Father was raised against Freemasonry again and again. Clement VIII., Benedict XIV., and other Pontiffs, condemned it. The Agents and Ministers of the Holy See, gave private advices and made urgent appeals to have the evil stopped while yet the powers of Europe could do so. These were all baffled, and the Court of the Grand Monarch and every Court of Continental Europe slept in the torpor of a living death, until wakened to a true sense of danger at a period far too late to remedy the disasters which irreligion, vice, stupidity, and recklessness hastened. The lodges of the Illuminati in France meanwhile carried on the conspiracy. They had amassed and expended immense sums in deluging the country with immoral and Atheistic literature.

Mirabeau, in his Monarchie Prussienne (vol. 6, page 67), published before the Revolution, thus speaks of these sums:—

“Masonry in general, and especially the branch of the Templars, produced annually immense sums by means of the cost of receptions and contributions of every kind. A part of the total was employed in the expenses of the order, but another part, much more considerable, went into a general fund, of which no one, except the first amongst the brethren, knew the destination.” Cagliostro, when questioned before the Holy Roman Inquisition, “confessed that he led his sumptuous existence thanks to the funds furnished him by the Illuminati. He also stated that he had a commission from Weishaupt to prepare the French Lodges to receive his direction.”—See Deschamps, v., p. 129.

Discontent was thus sown broadcast, amongst every class [41]of the population. Masonic Lodges multiplied, inspired by the instructed emissaries of the remorseless Weishaupt; and the direct work of Freemasonry in subsequent events is manifest not only in the detailed prophecy of Cagliostro, founded on what he knew was decided upon; but is still more clearly evidenced by a second convent, held by the French Illuminati, where everything was arranged for the Revolution. The men prominent in this conclave were the men subsequently most active in every scene that followed. Mirabeau, Lafayette, Fouché, Talleyrand, Danton, Murat, Robespierre, Cambaceres, and in fact every foremost name in the subsequent convulsions of the country were not only Illuminati, but foremost amongst the Illuminati.⁠[9] Some disappeared under their own guillotine; others outlived the doom of their fellows. Constantly, the men of the whole conspiracy had understandings and relations with each other. Weishaupt, at the safe distance of Coburg-Gotha, gave them his willing aid and that of the German Freemasons. This concert enabled them to float on every billow which the troubled sea of the Revolution caused to swell; and if they did not succeed in making France and all Europe a social ruin, such as that contemplated at Wilhelmsbad, it was from want of power, not from want of will. Position and wealth made many of them [42]desire to conserve what the Revolution threw into their hands. But they remained under all changes of fortune Freemasons, as they and their successors are to this day. Perhaps, under the influence of oaths, of secret terror, and of the sect, they dare not remain long otherwise. One or two individuals may drop aside; but some fatality or necessity keeps the leaders Illuminati always. They as a whole body remain ever the same, and recoil before political adversity, only to gather more strength for a future attack upon religion and order still wider and more fatal than the one which preceded it. They are not at any time one whit less determined to plunge the world into the anarchy and bloodshed they created at the French Revolution, than they were in 1789. On this point let one of themselves speak:—“I have had,” says a Scotch Freemason, horrified at the results achieved by the Fraternity in their work up to 1797, “I have had the means to follow all the attempts made during fifty years under the specious pretext of enlightening the world with the torch of philosophy, and to dissipate all the clouds by which superstition, religious and civil, used to retain the people of Europe in the darkness of slavery. I have observed the progress of these doctrines mixing themselves [43]and allying themselves more and more closely with the different systems of Masonry; finally, I have seen them forming an association having for its sole object the destruction, even to the very foundations, of all the religious establishments, and the overthrow of all the existing governments of Europe. I have seen that association extend its systems with a zeal so sustained that it became almost irresistible, and I have remarked that the personages who have had the greatest part in the French Revolution were members of that association, that their plans had been conceived upon its principles, and executed with its assistance. I am convinced that it exists always, that it works always silently, and all appearances prove that not only its emissaries strongly endeavour to propagate amongst us its abominable doctrines, but that there are, even in England, lodges which, since 1784, correspond with the mother lodge. It is, in order to unmask these, to prove that the ringleaders are knaves who preached a morality and a doctrine of which they knew the falsehood and the danger, and that their real intention was to abolish all forms of religion, to overthrow all governments, and to make of the entire world one scene of pillage and murder, that I offer an extract of the informations I have taken on this matter.”

I have quoted these words of Robison to show, that as early as 1797, the connection between Freemasonry and the French Revolution was well understood. Since then Louis Blanc, and other Masonic writers, have gloried in the fact. “Our end,” said the celebrated Alta Vendita, to which I shall have to refer presently, “is that of Voltaire and the French Revolution.” In fact, what Freemasonry did in France, it now labours, with greater caution, to effect on some future day throughout the entire world. It then submitted, with perfect docility, to a great military leader, who arose out of its own work and principles. Such another leader will finally direct its last efforts against God and man.

That leader will be Antichrist.

I shall have to ask your careful attention for a few moments to the leader who arose out of the first French Revolution, and whose military and diplomatic fame is still fresh in the recollection of many of the present generation. That leader was Napoleon Bonaparte. In the days of his greatest prosperity, nothing was so distasteful to him as to be reminded of his Jacobin past. He then wished to pose as another Charlemagne, or Rudolph of Hapsburg. He wished to be considered the friend of religion, and of the Catholic religion in particular. He did a something for the restoration of the Church in France, but it was as little as he could help. It, perhaps, prevented a more wholesome and complete reaction in favour of the true religious aspirations of the population. It was done grudgingly, parsimoniously, and meanly. And when it had been done, Napoleon did all he could do to undo its benefits. He soon became the persecutor—the heartless, cruel, ungrateful persecutor of the Pontiff, and an opponent to the best interests of religion in France, and in every country which had the misfortune to fall under his sway. The reason of all this was, that Napoleon had commenced his career as a Freemason, and a Freemason he remained in spirit and in effect to the end of his life. It is known that he owed his first elevation to the Jacobins, and that his earliest patron was Robespierre. His first campaign in Italy was characterized by the utmost brutality which could gratify Masonic hatred for the Church. He suppressed the abodes of the consecrated servants of God, sacked churches, cathedrals, and sanctuaries, and reduced the Pope to the direst extremities. His language was the reflex of his acts and of his heart. His letters breathe everywhere the spirit of advanced Freemasonry, gloating over the wounds it had been able to inflict upon the Spouse of Christ. Yet this adventurer has, with great adroitness, been able to pass with many, and especially in Ireland, as a good Catholic. Because he was the enemy of England, or rather that England led by the counsels [45]of Pitt and Burke constituted herself the implacable enemy of the Revolution of which he was the incarnation and continuation, many opposed to England for political reasons, regard Bonaparte as a kind of hero. No one can doubt the military genius of the man, nor indeed his great general ability; but he was in all his acts what Freemasonry made him. He was mean, selfish, tyrannical, cruel. He was reckless of blood. He could tolerate or use the Church while that suited his policy. But he had from the beginning to the very end of his career that thorough indifference to her welfare, and want of belief in her doctrines, which an early and life-long connection with the Illuminati inspired.

Father Deschamps writes of him: “Napoleon Bonaparte was in effect an advanced Freemason, and his reign has been the most flourishing epoch of Freemasonry. During the reign of terror, the Grand Orient ceased its activity. The moment Napoleon seized upon power the lodges were opened in every place.”

I have said that the revolutionary rulers in France were all Illuminati—that is Freemasons of the most pronounced type—whose ultimate aim was the destruction of every existing religion and form of secular government, in order to found an atheistic, social republic, which should extend throughout the world and embrace all mankind. Freemasonry welcomes, as we have seen, the Mahommedan, the Indian, the Chinese, and the Budhist, as well as the Christian and the Jew. It designs to conquer all, as a means of bringing all into the one level of Atheism and Communism. When, therefore, its Directory, in their desire to get rid of Napoleon, planned the expedition to Egypt and Asia, they meant the realization of a part of this programme, as well as the removal of a troublesome rival. A universal monarchy is, in their idea, the most efficacious means for arriving at a universal republic. Once obtained, the dagger with which they removed Gustavus III. of Sweden, or the guillotine by which they rid France of Louis XVI., can at any moment remove Cæsar and call in Brutus. They are not the men to recoil before deeds of blood for the accomplishment of their purposes.

[46]

Now Napoleon, who was, as Father Deschamps informs us, a member of the lodge of the Templars, the extreme Illuminated lodge of Lyons, and had given proof of his fidelity to Masonry in Italy, was the very man to extend the rule of Republicanism throughout Asia. He appeared in Egypt with the same professions of hypocritical respect for the Koran, the Prophet, and Mahommedanism, as he afterwards made when it suited his policy for Catholicism. His address to the people of Egypt will prove this. It ran as follows, with true Masonic hypocrisy:—

“Cadis, Chieks, Imans, tell the people that we are the friends of true Mussulman; that we respect more than the Mamelukes do, God, His Prophet, and the Alkoran. Is it not we who have destroyed the Pope, who wished that war should be made against the Mussulman? Is it not we who have destroyed the Knights of Malta, because these madmen thought that God willed them to make war upon the Mussulman? Is it not we who have been in all ages the friends of the Grand Seigneur—may God fulfil his desires—and the enemy of his enemies. God is God, and Mahomet is his Prophet! Fear nothing above all for the religion of the Prophet, which I love.”

The cool hypocrisy of this Address is manifested by a proclamation he made on that occasion to his own soldiers. The same proclamation also shows the value we may place on his protestations of attachment to, and respect for, the usages of Christianity. The following is a translation of it:—

“Soldiers! the peoples with whom we are about to live are Mahommedan. The first article of their faith is this: ‘There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his Prophet.’ Do not contradict them. Act with them as you have acted with the Jews and with the Italians. Have the same respect for their Muftis and their Imans, as you have had for Rabbis and Bishops. Have for the ceremonies prescribed by the Alkoran, for the Mosques, the same tolerance you had for Convents, for Synagogues, and for the religion of Moses, and of Jesus Christ.”

We read in the correspondence of Napoleon I., published [47]by order of Napoleon III. (t. v., pp. 185, 191, 241), what he thought of this proclamation to the very end of his career:—

“After all, it was not impossible that circumstances might have brought me to embrace Islam,” he said at St. Helena. “Could it be thought that the Empire of the East, and perhaps the subjection of the whole of Asia, was not worth a turban and pantaloons, for it was reduced to so much solely. We would lose only our breeches and our hats. I say that the army, disposed as it was, would have lent itself to that project undoubtedly, and it saw in it nothing but a subject for laughter and pleasantry. Meanwhile you see the consequences. I took Europe by a back stroke. The old civilization was beaten down, and who then thought to disturb the destinies of our France and the regeneration of the world? Who had dared to undertake it? Who could have accomplished it?”

Neither prosperity nor adversity changed Napoleon. He was a sceptic to the end. He said at St. Helena to Las Cases:

“Everything proclaims the existence of a God—that is not to be doubted—but all our religions are evidently the children of men.

“Why do these religions cry down one another, combat one another? Why has that been in all ages, and all places? It is because men are always men. It is because the Priests have always insinuated, slipped in lies and fraud everywhere.

“Nevertheless,” he continued, “from the moment that I had the power, I had been eager to re-establish religion. I used it as the base and the root. It was in my eyes the support of good morality, of true principles, of good manners.

“I am assuredly far from being an Atheist; but I cannot believe all that they teach me in spite of my reason, under penalty of being deceitful and hypocritical.

“To say whence I come, what I am, where I go, is above [48]my ideas. And nevertheless all that is, I am the watch which exists and does not know itself.

“No doubt,” he continued, “but my spirit of mere doubt was, in my quality of Emperor, a benefit for the people. Otherwise how could I equally favour sects so contrary, if I had been dominated over by one alone? How could I preserve the independence of my thoughts and of my movements under the suggestions of a confessor who could govern me by means of the fear of hell.

“What an empire could not a wicked man, the most stupid of men, under that title of confessor, exercise over those who govern nations?

“I was so penetrated with these truths that I preserved myself well to act in such a manner, that, in as far as it lay in me, I would educate my son in the same religious lines in which I found myself.”

Two months later the ex-Emperor said that from the age of thirteen he had lost all religious faith.

Thiers (Histoire du Consulatet de l’Empire, iv. p. 14), says: that when Napoleon intended to proclaim himself Emperor, he wished to give the Masons a pledge of his principles, and that he did this by killing the Duke d’Enghien. He said, “They wish to destroy the Revolution in attacking it in my person. I will defend it, for I am the Revolution. I, myself—I, myself. They will so consider it from this day forward, for they will know of what we are capable.”

A less brave but still more accomplished relative of his, Napoleon III., in his Idées Napoleoniennes, says:—

“The Revolution dying, but not vanquished, left to Napoleon the accomplishments of its last designs. Enlighten the nations, it would have said to him. Place upon solid bases the principal result of our efforts. Execute in extent that which I have done in depth. Be for Europe what I have been for France. That grand mission Napoleon accomplished even to the end.”

[49]

When Napoleon obtained power, it was we know principally by means of the Illuminated Freemason, Talleyrand.⁠[10] By him and his confederates of the Illuminati, he was recalled from Egypt and placed in the way of its attainment. His brothers were—every one of them—deep in the secrets of the sect. Its supreme hidden directory saw that a reaction had set in, which, if not averted, would speedily lead to the return of the exiled Bourbons, and to the disgorgement of ill-gotten goods on the part of the revolutionists. As a lesser evil, therefore, and as a means of forwarding the unification of Europe which they had planned, by his conquests, they placed supreme power in the [50]hands of Bonaparte, and urged him on in his career, watching, at the same time, closely, their own opportunities for the development of the deadly designs of the sect. Then, they obtained the first places in his Empire for themselves. They put as much mischief into the measures of relief given to conscience as they could. They established a fatal supremacy for secularism in the matter of education. They brought dissension between the Pope and the Emperor. They caused the second confiscation of the States of the Church. They caused and continued to the end, the imprisonment of Pius VII. They were at the bottom of every attack made by Napoleon while Emperor upon the rights of the Church, the freedom and independence of the Supreme Pontiff, and the well-being of religion.

But the chief mistake of Napoleon was the encouragement he gave to Freemasonry. It served his purpose admirably for awhile, that is so long as he served the present and ultimate views of the conspiracy; for a conspiracy Masonry ever was and ever will be. Even if Cambaceres, Talleyrand, Fouché, and the old leaders of the Illuminati, whom he had taken into his confidence and richly rewarded, should be satisfied, there was a mass of others whom no reward could conciliate, and who, filled with the spirit of the sect, were sure to be ever on the look out for the means to advance the designs of Weishaupt and his inner circle. That inner circle never ceased its action. It held the members of the sect, whom it not only permitted but assisted to attain high worldly honours, completely in its power, and hence in absolute subjection. For them as well as for the humblest member of the secret conclave, the poisoned aqua tophana and the dagger were ready to do the work of certain death should they lack obedience to those depraved fanatics of one diabolical idea, who were found worthy to be selected by their fellow-conspirators to occupy the highest place of infamy and secret power. These latter scattered secretly amidst the rank and file of the lodges, hundreds of Argus-eyed, skilled plotters, who kept the real power of inner [51]or high Masonry in the hands of its hidden masters. Masonry from this secret vantage ground ceaselessly conspired during the Empire. It assisted the conquests of the victor of Austerlitz and Jena; and if Deschamps, who quotes from the most reliable sources, is to be trusted, it actually did more for these victories than the great military leader himself. Through its instrumentality, the resources of the enemies of Napoleon were never at hand, the designs of the Austrian and other generals opposed to him were thwarted, treason was rife in their camps, and information fatal to their designs was conveyed to the French commander. Masonry was then on his side, and as now the secret resources of the Order, its power of hidden influence and espionage were placed at the disposal of the cause it served. But when Masonry had reason to fear that Napoleon’s power might be perpetuated; when his alliance with the Imperial Family of Austria, and above all, when the consequence of that alliance, an heir to his throne, caused danger to the universal republic it could otherwise assure itself of at his death; when, too, he began to show a coldness for the sect, and sought means to prevent it from the propagandism of its diabolical aims, then it became his enemy, and his end was not far off.⁠[11] Distracting [52]councils prevailed in his cabinet. His opponents began to get that information regarding his movements, which he had obtained previously of theirs. Members of the sect urged on his mad expedition to Moscow. His resources were paralyzed; and he was, in one word, sold by secret, invisible foes into the hands of his enemies. In Germany, Weishaupt and his party, still living on in dark intrigue, prepared secretly for his downfall. His generals were beaten in detail. He was betrayed, hoodwinked, and finally led to his deposition and ruin. He then received with a measure, pressed down and overflowing, and shaken together, the gratitude of the father of lies, incarnate in Freemasonry, in the Illuminati, and kindred Atheistic secret societies. Banished to Elba he was permitted to return to France only in order to meet the fate of an outcast and a prisoner upon the rock of St. Helena, where he died abandoned and persecuted by the dark sect which had used, abused, and betrayed him. So it has continued, as we shall see, to use, to abuse, and to betray every usurper or despot whom it lures into its toils. We shall now glance at its action, the action of—

It would be very interesting, if we had time, to enter into the many intrigues of that very same body of Illuminati who had planned and executed the Revolution, and had then created successively the Directory, the Consulate, and the Empire in France, as they now posed in a new capacity as friends to the return of Monarchy in Europe generally. This they did for the purposes of the Freemasons, and in order to keep the power they wielded so long in their own hands, and in the hands of their party. Now, I wish you to note, that Weishaupt, the father of the Illuminati, and the fanatical and deep director of all its operations, was even then living in power and security at Coburg-Gotha, and that his wily confederates were ministers in every [53]Court of Europe. Then, as now, the invincible determination with which they secreted their quality from the eyes of monarchs as well as of the general public, enabled them to pose in any character or capacity without fear of being detected as Freemasons, or at least as Illuminati. Since the reign of Frederick the Great, they filled the Court of Berlin. Many minor German Princes continued to be Freemasons. The Duke of Brunswick was the central figure in the first Masonic conspiracy, and though, with the hypocrisy common to the sect, he issued a declaration highly condemnatory of his fellows, it is generally believed that he remained to the end attached to the “regeneration of humanity” in the interests of Atheism. The Court of Vienna was more or less Masonic since the reign of the wretched Joseph II. Alexander of Russia was educated by La Harpe, a Freemason, and at the very period when called upon to play a principal part in the celebrated “Holy Alliance,” he was under the hidden guidance of others of the Illuminati. Fessler, an apostate Austrian religious, the Councillor of Joseph II., after having abjured Christianity, remained, while professing a respect for religion, its most determined enemy. He founded what is known as the Tugenbund, a society by which German Freemasonry put on a certain Christian covering, in order more securely to outlive the reaction against Atheism, and to de-Christianize the world again at a better opportunity. The Tugenbund refused to receive Jews, and devised many other means to deceive Christians to become substantially Freemasons without incurring Church censures or going against ideas then adverse to the old Freemasonry, which, nevertheless, continued to exist as satanic as ever under Christian devices.

In France, the Illuminati of the schools of Wilhelmsbad and Lyons continued their machinations without much change of front, though they covered themselves with that impenetrable secrecy which the sect has found so convenient for disarming public suspicion while pursuing its aims. Possessing means of [54]deceiving the outside world, and capable of using every kind of hypocrisy and ruse, the Freemasons of both France and Germany plotted at this period with more secure secrecy and success than ever. There is nothing which Freemasonry dreads more than light. It is the one thing it cannot stand. Therefore, it has always taken care to provide itself with adepts and allies able to disarm public suspicion in its regard. Should outsiders endeavour to find out its real character and aims, it takes refuge at once under the semblance of puerility, of harmless amusement, of beneficence, or even of half-witted simplicity. It is content to be laughed at, in order not to be found out. But it is for all its puerility, the same dangerous foe to Christianity, law, legitimacy, and order, which it proved itself to be before and during the first French Revolution, and which it will continue to be until the world has universal reason to know the depth, the malignity, and the extent of its remorseless designs.⁠[12]

At the period of the reaction against Bonaparte it seems to have taken long and wise counsel. When Talleyrand found [55]that Weishaupt and the inner Masonry no longer approved of Napoleon’s autocracy, he managed very adroitly that the Emperor should grow cold with him. He was thus free to take adverse measures against his master, and to prepare himself for the coming change. The whole following of Bonaparte recruited from the Illuminati were ready to betray him. They could compass the fall of the tyrant, but the difficulty for them was to find one suitable to put in his place. It was decreed in their highest council that whosoever should come upon the throne of France, should be as far removed as possible from being a friend to Catholicity or to any principle sustaining true religion. They therefore determined that, if at all possible, no member of the ancient House should reign; and as soon as the allied sovereigns who were for the most part non-Catholic, had crushed Napoleon, these French Masons demanded the Protestant and Masonic King of Holland for King in France. This failing, they contrived by Masonic arts to obtain the first places in the Provisional Government which succeeded Napoleon. They endeavoured to make the most of the inevitable, and to rule the [56]incoming Louis XVIII., in the interests of their sect, and to the detriment of the Church and of Christianity.

Notwithstanding the fact that they had shown open hostility to himself and to his house, Louis XVIII., strange to say, favoured the Illuminati. Talleyrand was made minister, and the other advanced Freemasons of the Empire—Seyies, Cambaceres, Fouché, and the rest—obtained place and power. These men at once applied themselves to subvert the sentiment of reaction in favour of the monarchy and of religion. Soon, Louis XVIII. gave the world the sad spectacle of a man prepared at their bidding to cut his own throat. He dissolved a Parliament of ultra loyalists because they were too loyal to him. The Freemasons took care that his next Parliament should be full of its own creatures. They also wrung from the King, under the plea of freedom of the press, permission to deluge the country anew with the infidel and immoral publications of Voltaire and his confederates, and with newspapers and periodicals, which proved disastrous to his house, to royalty, and to Christianity, in France. These led before long to the attempt upon the life of the Duke of Berry, to the revolution against Charles X., to the elevation of the son of the Grand Master, Egalité, as Constitutional King, and to all the revolutionary results that have since distracted and disgraced unfortunate France. But much as Freemasonry effected in that country, it was not there but in peaceful Italy that its illuminated machinations produced the worst and most wide-spread fruits of death. We shall see this by a brief review of the Freemasonry which formed the

We have seen that the use made of Freemasonry by the Atheists of the last century was a very elastic one. As it came from England it had all the qualities required by the remorseless revolutionists, who so eagerly and so ably employed it for their [57]purposes. Its hypocritical professions of Theism, of acceptation of the Bible, and of beneficence; its terrible oaths of secrecy; its grotesque and absurd ceremonial, to which any meaning from the most silly to the deepest and darkest could be given; its ascending degrees, each one demanding additional secrets, to be kept not only from outsiders, but from the lower degrees; the death penalty for indiscretion or disobedience; the system of mystery capable of any extension; the hidden hierarchy; in a word, all its qualities could be improved and elaborated at will by the Infidels of the Continent who had made British Masonry their own. Soon the strict subjection of all subordinate lodges to whatever Grand Orient or Mother Lodge they spring from, and on which they depend; and, above all, the complete understanding between the directors of the Masonic “powers,” that is of the different rites into which the Masonry is divided, placed its entire government in a select ruling body, directed in turn by a small committee of the ablest conspirators, elected by and known to that body alone. The whole rank and file of Masonry receive their orders at present from this inner body, who are unknown to the mere masons of the lodges. The members of the committee deputed by the lodges are able to testify to the fact of the authenticity of the orders. Those who rule from the hidden recesses take care that these deputies shall be men worthy of confidence. A lodge, therefore, has its master, its officers, and management; but its orders come through a channel that appears to be nothing, whereas it is everything in the movement of the whole mass. Thus it happens that the master of a lodge or the grand master of a province, or of a nation, whose high-sounding titles may make him seem to outsiders to be everything, is in reality often nothing at all in the actual government of Masonry. The real power rests with the hidden committee of direction, and confidential agents, who move almost invisibly amongst the officers and members of the lodges. These hidden agents of iniquity are vigilant spies, secret “wire pullers,” who are seldom promoted [58]to any office, but content themselves with the real power which they are selected to use with dexterity and care.

It was through this system that Weishaupt obtained the adoption of illuminated Masonry at the convent of Wilhelmsbad. Through the machinations of Knigg, he obtained from the delegates there assembled, the approval of his plan that the ultimate end of Freemasonry and all secret plotting should be—1ᵒ, Pantheism—a form of Atheism which flatters Masonic pride. 2ᵒ, Communism of goods, women, and general concerns. 3ᵒ, That the means to arrive at these ends should be the destruction of the Church, and of all forms of Christianity; the obliteration of every kind of supernatural belief; and, finally, the removal of all existing human governments to make way for a universal republic in which the utopian ideas of complete liberty from existing social, moral, and religious restraint, absolute equality, and social fraternity, should reign. When these ends should be attained, but not till then, the secret work of the Atheistic Freemasons should cease.

At the convent of Wilhelmsbad, Weishaupt had the means taken to carry out this determination. There Masonry became one organized Atheistic mass, while being still permitted to assume many fantastic shapes. The Knights Rosicrucian, the Templars, the Knights of Beneficence, the Brothers of Amity were strictly united to Illuminated Masonry. All could be reached through Masonry itself. All were placed under the same government. Masonry was made more elastic than ever. When, as in the cases of Ireland and Poland, an enslaved nationality should be found, which the supreme Invisible Directory wished to revolutionize, and when, at the same time, the existing respect for the words of the Vicar of Christ made Masonry hateful, a secret political society was ordered to be formed on the plan of Freemasonry, but with some other name. It was to put on, after the example of Masonry itself, the semblance of zeal and respect for religion, but it was bound to have horrible oaths, ascending degrees, centres, the terrible death penalty for indiscretion or [59]treason, to be, in essence, and in every sense, if not in name, a society identical with Freemasonry. The supreme direction of the Revolution was to contrive by sure means to have adepts high and powerful in its management; and the society was, even if founded to defend the Catholic religion, thus sure, sooner or later, to diverge from the Church and to become hostile to religion and to its ministers. The Atheistic revolutionists of the Continent in the last century, learned to perfection the art to effect this; and hence the ready assistance which men who were murdering priests in Paris and throughout France and Italy, gave to the Catholics of Ireland in ’98. Was it to relieve the Catholics of Ireland from persecution, while they themselves were to a far more frightful extent oppressing the Catholic Church, the Catholic priesthood, Catholic religious, and Catholic people, for no other reason than the profession of the Catholic faith in France and Italy? By no means. They, at the very time, had already corrupted Irishmen. Some of these were open Infidels and others were Jacobite Freemasons of no particular attachment to any form of Christianity. They shared in Napoleon’s indifference to religion, and were as ready to profess zeal for their Catholic fellow-countrymen, as he and his soldiers were ready to profess “love” for the Alkoran and the Prophet in Egypt, or for St. Januarius, in Naples. But they and their leaders in Black Masonry knew that once they could unite even the very best and truest Catholic men in Ireland into a secret society on such lines as I have described, they would soon find an entrance for Atheism into the country. They would not be wanting in means to win recruits by degrees from the best intentioned Catholics so bound by oaths, and so subjected to hidden influences. They were adepts at proselytism, especially amongst those who gave up liberty and will to unknown masters. If Irishmen, few indeed, thank God, but still Irishmen and Catholics, had lost their faith in France at the period of the Revolution, what could save the Irish Catholics in Ireland from the efforts and example of French and Irish Atheistic liberators? [60]Catholics suffered terribly under the Protestant domination, but they nobly kept their faith through the whole of that dreadful period. Their condition was bad during the penal days, but if the French obtained the mastery, even for a decade, at the Revolution, it would be worse, I believe, for the Faith and liberty of Irish Catholics, than the previous two centuries of heretical persecution. Providence, moved by the prayers of God’s Mother, of St. Patrick, and of the innumerable host of Irish Saints and Martyrs, no doubt, saved the country; and the agency of the Atheists of France was carried to work the mischief it intended for Ireland upon other Catholic lands. It forced its tyranny very soon upon Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, and the Rhenish provinces of Germany. That was bad enough, but it was not all. When the French revolutionary armies had departed from these countries, after the fall of Bonaparte, they left, a deadly scourge that could not be removed, behind them. That was the system of Atheistic organization of which we have been speaking, and which was not slow in producing its malignant fruits.

In Catholic Italy, where the scourge of the Revolution fell most heavily, the misfortune happened thus: The discontent consequent upon the multitude of political parties in that country gave the secret machinators of the Weishaupt school a splendid opportunity of again renewing their intrigues; while the miserable Government of the Bourbons in France, in permitting Freemasonry to flourish, afforded its supreme direction an opportunity to assist them in many ways. Public opinion in Germany was unripe for any Atheism unless veiled under the hypocritical pretences of the Tugenbund. In Italy, however, though religion was strong amongst all classes, the division of the country into small principalities caused the hopes of the revolutionists to be more sanguine than anywhere else, and the opportunity of dealing a blow at the temporal power of the Pope under the national pretext of a united Italy, was too great a temptation for the Supreme Masonic Directory to resist. [61]Besides, it could not be forgotten by them, that in making past efforts the power of the Pope was the principal cause of their many failures. They rightly judged that the complete destruction of his temporal authority was essential to Atheism, and the first and most necessary step to their ultimate views upon all Christianity, and for the subjugation of the world to their sway. The temporal power was the stronghold, the rallying point of every legitimate authority in Europe. With a sure instinct of self-preservation, the Schismatical Lord of Russia, the Evangelical King of Prussia, the Protestant Governments of England, Denmark, and Sweden, as well as the ancient legitimate Catholic dynasties of Portugal, Austria, Bavaria, and Spain had determined at the Congress of Vienna on the restoration of the temporal dominions of the Pope. The Conservatives of Europe, whether Catholic, Protestant, or Schismatic, felt that while the States of the Church were preserved intact to the Head of the Catholic religion, their own rights would remain unquestioned—that to reach themselves his rights should be first assailed. The Atheistic conspiracy, guided now by old, experienced revolutionists, saw also that the conservatism of the world which they had to destroy in order to dominate in its stead, could not be undermined without first taking away the foundation of Christian civilization upon which it rested, and which unquestionably, even for Christian schismatics and heretics, was the temporal and the spiritual authority of the Pope. Having no idea of a divine preservation of the Christian religion, they judged that the destruction of the temporal power would lead inevitably to the destruction of the spiritual; and as experience proved that it would be useless to attempt to destroy both altogether, they then set all their agencies at work to destroy the temporal power first. They, therefore, determined to create and ferment to the utmost extent a political discontent amongst the populations of the different states into which the Italian Peninsula was divided. Now this was a difficult task in the face of the experience which the Italian people had gained of the revolutions and constant political [62]changes brought by the French from the first attempt of the Republic to the last of the Empire. The Congress of Vienna restored most of the ancient Italian States as well as the States of the Church to the legitimate rulers. Peace and prosperity beyond what had been known for years began to reign in the Peninsula. The people in mass were profoundly contented. They were more Catholic than ever, notwithstanding all that the revolutionary agents of France did to pervert them. But there remained a dangerous fraction amidst the population not at all satisfied with the change which had so much improved the nation generally. This fraction consisted of those individuals and their children who benefitted by the revolutionary régime. They were the men who made themselves deputies in Rome, Naples, and elsewhere, and by the aid of French revolutionary bayonets seized upon Church property and became enriched by public spoliation. These still remained revolutionary to the core. Then, there was the interest effected by their party. And finally, there was that uneasy class, educated by the many cheap universities of the country in too great number, the sons of advocates and other professional men, who, tinged with liberalism, easily became the prey of the designing men who still remained addicted to the principles and were leagued in the secret organizations of Weishaupt and his fellow Atheists. Even one of these youths corrupted and excited to ambition by the adroit manipulation of these emissaries of Satan, still active, though more imperceptible than ever, would be sufficient to kindle a flame amongst his fellows capable of creating a wide discontent. Aided then by such elements, already at hand for their purposes, Weishaupt and his hidden Directory determined to kindle such a flame of Revolution in Italy, as in its effects should, before long, do more harm to religion and order, than even the French Revolution had caused in its sanguinary but brief career. They effected this by the formation, on the darkest lines of “illuminated” Masonry, of the terrible sect of—

In this sect, the whole of the hitherto recognized principles of organized Atheism were perfected and intensified. In it, from the commencement, a cunning hypocrisy was the means most used as the best calculated to lead away a people Catholic to the very core. The first of the Carbonari that we have any distinct notice of, appeared at a season when Atheism, directed by Weishaupt, was busy in forming everywhere secret associations for apparently no purpose other than political amelioration. He determined to try upon the peasantry of Italy the same arts which the French had intended for the Catholic peasantry of Ireland. The United Irishmen were banded together to demand, amongst other things, Catholic Emancipation. Never had a people greater reason to rise against oppression than the Catholics of Ireland of that period. They were urged on to do so, however, by leaders who, in many instances, were not Catholic, and who had no political grievance, and whose aim was the formation in Ireland of an independent republic ruled, of course, by themselves, on the model of the one which was established then in France. That seemed to the Catholic the only way to get out of the heretical domination which had for such a lengthened period oppressed his country. Now, the Carbonari of Italy were at first formed for a purpose identical with that of the United Irishmen. They conspired to bring back their national independence ruined by the French, the freedom of their religion, and their rightful Bourbon sovereign. With them it was made an indispensable obligation that each member should be not only a Catholic, but a Catholic going regularly to the Sacraments. They took for their Grand Master, Jesus Christ Our Lord. But, as I have said before, it is impossible for a secret society having a death penalty for breach of secret, having ascending degrees, and bound to blind obedience to hidden masters, [64]to remain any appreciable length of time without falling under the dominion of the Supreme Directory of organized Atheism. It was so with Carbonarism, which, having started on the purest Catholic and loyal lines, soon ended in being the very worst kind of secret society which Infidelity had then formed on the lines of Masonry. Very soon, Italian adepts in black Masonry invaded its ranks, the loudest in the protestation of religion and loyalty. Equally soon, these skilled, experienced, and unscrupulous veterans in dark intrigue obtained the mastery in its supreme direction, won over proselytes from fit conspirators, and had the whole association in their power. It was then easy to find abundant pretexts to excite the passions of the rank and file, to kindle hopes from revolution, to create political dissatisfaction, and to make the whole body of the sect what it has actually become. Italian genius soon outstripped the Germans in astuteness; and as soon, perhaps sooner, than Weishaupt passed away, the supreme government of all the secret societies of the world was exercised by the Alta Vendita or highest lodge of the Italian Carbonari. The Alta Vendita ruled the blackest Freemasonry of France, Germany, and England; and until Mazzini wrenched the sceptre of the dark Empire from that body, it continued with consummate ability to direct the revolutions of Europe. It considered, with that wisdom peculiar to the children of darkness, that the conspiracy against the Holy See was the conspiracy in permanence. It employed its principal intrigues against the State, the surroundings, and the very person of the Pontiff. It had hopes, by its manipulations, to gain eventually, even the Pope himself, to betray the Christian cause, and then it well knew the universe would be placed at its feet. It left unmeasured freedom to the lodges of Masonry to carry on those revolutions of a political kind, which worked out the problems of the sect upon France, Spain, Italy, and other countries. It kept still greater movements to itself. The permanent instruction of this body to its adepts, will give you an idea of its power, its policy, and its principles. It says—

“Ever since we have established ourselves as a body of action, and that order has commenced to reign in the bosom of the most distant lodge, as in that one nearest the centre of action, there is one thought which has profoundly occupied the men who aspire to universal regeneration. That is the thought of the enfranchisement of Italy, from which must one day come the enfranchisement of the entire world, the fraternal republic, and the harmony of humanity. That thought has not yet been seized upon by our brethren beyond the Alps. They believe that revolutionary Italy can only conspire in the shade, deal some strokes of the poinard to sbirri and traitors, and tranquilly undergo the yoke of events which take place beyond the Alps for Italy, but without Italy. This error has been fatal to us on many occasions. It is not necessary to combat it with phrases which would be only to propagate it. It is necessary to kill it by facts. Thus, amidst the cares which have the privilege of agitating the minds of the most vigorous of our lodges, there is one which we ought never forget.

“The Papacy has at all times exercised a decisive action upon the affairs of Italy. By the hands, by the voices, by the pens, by the hearts of its innumerable bishops, priests, monks, nuns, and people in all latitudes, the Papacy finds devotedness without end ready for martyrdom, and that to enthusiasm. Everywhere, whenever it pleases to call upon them, it has friends ready to die or lose all for its cause. This is an immense leverage which the Popes alone have been able to appreciate to its full power, and as yet they have used it only to a certain extent. To-day there is no question of reconstituting for ourselves that power, the prestige of which is for the moment weakened. Our final end is that of Voltaire and of the French Revolution, the destruction for ever of Catholicism and even of the Christian idea which, if left standing on the ruins of Rome, would be the resuscitation of Christianity later on. But to attain more certainly that result, [66]and not prepare ourselves with gaiety of heart for reverses which adjourn indefinitely, or compromise for ages, the success of a good cause, we must not pay attention to those braggarts of Frenchmen, those cloudy Germans, those melancholy Englishmen, all of whom imagine they can kill Catholicism, now with an impure song, then with an illogical deduction; at another time, with a sarcasm smuggled in like the cottons of Great Britain. Catholicism has a life much more tenacious than that. It has seen the most implacable, the most terrible adversaries; and it has often had the malignant pleasure of throwing holy water on the tombs of the most enraged. Let us permit, then, our brethren of these countries to give themselves up to the sterile intemperance of their anti-Catholic zeal. Let them even mock at our Madonnas and our apparent devotion. With this passport we can conspire at our ease, and arrive little by little at the end we have in view.

“Now the Papacy has been for seventeen centuries inherent to the history of Italy. Italy cannot breathe or move without the permission of the Supreme Pastor. With him she has the hundred arms of Briareus, without him she is condemned to a pitiable impotence. She has nothing but divisions to foment, hatreds to break out, and hostilities to manifest themselves from the highest chain of the Alps to the lowest of the Appenines. We cannot desire such a state of things. It is necessary, then, to seek a remedy for that situation. The remedy is found. The Pope, whoever he may be, will never come to the secret societies. It is for the secret societies to come first to the Church, in the resolve to conquer the two.

“The work which we have undertaken is not the work of a day, nor of a month, nor of a year. It may last many years, a century perhaps, but in our ranks the soldier dies and the fight continues.

“We do not mean to win the Popes to our cause, to make them neophytes of our principles, and propagators of our ideas. That would be a ridiculous dream, no matter in what manner [67]events may turn. Should cardinals or prelates, for example, enter, willingly or by surprise, in some manner, into a part of our secrets, it would be by no means a motive to desire their elevation to the See of Peter. That elevation would destroy us. Ambition alone would bring them to apostasy from us. The needs of power would force them to immolate us. That which we ought to demand, that which we should seek and expect, as the Jews expected the Messiah, is a Pope according to our wants. Alexander VI., with all his private crimes, would not suit us, for he never erred in religious matters. Clement XIV., on the contrary, would suit us from head to foot. Borgia was a libertine, a true sensualist of the eighteenth century strayed into the fifteenth. He has been anathematized, notwithstanding his vices, by all the voices of philosophy and incredulity, and he owes that anathema to the vigour with which he defended the Church. Ganganelli gave himself over, bound hand and foot, to the ministers of the Bourbons, who made him afraid, and to the incredulous who celebrated his tolerance, and Ganganelli is become a very great Pope. He is almost in the same condition that it is necessary for us to find another, if that be yet possible. With that we should march more surely to the attack upon the Church than with the pamphlets of our brethren in France, or even with the gold of England. Do you wish to know the reason? It is because by that we should have no more need of the vinegar of Hannibal, no more need the powder of cannon, no more need even of our arms. We have the little finger of the successor of St. Peter engaged in the plot, and that little finger is of more value for our crusade than all the Innocents, the Urbans, and the St. Bernards of Christianity.

“We do not doubt that we shall arrive at that supreme term of all our efforts; but when? but how? The unknown does not yet manifest itself. Nevertheless, as nothing should separate us from the plan traced out; as, on the contrary, all things should tend to it,—as if success were to crown the work scarcely sketched [68]out to-morrow,—we wish in this instruction which must rest a secret for the simple initiated, to give to those of the Supreme-Lodge, councils with which they should enlighten the universality of the brethren, under the form of an instruction or memorandum. It is of special importance, and because of a discretion, the motives of which are transparent, never to permit it to be felt that these counsels are orders emanating from the Alta Vendita. The clergy is put too much in peril by it, that one can at the present hour permit oneself to play with it, as with one of these small affairs or of these little princes upon which one need but blow to cause them to disappear.

“Little can be done with those old cardinals or with those prelates, whose character is very decided. It is necessary to leave them as we find them, incorrigible, in the school of Consalvi, and draw from our magazines of popularity or unpopularity the arms which will render useful or ridiculous the power in their hands. A word which one can ably invent and which one has the art to spread amongst certain honourable chosen families by whose means it descends into the cafés, and from the cafés into the streets; a word can sometimes kill a man. If a prelate comes to Rome to exercise some public function from the depths of the provinces, know presently his character, his antecedents, his qualities, his defects above all things. If he is in advance, a declared enemy, an Albani, a Pallotta, a Bernetti, a Della Genga, a Riverola? Envelope him in all the snares which you can place beneath his feet; create for him one of those reputations which will frighten little children and old women; paint him cruel and sanguinary; recount, regarding him, some traits of cruelty which can be easily engraved in the minds of the people. When foreign journals shall gather for us these recitals, which they will embellish in their turn, (inevitably because of their respect for truth) show, or rather cause to be shown, by some respectable fool those papers where the names and the excesses of the personages implicated are related. As France and England, so Italy will never be wanting in facile [69]pens which know how to employ themselves in these lies so useful to the good cause. With a newspaper, the language of which they do not understand, but in which they will see the name of their delegate or judge, the people have no need of other proofs. They are in the infancy of liberalism; they believe in liberals, as, later on, they will believe in us, not knowing very well why.

“Crush the enemy whoever he may be; crush the powerful by means of lies and calumnies; but especially crush him in the egg. It is to the youth we must go. It is that which we must seduce; it is that which we must bring under the banner of the secret societies. In order to advance by steps, calculated but sure, in that perilous way, two things are of the first necessity. You ought have the air of being simple as doves, but you must be prudent as the serpent. Your fathers, your children, your wives themselves, ought always be ignorant of the secret which you carry in your bosoms. If it pleases you, in order the better to deceive the inquisitorial eye, to go often to confession, you are, as by right authorised, to preserve the most absolute silence regarding these things. You know that the least revelation, that the slightest indication escaped from you in the tribunal of penance, or elsewhere, can bring on great calamities, and that the sentence of death is already pronounced upon the revealer, whether voluntary or involuntary.

“Now then, in order to secure to us a Pope in the manner required, it is necessary to fashion for that Pope a generation worthy of the reign of which we dream. Leave on one side old age and middle life, go to the youth, and, if possible, even to infancy. Never speak in their presence a word of impiety or impurity. Maxima debetur puero reverentia. Never forget these words of the poet for they will preserve you from licences which it is absolutely essential to guard against for the good of the cause. In order to reap profit at the home of each family, in order to give yourself the right of asylum at the domestic hearth, you ought to present yourself with all the appearance of a man grave and moral. Once your reputation is established in the [70]colleges, in the gymnasiums, in the universities, and in the seminaries—once that you shall have captivated the confidence of professors and students, so act that those who are principally engaged in the ecclesiastical state should love to seek your conversation. Nourish their souls with the splendours of ancient Papal Rome. There is always at the bottom of the Italian heart a regret for Republican Rome. Excite, enkindle those natures so full of warmth and of patriotic fire. Offer them at first, but always in secret, inoffensive books, poetry resplendent with national emphasis; then little by little you will bring your disciples to the degree of cooking desired. When upon all the points of the ecclesiastical state at once, this daily work shall have spread our ideas as the light, then you will be able to appreciate the wisdom of the counsel in which we take the initiative.

“Events, which in our opinion, precipitate themselves too rapidly, go necessarily in a few months’ time to bring on an intervention of Austria. There are fools who in the lightness of their hearts please themselves in casting others into the midst of perils, and, meanwhile, there are fools who at a given hour drag on even wise men. The revolution which they meditate in Italy will only end in misfortunes and persecutions. Nothing is ripe, neither the men nor the things, and nothing shall be for a long time yet; but from these evils you can easily draw one new chord, and cause it to vibrate in the hearts of the young clergy. That is the hatred of the stranger. Cause the German to become ridiculous and odious even before his foreseen entry. With the idea of the Pontifical supremacy, mix always the old memories of the wars of the priesthood and the Empire. Awaken the smouldering passions of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, and thus you will obtain for yourselves the reputation of good Catholics and pure patriots.

“That reputation will open the way for our doctrines to pass to the bosoms of the young clergy, and go even to the depths of convents. In a few years the young clergy will have, by the [71]force of events, invaded all the functions. They will govern, administer, and judge. They will form the council of the Sovereign. They will be called upon to choose the Pontiff who will reign; and that Pontiff, like the greater part of his contemporaries, will be necessarily imbued with the Italian and humanitarian principles which we are about to put in circulation. It is a little grain of mustard which we place in the earth, but the sun of justice will develop it even to be a great power; and you will see one day what a rich harvest that little seed will produce.

“In the way which we trace for our brethren there are found great obstacles to conquer, difficulties of more than one kind to surmount. They will be overcome by experience and by perspicacity; but the end is beautiful. What does it matter to put all the sails to the wind in order to attain it? You wish to revolutionize Italy? Seek out the Pope of whom we give the portrait. You wish to establish the reign of the elect upon the throne of the prostitute of Babylon? Let the clergy march under your banner in the belief always that they march under the banner of the Apostolic Keys. You wish to cause the last vestige of tyranny and of oppression to disappear? Lay your nets like Simon Barjona. Lay them in the depths of sacristies, seminaries, and convents, rather than in the depths of the sea, and if you will precipitate nothing you will give yourself a draught of fishes more miraculous than his. The fisher of fishes will become a fisher of men. You will bring yourselves as friends around the Apostolic Chair. You will have fished up a Revolution in Tiara and Cope, marching with Cross and banner—a Revolution which it will need but to be spurred on a little to put the four quarters of the world on fire.

“Let each act of your life tend then to discover the Philosopher’s Stone. The alchemists of the middle ages lost their time and the gold of their dupes in the quest of this dream. That of the secret societies will be accomplished for the most [72]simple of reasons, because it is based on the passions of man. Let us not be discouraged then by a check, a reverse, or a defeat. Let us prepare our arms in the silence of the lodges, dress our batteries, flatter all passions the most evil and the most generous, and all lead us to think that our plans will succeed one day above even our most improbable calculations.”

This document reveals the whole line of action followed since by the Italian Revolutionists. It gives also a fair insight into tactics with which other European countries have been made familiar by Freemasonry generally. But we are in possession of what appears to me a still more striking document, written for the benefit of the Piedmontese lodges of Carbonari, by one of the Alta Vendita, whose pseudonym was Piccolo Tigre—Little Tiger. I may here mention that the custom of taking these fanciful appellations has been common to the secret societies from the very beginning. Arouet became Voltaire, the notorious Baron Knigg was called Philo, Baron Dittfort was called Minos, and so of the principal chiefs of the dark Atheistic conspiracy then and since. The first leader or grand chief of the Alta Vendita was a corrupt Italian nobleman who took the name of Nubius. From such documents as he, before his death, managed, in revenge for being sacrificed by the party of Mazzini, as we shall see, to have communicated to the authorities of Rome; or which were found by the vigilance of the Roman detective police; we find that his funds, and the funds for carrying on the deep and dark conspiracy in which he and his confederates were engaged, came chiefly from rich German Jews. Jews, in fact, from the commencement, played always a prominent part in the conspiracies of Atheism. They do so still. Piccolo Tigre, who seems to have been the most active agent of Nubius, was a Jew. He travelled under the appearance of an itinerant banker and jeweller. This character of money-lender or usurer disarmed suspicion regarding himself and such of his confederates as he had occasion to call upon in his peregrinations. Of course he had the protection of the Masonic body [73]everywhere. The most desperate revolutionists were generally the most desperate scoundrels otherwise. They were gamblers, spendthrifts, and the very class with which an usurious Jew would be expected to have money dealings. Piccolo Tigre thus travelled safely; and brought safely to the superior lodges of the Carbonari, such instructions as the Alta Vendita thought proper to give. In the document referred to, which I shall now read for you, it will be seen how anxious the Secret Directory were to make use of the most common form of Masonry notwithstanding the contempt they had for the bons vivants who only learned from the craft how to become drunkards and liberals. Beyond the Masons, and unknown to them, though formed generally from them, lay the deadly secret conclave which, nevertheless, used and directed them for the ruin of the world and of their own selves. The following is a translation of the document I speak of, called “an instruction,” and addressed by Piccolo Tigre to the Piedmontese lodges of the Carbonari:—

“In the impossibility in which our brothers and friends find themselves, to say, as yet, their last word, it has been judged good and useful to propagate the light everywhere, and to set in motion all that which aspires to move. For this reason we do not cease to recommend to you, to affiliate persons of every class to every manner of association, no matter of what kind, only provided that mystery and secrecy should be the dominant characteristics. All Italy is covered with religious confraternities, and with penitents of divers colours. Do not fear to slip in some of your people into the very midst of these flocks, led as they are by a stupid devotion. Let our agents study with care the personnel of these confraternity men, and they will see that little by little, they will not be wanting in a harvest. Under a pretext the most futile, but never political or religious, create by yourselves, or, [74]better yet, cause to be created by others, associations, having commerce, industry, music, the fine arts, etc., for object.⁠[13] Reunite in one place or another,—in the sacristies or chapels even,—these tribes of yours as yet ignorant: put them under the pastoral staff of some virtuous priest, well known, but credulous and easy to be deceived. Then infiltrate the poison into those chosen hearts; infiltrate it in little doses, and, as if by chance. Afterwards, upon reflection, you will yourselves be astonished at your success.

“The essential thing is to isolate a man from his family, to cause him to lose his morals. He is sufficiently disposed by the bent of his character to flee from household cares, and to run after easy pleasures and forbidden joys. He loves the long conversations of the café and the idleness of shows. Lead him along, sustain him, give him an importance of some kind or other; discreetly teach him to grow weary of his daily labours, and by this management, after having separated him from his wife and from his children, and after having shown him how painful are all his duties, you will then excite in him the desire of another existence. Man is a born rebel. Stir up the desire of rebellion until it becomes a conflagration, but in such a manner that the conflagration may not break out. This is a preparation for the grand work that you should commence. When you shall have insinuated into a few souls disgust for family and for religion (the one [75]nearly always follows in the wake of the other), let fall some words from you, which will provoke the desire of being affiliated to the nearest lodge. That vanity of the citizen or the burgess, to be enfeodated to Freemasonry, is something so common and so universal that it always makes me wonder at human stupidity. I begin to be astonished at not seeing the entire world knock at the gates of all the Venerables, and demand from these gentlemen the honour to be one of the workmen chosen for the reconstruction of the temple of Solomon. The prestige of the unknown exercises upon men a certain kind of power, that they prepare themselves with trembling for the phantasmagoric trials of the initiation and of the fraternal banquet.

“To find oneself a member of a lodge, to feel oneself called upon to guard from wife and children, a secret which is never confided to you, is for certain natures a pleasure and an ambition. The lodges, to-day, can well create gourmands, they will never bring forth citizens. There is too much dining amongst the right worshipful and right reverend brethren of all the Ancients. But they form a place of depot, a kind of stud (breeding ground), a centre through which it is necessary to pass before coming to us. The lodges form but a relative evil, an evil tempered by a false philanthropy, and by songs yet more false as in France. All that is too pastoral and too gastronomic; but it is an object which it is necessary to encourage without ceasing. In teaching a man to raise his glass to his lips you become possessed of his intelligence and of his liberty, you dispose of him, turn him round about, and study him. You divine his inclinations, his affections, and his tendencies; then, when he is ripe for us, we direct him to the secret society of which Freemasonry can be no more than the antechamber.

“The Alta Vendita desires, that under one pretence or another, as many princes and wealthy persons as possible should be introduced into the Masonic lodges. Princes of a sovereign house, and those who have not the legitimate hope [76]of being kings by the grace of God, all wish to be kings by the grace of a Revolution. The Duke of Orleans is a Freemason, the Prince of Carignan was one also. There are not wanting in Italy and elsewhere, those amongst them, who aspire to the modest-enough honours of the symbolic apron and trowel. Others of them are disinherited and proscribed. Flatter all of their number who are ambitious of popularity; monopolize them for Freemasonry. The Alta Vendita will afterwards see what it can do to utilize them in the cause of progress. A prince who has not a kingdom to expect, is a good fortune for us. There are many of them in that plight. Make Freemasons of them. The lodge will conduct them to Carbonarism. A day will come, perhaps, when the Alta Vendita will deign to affiliate them. While awaiting they will serve as birdlime for the imbeciles, the intriguing, the bourgeoisie, and the needy. These poor princes will serve our ends, while thinking to labour only for their own. They form a magnificent sign board, and there are always fools enough to be found, who are ready to compromise themselves in the service of a conspiracy, of which some prince or other seems to be the ringleader.

“Once that a man, that a prince, that a prince especially, shall have commenced to grow corrupt, be persuaded that he will hardly rest upon the declivity. There is little morality even amongst the most moral of the world, and one goes fast in the way of that progress. Do not then be dismayed to see the lodges flourish, while Carbonarism recruits itself with difficulty. It is upon the lodges that we count to double our ranks. They form, without knowing it, our preparatory novitiate. They discourse without end upon the dangers of fanaticism, upon the happiness of social equality, and upon the grand principles of religious liberty. They launch amidst their feastings thundering anathemas against intolerance and persecution. This is positively more than we require to make adepts. A man imbued with these fine things is not [77]very far from us. There is nothing more required than to enlist him. The law of social progress is there, and all there. You need not take the trouble to seek it elsewhere. In the present circumstances never lift the mask. Content yourselves to prowl about the Catholic sheepfold, but as good wolves seize in the passage the first lamb who offers himself in the desired conditions. The burgess has much of that which is good for us, the prince still more. For all that, these lambs must not be permitted to turn themselves into foxes like the infamous Carignan. The betrayal of the oath is a sentence of death; and all those princes whether they are weak or cowardly, ambitious or repentant, betray us, or denounce us. As good fortune would have it, they know little, in fact not anything, and they cannot come upon the trace of our true mysteries.

“Upon the occasion of my last journey to France, I saw with profound satisfaction, that our young initiated exhibited an extreme ardour for the diffusion of Carbonarism; but I also found that they rather precipitated the movement a little. As I think, they converted their religious hatred too much into a political hatred. The conspiracy against the Roman See, should not confound itself with other projects. We are exposed to see germinate in the bosom of secret societies, ardent ambitions; and the ambitious, once masters of power, may abandon us. The route which we follow is not as yet sufficiently well traced so as to deliver us up to intriguers and tribunes. It is of absolute necessity to de-Catholicise the world. And an ambitious man, having arrived at his end, will guard himself well from seconding us. The Revolution in the Church is the Revolution en permanence. It is the necessary overthrowing of thrones and dynasties. Now an ambitious man cannot really wish these things. We see higher and farther. Endeavour therefore to act for us, and to strengthen us. Let us not conspire except against Rome. For that, let us serve ourselves with all kinds of incidents; let us put to profit every kind of [78]eventuality. Let us be principally on our guard against the exaggerations of zeal. A good hatred, thoroughly cold, thoroughly calculated, thoroughly profound, is of more worth than all these artificial fires and all these declamations of the platform. At Paris they cannot comprehend this, but in London I have seen men who seized better upon our plan, and who associated themselves to us with more fruit. Considerable offers have been made to me. Presently we shall have a printing establishment at Malta placed at our disposal. We shall then be able with impunity, with a sure stroke, and under the British flag, to scatter from one end of Italy to the other, books, pamphlets, etc., which the Alta Vendita shall judge proper to put in circulation.”

This document was issued in 1822. Since then, the instructions it gives have been constantly acted upon in the lodges of Carbonarism, not only in Italy but everywhere else. “Prowl about the Catholic sheepfold and seize the first lamb that presents himself in the required conditions.” This, and the order to get into Catholic confraternities, were as well executed by the infamous Carey under the influence of “No. One,” as they were by any Italian conspirator and assassin, under the personal inspiration of Piccolo Tigre. Carey, the loud-spoken Catholic—the Catholic who had Freemason or Orange friends able to assist him in the truly Masonic way of getting members of the craft as Town-Councillors, or Aldermen, or Members of Parliament—was, we now know, a true secret-society hypocrite of the genuine Italian type. He prowled with effect round the Catholic sheepfold. He joined “with fruit” the confraternities of the Church. Well may we pray that God may guard from such satanic influences the noble, generous-hearted, faithful young men of Ireland at home and in all the lands of their vast colonization. The scoundrel that presents the “knife” or the “prayer-book” ready to swear them in, is a murderer in intention, and in effect whenever he dares to be, with a chance of impunity. He is ready to drag them in the toils of the [79]Carbonari, for whether a secret society be Irish, English, or American; whether Fenian or Invincible, no matter by what name it may be called, it is still black Masonry—Carbonarism pure and simple. And the lost hypocrite and assassin who tempts incautious youth, under the pretence of patriotism, to join any such society, is ever, like Carey, as ready to betray as he is to “swear in” his victim.

Another curious instruction given by the Alta Vendita to the Carbonari of the lower lodges, is the way to catch a priest and make the good, simple man, unconsciously aid the designs of the revolutionary sectaries. In the permanent instruction of the Alta Vendita, given to all the lodges, you will recollect the passage I read for you relative to the giving of bad names to faithful Prelates who may be too knowing or too good to do the work of the Carbonari against conscience, God, and the souls of men. “Ably find out the words and the ways to make them unpopular” is the sum of that advice. Has it not been attempted amongst ourselves? But the main advice of the permanent instruction is to seduce the clergy. The ecclesiastic to be deceived is to be led on by patriotic ardour. He is to be blinded by a constant, though, of course, false, and fatal popularity. He is to be made believe that his course, so very pleasant to flesh and blood, is not only the most patriotic but the best for religion. “A free Church in a free State,” was the cry with which the sectaries pulled down the altars, banished the religious, seized upon Church property, robbed the Pope, and despoiled the Propaganda. There were ecclesiastics so far deceived, at one time, as to be led away by these cries in Italy, and ecclesiastics have been deceived, if not by these, at least by cries as false and fatal elsewhere to our knowledge. The seduction of foremost ecclesiastics, prelates, and bishops, was the general policy of the sect at all times, and it remains so everywhere to this day.

The rank and file of the Carbonari had to do with local priests and local men of influence. These were, if possible, to be [80]corrupted, unnerved, and seduced. There was a method for that, “the corruption of the clergy by ourselves” devised. Each Carbonaro was moreover ordered to try and corrupt a fellow Christian, a man of family, by means that the devil himself incarnate could not devise better for the purpose.

At the end of his letter, Piccolo Tigre glances at means of corruption which he hoped then—and his hopes were soon realized to the full—to have in operation for the scattering of Masonic “light” throughout Italy. We have another document which will enable us to judge of the nature of this “light.” It is contained in a letter from Vindex to Nubius, and was meant to cause the ideas of the Alta Vendita to pass through the lodges. It is found in that convenient form of questioning which the Sultan propounds to the Chiek-ul-Islam when he wants to make war. He puts his reasons in a set of questions, and the Chiek replies in as many answers. Then the war is right in the sight of Allah, and so all Islam go to fight in a war so sanctified. The new Islam does the same. A skilfully devised set of questions are posed for the consideration of one member of the Alta Vendita by another, and the answer which has been well concocted in secret conclave, is of course either given or implied to be given by the nature of the case. The horrible quality of the diabolical measures proposed by Vindex to Nubius in this form for the desired destruction of the Church, cannot be surpassed. If he discountenances assassination, it is not from fear or loathing of that frightful crime, but simply because it is not the best policy. He certainly did fall in upon the only blow that could—if that were possible, which, thank God, it is not—destroy the Church of God, and place, as he well says, Catholicity in the tomb. This a translation of the document:—

“Castellamare, 9th August, 1838.

“The murders of which our people render themselves culpable now in France, now in Switzerland, and always in Italy, [81]are for us a shame and a remorse. It is the cradle of the world, illustrated by the epilogue of Cain and Abel, and we are too far in progress to content ourselves with such means. To what purpose does it serve to kill a man? To strike fear into the timid and to keep audacious hearts far from us? Our predecessors in Carbonarism did not understand their power. It is not in the blood of an isolated man, or even of a traitor, that it is necessary to exercise it; it is upon the masses. Let us not individualize crime. In order to grow great, even to the proportions of patriotism and of hatred for the Church, it is necessary to generalize it. A stroke of the dagger signifies nothing, produces nothing. What does the world care for a few unknown corpses cast upon the highway by the vengeance of secret societies? What matters it to the world, if the blood of a workman, of an artist, of a gentleman, or even of a prince, has flown in virtue of a sentence of Mazzini, or certain of his cut-throats playing seriously at the Holy Vehme. The world has not time to lend an ear to the last cries of the victim. It passes on and forgets; it is we, my Nubius, we alone, that can suspend its march. Catholicism has no more fear of a well-sharpened stiletto than monarchies have, but these two bases of social order can fall by corruption. Let us then never cease to corrupt. Tertullian was right in saying, that the blood of martyrs was the seed of Christians. It is decided in our councils, and we do not desire any more Christians. Let us, then, not make martyrs, but let us popularise vice amongst the multitudes. Let us cause them to draw it in by their five senses; to drink it in; to be saturated with it; and that land which Aretinus has sown is always disposed to receive lewd teachings. Make vicious hearts, and you will have no more Catholics. Keep the priest away from labour, from the altar, from virtue. Seek adroitly to otherwise occupy his thoughts and his hours. Make him lazy, a gourmand, and a patriot. He will become ambitious, intriguing, and perverse. You will thus have a thousand times better accomplished your task, [82]than if you had blunted the point of your stiletto upon the bones of some poor wretches. I do not wish, nor do you any more, my friend Nubius, is it not so? to devote my life to conspiracies, in order to be dragged along in the old ruts.

“It is corruption en masse that we have undertaken; the corruption of the people by the clergy, and the corruption of the clergy by ourselves; the corruption which ought, one day, to enable us to put the Church in her tomb. I have recently heard one of our friends, laughing in a philosophic manner at our projects, say to us: ‘in order to destroy Catholicism it is necessary to commence by suppressing woman.’ The words are true in a sense; but since we cannot suppress woman, let us corrupt her with the Church, corruptio optimi pessima. The object we have in view is sufficiently good to tempt men such as we are; let us not separate ourselves from it for some miserable personal satisfaction of vengeance. The best poniard with which to strike the Church is corruption. To the work then, even to the very end.”

The horrible programme of impurity here proposed was at once adopted. It was after all but an attempt more determined than ever, to spread the immorality of which Voltaire and his school were the apostles. At the time the Alta Vendita propounded this infernal plan they were resisting an inroad upon their authority on the part of Joseph Mazzini, just then coming into notoriety, who, however, overcame them.

Mazzini developed and taught, in his grandiloquent style, as well as practised the doctrine of assassination⁠[14] which formed, [83]we know, a part of the system of all secret societies, and which the Alta Vendita deprecated because they feared that it was about being employed, just then, against the members of their own body. Mazzini speaks of having arisen from his bed one morning fully satisfied as to the lawfulness of removing whomsoever he might be pleased to consider an enemy, by the dagger, and fully determined to put that horrible principle into execution. He cherished it as the simplest means given to an oppressed people to free themselves from tyrants. But however much he laboured to make his terrible creed plausible, as being only permissible against tyrants and traitors, it was readily foreseen how easily it could be extended, until it became a capital danger for the sectaries themselves. Human nature could never become so base and so blinded as not to revolt against a principle so pernicious. It may last for a season amidst the first pioneers of the Alta Vendita, amongst the Black Hand in Spain, amongst the Nihilists in Russia, amongst the Invincibles in Ireland, amongst the Trade-Unionists of the Bradlaugh stamp in England, or amongst the [84]Communists of Paris. It may serve as a means to hold in terror the unfortunate prince or leader who may be seduced in youth or manhood to join secret societies from motives of ambition; and when that ambition was gratified, might refuse to go the lengths for Socialism which the Alta Vendita required. But otherwise assassination did not by experience prove such a sovereign power in the hands of the Carbonari as Mazzini expected. His more astute associates soon found out this; and, not from any qualms of conscience, but from a strong sense of its inexpediency for their ends, they determined to reject it. They found out a more effective, though a far more infamous, way for attaining the dark mastery of the world. It was by the assassination not of bodies but of souls—by the deliberate systemization and persevering diffusion of immorality.⁠[15]

The Alta Vendita, then, sat down calmly to consider the best means to accomplish this design. Satan and his fallen angels could devise no more efficacious methods than they found out. They resolved to spread impurity by every method used in the past by demons to tempt men to sin, to make the practice of sin habitual, and to keep the unhappy victim in the state of sin to the end. They had, being living men, means to accomplish this purpose, which devils could not use without the aid of men. Christian civilization established upon the ruins of the licentiousness of Paganism had kept European society pure. Vice, when it did appear, had to hide its head for shame. Public decency, supported by public opinion, kept it down. So long [85]as morality existed as a recognized virtue, the Revolution had no chance of permanent success; and so the men of the Alta Vendita resolved to bring back the world to a state of brutal licentiousness not only as bad as that of Paganism, but to a state at which even the morality of the Pagans would shudder. To do this they proceeded with caution. Their first attempt was to cause vice to lose its conventional horror, and to make it free from civil punishment. The unfortunate class of human beings who make a sad trade in sin, were to be taken under the protection of the law, and to be kept free from disease at the expense of the State. Houses were to be licensed, inspected, protected, and given over to their purposes. The dishonour attached to their infamous condition was, so far as the law could effect it, to be taken away. That wholesome sense of danger and fear of disease which averted the criminally disposed from sin was to disappear. The agents of the Alta Vendita had instructions to increase the number and the seductiveness of those unfortunate beings, while the State, when revolutionized, was to close its eyes to their excesses, and to connive at their attempts upon the youth of the country. They were to be planted close to great schools and universities, and wherever else they could ruin the rising generation in every country in which the sect should obtain power.

Then literature was systematically rendered as immoral as possible, and diffused with a perseverance and labour worthy of a better cause. Railway stations, newspaper stands, book shops, and restaurants, were made to teem with infamous productions, while the same were scattered broadcast to the people over every land.

The teaching of the Universities and of all the middle schools of the State, was not only to be rendered Atheistic and hostile to religion, but was actually framed to demoralize the unfortunate alumni at a season of life always but too prone to vice.

Finally, besides the freest licence for blasphemy and [86]immorality, and the exhibition and diffusion of immoral pictures, paintings, and statuary, a last attempt was to be made upon the virtue of young females under the guise of educating them up to the standard of human progress.

Therefore, middle and high-class schools were, regardless of expense, to be provided for female children, who should be, at any cost, taken far away from the protecting care of nuns. They were to be taught in schools directed by lay masters, and always exposed to such influences as would sap, if not destroy, their purity, and, as a sure consequence, their faith. These schools have since been the order of the day with Masonry all over the world. “If we cannot suppress woman let us corrupt her with the Church,” said Vindex, and they have faithfully acted upon this advice.

The terrible society which planned these infernal means for destroying religion, social order, and the souls of men, continued its operations for many years. Its “permanent instruction” became the Gospel of all the secret societies of Europe. Its agents, like Piccolo Tigre, travelled unceasingly in every country. Its orders were received, according to the system of Masonry, by the heads and the rank and file of the lodges as so many inevitable decrees. But fortunately for the world, it permitted too much political action to the second lines of the great conspiracy. In the latter, ambitious spirits arose, who, while embracing to the full the doctrines of Voltaire and the principles of Weishaupt, began to think that the Alta Vendita stayed actual revolution too much. This state of feeling became general when that high lodge refused admittance to Mazzini, who wished to become one of the invisible forty—the number beyond which the supreme governing body never permitted itself to pass.

The jealousy of Nubius—for jealousy is a quality of demons not wanting from the highest intelligences in Atheistic organization to the lowest—prevented his being admitted. But he was already far too powerful with the rank and file of the Carbonari to be refused a voice in the supreme management. [87]He raised a cry against the old chiefs as being impotent and needing change. Nubius consequently passed mysteriously away. M. Cretineau Joly⁠[16] is clearly of opinion that it was by poison; and as it was a custom with the unfortunate chief to betray for his own protection, or for punishment, some lodges of Carbonari to the Pontifical Government, it is more than probable that it was by his provision or information that the same Government came into the possession of the whole archives of the Alta Vendita, and that the Church and society have the documents which I have quoted and others still more valuable to guide them in discovering and defeating the attempts of organized Atheism.

The Alta Vendita subsequently passed to Paris, and since it is believed to Berlin. It was the immediate successor of the Inner Circle of Weishaupt. It may change in the number of its adepts and in the places of its meetings, but it always subsists. There is over it, a recognized Chief like Nubius or Weishaupt. But in his lifetime this Chief is usually unknown, at least to the world outside “Illuminated” Masonry. He is unknown to the rank and file of the common lodges. But he wields a power which, however, is not, as in the case of Nubius and Mazzini, always undisputed. Since that time, if not before it, there have been two parties under its Directory, each having its own duties, well defined. These are

Eckert⁠[17] shows that at present all secret societies are divided into two parties—the party of direction and the party of action or war party. The duty of the intellectual party, is to plot and to contrive; that of the party of action, is to combine, recruit, excite to insurrection, and fight. The members of the [88]war party are always members of the intellectual party, but not vice versa. The war party thus know what is being plotted. But the other party, concealed as common Freemasons amongst the simpletons of the lodges, cover both sections from danger. If the war party succeed, the peace party go forward and seize upon the offices of state and the reins of power. Their men go to the hustings, make speeches that suit, are written up in the press, which, all the world over, is under Masonic influence. They are cried up by the adroit managers of mobs. They become the deputies, the ministers, the Talleyrands, the Fouchés, the Gambettas, the Ferrys; and of course they make the war party generals, admirals, and officers of the army, the navy, and the police. If the war party fails, the intellectual party, who close their lodges during the combat, appear afterwards as partisans, if possible, of the conquering party, or if they cannot be that, they silently conspire. They manage to get some friends into power. They agitate. They, in either case, come to the assistance of the defeated war party. They extenuate the faults, while condemning the heedless rashness of ill-advised, good-natured, though too ardent, young men. They cry for mercy. They move the popular compassion. In time, they free the culprits, and thus prepare for new commotions.

All Freemasonry has been long thus adapted, to enable the intellectual party to assist the war party in distress. It must be remembered that every Carbonaro is in reality a Freemason. He is taught the passes and can manipulate the members of the craft. Now, at the very threshold of the admission of a member to Freemasonry, the Master of the Lodge, the “Venerable,” thus solemnly addresses him:

“Masons,” says he, “are obliged to assist each other by every means, when occasion offers. Freemasons ought not mix themselves up in conspiracies; but if you come to know that a Freemason is engaged in any enterprise of the kind, and has fallen a victim to his imprudence, you ought to have compassion upon his misfortune, and the Masonic bond makes it a [89]duty for you, to use all your influence and the influence of your friends, in order to diminish the rigour of punishment in his favour.”

From this it will be seen, with what astute care Masonry prepares its dupes from the very beginning, to subserve the purposes of the universal Revolution. Under plea of compassion for a brother in distress, albeit through his supposed imprudence, the Mason’s duty is to make use not only of all his own influence, but also “of the influence of his friends,” to either deliver him altogether from the consequences of what is called “his misfortune,” or “to diminish the rigour of his punishment.”

Masonry, even in its most innocent form, is a criminal association. It is criminal in its oaths, which are at best rash; and it is criminal in promising obedience to unknown commands coming from hidden superiors. It always, therefore, sympathises with crime. It hates punishment of any repressive kind, and does what it can to destroy the death penalty even for murder. In revolution, its common practice is to open gaols, and let felons free upon society. When it cannot do this, it raises in their behalf a mock sympathy. Hence we have Victor Hugo pleading with every Government in Europe in favour of revolutionists; we have the French Republic liberating the Communists; and there is a motion before the French Parliament to repeal the laws against the party of dynamite—the Internationalists, whose aim is the destruction of every species of religion, law, order and property, and the establishment of absolute Socialism. With ourselves, there is not a revolutionary movement created, that we do not find at the same time an intellectual party apparently disconnected with it, often found condemning it, but in reality supporting it indirectly, but zealously. The Odgers and others of the Trades Union, for instance, will murder and burn; but it is the Bradlaughs, and men theorising in Parliament if they can, or on the platform if they cannot, who sustain that very party of action. They secretly sustain what in public they strongly reprobate, and if [90]necessary disown and denounce. This is a point worthy of deep consideration, and shows more than anything else, the ability and astuteness with which the whole organization has been planned.

Again, we must remember, that while the heads of the party of action are well aware of the course being taken by the intellectual party, it does not follow that the intellectual party know the movements of the party of action, or even the individuals, at least so far as the rank and file are concerned. It therefore can happen in this country, that Freemasons or others who are in communication only with the Supreme Council on the Continent, get instructions to pursue one line of conduct, and that the war party for deep reasons get instructions to oppose them. This serves, while preventing the possibility of exposure, to enable the work of the Infidel Propaganda to be better done. It is the deeply hidden Chief and his Council that concoct and direct all. They wield a power with which, as is well known, the diplomacy of every nation in the world must count. There are men either of this Council, or in the first line of its service, whom it will never permit to be molested. Weishaupt, Nubius, Mazzini, Piccolo Tigre, De Witt, Misley, Garibaldi, Number One, Hartmann, may have been arrested, banished, etc., but they never found the prison that could contain them long, nor the country that would dare deliver them up for crime against law or even life. It is determined by the Supreme Directory that at any cost, the men of their first lines shall not suffer; and from the beginning they have found means to enforce that determination against all the crowned heads of Europe. Now, you must be curious to know who succeeded to the Chieftaincy of this formidable conspiracy when Nubius passed away. It was one well known to you, at least by fame. It was no other than the late Lord Palmerston.

The bare announcement of this fact will, no doubt, cause as much surprise to many here to-night as it certainly did to myself when it became first known to me. I could with difficulty believe that the late Lord Palmerston, knew the veritable secret of Freemasonry, and that for the greater part of his career he was the real master, the successor of Nubius, the Grand Patriarch of the Illuminati, and as such, the Ruler of all the secret societies in the world. I knew, of course, that as a Statesman, the distinguished nobleman had dealings of a very close character with Mazzini, Cavour, Napoleon III., Garibaldi, Kossuth, and the other leading revolutionary spirits of Europe in his day; but I never for a moment suspected that he went so far as to accept the supreme direction of the whole dark and complex machinery of organized Atheism, or sacrificed the welfare of the great country he was supposed to serve so ably and so well, to the designs of the terrible secret conclave whose acts and tendencies were so well known to him. But the mass of evidence collected by Father Deschamps and others,⁠[18] to prove Lord Palmerston’s complicity with the worst designs of Atheism against Christianity and monarchy—not even excepting the monarchy of England—is so weighty, clear, and conclusive, that it is impossible to refuse it credence. Father Deschamps brings forward in proof, the testimony of Henry Misley, one of the foremost Revolutionists [92]of the period, when Palmerston reigned over the secret Islam of the sects, and other no less important testimonies. These I would wish, if time permitted, to give at length. But the whole history, unhappily, of Lord Palmerston proves them. In 1809, when but 23 years of age, we find him War Minister in the Cabinet of the Duke of Portland. He remained in this office until 1828, during the successive administrations of Mr. Percival, the Earl of Liverpool, Mr. Canning, Lord Goderick, and the Duke of Wellington. He left his party—the Conservative—when the last-named Premier insisted upon accepting the resignation of Mr. Huskisson. In 1830, he accepted the position of Foreign Secretary in the Whig Ministry of Earl Grey. Up to this period he must have been well informed in the policy of England. He saw Napoleon in the fulness of youth, and he saw [93]his fall. He knew and approved of the measures taken after that event by the advisers of George IV., for the conservation of legitimate interests in Europe, and for the preservation to the Pope of the Papal States. The balance of power, as formed by the Congress of Vienna, was considered by the wisest and most patriotic English statesmen, the best safeguard for British interests and influence on the Continent. While it existed the multitude of small States in Italy and Germany could be always so manipulated by British diplomacy, as effectually to prevent that complete isolation which England feels to-day so keenly, and which may prove so disastrous within a short period to her best interests. If this sound policy has been since changed, it is entirely owing to Palmerston, who appears, after leaving the ranks of the Tories, to have thrown himself absolutely into the hands of that Liberalistic Freemasonry, which, at the period, began to show its power in France and in Europe generally. On his accession to the Foreign Office in 1830, he found the Cabinet freed from the influence of George IV., and from Conservative traditions; and he at once threw the whole weight of his energy, position, and influence to cause his government to side with the Masonic programme for revolutionizing Europe. With his aid, the sectaries were able to disturb Spain, Portugal, Naples, the States of the Church, and the minor States of Italy. The cry for a constitutional Government received his support in every State of Europe, great and small. The Pope’s temporal authority, and every Catholic interest, were assailed. England, indeed, remained quiet. Her people were fascinated by that fact. Trade interests being served by the distractions of other States, and religious bigotry gratified at seeing the Pope, and every Catholic country harassed, they all gave a willing, even a hearty support to the policy of Palmerston. They little knew that it was dictated, not by devotion to their interests, but in obedience to a hidden power of which Palmerston had become the dupe and the tool, and which permitted them to glory in their own quiet, only to gain their assistance, and, on a future day, to compass [94]with greater certainty their ruin. Freemasonry, as we have already seen, creates many “figure-head” Grand Masters, from the princes of reigning houses, and the foremost statesmen of nations, to whom, however, it only shows a small part of its real secrets. Palmerston was an exception to this rule. He was admitted into the very recesses of the sect. He was made its Monarch, and as such ruled with a real sway over its realms of darkness. By this confidence he was flattered, cajoled, and finally entangled beyond the hope of extrication in the meshes of the sectaries. He was a noble, without a hope of issue, or of a near heir to his title and estates. He therefore preferred the designs of the Atheistic conspiracy he governed, to the interests of the country which employed him, and he sacrificed England to the projects of Masonry. As he advanced in years he appears to have grown more infatuated with his work. In 1837, in or about the time when Nubius was carried off by poison, Mazzini, who most probably caused that Chief to disappear, and who became the leader of the party of action, fixed his permanent abode in London. With him came also several counsellors of the “Grand Patriarch,” and from that day forward the liberty of Palmerston to move England in any direction, except in the interest of the secret conspiracy, passed away for ever. Immediately, plans were elaborated destined to move the programme of Weishaupt another step towards its ultimate completion.⁠[19] These were, by the aid of well-planned Revolutions, to create one immense Empire from the small German States, in [95]the centre of Europe, under the house of Brandenburg; next to weaken Austrian dominion; then to annihilate the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, by the formation of a United Kingdom of Italy under the provisional government of the house of Savoy; and lastly, to form of the discontented Polish, Hungarian, and Slavonian populations, an independent kingdom between Austria and Russia.

After an interval during which these plans were hatched, Palmerston returned to office in 1846, and then the influence of England was seen at work, in the many revolutions which broke out in Europe within eighteen months afterwards. If these partly failed, they eventuated at least in giving a Masonic Ruler to France in the person of the Carbonaro, Louis Napoleon. With him Palmerston instantly joined the fortunes of England, and with him he plotted for the realization of his Masonic ideas to the very end of his career. Now here comes a most important event, proving beyond question the determination of Palmerston to sacrifice his country to the designs of the sect he ruled. The Conservative feeling in England shrank from acknowledging Louis Napoleon or approving of his coup d’etat. The country began to grow afraid of revolutionists, crowned or uncrowned. This feeling was shared by the Sovereign, by the Cabinet, and by the Parliament, so far that Lord Derby was able to move a vote of censure on the Government, because of the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston. For Palmerston, confiding in the secret strength he wielded, and which was not without its influence in England herself, threw every consideration of loyalty, duty, and honour overboard, and without consulting his Queen or his colleagues, he sent, as Foreign Secretary, the recognition of [96]England to Louis Napoleon. He committed England to the Empire, and the other nations of Europe had to follow suit.

On this point, Chambers’s Encyclopædia, Art. “Palmerston,” has the following notice:—“In December, 1852, the public was startled at the news that Palmerston was no longer a member of the Russell Cabinet. He had expressed his approbation of the coup d’etat of Louis Napoleon (gave England’s official acknowledgment of the perpetration) without consulting either the Premier or the Queen; and as explanations were refused, Her Majesty exercised her constitutional right of dismissing her minister.” Palmerston had also audaciously interpolated despatches signed by the Queen. He acted in fact as he pleased. He had the agents of his dark realm in almost every Masonic lodge in England. The Press at home and abroad, under Masonic influences, applauded his policy. The sect so acted that his measures were productive of immediate success. His manner, his bonhomie, his very vices fascinated the multitude. He won the confidence of the trading classes, and held the Conservatives at bay. Dismissed by the Sovereign, he soon returned into power her master, and from that day to the day of his death ruled England and the world in the interests of the Atheistic Revolution, of which he thought himself the master spirit.⁠[20]

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In a few moments we shall see the truth of this when considering the political action of the sect he led, but first it will be necessary to glance at what the Church and Christianity generally had to suffer in his day by the—

During what may be called the reign of Palmerston, the war of the intellectual party against Christianity, intensified in the dark counsels of the Alta Vendita, became accentuated and general throughout Europe. It chiefly lay in the propagandism of immorality, luxury, and naturalism amongst all classes of society, and then in the spread of Atheistic and revolutionary ideas. During the time of Palmerston’s influence not one iota of the advices of the Alta Vendita was permitted to be wasted. Wherever, therefore, it was possible to advance the programme mapped out in the “Permanent Instruction,” in the letter of Piccolo Tigre, and in the advices of Vindex, that was done with effect. We see, therefore, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, America, and the rest of the world, deluged with immoral novels, immodest prints, pictures, and statues, and every legislature invited to legalise a system of prostitution, under [98]pretence of expediency, which gave security to sinners, and a kind of recognized status to degraded women. We find, wherever Masonry could effect it, these bad influences brought to bear upon the universities, the army, the navy, the training schools, the civil service, and upon the whole population. “Make corrupt hearts and you will have no more Catholics,” said Vindex, and faithfully, and with effect, the secret societies of Europe have followed that advice. Hence, in France under the Empire, Paris, bad enough before, became a very pandemonium of vice; and Italy just in proportion to the conquests of the Revolution, became systematically corrupted on the very lines laid down by the Alta Vendita.

Next, laws subversive of Christian morality were caused to be passed in every State, on, of course, the most plausible pretexts. These laws were, first, that of divorce, then, the abolition of impediments to marriage, such as consanguinity, order, and relationship, union with a deceased wife’s sister, etc. Well the infidels knew that in proportion as nations fell away from the holy restraints of the Church, and as the sanctity and inviolability of the marriage bond became weakened, the more Atheism would enter into the human family.

Moreover, the few institutions of a public, Christian nature yet remaining in Christian States were to be removed one after another on some skilfully devised, plausible plea. The Sabbath which in the Old as well as in the New Dispensation, proved so great an advantage to religion and to man—to nations as well as to individuals—was marked out for desecration. The leniency of the Church which permitted certain necessary works on Sunday, was taken advantage of, and the day adroitly turned into one of common trading in all the great towns of Catholic Continental Europe. The Infidels, owing to a previous determination arrived at in the lodges, clamoured for permission to open museums and places of public amusement on the days sacred to the services of religion, in order to distract the population from the hearing of Mass and the worship of God. Not that they cared for the [99]unfortunate working man. If the Sabbath ceased to-morrow, he would be the slave on Sunday that they leave him to be during the rest of the week. The one day of rest would be torn from the labouring population, and their lot drawn nearer than before to that absolute slavery which always did exist, and would exist again, under every form of Idolatry and Infidelity. Pending the reduction of men to Socialism, the secret conclave directing the whole mass of organized Atheism has therefore taken care that in order to withdraw the working man from attending divine worship and the hearing of the Word of God, theatres, cafés, pleasure gardens, drinking saloons, and other still worse means of popular enjoyment shall be made to exert the utmost influence on him upon that day. This sad influence is beginning to be felt amongst ourselves. Then, besides the suppression of State recognition to religion, chaplains to the army, the navy, the hospitals, the prisons, etc., were to be withdrawn on the plea of expense or of being unnecessary. Courts of justice, and public assemblies were to be deprived of every Christian symbol. This was to be done on the plea of religion being too sacred to be permitted to enter into such places. In courts, in society, at dinners, etc., Christian habits, like that of grace before meals, etc., or any social recognition of God’s presence, were to be scouted as not in good taste. The company of ecclesiastics was to be shunned, and a hundred other able means were devised to efface the Christian aspect of the nations until they presented an appearance more devoid of religion than that of the very pagans.

But of all the attacks made by Infidels during the reign of Palmerston, that upon primary, middle-class, and superior education was the most marked, the most determined, and decidedly, when successful, the most disastrous.

We must remember that from the commencement of the war of Atheism on Christianity, under Voltaire and the Encyclopædists, this means of doing mischief was the one most advocated by the chief leaders. They then accumulated immense sums to [100]diffuse their own bad literature amongst every class. Under the Empire, the most disastrous blow struck by the Arch-Mason Talleyrand was the formation of a monopoly of education for Infidelity in the foundation of the Paris University. But it was left for the Atheistic plotters of this century to perfect the plan of wresting the education of every class and sex of the coming generations of men from out of the hands of the Church, and the influence of Christianity.

This plan was elaborated as early, I think, as 1826, by intellectual Masonry. About that time appeared a dialogue between Quinet and Eugene Sue, in which after the manner of the letter of Vindex to Nubius the whole programme of the now progressing education-war was sketched out. In this the hopes which Masonry had from Protestantism in countries where the population was mixed, were clearly expressed. The jealousy of rival sects was to be excited, and when they could not agree, then the State was to be induced to do away with all kinds of religion “just for peace sake,” and establish schools on a purely secular basis, entirely removed from “clerical control,” and handed over to lay teachers, whom in time Atheism could find means to “control” most surely. But in purely Catholic countries, where such an argument as the differences of sects could not be adduced, then the cry was to be against clerical versus lay teaching. Religious teachers were to be banished by the strong hand, as at present in France, and afterwards it could be said that lay teachers were not competent or willing to give religious instruction, and so that, too, in time, could be made to disappear.⁠[21]

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We may here call to mind the fact that it was while Lord Palmerston directed Masonry as Monarch, and English policy as Minister, that secularism was insidiously attempted to be introduced into higher education in Ireland by Queen’s Colleges, and into primary education by certain acts of the Board of National Education. The fidelity of the Irish Episcopacy and the ever vigilant watchfulness of the Holy See, disconcerted both plans, or neutralized them to a great extent. Attempts of a like kind are being made in England. There, by degrees, board schools with almost unlimited assistance from taxes have been first made legal, [102]and then encouraged most adroitly. The Church schools have been systematically discouraged, and have now reached the point of danger. This has been effected, first, by the Masonry of Palmerston in the high places, and, secondly, by the Masonry of England generally, not in actual league and knowingly, with the dark direction I speak of, but unknowingly influenced by its well-devised cries for the spread of light, for the diffusion of education amongst the masses, for the banishment of religious discord, etc. It was, of course, never mentioned, that all the advantages cried up could be obtained, together with the still greater advantage of a Christian education, producing a future Christian population. It was sedulously kept out of sight that the people who would be certain to use board schools, were those who never went themselves to any church, and who would never [103]think of giving religious instruction of any kind to their children. Nothing can show the power of Freemasonry in a stronger light than the stupor it was able to cast over the men who make laws in both Houses of the English Parliament, and who were thus hoodwinked into training up men fitted to take position, wealth, and bread itself, from themselves and their children; to subject, in another generation, the moneyed classes of England to the lot that befell other blinded “moneyed people” in France during the last century. In England, the Freemasons had, unfortunately, the Dissenters as allies. Hatred for church schools caused the latter to make common cause with Atheists against God, but the destruction of the Church of England—they do not hope for the destruction of the vigorous Catholic Church of the country—will never compensate even Socinians for a spirit of instructed irreligion in England—a spirit which, in a generation, will be able and only too willing to attempt Atheistic levelling for its own advantage, and certainly not for the benefit of wealthy Dissenters, or Dissenters having anything at all to lose.

The same influences of Atheism were potent, and for the same reasons, in all our Australian legislatures. There the influence of continental Freemasonry is stronger than at home, and conservative influences which neutralize Atheistic movements of too democratic a nature in England and Scotland, are weaker. Hence, in all our Australian Parliaments, Acts are passed with but a feeble resistance from the Church party, abolishing religious education of every kind, and making all the education of the country “secular, compulsory, and free.” That is, without religion, enforced upon every class, and at the general expense of the State. Hence, after paying the taxation in full, the Catholic and the conscientious Christian of the Church of England, have to sustain in all those colonies their own system of education, and this, while paying for the other system, and while bearing the additional burden of the competition of State schools, richly and completely endowed with every possible requisite and luxury out of the general taxes.

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A final feature in the education-war of Atheism against the Church especially, and against Christianity of every kind, is the attempted higher education without religion of young girls. The expense which they have induced every legislature to undertake for this purpose is amazing; and how the nations tolerate that expense is equally amazing. It is but carrying out to the letter the advice of Vindex:—“If we cannot suppress woman, let us corrupt her together with the Church.” For this purpose those infamous hot-beds of foul vice, “lodges of adoption,” lodges for woman, and lodges “androgynes,”—lodges for libertine Masons and women—were established by the Illuminati of France in the last century. For the same purpose schools for the higher education of young girls are now devised. This we know by the open avowal of leading Masons. They were introduced into France, Belgium, Italy, and Germany for the purpose of withdrawing young girls of the middle and upper classes from the blessed, safe control of nuns in convents, and of leading them to positive Atheism by infidel masters and infidel associates. This design of the lodges is succeeding in its mission of terrible mischief; but, thank God, not amongst the daughters of respectable Christians of any kind, who value the chastity, the honour, or the future happiness here and hereafter of that sex of their children, who need most care and delicacy in educating.

In the extract from the permanent instruction of the Alta Vendita, you have already seen how astutely the Atheists compassed the corruption of youth in Universities. It is since notorious that in all high schools over which they have been able to obtain influence, the students have been deprived of religion, taught to mock and hate it, allured to vicious courses, and have been placed under professors without religion or morality. How can we be surprised if the Universities of the Continent have become the hot-beds of vice, revolution, and Atheism? When Masonry governs, as in France, Italy, and Germany, moreover, the only way for youth to obtain a livelihood on entering upon life is by [105]being affiliated to Masonry; and the only way to secure advancement is to be devoted to the principles, the intrigues, and the interests of the sect.

The continuous efforts of Masonry, aided by an immoral and Atheistic literature, by a corrupt public opinion, by a zealous Propagandism of contempt for the Church, for her ministers and her ministrations, and by a sleepless, able Directory devoted to the furtherance of every evil end, are enough, in all reason, to ruin Christianity if that were not Divine. But, in addition to its intellectual efforts, Masonry has had from the beginning another powerful means of destroying the existing social and Christian order of the world in the interests of Atheism. We shall see what this is by a glance at the action of

Father Deschamps, on the authority of Eckert and Mislay, gives an interesting description of all that Freemasonry, under the direction of Lord Palmerston, attempted and effected after the failure of the revolutionary movements, conducted by the party of action, under Mazzini, in 1848. These were fomented to a large extent by British diplomacy and secret service money manipulated by Lord Palmerston. Under his guidance and assistance, Mazzini had organized all his revolutionary sects. Young Italy, Young Poland, Young Europe, and the rest sprang as much from the one as from the other. But after years of close union, Mazzini, who was probably hated by Palmerston, and dreaded as the murderer of Nubius, began to wane in influence. He and his party felt, of course, the inevitable effects of failure; and the leader subsided without, however, losing any of his utility for the sect. Napoleon III. appears to have supplanted him in the esteem of Palmerston, and would, if he dared, not follow the Carbonari. Mazzini accordingly hated Napoleon III. with a deadly hatred, which he lived to be able to gratify signally when Palmerston was no more. As he was [106]the principal means of raising Palmerston to power in the Alta Vendita, so, after Palmerston had passed away, he introduced another great statesman to the high conductors, if not into the high conduct itself, of the whole conspiracy; and caused a fatal blow to be given to France and to the dynasty of Napoleon. Meanwhile, from 1849 to the end of the life of Palmerston, the designs formed by the high council of secret Atheism, were carried out with a perfection, a vigour, and a success never previously known in their history. Nothing was precipitated; yet everything marched rapidly to realization. The plan of Palmerston—or the plan of the deadly council which plotted under him—was to separate the two great conservative empires of Russia and Austria, while, at the same time, dealing a deadly blow at both. It was easy for Palmerston to make England see the utility of weakening Russia, which threatened her Indian possessions. France could be made join in the fray, by her ruler, and the powerful Masonic influence at his command: Therefore, the Russian campaign of 1852. But it was necessary for this war to keep Prussia and Austria quiet. Prussia was bribed by a promise to get, in time, the Empire of United Germany. Austria was frightened by the resolution of England and France to bring war to the Danube, and so form a projected Kingdom in Poland and Hungary. The joint power of England, France, and Turkey could easily, then, with the aid of the populations interested, form the new kingdom, and so effectually curb Russia and Austria. But it was of more importance for the designs of the sect upon the temporal power of the Pope, and upon Austria herself, to separate the Empires. Palmerston succeeded with Austria, who withdrew from her alliance with Russia. The forces, therefore, of England and France, were ordered from the Danube to the barren Crimea, as payment for her neutrality. This bribe proved the ruin of Austrian influence. As soon as Russia was separated from her, and weakened beyond the power of assisting her, if she would, France, countenanced by England, dealt a deadly blow at [107]Austrian rule in Italy, united Italy, and placed the temporal power of the Pope in the last stage of decay. On the other hand, Prussia was permitted to deal a blow soon after at Austria. This finished the prestige of the latter as the leading power in Germany, and confined her to her original territory, with the loss of Venice, her remaining Italian province. After this war, Palmerston passed away, and Mazzini came, once more, into authority in the sect. He remembered his grudge against Napoleon, and at once used his influence with the high direction of Masonry to abandon France and assist Germany; and, on the promise of Bismarck—a promise fulfilled by the May laws—that Germany should persecute the Church as it was persecuted in Italy, Masonry went over to Germany, and Masons urged on Napoleon to that insane expedition which ended in placing Germany as the arbiter of Europe, and France and the dynasty of Napoleon in ruins. In the authorities I have quoted for you, there is abundant proof that Masonry, just as it had assisted the French Revolution and Napoleon I., now assisted the Germans. It placed treason on the side of the French, and sold in fact the unfortunate country and her unscrupulous ruler. Mazzini forced Italy not to assist Napoleon, and was gratified to find before his death, that the liar and traitor, who, in the hope of getting assistance he did not get from Masonry, had dealt his last blow at the Vicar of Christ, and placed Rome and the remnant of the States of the Church in the hands of the King of Italy, had lost the throne and gained the unenviable character of a coward and a fool.

This is necessarily but a brief glance at the programme, which Atheism has both planned and carried out since the rule of Palmerston commenced. Wherever it prevailed, the worst form of persecution of the Church at once began to rage. In Sardinia, as soon as it obtained hold of the King and Government, the designs of the French Revolution were at once carried out against religion. The State itself employed the horrible and impure contrivances of the Alta Vendita for the [108]corruption and demoralisation of every class of the people. The flood gates of hell were opened. Education was at once made completely secular. Religious teachers were banished. The goods of the religious orders were confiscated. Their convents, their land, their very churches were sold, and they themselves were forced to starve on a miserable pension, while a succession was rigorously prohibited. All recognition of the spiritual power of Bishops was put an end to. The priesthood was systematically despised and degraded. The whole ministry of the Church was harassed in a hundred vexatious ways. Taxes of a crushing character were levied on the administration of the sacraments, on masses, and on the slender incomes of the parish clergy. Matrimony was made secular, divorce legalised, the privileges of the clerical state abrogated. Worse than all, the leva or conscription was rigorously enforced. Candidates for the priesthood at the most trying season of their career, were compelled to join the army for a number of years, and exposed to all the snares which the Alta Vendita had astutely prepared to destroy their purity, and with it, of course, their vocations; “make vicious hearts, and you will have no more Catholics.” Besides these measures made and provided by public authority, every favour of the State, its power of giving honours, patronage and place, was constantly denied to Catholics. To get any situation of value in the army, navy, civil service, police, revenue, on the railways, in the telegraph offices, to be a physician to the smallest municipality, to be employed almost anywhere, it was necessary to be a Freemason, or to have powerful Masonic influence. The press, the larger mercantile firms, important manufactories, depending as such institutions mostly do on State patronage and interest, were also in the hands of the Sectaries. To Catholics was left the lot of slaves. If permitted to exist at all, it was as the hewers of wood and the drawers of water. The lands which those amongst them held, who did not forsake religion, were taxed to an unbearable extent. The condition of the faithful Catholic peasants became wretched from the load of fiscal burdens placed upon [109]them. The triumph of Atheism could not be more complete, so far as having all that the world could give on its side, and leaving to the Church scarcely more than covered her Divine Founder upon the Cross.

Bismarck, though assisted in his wars against France by the brave Catholic soldiers of the Rhine, and of the Fatherland generally, no sooner had his rival crushed, and his victory secured, than he hastened to pay to Freemasonry his promised persecution of the Church. The Freemasons in the German Parliament, and the Ministers of the sect, aided him to prepare measures against the Catholic religion as drastic as those in operation in Italy, even worse in many respects. The religious orders of men and women were rigorously suppressed or banished, as a first instalment. Then fell Catholic education to make way for an Infidel propagandism. Next came harassing decrees against the clergy by which Bishops were banished or imprisoned and parishes were deprived in hundreds of their priests. All the bad, immoral influences, invented and propagated by the sectaries, were permitted to run riot in the land. A schism was attempted in the Church. Ecclesiastical education was corrupted in the very bud, and all but the existence of Catholics was proscribed.

Wherever we find the dark sect triumphant we find the same results. In the Republics of South America, where Freemasonry holds the highest places, the condition of the Church is that of normal persecution and vexation of every kind. It has been so for many years in Spain and Portugal, in Switzerland, and to whatever extent Freemasons can accomplish it, in Belgium and in Austria. I need not say what it has been in France since the Freemason Parliament and Government have come into power. The dark Directory succeeding Weishaupt, the Alta Vendita, and Palmerston, sits in Paris and in Berlin almost openly, and prepares at leisure its measures, which are nothing short of, first, the speedy weakening of the Church, and then, I am certain, a bloody attempt at her extermination. If it goes [110]on slower than it did during the French Revolution, it is in order to go on surer. Past experience too, and the determinations of the sect already arrived at, show but too clearly that a single final consummation is kept steadily in view. The impure assassins who conduct the conspiracy have had no scruple to imbrue their hands in the blood of Christians in the past, and they never will have a scruple to do so, whenever there is hope of success. In fact, from what I have seen and studied on the Continent, an attempt at this ultimate means of getting rid at least of the clergy and principal lay leaders amongst Catholics, might take place in France and even in Italy at any moment. In France, some new measure of persecution is introduced every day. The Concordat is broken openly. The honour of the country is despised. Subventions belonging by contract to the clergy are withdrawn. The insolence of the Atheistical Government, relying on the strength of the army and on the unaccountable apathy or cowardice of the French Catholic laity, progresses so fast, that no act of the Revolution of ’89 or of the Commune, can be thought improbable within the present decade; and Italy would be sure to follow any example set by France in this or in any other method of exterminating the Church.

There are sure signs in all the countries where the Atheistic Revolution has made decided progress, that this final catastrophe is planned already, and that its instruments are in course of preparation. These instruments are something the same as were devised by the illuminated lodges, when the power of the French Revolution began to pass from the National Assembly to the clubs. The clubs were the open and ultimate expression of the destructive, anti-Christianity of Atheism; and when the lodges reached so far, there was no further need for secrecy. That which in the jargon of the sect is called “the object of the labour of ages,” was attained. Man was without God or Faith, King or Law. He had reached the level aimed at by the Commune, which is itself the ultimate end of all Masonry, and all that secret Atheistic plotting which, since the rise of Atheism, has filled the world.

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In our day, if Masonry does not found Jacobite or other clubs, it originates and cherishes movements fully as Satanic and as dangerous. Communism, just like Carbonarism, is but a form of the illuminated Masonry of Weishaupt. “Our end,” said the Alta Vendita, “is that of Voltaire and the French Revolution.” Names and methods are varied, but that end is ever the same. The clubs at the period of the French Revolution were, after all, local. Masonry now endeavours to generalise their principles and their powers of destructive activity on a vastly more extended scale. We therefore no longer hear of Jacobins or Girondins, but we hear of movements destined to be for all countries what the Jacobins and the Girondins were for Paris and for France. As surely, and for the same purpose, as the clubs proceeded from the lodges in 1789, so, in this latter half of the nineteenth century, the lodges send out upon the whole civilised world, for the very same intent, the terrible Socialist organizations, all founded upon the lines of Communism, and called, according to the exigencies of time, place, and condition, the association of the brethren of

I am well aware that there are multitudes in Freemasonry—even in the most “advanced” Freemasonry of Italy and France—who have no real wish to see the principles of these anarchists predominate. Those, for instance, who in advocating the theories of Voltaire, and embracing for their realisation the organization of Weishaupt, saw only a means to get for themselves honours, power, and riches, which they could never otherwise obtain but by Freemasonry, would be well pleased enough to advance no further, once the good things they loved had been gained. “Nous voulons, Messieurs,” said Thiers, “la republique, mais la republique conservatrice.” He and his desired, of course, to have the Republic which gave them all this [112]world had to bestow, at the expense of former possessors. They desired also the destruction of a religion which crossed their corrupt inclinations, and which was suspected of sympathy for the state of things which Masonry had supplanted. But they had no notion, if they could help it, to descend again to the level of the masses from which they had sprung. In Italy, for instance, this class of Freemasons have had supreme power in their hands for over a quarter of a century. They obtained it by professing the strongest sympathy for the down-trodden millions whom they called slaves. They stated that these slaves—the bulk of the Italian people in the country and in the cities—were no better than tax-paying machines, the dupes and drudges of their political tyrants. Victor Emmanuel, when he wanted, as he said, “to liberate them from political tyrants,” declared that a cry came to him from the “enslaved Italy,” composed of these down-trodden, unregenerated millions. He and his Freemasons and Carbonari—the party of direction and the party of action—therefore drove the native princes of the people from their thrones, and seized upon the supreme sway throughout the Italian peninsula. Were the millions of “slaves” served by the change? The whole property of the Church was seized upon. Were the burdens of taxation lightened? Very far from it. The change simply put hungry Freemasons, and chiefly those of Piedmont, in possession of the Church lands and revenues. It dispossessed many ancient Catholic proprietors, in order to put Freemasons in their stead. But with what consequence to the vast mass of the people, to the peasantry and the working population—some twenty-four out of the twenty-six millions of the Italian people? The consequence is this, that after a quarter of a century of vaunted “regenerated Masonic rule,” during which “the liberators” were at perfect liberty to confer any blessings they pleased upon the people as such, the same people are at this moment more miserable than at any past period of their history, at least since Catholicity became predominant as the [113]religion of the country. If their natural princes ever “whipped them with whips,” for the good of the state, Freemasonry, under the House of Savoy, slashes them with scorpions, for the good of the fraternity. To keep power in the hands of the Atheists an army, ten times greater, and ten times more costly than before, has to be supported by the “liberated” people. A worthless but ruinously expensive navy has been created and must be kept by the same unfortunate “regenerated” people. These poor people, “regenerated and liberated,” must man the fleets and supply the rank and file of the army and navy; they must give their sons, at the most useful period of their lives, to the “service” of Masonic “United Italy.” But the officials in both army and navy—and their number is legion—supported by the taxes of the people, are Freemasons or the sons of Freemasons. They vegetate in absolute uselessness, so far as the development of the country is concerned, living in comparative luxury upon its scanty resources. The civil service, like the army and navy, is swelled with “government billets,” out of all proportion to the wants of the people. It is filled with Freemasons. It is a paradise of Freemasons, where Piedmontese patriots, who have intrigued with Cavour or fought under Garibaldi, enjoy otium cum dignitate at the expense of the hard earnings of a people very poor at any time, but by the present “regenerated” régime made more wretched and miserable than any Christian peasantry—not even excepting the peasantry of Ireland—on the face of the earth.

The consequence of the “liberation” wrought by the Freemasons in Italy is this: They clamoured for representative institutions. All their revolutions were made under the pretext that these were not granted—and the mass of the Italian people—seven-eighths of them—are as yet unenfranchised, after a quarter of a century of Masonic supremacy in the land. The Masons represented the lot of the poor man as insupportable, under the native princes. But under themselves the poor man’s condition, instead of being ameliorated, has been made unspeakably worse. [114]He is positively, at present, ground down, in every little town of Italy, by insupportable exactions. His former burdens are increased four-fold—in many cases, ten-fold. To find money for all the extravagances of Freemason rule—to make fortunes for the top-sawyers, and comfortable places for the rank and file of the sect, a system of taxation, the most elaborate, severe, and searching ever yet invented to crush a nation, has been devised. The peasant’s rent is raised by Masonic greed whenever a Mason becomes a proprietor, as is often the case with regard to confiscated church lands. Land taxes cause the rents to rise everywhere. The tenant must bear them. Then every article of the produce of his little rented holding is taxed as he approaches the city gates to sell it. At home his pig is taxed, his dog, if he can keep one, his fowl, his house, his fire-place, his window light, his scanty earnings, titulo servizio, all are specially, and for the poor, heavily taxed. The consequence of this is, that few Italian peasants can, since Italy became “United,” drink the wine they produce, or eat the wheat they grow. Flesh meat, once in common use, is now as rare with them, as it used to be with the peasantry in Ireland. Milk or butter they hardly ever taste. Their food, often sadly insufficient, is reduced to pizzi, a kind of cake made of Maize or Indian meal; and vegetables, or fruit, when in season. Their drink is plain water. They are happy when they can mingle with it a little vinaccio, a liquid made after the grapes are pressed, and the wine drawn off, by pouring water on the refuse. Their homes are cheerless and miserable, their children left to live in ignorance, without schooling, employed in coarse labour, and clothed in rags. The Grand Duke of Tuscany had by wise and generous regulations placed hundreds, yea, even thousands of these peasants, happy as independent farmers on their own land. The crushing load of taxation has caused these to disappear, and their little holdings have been sold by auction to pay taxes, and have passed, of course, into the hands of speculators, generally Freemasons, who, when they become landlords, vie with the worst of their class, [115]in Ireland, in greed. In the States of the Church, where the careful, most Christian, and compassionate spirit and legislation of the Vicar of Christ prevailed, the peasantry ate their own bread, drank their own wine, and were decently, nay even picturesquely clad, as all travellers know, before the “liberation” of the Masonic Piedmontese. Not a family was without a little hoard of savings for the age of the old, and for the provision and placing in life of the young. Now, gaunt misery, even starvation, is the characteristic of these populations, after only some fifteen years of Masonic rule. The vast revenues of the Church are gone, none know whither. The nation is none the better of them, and the populace, in their dire poverty, can no longer go to the convent-gate, where before the poor never asked for bread in vain. The religious, deprived of their possessions, and severely repressed, have no longer food to give. They are fast disappearing, and the people already experience that the promises of Freemasonry, like the promises of its real author, are but apples of ashes, given but to lure, to deceive, and to destroy.

But to return. The Freemasonry of France and other Continental nations, which has done so much to give effect to the principles of Voltaire and Weishaupt, wishes decidedly not to go beyond the role played by the Freemasonry of Italy. But in France, as in Italy, an inexorable power is behind them, pushing them on, and also fanatically determined to push them off the scene when the time is ripe for doing so. This, the Freemasons of Italy well know; this, the men now in power in France feel. But if they move against the current coming upon them from the depths of Freemasonry, woe to them. The knife of the assassin is ready. The sentence of death is there, which they are too often told to remember, and which has before now reached the very foremost men of the sect who refused, or feared, for motives good or bad, to advance, or to advance as quickly as the hidden chiefs of the Revolution desired and decreed. It “removed” Nubius in the days of Mazzini. It “removed” Gambetta before our eyes. It aimed frequently at Napoleon III., [116]and would, most assuredly, have struck home, but its aim was only to terrify him that so he as a Carbonaro may be made to do its work soon and effectively. Masonry obtained its end, and Napoleon marched to the Italian war, and to his doom.

It is this invisible power; this secret, sleepless, fanatical Directory, which causes the solidarity, most evidently subsisting between Freemasonry in its many degrees and aspects and the various parties of anarchists which now arise everywhere in Europe. In the last century kings, princes, nobles, took up Masonry. It swept them all away before that century closed. In the beginning and progress of this century the Bourgeoisie took it up with still greater zest, and made it all their own. They for a long time would not tolerate such a thing as a poor Mason. Poverty was their enemy. What has come to pass? The Bourgeoisie at this moment are the peculiar enemy of the class of workmen who have invaded “Black” or “Illuminated” Masonry, and made it at last completely theirs. The Bourgeoisie are now called upon by the Socialists to be true to the real levelling principles of the brotherhood—to practise as well as preach “liberty, equality, and fraternity”; to divide their possessions with the working men—to descend to that elysium of Masonry, the level of the Commune—or die.

It is passing strange how Masonry, being what it is, has always managed to get a princely or noble leader for every one of its distinct onward movements against princes, property, and society. It had Egalité to lead the movement against the throne of France in the last century. It had the Duke of Brunswick, Frederick II., and Joseph II., to assist. In this century we see it ornamented by Louis Philip, Napoleon III., Victor Emmanuel and others as figure-heads; and then, Nubius and Palmerston both won from the leaders of the Conservative nobility, were its real chiefs. Now, when it appears in its worst possible form, it is championed by no less a personage than a Russian Prince, of high lineage, a representative of the wealthiest, [117]most exclusive, and perhaps richest aristocracy in the world. We find that in all cases of seduction like this, the promise of a mighty leadership has been the bait by which the valuable dupe has been caught by the sectaries. The advice of Piccolo Tigre for the seduction of princes has thus never been without its effect.

These new anarchical societies are not mere hap-hazard associations. They are most ably organized. There is, for instance, in the International, three degrees, or rather distinct societies, the one, however, led by the other. First come the International Brethren. These know no country but the Revolution; no other enemy but “reaction.” They refuse all conciliation or compromise, and they regard every movement as “reactionary” the moment it ceases to have for its object, directly or indirectly, the triumph of the principles of the French Revolution. They cannot go to any tribunal other than a jury of themselves, and must assist each other, lawfully or otherwise, to the “very limits of the possible.” No one is admitted who has not the firmness, fidelity, intelligence, and energy considered sufficient by the chiefs, to carry out as well as to accept the programme of the Revolution. They may leave the body, but if they do, they are put under the strictest surveillance, and any violation of the secret or indiscretion, damaging to the cause, is punished inexorably by death. They are not permitted to join any other society, secret or otherwise, or to take any public appointment without permission from their local committee; and then they must make known all secrets which could directly or indirectly serve the International cause.

The second class of Internationalists are the National Brethren. These are local socialists, and are not permitted even to suspect the existence of the International Brethren, who move among them and guide them in virtue of higher degree. They figure in the meetings of the society, and constitute the grand army of insurrection; they are, without knowing it, completely directed by the others. Both classes are formed strictly upon the lines laid down by Weishaupt.

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The third class comprises all manner of workmen’s societies. With these the two first mingle, and direct to the profit of the Revolution. The death penalty for indiscretion or treason is common in every degree.

The Black Hand and the Nihilists, are directed by the same secret agency, to violence and intrigue. Amongst them, but unknown to most of them, are the men of the higher degrees, who, in dark concert, easily guide the others as they please. They administer oaths, plan assassinations, urge on to action, and terrorize a whole country, leaving the rank and file who execute these things to their fate. It is unnecessary to dwell longer upon these sectaries, well known by the outrages they perpetrate.

These terrible societies are unquestionably connected with, and governed by, the dark directory, which now, as at all times since the days of Weishaupt, rules the secret societies of the world. Mahommedanism permitted the assassins gathered under the “old man of the mountain,” to assist in spreading the faith of Islam by terrorising over its Christian enemies. For a like purpose, whenever it judges it opportune, the dark Alta Vendita employs the assassins wholesale and retail of the secret societies. It believes it can control when it pleases these ruthless enemies of the human race. In this, as Nubius found out, it is far mistaken. But the encouragement of murderers as a “skirmishing” party of the Cosmopolitan Revolution remains since the days of Weishaupt—a policy kept steadily in view. To-day, that party is used against some power such as that of the Popes, or the petty princes of Italy. Great powers like England, in the belief that the mischief will stop in Italy, rejoice in the results attained by assassination. To-morrow it suits the policy of the Alta Vendita to make a blow at aristocracy in England, at despotism in Russia, at monarchy in Spain; and at once we find Invincibles formed from the advanced amongst the Fenians; Nihilists and the Black Hand from the ultras of the Carbonari; and Young Russia, ready to use dynamite and the knife and the revolver, reckless of every consequence, for the ends of the secret directory with [119]which the diplomacy of the world has now to count. The professional lectures on the use and manufacture of dynamite given to Nihilists in Paris, the numbers of them gathered together in that capital, the retreat afforded there to the known murderers of the Emperor Alexander, excited little comment in England. If referred to at all in the Press, it was not with that vigorous abhorrence which such proceedings should create. Often a chuckle of satisfaction has been indulged in by some at the fact. The utterances of the “advanced” members of the Masonic Intellectual party in the French Senate excusing Nihilists, were quoted with a kind of “faint damnation” equivalent to praise. I have no doubt but in Russia a similar kind of tender treatment is given to the Fenian dynamitards employed by O’Donovan Rossa. So long as the leading nations in Europe do not see in these anarchists and desperate miscreants the irreconcilable enemies of the human race, Paris, completely as it is Masonic, will afford them a shelter; and when French tribunals fine or imprison them, it will be as in Italy with a tenderness still further exhibited in gaols. The salvation of Europe depends upon a manly abhorrence of secret societies of every description, and the pulling up root and branch from human society of the sect of the Freemasons whose “illuminated” plottings have caused the mischief so far, and which if not vigorously repressed by a decided union of Christian nations will yet occasion far more. Deus fecit nationes sanabiles. The nations can be saved. But if they are to be saved, it must be by a return to Christianity and to public Christian usages; by eradicating Atheism and its socialistic doctrines as crimes against the majesty of God and the well-being of individual men and nations; by rigorously prohibiting every form of secret society for any purpose whatever; by shutting the mouth of the blasphemer; by controlling the voice of the scoffer and the impure in the Press and in every other public expression; by insisting on the vigorous, Christian education of children; and, if they can have the wisdom of doing it, by opening their ears to the warning voice of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. It is not an expression [120]of Irish discontent finding a vent in dynamite which England has most to fear from anarchy. Its value to the Revolution is the knowledge it gives to those millions whom English education-methods are depriving of faith in God, of the use of a terrible engine against order, property, and the very existence of the country as such. The dark directory of Socialism is powerful, wise, and determined. It laughs at Ireland and her wrongs. It hates, and ever will hate, the Irish people for their fidelity to the Catholic faith. But it seizes upon those subjects which Irish discontent in America affords, to make them teach the millions everywhere the power of dynamite, and the knife, and the revolver, against the comparatively few who hold property. This is the real secret of dynamite outrages in England, in Russia, and all the world over; and I fear we are but upon the threshold of a social convulsion which will try every nation where the wiles of the secret societies have obtained, through the hate of senseless Christian sectaries, the power for Atheism to dominate over the rising generation, and deprive it of Christian faith, and the fear and the love of God. I hope these my forebodings may not be realized, but I fear that even before another decade passes, Socialism will attempt a convulsion of the whole world equal to that of France in 1789; and that convulsion I fear this country shall not escape. Our only chance lies in a return to God; of which, alas, there are as yet but little signs amongst those who hold power amongst us. I mean of course a return to the public Christianity of the past.

To this pass Freemasonry has brought the world and itself. Its hidden Directory no outsider can know. Events may afterwards reveal who they were. Few can tell who is or is not within that dark conclave of lost but able men. There is no staying the onward progress of the tide which bears on the millions in their meshes, to ruin. The only thing we can hope to do, is to save ourselves from being deceived by their wiles. This, thank God, we may and will do. We can, at least, in compliance with the advice of our Holy Father, open the eyes of our own people, of our young men especially, to the nature and [121]atrocity of the evil, that seeing, they may avoid the snare laid for them by Atheism. To do this with greater effect we shall now, for awhile, consider the danger as it appears amongst ourselves. We shall also see what relation it has with its kind in other countries; and so we shall take a brief survey of

We hear from every side a great deal regarding the difference said to exist between Freemasonry as it has remained in the United Kingdom, and as it has developed itself on the Continent of Europe since its introduction there chiefly, we must remember, by British Jacobites, in the last century. It is argued, that the Illuminism of Weishaupt, or that of Saint Martin, did not cross the Channel to any great extent; and that, on the whole, the lodges of England, Ireland, and Scotland remained loyal to Monarchy and to religion. There is much truth in all this. The Conservative character of the mass of English Freemasons, and the fact, that amongst them were found the real governors and possessors of the country, made it impossible that such men could conspire against their own selves. But, as I have already shown, the fact that British lodges have always had intercourse with the lodges of the Continent,⁠[22] makes it equally impossible that some, at least, of the theories of the latter should not have got into the lodges at this side of the water. I believe it is owing mainly to this influence [122]over British Freemasons, that so many revolutionary movements have found favour with our legislators, who are, when they are not Catholics, generally of the craft. It was through it, that the fatal foreign policy of Lord Palmerston obtained such support, even against the conviction and instincts of the best and most farseeing statesmen of the country, as, for instance, the late Lord Derby. It was through it, certainly, that the cry for secular education was welcomed amongst us; that divorce and “liberal” marriage laws came into force, and that attacks were permitted upon the sanctity of the Sabbath and other Christian institutions.

Speaking on this latter subject, I must say, that one change in the habits of the people of England, and Scotland, too, struck me very forcibly on my return to the United Kingdom after a long absence. When, some twenty-three years ago, I last visited these Islands, it was a pleasure—and when one thought of the desecration of the Sabbath on the Continent, it was a pride—to witness the state of the streets of our great cities on Sundays. The shops were as shut up as at midnight. Every thoroughfare manifested a religious quiet, which reverentially and most emphatically proclaimed the reign of God in the country. On my return, I found that a new departure from good, old, holy customs had commenced, which to me looked anything but an improvement. I found in London and elsewhere, a multitude of shops with shutters removed, and goods displayed in the most tempting profusion, marked for sale, and distracting the passers-by even more than they could do on a week-day. A contrivance to keep within the law was introduced in many cases. It was a kind of iron-rail door-way, which left the full inside of the shop or store visible; so that, to all intents and purposes, the interior was within the turn of a key of being as much in the way of business as shops of the same kind in Paris. What prevented business being done, and clerks and assistants being forced to labour as vigorously on the Sabbath as on any other day? The law alone. This, a breath might destroy; and [123]public opinion, already accustomed to the sight of shop windows open on Sundays, would easily become reconciled to the turn of the key in the iron door. At first this would be only for a few hours, of course; but afterwards, just as in Paris, for ever. No doubt, a large percentage of good, religious shopkeepers avoid this scandal; and I hope the public of our cities will make out these, and patronize them in preference to others, who put the thin end of the wedge of destruction into our observance of the Christian sanctity of the Sabbath—an observance which, in the midst of a world falling fast from God, sustains that great, divine institution; and, besides giving time to worship God, protects the liberties of the poor, and prevents them from again becoming slaves. The doing away by degrees of the “Lord’s Day” is a favourite aim of Atheism; and it is by resisting this aim—by resisting all its aims on morality and religion—that we can hope to sustain the Christianity and the religious character of this country and its people.⁠[23]

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But granting that British lodges remain unaffected by Atheism and Anti-Christianity which, as we have seen, influence the whole mass of Continental Freemasonry, would they on that account be innocent? Could a conscientious man of any Christian denomination join them? The question is, of course, decided for Catholics. The Church forbids her children to be members of British or any Freemasonry under penalty of excommunication. The reasons which have led the Church to make a law so stringent and so serious must have been very grave. We have seen some at least of these reasons; and it is certainly with a full knowledge of facts that she has decreed the same penalties against such of her children as join the English lodges as she has against those who join the lodges of the Continent. Then, though parsons have become “chaplains” to lodges, Anglicans generally have shown no sympathy with the Freemasonry of England. I am not aware that Protestant denominations assume, or that their members grant them, the power of making laws which could bind in conscience. If they did possess such power, many of them, I have no doubt, would [125]forbid Freemasonry, as dangerous and evil in itself. But it needs not a law from man to guide one in determining what is clearly prohibited by reason and revelation. Now that which is called harmless Freemasonry with us, is, besides the evident danger to which it is exposed, of being made what it has become in the rest of the world, both sacrilegious and dangerous. If it be only a society for brotherly intercourse and mutual help, where can be the necessity of taking for such purposes, a number of oaths of the most frightful character? I shall with your permission quote some of these oaths—the most ordinary ones taken by every English Freemason who advances to the first three degrees of the Craft. Oaths far more blasphemous and terrible are taken in the higher degrees both in England and on the Continent. I shall also give you the passwords, grips, and signs for these three main degrees. You can then judge of the nature of the travesty that is made of the name of God for purposes utterly puerile, if not meant to cover such real and deadly secrecy as that of Continental Masonry.

The first of these oaths is administered to the candidate who wishes to become an apprentice. He is divested of all money and metal. His right arm, left breast and left knee are bare. His right heel is slipshod. He is blindfolded, and a rope called a “cable-tow,” adapted for hanging, is placed round his neck. A sword is pointed to his breast, and in this manner he is placed kneeling before the Master of the Lodge, in whose presence he takes the following oath, his hand placed on a Bible:

“I, N. N., in the presence of the great Architect of the Universe, and of this warranted, worthy and worshipful Lodge of free and accepted Masons, regularly assembled and properly dedicated, of my own free will and accord, do hereby and hereon, most solemnly and sincerely swear, that I will always hail, conceal, and never reveal, any part or parts, point or points, of the secrets and mysteries of, or belonging to, free and accepted Masons in masonry, which have been, shall now, or hereafter may be, communicated to me, unless it [126]be to a true and lawful brother or brothers, and not even to him or them, till after due trial, strict examination, or sure information from a well-known brother, that he or they are worthy of that confidence, or in the body of a just, perfect, and regular lodge of accepted Freemasons. I further solemnly promise, that I will not write those secrets, print, carve, engrave, or otherwise them delineate, or cause or suffer them to be done so by others, if in my power to prevent it, on anything movable or immovable under the canopy of heaven, whereby or whereon any letter, character or figure, or the least trace of a letter, character or figure may become legible or intelligible to myself, or to anyone in the world, so that our secrets, arts, and hidden mysteries, may improperly become known through my unworthiness. These several points I solemnly swear to observe, without evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation of any kind, under no less a penalty, on the violation of any of them, than to have my throat cut across, my tongue torn out by the root, and my body buried in the sand of the sea at low water mark, or a cable’s length from the shore, where the tide regularly ebbs and flows twice in the twenty-four hours, or the more efficient punishment of being branded as a wilfully perjured individual, void of all moral worth, and unfit to be received in this warranted lodge, or in any other warranted lodge, or society of Masons, who prize honour and virtue above all the external advantages of rank and fortune: So help me, God, and keep me steadfast in this my great and solemn obligation of an Entered Apprentice Freemason.

“W. M.—What you have repeated may be considered a sacred promise as a pledge of your fidelity, and to render it a solemn obligation, I will thank you to seal it with your lips on the volume of the sacred law.” (Kisses the Bible.)

When the above oath is duly taken, the “sign” is given. This, for an Apprentice, consists of a gesture made by drawing the hand smartly across the throat and dropping it to the side. [127]This gesture has reference to the penalty attached to breaking the oath. The grip is also a penal sign. It consists of a distinct pressure of the top of the right hand thumb to the first joint from the wrist of the right hand forefinger, grasping the finger with the hand. The pass-word is Boaz, and is given letter by letter.

There are a number of quaint ceremonial charges and lectures which may be seen by consulting any of the Manuals of Freemasonry, and which are perfectly given in a treatise by one Carlile, an Atheist, who undertook for the benefit of Infidelity to divulge the whole of the mere ceremonial secrecy of English Freemasons, in order to advance the real secret of it all, namely, Pantheism or Atheism, and hatred for every form of Christianity. The English Freemasons made too much of the ceremonies and too little of Atheism, and hence the design of real Infidelity to get the “real secret” into English lodges by expelling the pretended one.

The oath of the second degree, that of Fellow-Craft, is as follows:—

“I, N. N., in the presence of the Grand Geometrician of the Universe, and in this worshipful and warranted Lodge of Fellow-Craft Masons, duly constituted, regularly assembled, and properly dedicated, of my own free will and accord, do hereby and hereon most solemnly promise and swear that I will always hail, conceal, and never reveal any or either of the secrets or mysteries of, or belonging to, the second degree of Freemasonry, known by the name of the Fellow-Craft; to him who is but an Entered Apprentice, no more than I would either of them to the uninitiated or the popular world who are not Masons. I further solemnly pledge myself to act as a true and faithful craftsman, obey signs, and maintain the principles inculcated in the first degree. All these points I most solemnly swear to obey, without evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation of any kind, under no less a penalty, on the violation of any of them, in addition to my former obligation, than to have my left breast cut open, my heart torn [128]therefrom, and given to the ravenous birds of the air, or the devouring beasts of the field, as a prey: So help me Almighty God, and keep me steadfast in this my great and solemn obligation of a Fellow-Craft Mason.”

After taking this oath with all formality, the Fellow-Craft is entrusted with the sign, grip and pass-word by the Master, who thus addresses him:—

“You, having taken the solemn obligation of a Fellow-Craft Freemason, I shall proceed to entrust you with the secrets of the degree. You will advance towards me as at your initiation. Now take another pace with your left foot, bringing the right heel into its hollow, as before. That is the second regular step in Freemasonry, and it is in this position that the secrets of the degree are communicated. They consist, as in the former instance, of a sign, token, and word; with this difference that the sign is of a three-fold nature. The first part of a three-fold sign is called the sign of fidelity, emblematically to shield the repository of your secrets from the attacks of the cowan. (The sign is made by pressing the right hand on the left breast, extending the thumb perpendicularly to form a square.) The second part is called the hailing sign, and is given by throwing the left hand up in this manner (horizontal from the shoulder to the elbow, and perpendicular from the elbow to the ends of the fingers, with the thumb and forefinger forming a square.) The third part is called the penal sign, and is given by drawing the hand across the breasts and dropping it to the side. This is in allusion to the penalty of your obligation, implying that as a man of honour, and a Fellow-Craft, you would rather have your heart torn from your breast, than to improperly divulge the secrets of this degree. The grip, or token, is given by a distinct pressure of the thumb on the second joint of the hand or that of the middle finger. This demands a word; a word to be given and received with the same strict caution as the one in the former degree, either by letters or syllables. The word is Jachin. [129]As in the course of the evening you will be called on for this word, the Senior Deacon will now dictate the answers you will have to give.”

The next oath is that of the highest substantial degree in old Freemasonry, namely, that of Master. Attention is specially to be paid to the words “or at my own option.”

“I, N. N., in the presence of the Most High, and of this worthy and worshipful lodge, duly constituted, regularly assembled, and properly dedicated, of my own free will and accord, do hereby and hereon, most solemnly promise and swear, that I will always hail, conceal, and never reveal, any or either of the secrets or mysteries of, or belonging to, the degree of a Master Mason, to anyone in the world, unless it be to him or them to whom the same may justly and lawfully belong; and not even to him or them, until after due trials, strict examination, or full conviction, that he or they are worthy of that confidence, or in the bosom of a Master Mason’s Lodge. I further most solemnly engage, that I will keep the secrets of the Third Degree from him who is but a Fellow-Craft Mason, with the same strict caution as I will those of the Second Degree from him who is but an Entered Apprentice Freemason: the same or either of them, from anyone in the known world, unless to true and lawful Brother Masons. I further solemnly engage myself, to advance to the pedestal of the square and compasses, to answer and obey all lawful signs and summonses sent to me from a Master Mason’s Lodge, if within the length of my cable-tow, and to plead no excuse except sickness, or the pressing emergency of my own private or public avocations. I furthermore solemnly pledge myself, to maintain and support the five points of fellowship, in act as well as in word; that my hand given to a Mason shall be the sure pledge of brotherhood; that my foot shall traverse through danger and difficulties, to unite with his in forming a column of mutual defence and safety; that the posture of my daily supplications shall remind me of his wants, and dispose my heart to succour his distresses [130]and relieve his necessities, as far as may fairly be done without detriment to myself or connexions; that my breast shall be the sacred repository of his secrets, when delivered to me as such; murder, treason, felony, and all other offences contrary to the law of God, or the ordinances of the realm, being at all times most especially excepted or at my own option: and finally, that I will support a Master Mason’s character in his absence as well as I would if he were present. I will not revile him myself, nor knowingly suffer others to do so; but will boldly repel the slanderer of his good name, and strictly respect the chastity of those that are most dear to him, in the persons of his wife, sister, or his child: and that I will not knowingly have unlawful carnal connexion with either of them. I furthermore solemnly vow and declare, that I will not defraud a Brother Master Mason, or see him defrauded of the most trifling amount, without giving him due and timely notice thereof; that I will also prefer a Brother Master Mason in all my dealings, and recommend him to others as much as lies in my power, so long as he shall continue to act honourably, honestly and faithfully towards me and others. All these several points I promise to observe, without equivocation or mental reservation of any kind, under no less a penalty, on the violation of any of them, than to have my body severed in two, my bowels torn thereout, and burned to ashes in the centre, and those ashes scattered before the four cardinal points of heaven, so that no trace or remembrance of me shall be left among men, particularly among Master Masons: So help me God, and keep me steadfast in this grand and solemn obligation, being that of a Master Mason.”

“A long ceremony, in which the newly-made Master is made to sham a dead man and to be raised to life by the Master, grasping, or rather clawing his hand or wrist, by putting his right foot to his foot, his knee to his knee, bringing up the right breast to his breast, and with his hand over the back. This is practised in Masonry as the five points of Fellowship.”

[131]

Then the Master gives the signs, grip, and pass-word, saying:

“Of the signs, the first and second are casual, the third is penal. The first casual sign is called the sign of horror, and is given from the Fellow-Craft’s hailing sign, by dropping the left hand and elevating the right, as if to screen the eyes from a painful sight, at the same time throwing the head over the right shoulder, as a remove or turning away from that sight. It alludes to the finding of our murdered Master Hiram by the twelve Fellow-Crafts. The second casual sign is called the sign of sympathy or sorrow, and is given by bending the head a little forward, and by striking the right hand gently on the forehead. The third is called the penal sign, because it alludes to the penalty of your obligation, and is given by drawing the hand across the centre of the body, dropping it to the side, and then raising it again to place the point of the thumb on the navel. It implies that, as a man of honour, and a Master Mason, you would rather be severed in two than improperly divulge the secrets of this Degree. The grip or token is the first of the five points of fellowship. The five points of fellowship are: first, a grip with the right hand of each other’s wrist, with the points of the fingers: second, right foot parallel with right foot on the inside: third, right knee to right knee: fourth, right breast to right breast: fifth, hand over shoulder, supporting the back. It is in this position, and this only, except in open lodge, and then but in a whisper, that the word is given. It is Mahabone or Macbenach. The former is the ancient, the latter the modern word.”

I have here given an idea of the principal ceremonies used in making English Freemasons. I could not in the space I have allotted to myself, enter, as I would wish to do, upon other features of its ridiculous rites and observances, many of which in still higher degrees, get a gradually opening, Atheistic and most anti-Christian interpretation. But it will suffice for my purpose to bring one fact under your observation. In the ceremonies accompanying initiations, many charges are made to [132]the candidates and lectures and catechisings are given. In these, in the highest degrees, the real secret is gradually divulged in a manner apparently the most simple. For instance in the degree of the Knights Adepts of the Eagle or the Sun, the Master in his charge describing the Bible, Compass, and Square, says:—

“By the Bible, you are to understand that it is the only law you ought to follow. It is that which Adam received at his creation, and which the Almighty engraved in his heart. This law is called natural law, and shows positively that there is but one God, and to adore only him without any sub-division or interpolation. The Compass gives you the faculty of judging for yourself, that whatever God has created is well, and he is the sovereign author of everything. Existing in himself, nothing is either good or evil, because we understand by this expression, an action done which is excellent in itself, is relative, and submits to the human understanding, judging to know the value and price of such action, and that God, with whom everything is possible, communicates nothing of his will but such as his great goodness pleases; and everything in the universe is governed as he has decreed it with justice, being able to compare it with the attributes of the Divinity. I equally say, that in himself there is no evil, because he has made everything with exactness, and that everything exists according to his will; consequently, as it ought to be. The distance between good and evil, with the Divinity, cannot be more justly and clearly compared than by a circle formed with a compass: from the points being reunited there is formed an entire circumference; and when any point in particular equally approaches or equally separates from its point, it is only a faint resemblance of the distance between good and evil, which we compare by the points of a compass forming a circle, which circle, when completed, is God!”

From this it will be clear, to what the so-called veneration for the Bible and for religion comes to, at last, in all Freemasonry. From apparent agreement with Christianity it ends in Atheism. [133]In the essentially Jewish symbolism of Masonry, the Trinity is ignored from the commencement, and God reduced to a Grand Architect. The mention of Christ is carefully avoided. By degrees the Bible is not revelation at all—only the laws written on the heart of every man by the one God—the one God, yet, however, somewhat respected. But in a little while, we find the “one God” reduced to very small dimensions indeed. You may judge for yourself by the Compass that God exists in himself, “therefore”—though it is hard here to see the therefore—“nothing is either good or evil.” Here is a blow at the moral law. Finally, “God” spoken of with such respect in all the going before degrees is reduced to a nonentity “which circle when completed is God.” This is a perfect introduction on Weishaupt’s lines to Weishaupt’s Pantheism.

But the theories of Masonry however developed, do less practical mischief than the conduct it fosters. The English, happily for themselves, are, in many useful respects, an eminently inconsistent people. The gentry amongst them can join Freemasonry and yet keep, in the most illogical manner possible, their very diluted form of Christianity. It has been otherwise with the more reasoning Continental Masons. They either abandon the Craft or abandon their Christianity. But the morality inculcated by Freemasonry has done immense damage in English-speaking countries nevertheless. The very oath binding a Master Mason to respect the chastity of certain near relations of another Master Mason, insinuates a wide field for licence; and Masons, even in England, have never been the most moral of men. It leads them, we too well know, to the neglect of home duties, and it leads them to an unjust persecution of outsiders, for the benefit of Craftsmen—a matter more than once complained of as injurious in trade, politics, and social life. I need not call to your mind what mischief—what foul murder—it has led to in America. I prefer to let Carlile, the Infidel apologist of dark Masonry, speak on this point. He says:—

“My exposure of Freemasonry in 1825 led to its exposure [134]in the United States of America; and a Mason there of the name of William Morgan, having announced his intention to assist in the work of exposure, was kidnapped under pretended forms and warrants of law, by his brother Masons, removed from the State of New York to the borders of Canada, near the falls of Niagara, and there most barbarously murdered. This happened in 1826. The States have been for many years much excited upon the subject; a regular warfare has arisen between Masons and anti-Masons;—societies of anti-Masons have been formed; newspapers and magazines started; and many pamphlets and volumes, with much correspondence, published; so that, before the Slavery Question was pressed among them, all parties had merged into Masons and anti-Masons. Several persons were punished for the abduction of Morgan; but the murderers were sheltered by Masonic Lodges, and rescued from justice. This was quite enough to show that Masonry, as consisting of a secret association, or an association with secret oaths and ceremonies, is a political and social evil.”

“While writing this, I have been informed that individual members of Orange Lodges have smiled at the dissolution of their Lodges, with the observation, that precisely the same association can be carried on under the name of Masonry. This is an evil that secret associations admit. No form of anything of the kind, when secret, can protect itself from abuses; and this is a strong reason why Masonic associations should get rid of their unnecessary oaths, revise their constitutions, and throw themselves open to public inspection and report. There is enough that may be made respectable in Masonry, in the present state of mind and customs, to admit of scrutinising publicity.”

The question of the death of Morgan, and other unhappy incidents in the history of Freemasonry in the United States, are very fully treated by Father Müller, C.SS.R. Yet, strange to say, notwithstanding anti-Masonic societies being formed extensively in the Great Republic, and the horror created by the murder of [135]Morgan, there is no part of the world where Masonry flourishes more than in America. I believe it will yet become the greatest enemy of the free institutions of that country. I am willing to admit, however, that Freemasonry has, thank God, made little progress amongst Catholics in Ireland, or Catholics of Irish birth or blood anywhere. This is true, and the same may be said of millions of Protestants who have not joined Masonry. But the evil is amongst us for all that, and it is necessary that we should know what it is and how it manifests itself.

We know too, that besides the movements which Masonry has been called upon to serve by means of Masonic organs, and resolutions inspired by Atheism, and advocated by its hidden friends scattered through British lodges, there have been at all times, at least in London, some lodges affiliated to Continental lodges, and doing the work of Weishaupt. Of this class were several lodges of foreigners and Jews, which existed in London contemporaneously with Lord Palmerston, and which aided him in the government and direction of the secret societies of the world, and in the Infidel Revolution which was carried on during his reign with such ability and success. In the works of Deschamps, a detailed account will be found of several of these high temples of iniquity and deadly, anti-Christian intrigue. But, besides, Masonry of any description—and every description, for reasons already stated, even the most apparently harmless, is positively bad—bad, because of its oaths, because of its associations, and because of its un-Christian character, there were other societies formed on the lines of Illuminated Masonry under various names in Great Britain, and especially in Ireland, of which I deem it my duty while treating of the subject to speak as plainly as I possibly can. The most notable amongst these is—

From the establishment of Illuminated Masonry, its Supreme Council never lost sight of a discontented population in any part of the earth. Aspiring to universal rule, it carefully took cognizance of every national or social movement among the masses, which gave promise of advancing its aims. It was thus it succeeded with the operative and peasant population of France, so as to accomplish the first and every subsequent revolution in that country. The letters of the Alta Vendita and of Piccolo Tigre especially, have carefully had in view the corruption of the masses of working men, so as to de-Christianize them adroitly, and fit and fashion them into revolutionists. Now amongst all the peoples of the earth, those who most impeded Atheistic designs, were the Catholics of Ireland. Forced to leave their country in millions, they brought to Scotland, to England, to the United States, to Canada, to the West Indies, to our growing Colonies—all empires in germ—of Australia, and as soldiers of England, to India, Africa and China, the strongest existing faith in that very religion, which Atheistic Freemasonry so much desires to destroy. It would be impossible to imagine, that the dark Directories of the Illuminati did not take careful account of this population. And they did. In the years preceding 1798, they had emissaries, like those sent subsequently amongst the Catholic Carbonari of Naples, active amongst the ranks of the United Irishmen. France, then completely under the control of the Illuminati, sent aid which she sorely wanted at home, at the instigation of these very emissaries, to found an Irish Republic, of course on the Atheistic lines, upon which all the Republics then founded by her arms, were established. That expedition ended in failure; but organisations on the lines of Freemasonry continued for many years afterwards to distract Ireland. As in Italy, the Illuminati had taught the peasantry of Ireland how to conspire in secret, oath bound, and, of course, often murderous, [137]but always hopeless, league against their oppressors. These societies never accomplished one atom of good for Ireland. They did much mischief. But what cared the hidden enemies of religion for the real happiness of the Irish? Their gain consisted in placing antagonism between the faithful pastors of the people and the members of those secret societies of Ribbonmen, Molly Maguires, and other such associations, organized by designing and, generally, traitorous scoundrels. In 1848, there was something like a tendency in Ireland to imitate the secret revolutionary movements established on the Continent by Mazzini. We had a Young Ireland Organization. That was not initiated as a secret society. Neither was the Society of United Irishmen at first. But the open United Irishmen led to the secret society; and so very easily might the Young Ireland movement of 1848, if it had not been prematurely brought to a conclusion. As it was, it led, without its leaders desiring it—indeed against the will of many of them—to the deepest, most cunningly devised, wide-spread, and mischievous, secret organization into which heedless young Irishmen have been ever yet entrapped. This was the Fenian Secret Society.

We can speak of the action of the originators of this movement as connected with the worst form of Atheistic, Continental, secret-society organization; for they boasted of having gone over to France “to study” the plans elaborated by the most abandoned revolutionists in that country. For my own part, I believe that these hot-headed young men, as they were at the time, never took the initiative themselves, but were entrapped into this course of action by agents of the designing Directory of the Atheistic movement, at that moment presided over by Lord Palmerston himself. That the association of the Fenians should be created and afterwards sacrificed to England, would be but in keeping with the traditions of the Alta Vendita, in whose place Lord Palmerston and his council stood. We read in the life of the celebrated Nubius, the monarch who preceded Palmerston, that he often betrayed into the hands of the Pontifical Government [138]some lodges of the Carbonari under his own rule, for the purpose of screening himself and of punishing these very lodges. If he found a lodge indiscreet, or possessing amongst its members too much religion to be tractable enough to follow the Infidel movement, he betrayed it. He told the Government how to find it out; where it had its arms concealed; who were its members; and what were their misdeeds. They were accordingly taken red-handed, tried, and executed. Nubius got rid of a difficult body, for whom he felt nothing but contempt; and his position at Rome was rendered secure to gnaw, as he himself expressed it, at the foundations of that Pontifical power, which thought that any connection, such a respectable nobleman as he was, might have with assassins, could be only in reality for the good of religion and the government, to which by station, education, and even class-interest he was allied. Palmerston, too, if he wanted a blind to lead his colleagues astray, could, in the knowledge to be obtained of Fenian plots in Ireland and America, have a ready excuse for his well-known, constant intercourse with the heads of the Revolution of the world. What scruple would he have, any more than his predecessor, Nubius, in urging on a few men whom he despised, to revolution; and then using means to strangle their efforts and themselves if necessary. It was good policy in the sight of some at least of his colleagues, to manifest Ireland as revolutionary, especially when such a man as Palmerston had all the threads of the conspiracy which aimed at the revolution in his hand. They knew that he knew where to send his spies, and thwart at the opportune moment the whole movement. He could cause insurrections to be made in the most insane manner, as to time and place, just as they were made, and cover the conspirators with easy defeat and ridicule.

However this may be, the Fenian movement after being nursed in America, appeared in Ireland, as a society founded upon lines not very unlike those of the Carbonari of Italy. It was Illuminated Freemasonry with, of course, another name, in order not to avert the pious Catholic men it meant to seduce [139]and destroy from its ranks. But being what it was, it could not long conceal its innate, determined hostility to the Catholic religion; and it proved itself in Ireland, and wherever it took a hold of the people in the three kingdoms, one of the most formidable enemies to the souls of the Irish people that had ever appeared.

When I say this, do not imagine that I mean for a single moment to infer, that many of those who joined it, held or knew its views. If all I have hitherto stated proves anything, it is this: The nature of the infernal conspiracy which we are considering is essentially hypocritical. It comes as Freemasonry comes, with a lie in its mouth. It comes under false pretences always. So it came to Italy under the name of Carbonarism. It came not only professing the purest Catholic religion, but absolutely made the saying of prayers, the frequentation of the sacraments, the open confession of the Faith, and devotion to the Vicar of Christ, a matter of obligation. I do not believe that Fenianism came to Ireland with so many pious professions. But it came in the guise of patriotism, which in Ireland, for many centuries, was so bound up with religion, that in the minds of the peasantry, one became inseparably connected with the other. The friend of one was looked upon as the friend of the other; and the enemy of the one was regarded as the enemy of the other. Hence, in the minds of the Irish, in my own boyhood, the French who came over under Hoche, were regarded as Catholic. The Irish would have it, that France was then as it was when the “wild geese” went over to fight for the Bourbons, a Catholic nation. The truth was, of course, quite the other way; but so long were the Irish people accustomed to regard the French as Catholic, that they still cherished the delusion, and would hear or believe nothing to the contrary. It was enough, therefore, for Fenianism to appear in the guise of a national movement meant to free the country from Protestant England, that it should without question be looked upon as—at least in the first instance—essentially Catholic. Nevertheless, after its leaders had gone to [140]Paris to study the methods of the French and Italian Carbonari, and returned to create circles and centres on the plan of the Vendite of the Italians, they showed a large amount of the Infidel spirit of the men they found in France, and determined to spread it in Ireland. They well knew that the Catholic clergy would be sure to oppose and denounce them as would every wise and really patriotic man in the country. The utter impossibility of any military movement which could be made by any available number of destitute Irish peasantry, succeeding at the time, was in itself reason enough why men of any humanity, not to speak at all of the clergy, should endeavour to dissuade the people from the mad enterprise of the Fenians. Every good and experienced Irishman; Smith O’Brien; the editors of the Nation; and others did so; yet strange to say, the leaders of the disastrous movement, the Irish, and the American organizers, were permitted by the English Government, at least so long as Lord Palmerston lived, to act almost as they pleased in Ireland. The Government knew, that while impotent to injure England, these agitators and conspirators were doing the work which English anti-Catholic hate desired to do, more effectively than any delusion, or bribe, or persecution which heresy had been able to invent. They were undermining the Faith of the people and destroying secretly but surely that love and respect for the clergy which had distinguished the country ever since the days of St. Patrick. A paper edited by one of these men, was circulated for at least two years in the homes of nearly all the population. It contained, to be sure, much incitement to revolution; but it contained also that which in Lord Palmerston’s eyes compensated for the kind of revolution Fenians could make a thousand fold—it contained the most able, virulent, and subtle attacks upon the clergy. This paper remained undisturbed until Palmerston passed away, and affairs in America made Fenianism a real danger for his successors in office. Its issues contained letters written in its own office, but purporting to come from various country parishes, calumniating [141]many of the most venerable of the priests of the people. Men who so loved their flocks as to sacrifice all for them during the famine years—men who had lived with them from youth to old age, were now so artfully assailed as foes of their country’s liberation, that the people maddened and deluded by such attacks, passed them on the road without the usual loving salutation Catholics in Ireland give to and receive from their priests. The secret sect backed up the action of the newspaper. Its leaders got the “word of command” for that purpose, and had to be obeyed. Matters proceeded daily from bad to worse, until at last Divine Providence manifested clearly the deadly designs against religion underlying the Fenian movement, and the people of Ireland recoiled from it and were saved.

And then it was hard to keep, even the leaders themselves, bad to the end. At death, few of them like to face the God they have outraged, without reconciliation. But in life these men, like the informers with whom they are so often in alliance, do desperate things to deceive first, and then, for a passing interest, to ruin their unfortunate dupes afterwards. For my own part, I am of opinion that the man who deludes a number of brave young hearts to rush into a murderous enterprise, hopeless from the outset, is as dangerous as the man who seduces men to become assassins and then sacrifices their lives to save his own neck from the halter. At most there is but the difference of degree in the guilt and malignity of the leaders who urged on impetuous youth to such risings as those of the snowstorms in 1867, and of the scoundrel who planned assassination, entrapped and excited the same kind of youth to execute it, and then swore their lives away to save himself from his justly deserved doom. I am led to this conclusion inevitably from the account given of the Fenian rising, by one of the purest Irish patriots of this century, one just gone amidst the tears of his fellow-countrymen, with stainless name, and a career of glorious labour, to his eternal reward. Mr. Alexander M. Sullivan in his interesting “Story of Ireland” says:

[142]

“There was up to the last a fatuous amount of delusion maintained by the ‘Head Centre’ on this side of the Atlantic, James Stephens, a man of marvellous subtlety and wondrous powers of plausible imposition; crafty, cunning, and quite unscrupulous as to the employment of means to an end. However, the army ready to hand in America, if not utilized at once, would soon be melted away and gone, like the snows of past winters. So in the middle of 1865 it was resolved to take the field in the approaching autumn.

“It is hard to contemplate this decision or declaration, without deeming it either insincere or wicked on the part of the leader or leaders, who at the moment knew the real condition of affairs in Ireland. That the enrolled members, howsoever few, would respond when called upon, was certain at any time; for the Irish are not cowards; the men who joined this desperate enterprise were sure to prove themselves courageous, if not either prudent or wise. But the pretence of the revolutionary chief, that there was a force able to afford the merest chance of success, was too utterly false not to be plainly criminal.

“Towards the close of 1865 came almost contemporaneously the Government swoop on the Irish Revolutionary executive, and the deposition—after solemn judicial trial, as prescribed by the laws of the society—of O’Mahony, the American ‘Head Centre,’ for crimes and offences alleged to be worse than mere imbecility, and the election in his stead of Colonel William R. Roberts, an Irish American merchant of high standing and honourable character, whose fortune had always generously aided Irish patriotic, charitable, or religious purposes. The deposed official, however, did not submit to the application of the society rules. He set up a rival association, a course in which he was supported by the Irish Head Centre; and a painful scene of factious and acrimonious contention between the two parties thus antagonised, caused the English Government to hope—nay, [143]for a moment, fully to believe—that the disappearance of both must soon follow.”

Mr. A. M. Sullivan, after speaking of the history of the Fenian movement in America, continues:—

“This brief episode at Ridgeway was for the confederated Irish the one gleam to lighten the page of their history for 1866. That page was otherwise darkened and blotted by a record of humiliating and disgraceful exposures in connection with the Irish Head Centre. In autumn of that year he proceeded to America, and finding his authority repudiated and his integrity doubted, he resorted to a course which it would be difficult to characterize too strongly. By way of attracting a following to his own standard, and obtaining a flush of money, he publicly announced that in the winter months close at hand, and before the new year dawned, he would (sealing his undertaking with an awful invocation of the Most High) be in Ireland, leading the long-promised insurrection. Had this been a mere ‘intention’ which might be ‘disappointed,’ it was still manifestly criminal thus to announce to the British government, unless, indeed, his resources in hand were so enormous as to render England’s preparations a matter of indifference. But it was not as an ‘intention’ he announced it and swore to it. He threatened with the most serious personal consequences any and every man soever, who might dare to express a doubt that the event would come off as he swore. The few months remaining of the year flew by; his intimate adherents spread the rumour that he had sailed for the scene of action, and in Ireland the news occasioned almost a panic. One day, towards the close of December however, all New York rang with the exposure that Stephens had never quitted for Ireland, but was hiding from his own enraged followers in Brooklyn. The scenes that ensued were such as may well be omitted from these pages. In that bitter hour thousands of honest impulsive, and self-sacrificing Irishmen endured the anguish of discovering that they had been [144]deceived as never had men been before; that an idol worshipped with phrenzied devotion was, after all, a thing of clay.”

The plottings of the “Head Centre,” however, were not at an end. Mr. A. M. Sullivan continues:—

“In Ireland, where Stephens had been most implicitly believed in, the news of this collapse—which reached early in 1867—filled the circles with keen humiliation. The more dispassionate wisely rejoiced that he had not attempted to keep a promise, the making of which was in itself a crime; but the desire to wipe out the reproach supposed to be cast on the whole enrolment by his public defection became so overpowering, that a rising was arranged to come off simultaneously all over Ireland on the 5th March, 1867.

“Of all the insensate attempts at revolution recorded in history, this one assuredly was preëminent. The most extravagant of the ancient Fenian tales supplies nothing more absurd. The inmates of a lunatic asylum could scarcely have produced a more impossible scheme. The one redeeming feature in the whole proceeding was the conduct of the hapless men who engaged in it. Firstly, their courage in responding to such a summons at all, unarmed and unaided as they were. Secondly, their intense religious feeling. On the days immediately preceding the 5th March, the Catholic churches were crowded by the youth of the country, making spiritual preparations for what they believed would be a struggle in which many would fall and few survive. Thirdly, their noble humanity to the prisoners whom they captured, their scrupulous regard for private property, and their earnest anxiety to carry on their struggle without infraction in aught of the laws and rules of honourable warfare.

“In the vicinity of Dublin, and in Tipperary, Cork, and Limerick counties, attacks were made on the police stations, several of which were captured by or surrendered to the insurgents. But a circumstance as singular as any recorded in history intervened to suppress the movement more effectually [145]than the armies and fleets of England ten times told could do. On the next night following the rising—the 6th March—there commenced a snowstorm which will long be remembered in Ireland, as it was probably without precedent in our annals. For twelve days and nights without intermission, a tempest of snow and sleet raged over the land, piling snow to the depth of yards on all the mountains, streets, and highways. The plan of the insurrection evidently had for its chief feature desultory warfare in the mountain districts, but this intervention of the elements utterly frustrated the project, and saved Ireland from the horrors of a protracted struggle.”

Who that reads over this brief history of the contest between the Fenian leaders and the priesthood of Ireland, may not see the wisdom and goodness of the religious guides of the people, and the reckless cruelty and callousness of the secret society seducers? It was a life and death struggle. The true friends of the people could not look on and see them led to ruin of soul and body. They knew by a Light from on high, more certain than any that guides ships from danger, the real nature of the secret conspiracy that laid its meshes to deceive, to ruin, and to betray. They raised the warning voice, and for this were secretly assailed, maligned, circumvented, and even threatened in body, in life, in means, and in character. But the minister of God is not to be deterred by any such menaces. He that in the penal days braved the dungeon and the halter for them, and who every day braves pestilence, want, and death if necessary for their sakes, who is of them and with them from the cradle to the grave, whose only interest is their interest, has surely more claims upon their love and allegiance than any conspirator. We learn wisdom from the end of all the secret-society seducers—men first seduced themselves, and who then try to seduce others. But surely the Irish people and the young men of Ireland especially, have had experience enough of the whole lot of them. All seduce them into fatal courses under pretence of benefiting Ireland. Nearly all sell and betray them. [146]All profit—if profit their wretched gain can be called—by the folly of our too fervid, too generous, too confiding youth.

Some of these same seducers are found, I am informed, plying their deadly trade amongst Irish working men in the large manufacturing districts of England and Scotland. For aught I know they may be found in this very city or its neighbourhood. They certainly are no friends of the Irish working man or of his family. Hopeless and criminal as were the Fenian conspiracies, the attempts of these openly lecturing, or worse still, secretly agitating, secret-society seducers, are much worse. At best they are idlers who, instead of devoting themselves to honest toil, find it more congenial and easy to live upon the “subscriptions” of poor working men, who give to these oily-tongued vagabonds a portion of their hard earnings “to liberate Ireland.” God help us! To liberate Ireland by means of such heartless schemers, who would be only too happy to sell Ireland and their dupes into the bargain, for a wonderfully small consideration. It is well if these dangerous prowlers do not do worse and “swear in” some incautious, hot-headed, simple boys into societies which are seen to eventually bring the prison plank-bed if not the halter. The Irish working man in England, in Scotland, or in America, has no worse enemy than these itinerant agitators who perambulate the country, creating excitement at one time, and encouraging secret-society practices at another. They render the condition of the Irish working man often intolerable. They lead him from home and to the public house. They encourage him in the worst possible habits for himself and his little family. They drag him from his God, from his religion, and often to his ruin. The best way, believe me, for the Irish working man to serve Ireland in this country is to keep strictly sober, to mind his employment, to attend well to the Catholic education of his children, to live frugally, to practise economy, to become a respectable member of society. He will then have a voice and a voice that will be heard in the land, and when he comes to use the franchise he will benefit his [147]fellows, and do something real and tangible in the Parliament of England, to serve Ireland. The victim of the secret society agitators is kept in his vices and drunkenness. He is never religious. He lives in rags and wretchedness, and dies in the workhouse or in the gaol.

Nor can there be a spectacle presented by history more sad than the fate of the unfortunate Fenian leaders. The Irish who have died directly for their faith in the dungeon, on the rack, or upon the gibbet, have had the crowning consolation of martyrdom and the bright light of heaven when their sufferings were over. Those who fell victims of extermination, of hunger, want, and exile, might, at least indirectly, trace their sorrows to the same cause—grand, unalterable fidelity to the Church of God. The martyr’s hope lit up their lives. The joy they had even in famine, even in death, no man could take from them. From their perishing bodies came forth the radiance of immortality. Their souls, naturally, the noblest souls, the most gifted, the very purest, given by God to this earth, conquered the very world that scorned and crucified them, with Him they loved and feared not to follow. They endured the pangs of starvation, cold and rags just as they did the gaol, the fever-ship, and the gallows, with a sublime, godlike fortitude. Godlike, for it came from God indeed. Who ever heard of one of these millions of slowly-tormented victims seeking death by suicide—the remedy of the disbeliever? Who ever knew of one of them to seek to lengthen life by means which a section now condones, indeed half praises, in the case of the no more than equally tried man-slayers and cannibals in a shipwreck? Who that remembers the dread years of the great famine of ’47 and ’48 does not know of thousands and of tens of thousands of Irishmen and Irishwomen, aye, of Irish little children, that then laid down their lives in horrible agonies, sooner than receive from a hellish [148]so-called “charity” the food, clothing, and patronage that would enable them to live in comfort,—a “charity” which callous proselytizers offered everywhere at the price of one single act of apostasy—at the price of even eating meat on a Friday in contempt of God’s Church? I myself have known of such cases. And I have seen this. I have seen downright honest pity manifested by these same starving but noble people of God for the rich man who lived in wealthy splendour, and then died in a great house near them, when they knew that by want of the Faith he ought to have, his life was without hope and his eternity without God. Never since the days of Christ did a whole people realize more vividly or act more truly upon the teaching conveyed in the parable of the rich man lost and Lazarus saved. The long eternity of hell, the want of the drop of water, never to be obtained, the eternal contempt and the eternal pain awaiting the sumptuously-living sinner, was no myth. It came from the mouth of Him who had the knowledge of the fact, because he was the Creator and the Judge. As vividly came the vision of their own bright, peaceful, wealthy rest, figured by the lot of Lazarus reposing in a bosom far brighter, far sweeter than that of Abraham—in the Heart of Jesus Christ, in the beautiful vision of God, in the embrace of Mary, the loved Mother of Ireland—and so these millions passed peacefully through the dark valley of famine, until, worn and weary, their bodies sank like the rain drops, forgotten, beneath the green sward of Erin, and their souls passed for ever to the joy of the blest. How different is the case of the few apostates amongst them who sold their faith! Who may not tell of the agony of mind, the desolation, the suicides of these? But next to them in melancholiness is the fate of the Irishman who first begins to listen to the seducer of the secret society, and afterwards becomes himself a seducer, a leader, perhaps a traitor, in the deadly, secret conspiracy to ruin religion, to destroy God. His career is often this: At first a hopeful, young, ambitious student of his country’s history, he begins to feel indignation at [149]her wrongs, and wishes to right them. In a fatal hour he meets the tempter. He is sworn into the terrible sect. He gets a command, an importance in the organization. He is youthful, but the season of life wherein to make an honest livelihood passes rapidly in intrigue. He knows that the course into which he has fallen is bad, is injurious to religion, but he hopes to repent. Alas! little by little his conscience, his Faith passes from him. The day comes surely when he realizes his sad position, and knows the advice of the Church to be right. But having lived his best days to conspire, he now must “conspire to live,” and inured to bad habits, he is at last ready for anything. Like the wretch who preys upon the little left to the Irish emigrant, now as a guide, now as a broker in New York or Liverpool, he, too, will wrench by every means fraud can devise the hard earnings of the poor, under pretence of injuring England, if not of liberating Ireland. He will stop at nothing, and so the existing conspirator is made. He has no further scruple to join if he can the worst class of the Atheistic and Socialist plotters of Paris. He herds with them. And this is strange, for while the Irish conspirator may be as able to plot mischief as the worst of the miscreants with whom he associates in France, he differs from them in this, that in the secret of his soul he never loses his Faith. They know this well, and they watch him, use him, but never fully trust him. Many a broken Irish heart the children of the Revolution in Paris have made already. Many a one of those Irish victims wish again for the days of his boyish innocence and blessed faith. A life wasted, hopes blasted, happiness departed, a cheerless, neglected, old age, are little recompense for the free-thought and free-act which a system of Atheism and irreligion, never really believed in, conferred upon any Catholic Irishman.

The secret society onslaught on the attachment of the people of Ireland to their spiritual guides and to their ancient faith was treacherous, deadly, and long-continued. But, thank heaven! the Church in Ireland, has survived the shock, terrible though it was. My own Archbishop—at present, happily for Australia, placed by the Holy Father over that extensive portion of the vineyard—a Prelate who knows the Ireland of history better, I would say, than any living man, and the Ireland of the present day, as well, certainly, assured me that never since the days of St. Patrick was the Faith stronger in the country than at the present moment. The frequentation of the sacraments was at no past period more general—if ever as general. Pious Confraternities spread their blessed influence everywhere. Temperance is progressing. The clergy, numerous and well supported by the people, enlighten all by the purity, self-denial, and laboriousness of their lives. They visit their people in every home, no matter how poor, in every cabin, in every garret. They are, as ever, of and with the people. Their little means are freely given to every want of education and religion, and, as far as these means can go, to the poor. This is a condition of things that must continue to bind the priests to the people, and the whole Church of Ireland to God. These holy pastors, whom every tie of nature, affection, and duty, bind to the Irish people, are the guides who have been with them for ages. Numerous, intelligent, learned, patriotic in the highest degree, sons of the saints, they alone can lead God’s people aright. They have done so, and sad must be the hour when miserable adventurers, seeking their own gains, can so delude a nation as to seduce them from the side of God’s anointed, to what did prove, and must ever prove, if pursued by the Irish people against the loving and intelligent advice of the Irish priests, “a mockery, a delusion, and a snare.” The time [151]is come, however, when using their own intelligence Irishmen will everywhere be able to resist the wiles and temptations of the secret society seducer, and think for themselves. The leaders, the fathers who have never deceived them, whose advices are always given for their best advantage, who suffered and died for them in the past, and are ready to do so in the present and in the future, are the clergy of Ireland, led by the Bishops of Ireland, and all following the infallible teachings of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. God grant that this guidance may never fail; that the day may never dawn when it will not be heeded; and that the race of wretched men who have so often in the past ensnared generous-hearted, Catholic Irishmen in Ireland, in Great Britain, in America, and elsewhere, may end for ever. From such false agents and from the machinations of all enemies to Irish Faith, we well may pray, God Save Ireland!

I have no doubt whatever, but this our prayer will be heard. We only want a knowledge of the evil to avoid it. Even from what I have said this evening—and I have only stated plain, unvarnished facts—it must be evident that all secret societies and societies aiming at bad and irreligious ends are no other than deadly Illuminated Freemasonry. Let them be called by whatever name, they are a part of the system of secret revolutionary fraud, invented and cast upon the earth by Satan to compass the ruin of souls, and the destruction of the reign of Jesus Christ. They are of the same kind as the Black Hand in Spain, as the Commune of Paris, as the Nihilism that now dominates in Russia. With such associations the children of God have only one duty to discharge. It is: so far from giving them any countenance or support, to oppose them by every means possible. I believe their strength has spent its force in Ireland. It only remains that the Irish abroad, who have crossed the seas to find a home, an honest living, and an honourable fortune if they can in this and in other lands, should, as I have just advised, stand on their guard against emissaries who, under pretexts as seductive as those used by [152]the Fenian leaders to lead our countrymen to ruin, or by that degraded seducer of brave, but heedless and passionate young men, Carey, to drag his victims to murder and the gallows, may come to whisper words of conspiracy and lead far astray. The Catholic who hears the invitation from any quarter, were it from an angel from heaven, were it from a priest of God—fallen as that angel or priest should be to be able to give it—let him beware. It is a devil that speaks to him as sure as it was a devil that spoke to his mother Eve in the Garden of Eden. Let him renounce that devil and his tools and his works. Let him ask aid from on High—Good Counsel from God through the prayers of God’s Virgin Mother, and he will triumph. He will stand firm on the side of God, and one day be rewarded at His Right Hand with the most glorious triumph that can be given to man to witness—the triumph of Christ coming in His Majesty to judge the living and the dead.

All that secret organization of which we have been speaking so much, is being framed by Satan and his emissaries for one end long foreseen—that is, to form, and that before very many years, the vast kingdom of Antichrist, which already spreads its ramifications over the whole earth. It is, you see, determined to leave no people, or nation, or tribe, or tongue, unsubjected to its influence. It seeks now the semi-civilized empires of Asia by means of Masonic France, and other European Masonic influences. It plants in Africa the germs of a European domination, which must speedily subject to its authority the dark sons of Ham. I believe, so far as I can judge, it will soon send its telegraphs and its railways careering through that ancient Continent. Placing itself “above all that is worshipped or called God,” it will in its pride and hate obliterate the polytheism of these countries to make room for its own Atheism; and that which Christianity has been hitherto unable to effect in destroying the false gods of the heathen, it will effect, in order to plant its own dark non credo instead. It will thus one day be able to call to the standard of whoever is to be its last, long-foretold [153]leader, countless millions to battle with the elect of God. It may be—I believe it will be—checked, if but for a few years, to afford time for the Church of Christ to manifest her glory once more, and to gather in her strength for the final combat. But that it will advance to that combat is revealed to us. Children of Ireland what a glorious place is reserved for you when that struggle does come! From the beginning you have been its opponents. When it cried—away with Christ—away with Christ’s Vicar—let him be crucified—let his temporal and spiritual power be obliterated—and when, in the nations of Catholic Europe, and of the world, it raised its cries of secularism, of infidel education, of ruin to the Christian family and every Catholic institution, who of all the people of God most withstood it? Who best, from slender resources, in all the lands where English is spoken, supported the Vicar of Christ and every Catholic principle? In their island home, during these very saddest days, from the period of the great famine till this hour, the Irish people, scattered in their millions over this country and England; over all the rising nations of great America; and the infant empires growing daily to maturity in Australia and New Zealand, and other islands of the Southern, the Indian, and the Pacific Oceans; by the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel; in the Colonies of Southern Africa; in the islands of the Caribbean Sea; amidst the decaying Christianity of Buenos Ayres; in Canada; and all the other lands of the earth which give the best promise to Atheistic machinations, the Irish people lifted up the Cross of Christ, and sustained, by the sweat of their brow, the strong, vigorous reality of the Catholic religion. They gave their daughters to the cloister, their sons to the sanctuary, their all to the cause of God. Freemasons thundered and intrigued in the legislatures round about them. Emissaries from the secret sects assailed them in the press, on the platform, everywhere. Fidelity to their religious principles was often visited with political, commercial, and even social ostracism. Ridicule and abuse rained in turn for their fidelity upon them. But the Faith [154]of St. Patrick and the hope of God’s bright kingdom, the smile and the prayer of Mary in Heaven, were able to defeat and baffle all. In serried ranks with the pastors they had themselves brought forth, and nourished, and educated, and kept, they stood amidst the deluge of deception, allurement, and intrigue about them, firm as their own loved, distant land amidst the billows of the ocean, and went on advancing the mighty work of building up the Church which other nations were pulling down, until their very enemies paused, and wondered, and admired. And often too when these enemies saw in the lands which the Irish had evangelized, the Cross of the Catholic Church arise and pierce the heavens, where it had never been seen before, or had been proscribed for generations, they cried out that Catholicity was immortal—was divine! It comes, for instance, by the Irish into this land, just as it was before the storm banished it, the same as their fathers once saw it. And they say rightly, “so that Church is now and so will it be for ever.” Masonic Anti-Christianity will advance and do more damage than ever heresy effected. It will one day sweep the sects of heresy and the temples of idols utterly away; but it too will have its defeat, and in time must yield to Christ and to His cause the greatest triumph. Its union of all men in one vast republic; its bringing together of every people and nation; its destruction of every form of religion to make way for its sect; its advance in science, in education, in national progress, all will serve one day to place the Son of Mary supreme—to realize the prophecy made to His Mother: “And he shall be great, and be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God shall give him the throne of David His father, and He shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever, and of His kingdom there shall never be an end.”

I say that when this consummation comes, as come it surely must, few nations shall have a more glorious record than the people of what is called “poor Ireland.” Few nations shall have done more to prepare for the final combat, or shall have manifested to a greater extent in Christian heroism the last and most terrible [155]trial. No nation whatever shall show a grander roll call of martyrs, confessors, virgins, and souls saved, than the land and the race evangelized by St. Patrick, whose sacred name already adorns the most glorious and promising churches now existing in the world.

In conclusion, it is proper that I should say a word to you upon the attitude of the Church, at the present moment, in the face of the forces of the Organized Atheism of the world. That organization has now arrived at the perfection of its dark wisdom, and is making rapid strides to the most complete and universal exercise of its power. It has succeeded. Through it the Church is despoiled. The Vicar of Christ is a prisoner, and has been so for over fourteen years. The religious orders are virtually suppressed in nearly every country of Europe. Freemasonry is supreme in the governments of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and works its will in nearly all the republics of Southern America. It rules Germany, terrifies Russia, distracts Belgium, and secretly gnaws at the heart of Austria. Everywhere it advances with rapid strides both in its secret movements against Catholicity and the Christian religion generally, and in open persecution according to the measure of its opportunity and power. No hope, humanly speaking, appears on the horizon to warrant us at this moment to look for a change for the better. But God has promised never to desert His Church. That promise never can be broken. When the darkest hour comes, it is not for Catholics to look for dissolution, but for life and hope. The crisis in the conflicts of Christianity is the hour of victory. This has been realized more than once since the combat began between Atheistic Masonry and the Church. What hour could be darker than that which saw Pius VI. taken prisoner to France in the white heat of its Revolution, [156]and dying abandoned and forsaken in the dungeons by the Rhone? The Temporal Power after an uninterrupted peace of nearly four centuries, during which the disturbances common to it in the middle ages, had absolutely ceased, passed at a blow and apparently for ever. Rome’s treasures of art and religion were carried in triumph to grace the capital of Infidelity, or scattered throughout the earth. The Cross and Keys were without a defender, and the tricolour floated in triumph over the palace of the Popes. The crisis had arrived when God’s promise should be realized. In the twinkling of an eye, a strange force, under a strange commander, Suwarrow, descends like lightning upon Italy. The power of the Revolution passes like an uneasy morning’s dream. Rome belongs to the Pope, and Pius VII. sits calmly, as if nothing happened, upon the throne of his banished, I may add, martyred predecessor. Another event more strange occurs. The temporal power falls again, and the legions of the strongest potentate Europe had seen since the days of the Cæsars holds it as the heritage of his only son. The Pope is once more a prisoner—for years a persecuted circumvented prisoner. Napoleon mocks at his feebleness, and laughs at his predictions. The temporal power of the Popes was, he says, but never will be. The condition of the world is changed—the Empire returned. Is it so? The crisis has come for the hundredth time. The very cardinals are taken from the side of the Pontiff. He is alone in the power of his base tormentor as much as St. Peter on Montorio was in the power of Nero. Things cannot be darker. The light must dawn; and it does. In a month, God’s elements blast the power of the tyrant; and while millions applaud the return of the Pontiff to the Chair of St. Peter and to his power at Rome, Napoleon passes to his solitary dungeon in the midst of the waters, to ruminate on the verification which in his case, as in the case of every persecutor of the Church, attends the predictions of Peter. In our day, the Atheistic Conspiracy is as determined as ever to destroy, but it is wiser. Slowly it has surrounded God’s Vicar. It has taken care so to master the [157]councils of every European country that help to him, when it assails, may be impossible. Under pretence of guaranteeing his independence, it has stolen from him everything. His trustiest servants are torn from his side, stripped, despoiled, degraded, scattered. His resources have been astutely lessened to the lowest possible point. A prisoner of the Infidels, as much as Pius VI. or Pius VII. in the strongholds of France, under the appearance of being free, he is really bound hand and foot and rendered completely impotent. His power is cancelled under pretext that his city is necessary to the unification of Italy. No other city will suit Italian jealousies as the capital of the new nation. And who will sacrifice the welfare of the new nation to the wants of the Pope? Astuteness is now the characteristic of the Revolution, determined and callous as ever. But hope again appears. To the persecutions of Pius IX., many and grievous as they were, God opposed a Pontiff simple as a dove in the snares of the spoiler. He took away from the ruffian hands of Masonry its only real argument. But now when all is gone, help appears in the person of another Pontiff, whose greatest characteristic is wisdom, and whose wisdom, slowly but surely, is telling upon the nations. No Pontiff has been more firm in maintaining the rights of the Holy See, violently wrested as he found them, by the force and upon the pretexts used by Freemasonry. Despoiled of everything, he has, nevertheless, drawn together the scattered strength of the Church. Commencing with the foundation of all Christianity, its teaching, he has caused philosophy to be so purified, and so based on sound principles, as to be in reality a true handmaid to theology and a deadly foe to rationalistic, Atheistic, and infidel theories of whatever kind. He has caused the teachings of St. Thomas to assume more than at any past period, their supremacy in Christian schools. He has mastered the difficult, tangled web of European diplomacy. He has found out the true wants of Christian peoples. He has satisfied them: and then, finally, by his immortal Bull, Humanum Genus, he has dealt a death blow to the [158]progress of Freemasonry, and elevated into a system the means by which the guides of God’s people are for the future, to save these people from the evils of our days.

According to my humble ability, I have endeavoured as best I could, this evening, to carry out the first part of the instruction of Our Sovereign Lord, Leo XIII., who is for me and for over two hundred millions like me, as much a Monarch, as if he reigned in the Quirinal instead of Humbert II. That is, I have endeavoured to show you what Secret Association was, and is, and ever will be, till the end. I am persuaded, that if the evils of secret society plotting have succeeded so far, it is mainly, because from one reason or another, the mask was permitted to be worn by Freemasonry. Voices were raised, I know here and there, now and again, against it, and against Secret Societies of every kind; but they were either not heard at all, or, if heard, were very soon forgotten. The utmost efforts of Freemasonry of every kind were exerted to keep itself hidden, and that it had power to remain hidden is looked upon by Monsignor Segur, and Monsignor Ketteler, and others, as one of the most remarkable evidences of its real power. It had and still has means to silence all who may proceed against it. It murdered, as we have seen, in this very century, a free citizen of America, who attempted to write a book in which only the least part of its secrets—its absurd ceremonial, its grips, passwords and oaths, were revealed to “the profane.” It threatened and used the dagger, or calumny, or bribery, or whatever suited against those who attempted to expose it. Exposure is its death—the death at least of its influence over its intended dupes amongst Catholics. Therefore, comes the word of command to us all, from the great Vicar of Christ—“Tear the mask from off Freemasonry;” and consequently, it becomes a plain duty, a duty not to be performed in any desultory manner, but in season and out of season, to expose Freemasonry. The Supreme Pontiff, despoiled though he be, will find in the generous devotion of the children of the Church who fear no power of man or demon in [159]the discharge of duty, not one but ten hundred thousand voices ready for the task. Thank God! the labours of devoted, Christian men—bishops, priests, and learned laymen—have resulted in enabling us to know the real character of Masonry, and enabling us to “tear the mask” off the horrible thing with ease. Nor is this confined to the Continent or to ecclesiastics. The work has been nobly inaugurated already in our midst by Mr. O’Donnell, M.P., and I trust will be continued by him and by many more. The religious orders will, in the solitude of their cells, make a special study of the machinations of the terrible sects, the secular clergy in their Colleges and home retreats, and above all, the Catholic press will not cease to expose the malignant hydra in constantly recurring references and discoveries. The whole host of God is needed to march and to act against the foe in the manner indicated by our Holy Father; for the question is one of the salvation of the world, of the spread of the Gospel, of the happiness of families and individuals, of civil society, and of man. Surely upon such a movement the benediction of Heaven will descend. The means to obtain that divine blessing are also pointed out by the Holy Father. He says to those whom it concerns, “unite the Catholic people in good societies and pious confraternities.” He indicates, specially, the Third Order of Saint Francis and the confraternity which practices the recital of the Holy Rosary. Father Anderledy, the newly appointed General of the Society of Jesus, who plainly says he speaks as he does with the knowledge and desire of the Holy Father, asks the Fathers of his Society to renew the holy habit of uniting those committed to their care in societies formed to honour Our Lady. Behold, then, the true remedy for the ills that fall upon the world. That world is rushing wildly, madly, away from religion and true happiness. Who, under God, can be conceived more powerful to restore it to reason than Mary the Virgin Mother of God, who amongst many other holy titles, is honoured by the Church as the special dispenser of the invaluable gift of Good Counsel, a gift She so wonderfully displayed [160]in Her holy life, and which She obtains for God’s people by Her powerful intercession. She too is called upon in the liturgy of the Church, to be glad and to rejoice, for that She alone has destroyed all heresies throughout the whole world. Her power destroyed them singly in the past, and doubtless will also destroy their united force and malignity, as exhibited in Freemasonry and its kindred secret societies, in the future. Societies in honour of God’s Mother cannot be too widely established. All should be under Her benign protection, as is the Catholic Young Men’s Society of Edinburgh. But there is one branch society of this Catholic Institute which I cannot help singling out for special praise. It is the—

No society can be conceived better adapted to keep working men from those bad associations which we have been considering, or more calculated to bring every blessing to individuals, and above all to homes. The public house, the drinking saloon, the music hall, the obscure “shebeen,” wherever, in one word, drink is sold, is the antechamber of the secret society for men, and ruin both of men and women. On this point permit me to be plain with you, my Catholic fellow-countrymen, as I may call you—for I find that the majority, indeed the mass of the Catholic congregations in Edinburgh, as well as in Glasgow, in Manchester, in Leeds, in Birmingham, and in all the large towns of England and Scotland, are, men and women, mainly, if not entirely, of Irish birth or Irish blood, the children of Irish parents. It is, the world knows, from you that the faith has come to Great Britain, by the providence of God in this nineteenth century. In the Highlands, I am told, there are some twelve thousand genuine Scotch Catholics. In the Lowlands it is doubtful whether so many genuine Scotch Catholics can be found; but the number of Catholics in Scotland is a quarter of a million, and the excess comes from the Irish, whose migration has made the Church. [161]I believe the proportion in England, notwithstanding the conversion of so many by reason and grace, and the holding out of several old families, is still greater in favour of the Irish element. From the converts and the good old Catholic families come many blest with vocations for the Priesthood, who devote their lives with great zeal to the service of the race which forms the majority—the mass of the Church. Now I praise that mass, to which I myself belong, when it deserves to be praised; but you will allow me the liberty of a friend to blame a portion of it when it deserves blame. God, Who knows all hearts, knows that I desire to do the blaming as a friend. I praise you for what I see you do. The Churches, the Cathedrals—magnificent in many cases as both are—the Schools, the Houses of the Teaching Orders, are mainly the work of your hands. The Priesthood that has been brought to minister everywhere, and the active Orders of men and women who teach, are kept in the very largest measure, by you. Notwithstanding all your burdens, your poverty, and your local wants—great everywhere—you give with a willingness unequalled by any other race, to every good work. Of you, at home and abroad, generous, faithful people, it may be said, that you realize to the very letter the truth that it is better to give than to receive. And what a blessing do you not in return receive in this land, when you remain faithful to the teachings of that religion for which God has enabled you to do so much! There is not a city I have visited that I do not find some amongst you, who came to this country as poor as the rest, already risen to affluence and ease, sometimes to public and honourable position amongst their fellow-citizens differing from them more widely in religion than in race. There is no place where I have not been consoled with the signs of substantial prosperity amongst you. Pleasant it is for me, when visiting the many educational establishments now, thank God, so plentifully diffused over the face of the country, to find your sons in the Colleges, your daughters in the Convents, and to know that not a few of them dedicate [162]themselves to the highest service of God. These prove the happy, holy homes which blessed them with true parental love and care, and cast round their childhood the influences of religion. I have at this moment before my mind’s-eye the death of an Irish mother who passed to eternity, since I commenced my present journey, consoled by having her death-bed surrounded by children every one of whom were holy, and several of whom had the happiness of being either Religious or Priests. This valiant Catholic mother came to one of the great cities of England the wife of an Irish working man. She had her reward surely in this life as well as in the next. In your own midst, there are instances of the honest prosperity which blesses the sober, well-conducted, though poor man, who comes to this country to make an honest livelihood. If he be but faithful to his religion, his life is always happy. His end is always holy. His children “rise up and call him blessed.” He is a blessing to the Church and to this country. I could easily prolong this picture; but I must speak plainly upon another. I have seen even in this city hundreds of little children, as I passed yesterday, Sunday, through your streets; many of them were Catholics, certainly. Poor children! they saluted me reverently. They were, I found, sent—for the law happily forces that—to the Catholic School. That was the reason why the light of Faith was in their little eyes, which brightened at the sight of a Priest; but alas! the sign of hunger was upon the cheeks and upon the almost naked limbs of many of them, without shoes, without stockings, and in rags. I have seen children too, many of whom I know to be Catholic and Irish, selling newspapers in the streets on weekdays, and preparing, boys and girls, for careers I shudder to contemplate, after a very few years. On yesterday I had evidence of the cause of their sad state. I saw men and women, the fathers and mothers of these children, crowding round public-houses, openly intoxicated, and in consequent wretchedness upon the streets. I know of course that a large proportion of these were not Irish, but I know also [163]from inquiries I made, that a large proportion was. These were the degraded, abominable parents who reduced their own little ones to the sad condition in which the whole world could see them. I do not suppose that in a respectable gathering like this such drunkards are found, but I allude to the matter in the hope that my words and opinions may, through you who are here, come to them; that they may know, that while I praise my beloved fellow country people for what they have done so nobly and so well for the works of religion, I have no words strong enough to reprobate the conduct of those who give themselves to drink in this country, at all. I say, at all. For to commence with—where, I ask, is the working man to be found, or the working man’s wife, who, having undertaken the care and responsibility of the present and the future of the numerous family it is generally their lot to have, can afford to spend earnings which belong to their children, on the pernicious and expensive luxury of drink? A working man needs every fraction he can earn by his labour for the education and maintenance of his children, for the rainy day, for the season of sickness, for an honest independence in his old age. He cannot be honest to his children, or to himself; he cannot advance religion, education, or the cause of God, if he drinks. When a working man loses his employment, when he sickens, when he gets into trouble, we invariably find drink at the bottom of it. There is nothing that one can praise in the man who practises this vice. He is mean, and he is cruelly dishonest always. He drinks the shoes off his children’s feet, the clothes off their backs, the bit from out their mouths, the bed from under them, the home from over them, and sends them upon society, boys degraded, and girls so lost that I cannot contemplate the picture. It is therefore that good Pastors like Cardinal Manning, who (because of his numerous Irish flock, regards himself in London as an Irish Bishop) have undertaken a life and death crusade against this devil that preys upon the vitals of their most choice and devoted people. It is therefore that Cardinal MacCabe and others have made so many personal [164]efforts to uproot this vice. My own Archbishop, for many years, while Bishop of Ossory, in Ireland, practised total abstinence, in order to give his people an example. He is determined to make the same sacrifice in the new and vastly more extended field of labour which the Vicar of Christ has committed to his care at the Antipodes. I have great faith in such acts of self-denial coming from such quarters. When those of the flock who need restraint see the pastors placed over them by God make such sacrifices for their salvation, there cannot, it seems to me, be much doubt about the issue. What they can do, what such men as the late Mr. A. M. Sullivan and others have done, without any constraining necessity, others, who owe such restraint to themselves and their families, can do. For the mere temporal well-being of every working man, and every working man’s family, I would be glad to see every such man a total abstainer. But when I consider the evils to which the eternal salvation of the Irish working man, in these countries especially, is exposed by the habit of drinking, I can find no words strong enough to express my anxiety to see him give up intoxicating drinks absolutely and for ever. The sacrifice is small, the gain enormous. God grant that all whom my words may reach—all Irish Catholics—may think with me on this point. Should that be so, the consequences would be indeed consoling. The Church of God might well rejoice. The days of secret societies would for the Irish end for ever, and for a certainty they would carry out to its fulness the glorious destiny given them of planting the Faith all the world over, and resisting to the bitter end the wiles, the deceits, and finally the last and most terrible onset of Antichrist against God, His Church, and Christian civilization throughout the world.

THE
SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA

A Lecture
DELIVERED IN EDINBURGH

BY
MONSIGNOR GEORGE F. DILLON, D.D.
MISSIONARY APOSTOLIC, SYDNEY.

DUBLIN
M. H. GILL & SON, 50 UPPER SACKVILLE STREET.
LONDON AND NEW YORK: BURNS AND OATES.
1885.

[i]

The following Lecture on the Spoliation of the Propaganda is given to the reader almost verbatim as it was delivered. It contains, however, in extenso, a translation of a valuable document furnished by Monsignor Conrado, Rector of the Urban College, from the archives of the Sacred Congregation. Some other documents, referred to when speaking, are, for convenience-sake, embodied in the text. Every fact stated has been carefully authenticated; and the lecturer will be amply rewarded for his pains if the simple statement he has given serves to make his readers fully acquainted with a great wrong done to one of the most beneficent Christian institutions in the world by the greed and Anti-Christian hate of the Infidel Revolution.

All Hallows College,
April, 1885.

[iii]

Having treated, as fully as I could in one lecture, of the nature of that secret and powerfully organized Atheism, which now for over a century has waged a fierce and sleepless war with the Church of Jesus Christ, and which means not only to destroy that Church but every form of Christianity and Christian civilization, I come this evening to speak, according to my promise, of a special feature in that war; namely, its intense hostility to the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and its determination to deprive him of every human means of exercising his divine mission with the view of thus preventing the government of the Church and the extension of the Kingdom of Christ in the world. This feature in the Anti-Christian war of Freemasonry and its attendant sects, has, as we have seen, been manifest from the very commencement. Scarcely had its adepts obtained power at the period of the first French Revolution, when they aimed and dealt, too, a deadly blow at the temporal power of the Pope, hoping thereby to cripple and eventually to terminate his spiritual ministrations. The blow was repeated under Napoleon, attempted frequently after the Revolution of July 1830, and again dealt with the effect of banishing the Pontiff from his See by the Italian Conspirators of 1848. The Papacy, however, with that perennial elasticity which marks its history since the [2]days of St. Peter, returned to Rome, and made good in a short time the evils which its absence had created. The Revolution seeing this, seems to have no longer determined to drive Christ’s Vicar from the Vatican; but, while permitting him to remain there, practically a prisoner, to deprive him of every means necessary or useful for the exercise of his ministry for the benefit of the millions committed to his keeping by God. Power having come into the hands of the Freemasons of Italy, by means which I shall glance at further on, they have taken, step by step, possession of his temporal kingdom, until finally, in violation of every right, human and divine, they seized forcibly upon the City of Rome, and confiscated to their own purposes even its religious treasures. They promised at the time to respect such Institutions and persons in that City as all Catholics knew to be necessary for the government of the Church spread not only in Italy, but throughout the whole earth. For instance, though by law, the Religious Orders were suppressed in Piedmont, in the rest of Italy, and in some other countries fallen unfortunately into the power of the Atheistic secret sectaries, they were not suppressed with us, nor, geographically speaking, in the greater part of the world. Now, the Pope is sole Superior of all Religious Orders in the Catholic Church. They are all instituted to serve him specially and devotedly, and they depend directly upon him. None know this better than the Italian Freemasons, who forcibly took possession of Rome. They declared that though in the rest of Italy, Religious Orders and other Catholic Institutions were by law suppressed, yet even these and everything else needed by the Supreme Pontiff for the government of the Universal Church, should be sacredly respected by them in Rome. We know how [3]they have kept this promise so far as the governing staff of the Religious Orders were concerned. They respected the Generals and their assistants by casting them out from their convents upon the streets. They took possession of these convents for secular purposes. They confiscated the whole revenues of the religious, and denied to the successors of the same religious the miserable pensions granted to those whom they brutally and ignominiously expelled. But we were told that this was to be done only to the religious, and that the rest of the Institutions of Rome necessary for the service of the Pontiff, for his dignity, and, above all, for the government of the Church, should be most scrupulously respected. His person was to be as much honoured, and to be as inviolable as that of the King. The one residence left him in Rome was to obtain the privilege of extra-territoriality, and his means were to be protected on the pledged faith and honour of the Italian King and Parliament. We know how the honour decreed by law to the Supreme Pontiff was respected by the Government, in the miserable insults offered by a body of hired ruffians being permitted, if not more than permitted, to outrage the venerated remains of Pius IX. on their passage at night from St. Peter’s to the Basilica of San Lorenzo. The Pope refused, of course, the ostentatious pension his plunderers voted him in lieu of the spoliation of his States. But this gain did not satisfy them. They proceeded, whenever they could, to violate or make null their own laws of guarantee in his regard; and they succeeded. For instance, they made a law by which the real property of the Church should be all sold and converted into the bonds of the new Italian Government. These bonds, at best, are only worth whatever the solvency of the Italian Government may be rated at, upon the markets of Europe. But the Church was [4]not to be permitted to have the advantage of ordinary bond-holders. These latter could sell out their bonds at market value. The Church was not permitted to do this. The bonds purchased by the sale of her farms and houses were made a debt of the Italian Government, it is true—but a State debt due to the Church only—a debt apart, which could be dealt with at pleasure, and regarding which any dealing the Italian Parliament might think well to apply, could not in any sense affect the solvency of the nation in the markets of Europe. Regarding the payment of these bonds the Church has to depend absolutely upon the word of a body of men who have broken faith with her constantly, and whose promises were made, only to be broken at the first favourable moment. No man, therefore, values much the security of the money of the Church, depending upon the will of the Italian Masonic Parliament, for the payment of interest.

Now, amongst other necessary Institutions, the Pope had, for several centuries, in Rome, a well known and most beneficial corporation, endowed by the piety of the Pontiffs, and of Churchmen and pious laymen of every rank and nationality in the world. Its funds were destined not for Italy, but for us, and for the Catholics of every English-speaking land, and for the maintenance of the Faith and the extension of Christianity and civilization in all parts of the world, where as yet these blessings had not penetrated. If any funds could be secured from the grasp of the Masonic Italian Government, those funds ought. If any fidelity was to be kept in the observance of the laws which guaranteed the independence and free exercise of the universal spiritual mission of the Supreme Pontiff, it should be shown, by respecting scrupulously the funds of this institution. The very worst of the Italians, on entering [5]Rome, protested loudly that the guarantees were real, and they pointed out the inviolable condition of the Propaganda as an instance of how sacredly these guarantees were regarded. There might be some confusion of ideas regarding the property of the religious orders in Rome, but regarding the Propaganda there could not be that confusion. They continued to point it out for years, to every stranger, as a proof of their fidelity. Victor Emmanuel, bad enough, in all conscience, respected it. In his lifetime it could not be touched. That would prove too flagrant a violation, even for him, of the guarantees given by himself and his Parliament. But the moment he passed away, the mean, sordid cupidity of the governing sect in Italy manifested itself, and an attempt was made, almost before the dead King was cold, to subject the real estate of the Propaganda to that law of conversion to which the property of every Italian ecclesiastical corporation was subjected.

Two millions sterling was too much to remain unmolested by the Italian “Left” in power. It was too much for their weak fidelity to principle. It meant the sale of desirable lands which those sectaries who made “an honest penny” somehow, by the change of affairs in the country, wanted to buy. It meant the addition to the not overstocked exchequer of the country, of money which Ministers could dispose of as they best knew how. It meant, finally, a profit to the revenue of thirty per cent. on the sale—a profit taken by various machinations of the Italian Fiscal laws for the benefit of the “Department of Finance.” It meant the reduction of that great Institution to the condition in which the finances of the smallest Italian Diocesan, or other Chapter, is reduced by the forced sale of its real estate and the conversion of its money into “vinculated” Italian Government bonds—bonds that [6]cannot be sold, and may be any day discarded by the Italian Parliament.

This, in brief, is the condition to which the estates of the Catholic Propaganda have been reduced by the action of the Italian Government. It is a veritable spoliation which not only reduces the actual revenue of the Institution to a great extent, but which imperils the very existence of the rest of that revenue. Now this confiscation would be bad enough, if it were only a violation of pledges solemnly made to the Supreme Pontiff. But it is worse. It is a violation of international right, and no people in the world are more concerned in the maintenance of that international right than the Roman Catholic subjects of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. We are in fact the principal sufferers in this act of spoliation, for not only are our religious rights, most justly acquired, interfered with, but the making good of the damage which the Freemasons of Italy have done the Institution, will practically fall on our shoulders. The Propaganda for us means the actual exercise of the authority of the Vicar of Christ in our regard. By means of its funds it has carried out and borne the whole expense of the care and government of the Church in our midst for over two hundred years. It has done much for our ancestors, as we shall see. It has done much more for ourselves. We cannot do without it, so far as we are concerned, and then neither can we be, nor are we, insensible to that which it does for others. For us—for the Catholics of the world—the Propaganda is all that which the whole circle of richly endowed, zealously advanced “Missionary Societies,” “Bible Societies,” and “Evangelical Societies,” are for the Protestant world. Our honour is connected with its maintenance, and we cannot without a supreme struggle [7]permit it to perish. Nor shall we. But there is no reason that we should have to do this if our Government be willing to protect our interest, and if that Government has not taken any steps to protect us, I am perfectly sure it is because they have not comprehended the wrong that is done us. In fact, the Propaganda has discharged its onerous duties so noiselessly by the side of the Vicar of Christ, that we ourselves came to look upon the beneficent effects, which we experienced from it, as we look upon the light of the sun or the air about us. We did not advert to the means which piety had, in the past, placed at its disposal, and of which we and our fathers received the fruits. It is the loss which causes us to know, to the full, the value of the benefit—a benefit, I say, so great, and so much a matter of course to us, that even we ourselves remained ignorant of the sources from which it was derived. When, then, even amongst ourselves there is not a full knowledge of what its history, nature, and the nature of its resources now endangered, are, how can we expect that our statesmen, who are not Catholics, can know these things? It is, therefore, to enlighten them as well as ourselves; to inform, in fact, our fellow-citizens of every denomination, of the great international wrong done to us, and thereby awaken true sympathy and co-operation, that I have undertaken the task of entering, this evening, as fully as the time at my disposal will permit, into the whole question of the spoliation of the Propaganda—into the nature and history of that noble institution doomed to perish by local greed, it is true, but still more by the anti-Christian hate and policy of those ruthless sectaries whose one aim is to destroy—root and branch—everything not only that advances, but that even fosters Christianity in the slightest degree. Their hate is not less for Protestantism than for Catholicity. Their aim is to eradicate the [8]very Christian idea from the minds and the hearts of mankind. Now all this we shall proceed to see by a consideration, first, of the history and nature of the sacred Institution, and, secondly, by a review of the means taken to destroy it. From both, to-night, I am sure, all here, will come to the conclusion that it is a clear duty of our own Government to take some action for the preservation of the rights of British Catholics, and that in any case it is a sacred obligation on the part of Catholics in every land, but especially in countries benefited by its ministrations, not to let the great work of the Propaganda perish.

The Sacred Congregation known as that of the Propaganda Fide, is formed, at present, like all the other Congregations of Rome, of a number of Cardinals, Prelates and officials, presided over by a Cardinal Prefect. They form a Corporate Body, and their duty is to conduct what we might call the foreign department in the vast administration of the Vicar of Christ.

At one period, at the very commencement, the Propaganda was conducted in person by St. Peter and his successors. It remained during nearly the whole of the first Pope’s lifetime his own principal occupation. He had to convert both Jews and Gentiles before he had a Church of any great extent to rule. He had, however, it must be confessed, a very excellent “Prefect of the Propaganda” in St. Paul, who carried out the work the Sacred Congregation now sees to, both by himself and his numerous companions and disciples. St. Paul died a Bishop of no particular locality—he was, so to speak, very like many of his successors and his present one, Cardinal Simeoni, an episcopus in partibus infidelium. He did great and lasting work, but on his death the successors of St. Peter had to find out other means to carry on the evangelization of the world. And they succeeded wonderfully from that day to this. We see them ruling with admirable wisdom, sanctity, and authority the vast empire left them mainly by the exertions of St. Peter and St. Paul; never forgetting the peculiar labours of the one or the other. The evangelization of the nations as well the government and teaching of the Church was never omitted by any one of them. From [10]their side, principally, went forth those crowds of holy men who continued to prosecute the work of the evangelization of the world, until from the extreme limits of this then British Province, to the sands of the Great African Desert, and from the Pillars of Hercules to the frontiers of Persia, the persecuting Roman Empire had the followers of Christ in the army, in the navy, in every department, and even in the Courts of the terrible, anti-Christian Emperors themselves. They caused Christians to fill the towns, and spread at last to the remotest villages of the Empire, and then to be found far beyond its borders. And when the whole East and West, after ten terrific struggles, at last embraced the Cross, the successors of St. Peter with renewed zeal and increased resources attempted the evangelization of all then known, barbarous nations.

I say increased resources, for even in these times of persecution the Roman Pontiffs were not destitute of temporal means. The generous piety of the faithful recognised their immense responsibility, and supplied the means which heartless infidelity now strives to deprive them of. The Roman Pontiff, even when compelled to lay hidden in the Catacombs, was the father of the orphan, and of the widow, and of the poor. From the crypts of the Catacombs, as well as, afterwards, from the portals of the Vatican, he sent forth a never ceasing stream of apostolic men who at his bidding, and with his blessing, and with his authority, went forth to the very ends of the earth for the evangelization of the heathen, and the consolation of the people of God.

On this point you will allow me to quote a passage from the writings of a great French Prelate, Monsigneur Dupanloup, whom our present Holy Father has characterised as “the glory and the consolation of France” in his [11]day. No one who recollects his history will doubt for a moment the weight of his authority. He says:

“Mother and Mistress of all Churches, the Church of Rome was from that time what she ought to be, viz., the richest, the most powerful, and also the most generous in her gifts. The Faithful throughout the world venerated her as the centre of Catholicity; and lavished their wealth upon her, together with their obedience and their love. They did not wish the head of their religion and the Vicar of Jesus Christ to be unequal to the immense calls of his spiritual administration; they wished the Pope to have sufficient to meet all the requirements of the universal mission which had been confided to him, the enormous disbursements that he was obliged to make for the welfare of so many people confided to his care, and also for the nations which were still infidel, to whom it was his duty to send the light of faith, by bishops, priests, deacons, and apostolic missionaries. Hence the riches of the Roman Church from the time of the persecutions; hence the considerable possessions which she enjoyed a long time before Constantine; hence also the generous liberalities which she lavished upon the world, as Eusebius tells us, for the maintenance of a large number of the clergy, of widows and of orphans, and of the poor as well as for the propagation of the faith, and the foundation of Christianity in the most distant countries. Eusebius cites Syria and Arabia, and our own histories add the Gauls and the Spains to these countries. This was not all; it was necessary that while buried still in the Catacombs, the Papacy should maintain apostolic notaries to keep the acts of the martyrs, and to be ever ready to reply to the questions for consultation almost daily addressed by all the Churches, whilst at the same [12]time, the Roman Church was sending numbers of ships across the sea laden with alms. Such was even before the peace of the Church, the temporal power with which the faith of Christians surrounded the Apostolic See, and of which the charity of the Popes made so noble a use for the welfare of nations. Monuments and the most celebrated facts teach us that the Roman Church, in order to supply so many wants, not only possessed vessels of gold and silver and a great number of moveable goods, but also, considerable capital. The Pagans sometimes respected, sometimes carried off, these possessions. Constantine ordered, says Eusebius, that restitution should be made to the clergy of the houses, the possessions, fields, gardens, and other goods of which they had been unjustly deprived. What a strange thing! that Paganism should recognise that the Church had a right to property, and yet this is in the present day contested by nations which call themselves Christian.”⁠[24]

With the resources here so eloquently indicated, the Popes, even in the earliest ages, provided for the evangelization of the most distant nations. Indeed, we scarcely meet with a single Pontificate, not illustrated with this blessed characteristic of the Apostolic ministry—a characteristic which became more marked as time rolled on. Just as the Church had attained its first triumph, the Pope, who had most to do with the conversion of Constantine, and with the splendid works of that Monarch for religion, was consoled by the conversion of the Iberians near the Black Sea, and of the Abyssinians beyond the distant, southern confines of ancient Egypt. The Popes aided the terribly tried Christians of Persia, under the long persecutions of [13]Sapor and his successors, just as Leo XIII. aids the persecuted Christians of China as I speak. We know of the solicitude of St. Celestine in selecting and sending Palladius, a dignitary of the Roman Curia, to convert the Irish and Picts. Then came the mighty Mission of St. Patrick, received at Rome from the same Holy Pontiff, and solemnly confirmed by his successor. Soon after, St. Leo the Great sent St. Valentinus, to carry the glad tidings of Redemption to those tribes once so formidable to Roman power, who inhabited the forests bordering on the Danube and the Rhine. St. Severinus, authorized by the same authority, was contemporaneously carrying the faith to Pannonia and Norica. The Rhetians and the faithful Tyrolese received, through the solicitude of Pope Leo, the grace of the faith, also from St. Severinus. Besides those absolute and direct conversions, by saints from the very side of the Roman Pontiff, every national conversion made, was helped on, and had to be watched over, by his fatherly, evangelical care. The conversion of Clovis and the Franks, and other barbarians; the destruction of Arianism amidst the fierce tribes who embraced that heresy, and brought it with them on their conquests; the care of the Faith amongst the ever-fickle Catholics in the East; the ecclesiastical formation of new realms, gained over by the Apostles despatched for the purpose, constantly exercised the zeal of the Sovereign Pontiffs in those days. Who does not know the love and care manifested by St. Gregory the Great for the desolate Anglo-Saxon ancestors of the people now inhabiting England, and so strangely in many instances forgetful, or worse than forgetful, of the debt of gratitude they owe the Popes? It was not so with the ancient Catholics of that land. The intercourse between them and then far-off Rome, was greater than it is [14]to-day, with all our modern appliances for swift and easy travelling. But then, not as now, it was love of God and not of travel, that brought the crowds of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims to Rome. They loved to see Christ’s Vicar, to visit the tombs of the Apostles and Martyrs, and to manifest the gratitude of their nation at the Shrine of the real Apostle of England, Pope St. Gregory the Great. The same Pontiff was as zealous and as successful in converting all that remained of the Donatist heretics in Africa as in evangelizing the people of Britain. The care of his successors for the vast conversions wrought by the multitude of Irish missionary saints amongst the Pagans during the early middle ages, and of missionary saints like St. Boniface and St. Willibrord, who came from England, is just as remarkable. The connection of the Popes with SS. Cyril and Methodius, the Apostles of the Bulgarians, the Moravians, and the Bohemians, has been recently brought very prominently before the world of our day, by our present Holy Father who has just built a church to honour their memory, over the remains of St. Cyril, one of the two, who died in Rome. Pope St. Nicholas the Great and Pope John VIII. sent bishops, priests, and ample assistance to the same evangelic labourers, who are the Apostles and civilizers not only of the nations before-mentioned, but also of Moravia, Silesia, Bosnia, Circassia, Russia, Dalmatia, Panoramia, Dacia, Carinthia and several neighbouring nations. Under Pope Sylvester II. the great warlike nation of the Hungarians became converted by the zeal of their truly apostolic King, St. Stephen; and to this day the crown sent by the Pope to that Monarch, is used in the coronation of the Kings of Hungary (now the Emperors of Austria), who retain with just pride the privilege to have the Cross borne before them, and to take the title of Apostolic Majesty, [15]both given by the Pope. With every conversion which afterwards took place in the North of Europe or elsewhere, the Popes had the same intimate connection, and their Apostolic zeal never flagged until a still wider field than ever opened out for it by the discovery of America, and the coming of that unfortunate torrent of heresy and schism from which all our present religious misfortunes flow, and which is known under the name of the Reformation.

The Popes of this period dealt with the duties brought upon them by one and the other of these momentous events, as became their traditions and their obligations. The vast fields opened up for Missionary zeal by the discoveries of Columbus and Vasco di Gama were soon occupied by their care. It was, after all, but a phase in the kind of evangelization which their predecessors had carried on in one part or another of the world, since the days of St. Peter and St. Paul.

More difficult far became the task of repairing the injury done to many countries by the ravage occasioned by many reformers of many minds and many degrees of hatred for Catholicity. Wars followed fast upon doctrinal differences. The face of whole kingdoms changed. Radical political changes grew apace. The work of the conversion of England, Scotland, Prussia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and several minor German States had to be commenced over again, with the difference that heresy was a far more redoubtable opponent than Paganism of any kind. It was a system of various-phased negations constantly changing, never knowing its own Christian belief, and satisfied only upon some points which it refused to hold in common with the Church of God. Its systems, all made by men, according to caprice, or logical necessity springing from error, differed one from the other fully as much as all differed from [16]the Catholic faith of ages. The reasoning to be used against one sect would not suit against another. On points of the most vital importance all held opposite views. Some would have it that Christ was God, and others that He was not. Some held for Grace and others for pure Pelagianism. Some admitted the Real Presence, and others regarded that doctrine as idolatrous. One party held out for more or less sacramental efficacy, and others denied it, in part or entirely. So the babel went on, in nothing united save in hatred and opposition to the one, stable, changeless truth of the old religion. In Ireland, in France, in Germany, wars took place between fellow-countrymen on points of doctrine. In England and other countries the party in opposition to Catholicity found out, as they thought, not only that the religion of their forefathers for generations was wrong, but they further considered it to be their duty to deprive such of their fellow-citizens as continued to hold the old Faith, of goods, of liberty, of civil status, and even of life itself. Almost everywhere in Europe, confusion and anger reigned in those sadly troubled times.

None experienced more difficulty in dealing with the perplexing responsibilities arising from the Reformation than the Roman Pontiffs. The business of the Holy See increased to an enormous extent. Several new Congregations had to be formed by the action of the Council of Trent alone. Every department of Church administration had to be remodelled. New Orders arose providentially to meet the needs of the times. These had to be guided and watched over. Contemporaneously with the religious troubles in Europe, new fields for Missionary enterprise were opened up in America, in Asia, in Africa, even in some of the Isles of the Pacific. Mahometanism, [17]instead of subsiding, began to grow more menacing. England, Scotland, and most of the Northern Kingdoms of Europe ceased to be Catholic. The fires of the sanctuary were completely quenched in Denmark, Prussia, Sweden, Norway and several German Principalities. Ireland sustained the full pressure of the power of England to force her—though, thank God, in vain—to abjure the Faith. France was in a state of civil war on account of religion. Switzerland was divided. Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia wavered. The work of real Reformation in purely Catholic countries; the repression of attempts at schism from without and disorder from within; occupied the common Father of the Faithful unceasingly. It was when the difficulties of his position increased to such an extent, that it was morally impossible for him to attend any longer, personally, to everything required for the purpose of spreading the Faith, that he at last called in the assistance of a special Congregation to assist him in a work which his predecessors had at all periods of their previous history discharged by themselves alone.

Gregory XIII. filled the Chair of St. Peter at the period when the work of the evangelization of the nations pressed heaviest. He may be said to have employed himself solely in that work. For the wants of the Germans and Hungarians he had, out of his own resources, founded and perpetually endowed a magnificent College which still subsists in Rome. He formed the English College for the resuscitation of the Faith in Britain; the Polish College for the Poles; and for the vast missions then evangelized by the zeal of the newly formed Society of Jesus, he built and endowed the magnificent Roman College of the Gesu, wherein he placed no less than three hundred cells for students and twenty auditories for [18]instruction. Out of this went the men whose eloquence resounded along the banks of the Rhine, and whose holy lives, boundless zeal and great learning won back millions in the German Fatherland to the Faith. Thence, too, went forth the men who penetrated into the heart of the old civilization of China, to the East and West Indies, and to the fastnesses and virgin forests of the newly-discovered tribes of America. Gregory XIII. embraced in his zeal the East as well as the West. He founded in Rome Colleges for the Greeks, and for the Maronites of Mount Libanus. Nor did he forget, in his care for far-off nations, the claims of his own See. The Jews of Ghetto and the youth of Rome have to thank his great heart for permanent means established for their care and education. He was the patron of physical science as well as of sacred studies; and to him, to Gregory XIII., Hugo Buoncompagno, the modern world is indebted for the reformation of the Calendar on a basis more correct than that attempted before him by a man more famous, but not so great in works of real utility, Julius Cæsar, the first of the rulers of Imperial Rome.

The work of what may be called the Foreign Missions increased to such overwhelming proportions through the enlightened Christian zeal of this great Pope, that he found himself compelled to call in the assistance of a few Cardinals, and to commit to their vigilance the duty of watching over the Propagation of the Faith. These Cardinals could be scarcely called a Congregation. They were more a kind of committee of vigilance to keep the Pope posted in what should be effected by the centre of unity for the evangelization of the world. But the idea had its origin in the necessity which forced the Pontiff to call them together at all, and it soon produced its fruit. The [19]successors of Gregory were forced to advert to it from the impossibility of dealing with every case; and at last Gregory XV., of the famous Bolognese family, of the Ludovisi, determined to found a real, formal, Sacred Congregation, for the work which we may call the Foreign Office of the Church. He not only established it, but conferred the most ample powers upon it, and gave it large means to commence that beneficent action, which was soon everywhere felt in the immense regions over which it exercised the paternal solicitude of the Vicar of Christ.

Gregory XV. founded the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda by a Bull bearing date July 22nd, 1622. In this he clearly made known, that his intention was to establish a department of Church administration and action which should assiduously attend to the important duty, hitherto discharged by his predecessors alone, without special organized assistance, of extending the Faith in countries where it did not exist, and of restoring it in places where it may have been lost or injured. The duty of the Congregation was, according to the words of this Bull, “to study diligently, that those sheep miserably wandering away should again return to the Fold of Christ, and acknowledge the Lord and the Shepherd of the Flock, to devise the best means by which, through the influence of Divine grace, they may cease to wander through the endless pasturages of infidelity and heresy, drinking the deadly waters of pestilence, and be placed in the pasturage of true faith and salutary doctrine, and be brought to the fountains of the water of life.”

The Appunti or Memoranda published by the Sacred Congregation recently, in reference to the definite sentence of the Italian Masonic Court of Appeal, to which it applied for relief against the action of the Government, state:—

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“For this end, he (Gregory XV.) wished to depute in his name a Congregation of Cardinals, who unitedly should exercise the greater portion of the Apostolic Ministry, that most noble office, which, up to that time, his predecessors had discharged by themselves and without the ministry of others.”

The Appunti, afterwards, quote other passages of the Bull of Gregory XV., who thus continues:—

“For even although by the pastoral vigilance, assistance, study, and exertions of the Roman Pontiffs, our predecessors, of happy memory, it was provided that so many harvests should not be in want of labourers in the past, and our successors can also do the same, we have thought it well to commit to the special solicitude of a certain number of our venerable brethren, Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, this particular business, as by the tenor of these presents we do commit and do give over to them. Desiring that, congregated together, and using also the assistance of certain prelates of the Roman Court, religious men, and a secretary (as we ourselves have desired, and named them for the first time), they should consult together, and watch over so great a matter together with us, and in the best possible manner that it can be done, attend to a work so holy and so exceedingly pleasing to the Divine Majesty. For the more convenient discharge of which duty let them hold congregations every month—once before us, and twice at least in the house of the senior Cardinal amongst themselves—and there learn and treat of all and every affair appertaining to the Propagation of the Faith throughout the world. Let them refer the graver affairs which they shall have treated in the above-mentioned house to Us, but other matters let them decide and despatch by themselves, [21]according to their own prudence. Let them superintend all missions for preaching and teaching the Gospel and the Catholic doctrine, and constitute and change the necessary Ministers. For We, by Apostolic authority, concede and impart, by the tenor of these presents, full, free, and ample faculty, authority, and power of doing, carrying on, treating, acting, and executing both the above-named, as well as all and every other matter, even if such should be a matter which requires a specific and express mention.”

“But, in order that a business of such moment, in which great expenses are necessarily contracted by the happy commutation of temporal with spiritual things, may not be retarded by any impediment, and may proceed more easily and speedily, beyond that which we have already ordered to be supplied from our private means, and that which is given by the liberality of the pious faithful, and that aid which for the future we confide, will not be wanting, as the affair is our own and that of this Holy See, we contribute to this work certain revenues for ever from our Apostolic resources.”

The Appunti commenting on this, say:—

“The Pontiff, then, constituting the Propaganda the organic means for discharging the Apostolate amongst the infidel and heterodox, ever fixed to it a sublime ministry which was a substantial part of the spiritual sovereignty received for the government of the Church; and that to such great extent, that regarding it with respect to the territory over which it exercises jurisdiction, it can be said, without fear of error, that, in four at least out of the five parts of the world, the government of the Church is held and administered by the Propaganda. The power is so great and so unreserved, that all and every matter appertaining to the propagation of the Faith in the universal [22]world, is confided to it by the Vicars of Christ, to the exclusion of any other organ whatsoever, and this with such solemnity, that Urban VIII., on the 2nd of August, 1634, and Innocent X. on the 3rd of July, 1652, ordered that the authentic decrees of the Propaganda should have the force of Apostolic Constitutions.”

In this way the Congregation started into existence.

The number of Cardinals, which in the beginning was fixed at thirteen, has been since, from time to time, increased. A Prefect was appointed over them as over other congregations, and subsequently a Cardinal was appointed specially over the finance department. A secretary—subsequently two, one for the Eastern branch, and one for the Western—and writers were added, together with many consulters taken from the foremost religious and secular ecclesiastics residing in Rome. The whole formed a distinct Corporation capable of sueing and being sued. It at once commenced the work confided to it; and the world has, from that day to this, experienced the benefits of its zealous and always prudent administration. The whole Church, except in the purely Catholic kingdoms of Europe, passed under its control; and its ministry has become not only valuable, but, in fact, absolutely necessary for the due exercise of the solicitude of the Vicar of Christ in such an immense area of the world committed to his keeping.

In the Bull by which Gregory XV. instituted the Sacred Congregation, we find it clearly laid down that it should be all this. Moreover, the help which he anticipated from the faithful, came almost immediately. This appears specially in the foundation of the celebrated seminary now known as—

Through the zeal of John Baptist Vives, one of its consulting prelates, the Sacred Congregation came into possession of the necessary property and the buildings which are now occupied by offices attached to Propaganda and by a college for the education of missionaries destined to carry out its principal aim in evangelizing the nations. The immediate successor of Gregory XV. was the celebrated Urban VIII., a member of the illustrious Barberini family. This great Pontiff earnestly resumed the work of his predecessor in the matter of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda Fide. To him, Monsgr. John Baptist Vives, acting, as Moroni tells us, under the direction of his own confessor, Michael Ghislieri, of the Order of Theatines, offered his place in the Piazza di Spagna. This residence previously belonged to Cardinal Ferratini, from whom the street called Via Fratina, which at present leads directly from the Corso to the Propaganda, takes its name. Urban VIII. gladly accepted the offer; and with further aid from Vives, established the famous college to which he gave his own name—a name it bears to this day—Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide. Moroni thus speaks of this gift:—“Matters progressed so far that Monsignor Vives decided to devote all he had to this purpose (the foundation of the college), and he employed Father Ghislieri to draw up a plan for changing his palace into such a college. With these admirable sentiments the Prelate Vives made an offer of the Palace to Urban VIII. (Barberini). This illustrious Pontiff being animated with the liveliest interest for the augmentation of the Catholic religion and for the greater [24]glory of God, approved of the gift of the good Prelate, and with the authority of the Bull ‘Immortalis Dei’ given on the Kalends of August, 1627, canonically instituted in the same palace an Apostolic College or Seminary for youths of every nation who should be promoted to orders after one year, and afterwards to the Priesthood, and he placed the College under the invocation and patronage of SS. Peter and Paul. He put it moreover under the protection of the Apostolic See, and under the rule and laws which he and his successors should be pleased to make for its government. He assigned to it perpetually the oblation of the well-deserving Vives, consisting of one hundred and three places on the mountain and other estates, yielding yearly about seven hundred scudi in rent, besides other revenues which that Prelate left it at death. On the principal façade of the building was placed the following inscription:—

“Collegium de Propaganda Fide Per Universum Orbem.

“And afterwards the same Urban VIII. caused to be substituted for this another, which was placed beneath his own arms, and still subsists, and which runs as follows:—

“Collegium Urbanum de Propaganda Fide.”

The palace of Monsignor Vives was greatly improved by Urban VIII., who employed the celebrated Bernini to construct the offices of the Computisteria, or finance department, on the ground floor; the Segretaria, or business portion, on the first floor; and the Stamperia, or printing office, on the upper floor. Alexander VII., the next successor but one of Urban VIII., carried the buildings on towards the Church of St. Andrea dei Frati. He also built the beautiful College Chapel in the form in [25]which it is to be found to-day. He employed in both works the rival of Bernini, Francesco Borromini. Leo XII. removed the printing offices to the ground floor, at the end of the building; and in the part where these were placed before, he formed apartments for the Cardinal Prefect, so that the latter might be always on the spot for watching over the many important interests of the Congregation. On the highest story were also provided the apartments of the Secretary of the Propaganda, and the famous Museum connected with the Institution.

Besides the gift of the site and the Palace, Monsignor Vives provided also ten places in the College for students destined to carry the Gospel wherever the Sacred Congregation might send them. Almost at the same time with this gift, came another valuable donation from Cardinal Antonio Barberini, the brother of Urban VIII. This was the perpetual foundation of twelve places for as many students, who should be taken in the proportion of two from each one of the Persian, Georgian, Coptic, Nestorian, Jacobite, and Melchite rites or nations. The zealous Cardinal, elevated the number of students to three of each nation, soon afterwards, making eighteen in all, of his own foundation. And from that to this, these far-off peoples have been supplied with a constant stream of well-educated pastors from the centre of Christendom by the zeal of this good Prince of the Church, who was in his lifetime also one of the Cardinals attached to the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda. His zeal did not finish here. Before his death, Moroni tells us, that he founded thirteen places in the Urban College for the nations of Ethiopia, Abyssinia, and Brackmania. Wise regulations were in all cases laid down for the giving of these places, and for the discharge of the obligations of those who profited by them. Urban [26]VIII. attached this College perpetually to the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda, and Innocent X. increased it by the funds and the alumni of a small Maronite College previously established in Bologna. So the College continued to advance in its sphere of Church utility; and with it arose and progressed institutions necessary for its own work and for the work of the Sacred Congregation, which, with prudence and zeal, continued to direct the whole of the missionary responsibility of the Holy See from the days of Gregory XV. to those of Leo XIII.

I will here quote for you a remarkable document furnished me by Monsignor Conrado, the present, erudite, zealous, and greatly beloved Rector of the Propaganda College. It is interesting, and manifests the sources from which the educational funds of the College were derived. Translated from the original Italian, it is as follows:—

NOTICE OF THE URBAN COLLEGE, TAKEN FROM THE ARCHIVES OF THE PROPAGANDA.

Before commencing to speak of the institution of the Urban College, from whence have gone forth so many personages illustrious for the profundity of their knowledge, for the sanctity of their lives, and for their zeal for religion, it is necessary to give an idea of the origin of the Sacred Congregation destined for the propagation of the Faith. Because, however divided one from the other, these two pious establishments were in the beginning, the College owes its existence, certainly, to the Sacred Congregation. The immortal Gregory XV., called to the consideration of the duties of the supreme authority of the Church, saw amongst the very first that of carrying the Gospel light amidst the darkness of the Gentiles, that of uniting in the bond of charity those who lived disjoined from it, and that of bringing back to the true belief those who found themselves immersed in error; he, therefore, in the second year of his pontificate, instituted this Sacred Congregation, to which he confided the propagation of the Faith throughout the universe. It was composed of thirteen Cardinals, two Prelates, and one religious della Scala. The Cardinals met together for the first time on the 6th of December, 1622. In this first meeting the Cardinal Ludovisi having mentioned the motive of its creation, asked his colleagues to manifest openly their sentiments regarding the best manner of propagating [27]the Faith. It was resolved that all the Nuncios of the Holy See should be written to, in order that they should send information regarding the state of religion in the provinces and kingdoms committed to them; also, that the heads of Religious Orders should receive instructions to send accounts of the state of the missions conducted by them amongst heretics and infidels. And first of all it was resolved that the Bishop of Cozentino should be written to for the papers which he held in charge regarding the propagation of the Faith in the time of Clement VIII.

The Bull of the erection, the revenues necessary, the purchase of a palace which should be an asylum for the converted, the residence for the alumni destined for the service of the missions, and the material foundation of the Congregation itself, were also matters of deliberation in that first session. Monsignor Vives of Valencia in Spain, Ambassador of Isabella, the illustrious Infanta of Spain and Governor of the Belgian Provinces, a personage of singular piety, offered for the purposes of the Congregation the Ferratina Palace, where even at present the most eminent Cardinals meet to decide upon religious questions which arise in different parts of the world. On the 4th of February following, the second Congregation was held. The principal things then considered were the faculties, the relations to be made to the Pope after each Congregation, and the manner by which a revenue might be created for that pious establishment. Amongst other projects the Cardinal of Saint Susannah proposed the application of the Cardinal’s rings. This project was pleasing to all, and the Pope by inserting it in his Bull approved of it, and it still subsists. The same Gregory, at the canonization of Saint Ignatius and Saint Isidore, gave two thousand five hundred golden crowns; also when he prescribed that the Congregation should meet once a month before the Pope he offered ten thousand scudi. Nor did this limit his pious liberality, since other acts are found of his munificence.

The Bishops of Christendom also received impulses to collect alms for the promotion of this holy work in the Lenten times. A certain obligation, it appears, arose, since by reason of the pious contributions, great acquirements were made for the work. In consequence, regulations were drawn up regarding the administration. Two Cardinals, with the Cardinal’s Secretary, were elected every year to superintend the temporal interests of the Congregation. Finally, there was besides instituted a special judge, an agent, and a notary. Matters thus progressed until, on the 8th July, Gregory XV. passed to a better life. The Cardinal Barberini succeeded him, and took the name of Urban VIII. On the 4th September the first Congregation was held under the new Pontiff. Urban VIII. by his Bull, Immortalis, ordained the erection of the Congregation on the 1st of August, 1627. The spirit of the Bull is as follows:—The holy Pontiff first mentions the grave burden which he feels in the government of the Universal Church. He mentions the supplication of Monsigr. Vives, by which the intended College is reduced to some form, and by which the latter gives his palace and all its annexes, together with all the rest of his goods, with the reserve of the use only during his natural life. He institutes the College on the condition that if it does not become a reality during his own pontificate; it should obtain it in that of his successors. He speaks of the instance of Monsigr. [28]Vives, and the confirmation accorded with the condition expressed in the instrument. He then institutes after the acceptation of the donation, after the confirmation of the conditions, and after the making good of any defects, the Pontifical College or Apostolic Seminary, under the invocation of SS. Peter and Paul, by the name of the Urban College, for the defence and Propagation of the Faith, called the Propaganda. (By the form of the Bull, Ne nova, of the 13th of March, 1640, it is forbidden to every college or seminary to take that designation.) He orders that the alumni from the secular state can be taken from every nation. They should be of sound maxims, of pure morals, and of sound piety. They should serve throughout their whole lives, encounter dangers, sufferings, and, if need be, martyrdom. He assigns the dotation for the maintenance of the econome, of the rector, of the masters, and of the students, deputing as administrators three Canons of the three patriarchal basilicas, at the death of whom he reserves to himself the nomination of their successors, to be taken from that basilica to which the deceased belonged. He accords to these ample faculties to elect and remove rectors, economes, officials, and masters; to make rules and give orders conformable to the canons and apostolic constitutions; to change these, to correct them and interpret them. He exempts all the individuals of the College from every jurisdiction of the vicar, senator, conservator, and rector of studies, as well as from whatsoever tax whether of land or sea. He takes the college under his own immediate protection and awards to it every privilege conceded to the German, English or Greek Colleges. He inhibits any one from molesting either the college or the officials. He wishes that no one should regard as defective, fight against, suspend, call in judgment for vice of nullity or intention, whomsoever should be there found residing, and declares null all that which could be attempted, knowingly or unknowingly, against his constitution. He orders the Bishops of Ostia, the Vicar, and the Auditor of the Apostolic Camera to execute this Bull, so that no one under whatsoever pretext could molest it. He threatens censures and the secular arm against its contraveners. He finally terminates his Bull with the most ample derogatory forms.

The College remained divided from the Sacred Congregation until 1641. But on the 16th of May of that year the same Urban VIII. gave another Bull—Romanus Pontifex. In this he revoked and annulled the faculties given to the three Canons of the Patriarchal basilicas. He unites the College to the Sacred Congregation, but leaving the administration, government and direction of it to the Cardinal of St. Onefrius “having taken counsel, as we hope,” says the Bull, “with the Congregation of the before-mentioned Cardinals, and with the approbation of the Roman Pontiff in affairs of greater importance.”

FOUNDATIONS FOR STUDENTS.

The first foundation for students was made by Monsgr. Vives for the alumni, priests or secular clergyman of whatever nation destined for the Propagation of the Faith throughout the universe.

The second foundation was made by Cardinal Antonio Barberini with the jus patronatus reserved, so far as nomination was concerned, to his family. [29]This was destined for six nations, each one of which ought to supply two students. These nations were the Georgian, Persian, Chaldean, Melchite, Jacobite and Copt. Urban VIII. gave a Bull—Altitudo Divini—erecting these foundations, on the 1st of April, 1637. In this he subjected the alumni to the rule of the College, and to the oath conceding to them all the privileges, faculties and exemptions already enjoyed by the other collegians.

The third foundation was also by the same Cardinal Barberini. It was for seven Ethiopians or Abyssinians, and for ex-Brahmins in Eastern India. Urban VIII. gave a Bull erecting these in 1639—Onorosa pastoralis Officii. In this he added that if young men could not be found in one of these nations they should be taken from the others; and if in neither, they should be taken from the Armenians in this order, that they should be first those of Poland, then those of Constantinople, then from Tartary, Pericop, Georgia and Armenia the Greater, and Armenia the Less, and finally from Persia. The examination of these also belonged to the family of the Barberini. These students were also placed under the same oath, privileges, etc., as the others. The dotation was assigned for maintaining them, the protector and his faculties. As a crown to such great beneficence the same Cardinal gave in 1646 to the Sacred Congregation the houses which constitute the Island of the College valued at 56,233 scudi. In order to bring the fabric to its present form the same Sacred Congregation spent 96,496 scudi. He died the same year, and left heir to all his estate the Sacred Congregation, to which he also left 1000 scudi of pension which he had from certain episcopal sees.

In 1701 Monsgr. Scanegatti, Bishop of Avellino, left the Sacred Congregation his heir, with the obligation of maintaining five students, reduced to four in 1733.

In 1704 Cardinal Barberini founded a new place to be added to the others of his house.

In 1708 Clement XI. gave 4000 scudi for the maintenance of a student.

In 1715 an Albanian Catholic gave to the Sacred Congregation an offering of 1600 scudi for the education of an alumnus, with the right of alternative nomination.

In 1719 Cardinal di Adda left the Sacred Congregation his heir, with the obligation of maintaining as many students as it could support by his income. All these being free, the Sacred Congregation assigned one to the Basilian and one to each of the four Irish Archbishops. But so far as it concerned the Irish, in 1726, the Sacred Congregation, having been requested if these places were conceded perpetually, replied affirmatively, until the Sacred Congregation should decide otherwise. It is to be here borne in mind that in this concession there is a derogation from a decree of 1644, which laid down that no students should be received from nations which had colleges either in Rome or outside of Rome.

In 1743 the Sacred Congregation, with 100 LL. M. M., given by John Dominic Spinola, assigned two places to the Bulgarians and one to the Servians, as was found in the College of Fermo, reunited to the Urban College in 1746.

There were also two supernumerary, one Swedish, and another Algerine. The post maintained by Cardinal Albani, the second by Cardinal San Clemente.

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The piety of the Emperor Charles VI., in order to provide for the spiritual welfare of the Greek Wallachians of Transylvania, in the year 1736, ordered that the chamber of that province should pay annually the sum of 432 scudi for the purpose of maintaining three alumni in this College. This assignment was accepted and confirmed by the Pope. The first alumnus was Monsgr. Avon, afterwards Bishop of Biaritz. To this bishop was afterwards assigned certain funds with the obligation of maintaining twenty alumni in the province, and to pay for the support of the three to the Propaganda. In the end negotiations were opened in order to diminish such expense, but the issue of them is unknown.

In 1772 two Scotch foundations were instituted, with funds given by Cardinal di Burnis, and coming from the legacy Montesisto of the codex.

1772. In the College the monks sent by the Patriarch of Cilicia were received.

1754. The Chaldeans of Mossul obtained two places. For ten years the alumni were reduced to thirty-four.

By the reunion of the College of Fermo, and by the places having been brought up to the ancient number, the alumni were sixty-four in 1759. Of these foundations some are of free collation, and others of the jus patronatus of the Barberini family. The Monsignor Secretary presents to the said family the students, and they forward the diplomas. They cannot, however, be admitted without the previous approbation of the Sacred Congregation. In the absence of ecclesiastics, even a lady—as was done by Cornelia Costanza—can use the right acquired. For the rest, that illustrious family being rendered so well meriting of the College, it enjoys the right to have a copy of all the works which issue from its printing office. In what pertains to the admission of the students, no one can be received if he has not been previously admitted by the Sacred Congregation. Therefore, Bishops and Vicars-Apostolic do not use arbitrary means in sending them, as happened on other occasions.

But if they do not receive them from the Sacred Congregation, the Congregation is bound to accept them for compassion, and with its own loss.

The alumni ought to be sound, without defect of body, of good disposition and morals, of Catholic family, civil, and with the credit of having goods of fortune, sufficient to pay the expenses of the voyage to Europe.

There are the following recent foundations:—Six places were founded by Father Michael Doyle, of Dublin, an ex-student, about the year 1850.

Foundations for Scotland by the Cardinal of York, who left for that purpose the Roman suburban tenement called the Loazzo.

On the 25th of June, 1853, Don Armando Heljen, ex-alumnus, left two foundations to the Propaganda for Belgium.

One was left in 1879 for the Diocese of Port Main, in the United States.

One place was founded by Monsignor O’Bryen, for America, in 1883.

Dr. Backhouse also left, for Sandhurst in Australia, as much as will perhaps sustain three students. He was an Alumnus of Propaganda, and left considerable means for the benefit of the diocese in which he laboured long and successfully, and of which he was the first Vicar-General.

[31]

From the College here described, thousands of apostolic men have gone forth to distant lands, and not a few of these have won the crown of martyrdom. The visitor to Rome now meets with representatives of every race under heaven who come to that Urban College for an ecclesiastical education to fit them for the ministry in their several nations. Amidst the various bands of young students bearing the Propaganda uniform he sees the Red Indian of the American Forests, the dark son of Central Africa, the islander of the Southern Seas, the young Chinaman destined for one of the provinces of his Emperor’s Celestial Kingdom, the native of Corea, the child of the Arabian Desert, the soft-featured Circassian, the swarthy Syrian, and occasionally a fair-haired son of Albion; but never can he miss from the camerate of the Propaganda the tall, muscular forms of that wonderful Celtic race, which from the very opening of the Urban College, has never ceased to form a part, and even a great part of its alumni. The Irish come to it from their island home, although no less than three distinctive colleges for their nation exist in Rome. A mitigation in their favour was made in a rule permitting no nation which had a special College of its own in Rome to send alumni to the Propaganda. Notwithstanding this rule the four Archbishops of Ireland obtained places for students. And then the same missionary race sent alumni as Irish as the Irish at home, from America, Canada, Australia, India, and other lands which the vast migrations of its people had evangelised. No polyglot exhibition of the many which have been given in the Propaganda has ever been wanting in Irish names—a proof in itself of the wonderful extent and influence of Irish faith in the missionary labours of the Church. The number of Irish Propaganda students who [32]have rendered distinguished services to religion in foreign lands is very great; and since the formation of the Church in North America, the number of the sons of Irishmen, educated also in Propaganda, who have there attained considerable eminence, is specially remarkable. It may be also well to state that the schools of the Propaganda, directed by the Sacred Congregation, and under the immediate superintendence of the Cardinal Prefect, are attended by the alumni of several Roman missionary Colleges, amongst which I may number the Irish College students, and those of the Greek, Armenian, and North and South American Colleges. They are all taught gratuitously; and their Colleges, as well as other Missionary Colleges not taught in the Propaganda Schools, share in the solicitude of the Sacred Congregation, which watches over every concern of a missionary character in the city and in the world—in urbe et in orbe.

Besides the Urban College, and the great schools for sacred science there are other departments taught within the precincts of the Propaganda Palace, most interesting, not only to the Catholic, but to the learned of every nation. Foremost amongst these comes

In this are collected rare books in every known and spoken language, and in languages whose literatures were formed by the labours of Catholic Missionaries only. Of the latter class are works in the very difficult dialects of innumerable Indian tribes, whose tongues had to be learned, reduced to grammar, and made permanent by the labour of the devoted men, who went to carry the light of the Gospel, and with it brought, as Catholic Missionaries have ever done, the light also of true civilization. Through this means the Maori of New Zealand, the natives of Fiji, and Samoa, and of Tonga-Taboo, can read and write, and be brought into civilized contact with the white man. Eastern literature gives to this library a value still more extraordinary. In it learned men of every rite into which Eastern Christianity is divided, have left the wealth of their researches, during two centuries. These not only illustrate the history of their several nations, but throw an inestimable light upon biblical and archæological knowledge. The study of the Oriental languages is one which for obvious reasons the Propaganda has never omitted to foster. And at the present moment its professors are acknowledged to be amongst the foremost in Europe in this valuable department of linguistic science. I believe that since the time of Cardinal Mezzofanti, no greater Oriental scholar has appeared than Professor Ciasca of the Propaganda. He is being fast approached by Professor Ferrata, brother of the late Papal Nuncio to Switzerland. The linguistic [34]capabilities of our own Cardinal Howard are of a high order, and he occupies a distinguished place amongst his brother Cardinals who form the special council of the Oriental Department of the Propaganda.

It is well known that a great part of the value of the Propaganda library depends upon another department of that great institution which is foremost, if not unique, in its kind in Europe. This is the famous Propaganda Stamperia or

This magnificent department of Pontifical munificence, enlightenment, and care, at first arose in Rome, soon after the art of printing was invented. The Vatican Printing Press which preceded it, is one of the oldest and most prolific in Europe. By its means, Gregory XIII., who, as we have seen, commenced the formation of the Propaganda, diffused tens of thousands of catechisms in every known tongue throughout the world. But it was not until the Propaganda came into full working order as a distinct department, that the now famous Polyglot Press was established and became, then and since, the first institution of the kind possessed by any corporation or nation in the world.

By the zeal and ability of its officials, many of whom were priests, type was founded in all the known characters of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The numerous ancient liturgies of the East were printed in their original characters for the benefit of the various rites using them; and uncivilized tongues were provided with a literature by which Missionaries might teach the truths of Faith, and advance their co-religionists or neophytes in the path of the truest progress. In this way the gross ignorance which had, by the action of schism, heresy, and the conquests of the Mahommedans, fallen upon the ancient Christian lands and peoples of the once great Eastern Roman Empire, was taken away, and a new light, not only of orthodox Christianity, but of knowledge and civilization, diffused, where superstition and darkness had for centuries [36]prevailed. By this means a literature was given to the unlettered tribes in North and South America, and Missionaries were enabled, even before setting out for these uncultivated people, to learn the languages in which they were to preach and minister to them. By this means the literatures of China, India, and Japan were made familiar to European scholars; and by this means, too, Catholics condemned by penal legislation to ignorance—as were our Catholic forefathers in these three kingdoms—were supplied with the means of education.

The various works connected with the Propaganda, of course, implied great expenses, and necessitated the possession of large revenues fixed and well-secured. The care of the Popes and the generosity of the faithful supplied funds which went far, for there is not to be found an establishment of its extent in the world managed at all times with such scrupulous economy and care. Many emulated the generosity of Monsignor Vives and of Cardinal Barberini. Others left to the general purposes of the Propagation of the Faith large legacies—sometimes even their whole inheritance. Besides that which Gregory XV. bestowed upon it, and which Urban VIII. increased, Innocent XII. gave the Institution 150,000 crowns in gold, and Clement XII. gave it 70,000. From its first foundation, all future Cardinals were by a decree of the Pope bound to procure from it their Cardinal’s ring, and to pay for this ring a large donation, varying from £400 to double that sum. This forms a most valuable and perpetual source of revenue. Other sources opened continually. The generosity awakened by the two Pontiffs who were mainly instrumental in founding it, descended to their successors, and spread throughout the entire Church, so that it may be well said that no institution ever existed which has been more popular with Catholics, nor more unceasingly popular, than the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.

And it deserved to be so, not only because of the sacred objects to which it has devoted its unwearied [38]labours, but also because of that extreme economy which has characterised its management from the beginning to this hour. A very strong proof of the genuine excellence of this economy lies in the fact that the Cardinals and Prelates who willed it, either all, or a large portion of their means were members of its management—a management of great labour, for which the funds of the Propaganda never paid them anything. All connected with its care, except the absolutely necessary officials, gave to it the whole of their services gratuitously. These knew well the nature of the work which the sacred Institution did, and the urgency of the wants it supplied. When, therefore, such men have selected it from amongst the many objects which Rome presents for Catholic zeal as the most worthy and the most carefully conducted of all, we may judge of the supreme excellency of its claims. Then the whole of the work which it requires from the other Congregations of Rome must be done gratuitously. The Bulls for its numerous Bishops must be expedited, its cases of conscience, coming, as they do, from all parts of the earth, must be solved, its dispensations of every kind granted, its rubrical, ceremonial, and technical difficulties must be settled, its honours must be bestowed by every department of Church government under the Pope, without one farthing of cost to itself or to its innumerable clients. Then, it was completely exempt, as we have seen, from every kind of tax, for matters whether coming by land or sea, and was freed from municipal burdens, under the Pontifical Government. Its superior management cost nothing, and for its work, secretaries and under-secretaries, writers and teachers, gave their labours for less than that paid by any other Institution in Rome. This they do out of pure devotion to religion and the hope [39]of spiritual reward. In proof of this I will relate an anecdote of one of its employes—Monsignor Agliardi, at present Archbishop Delegate of the Holy See to British India. This able ecclesiastic devoted his life until well beyond fifty years of age to the severest labours of the Institution. He was one of the overworked minutanti or under-secretaries, and in addition acted as Professor of Moral Theology to the students of the Urban College. I believe no more able, learned, or laborious ecclesiastic lived in Rome. He worked as all the minutanti must do, in season and out of season. The Propaganda official is a drudge who seldom knows or looks for a holiday. When every other office in Rome is closed for the terrible Roman, fever-giving months, the Cardinal, the Secretary, and the minutanti are still at their desks. Rome serves all the world, and at the Propaganda all the world is served. Now the particular official I speak of, left a high and lucrative position in his native diocese for the work of the Propaganda; and though his duties placed him in constant correspondence with the Church spread over Asia, and I may say over the islands of the Southern and Indian Ocean, he was paid a great deal less than would satisfy the humblest curate in any English-speaking country. He could at any moment leave this position and obtain dignity and comparative ease. But for him, as for the rest of his brethren in harness, the work of the Sacred Congregation had a strong fascination. They seem somehow to thrive on hard work, and if not killed soon by it, to get so used to it, that they cannot do without it. The good Cardinal who now so worthily presides over the whole work of the great institution, has gone through all its grades, from the Minutanté’s desk to that of the Cardinal Prefect. All who visit Rome on business to the Propaganda are astonished to find him always at their [40]service, from early morning to near midnight. It is so with the Secretary, who is also an esteemed official of the Institute. Their work is, no doubt, a deeply interesting and a most responsible one. But there is, I found, a far more powerful motive for attachment to this hard labour for long years and small pay. It is that the officials of the Propaganda, of every class, participate in every good work performed in the world committed by the Vicar of Christ to their care. They enjoy very many indulgences and are enriched with innumerable spiritual privileges. This I found to be the secret of Archbishop Agliardi’s long years of contented, severe, and ill-paid labour. When we see other men immure themselves in Cisterican and Carthusian cloisters, we can realise the reason of so much devotion, but not till then. The work of the Propaganda is necessary for the greatest ends of God’s service. Its officers are certain they are serving the servants of God, the martyrs of China, Corea, and Japan, the labourers in every part of the Lord’s extended vineyard. I speak of Monsignor Agliardi, because he has left the Institution, and is now employed as Papal Delegate in the great Mission of India. But there are others as devotedly performing such duties as his in the Propaganda. There is no lack of attention, and I believe that all, both Bishops and Priests, who have ever had occasion to visit the Institution, will say that they have been forcibly struck with the genuine goodness, prudence, learning, and general superiority of the officials employed in every department of that Sacred Institution.

It happens, by the care of the Popes, that only the very first men in the Apostolic College are appointed Prefects over the Propaganda. The men who occupied the position in this century alone will prove this. I [41]have never seen the late illustrious Cardinal Barnabo, but his fame still lives in all the Churches. Before him lived the saintly Cardinal Fransoni, and he was preceded by one who was taken from the position of Prefect to ascend the throne of Peter in some of the most difficult days that have tested a Pope’s peculiar worth in this most trying century. The present illustrious man who governs the Propaganda was its Secretary in the days of Cardinal Barnabo. He was taken from that position to discharge most difficult diplomatic duties in Spain, and was afterwards Secretary of State to Pius IX., in succession to the late celebrated Cardinal Antonelli. In fact, his present Holiness looks often to the officials of the Propaganda for his diplomatic agents in places where rare tact, knowledge, and sanctity of life combined, are necessary; and this has been manifested within the present year in the missions confided to Monsignors Agliardi and Chiavoni in India and South America, respectively. Monsignor Vanutelli, who represented the Pope at the coronation of the Czar, and is now engaged in the difficult nunciature of Lisbon, may be also said to be a member of the Propaganda, in the service of which he discharged the duties of Archiepiscopal Legate at Constantinople.

Having now glanced at the nature and history of this Institution, we shall take a rapid survey of the work it has done, and is doing, for the world.

At the very first meeting of the Cardinals, held by order of Gregory XV., to settle upon the means of forming the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda, it was resolved that the heads of all the religious orders should be written to for statistics relative to the state of the missions confided to their subjects in every part of the world. It was further resolved that the papers of the Provisional Congregation called together by Gregory XIII. should be obtained from the Bishop-Secretary. These two acts established the identity of the Sacred Congregation with the vast work carried on by the Roman Pontiffs for the spread of the Faith in preceding ages, and especially with the work of those Cardinals called in to assist Gregory XIII. The new Congregation set instantly to work at the immense amount of labour placed upon its members. Its responsibility was very great. It had to look to the East and to the West. The Church in the lands once Catholic, now committed to its keeping, was everywhere in ruins. Four-fifths of the population of the earth wandered still “in darkness and in the shadow of death” outside the narrow boundaries of Christendom. The interior of Africa remained a closed book to the European, and within it millions groaned in slavery under rulers who deemed it a sacred duty to offer human victims in thousands annually to idols. Budha and Vishnu held half the human race captive. Savage hordes wandered over the steppes of Asia, through the forests of America, and peopled the innumerable islands of the Pacific with races almost as [43]destitute of the knowledge “of a God in this world” as the lower animals upon which they subsisted. Where a semi-civilization created caste-prejudice, as in India, or refined materialism, as in China, mankind in its masses descended into depths of degradation still lower and more worthy of commiseration than the wild tribes in savage life. There was no mercy. The weak “went to the wall.” Little children were slaughtered without pity, the poor were regarded as the accursed of God, and the helpless were trampled upon without hesitation or remorse. Islam had extended its ravages over the fair Christian States which once extended from the Pillars of Hercules to the Red Sea, and from thence through Syria to the waters of the Bosphorus. It was supreme in Persia, and spread its Crescent over all the lands from the crests of the ranges of Thibet to the Chersonesus. It had fixed its seat in the city of Constantine, and its sway was undisputed throughout the Balkan Peninsula, and in the Isles of Greece and of the Levant.

One of the first duties of the new Sacred Congregation was to look after those Christian peoples who yet retained any vestige of Christianity in the nations subjected by Islam. They had become timid and abject slaves under the persecuting lash of their masters. It was difficult for missionaries to reach them at all, and then there was another difficulty to be met with before Catholic missionaries could minister to them.

The Orientals were generally schismatics of various rites and nations, imbued with a fanatical hatred for the Church from which their fathers had seceded. Great zeal was therefore needed amongst these sects. The Missionaries of the Propaganda had to make their converts either from Islam, which punished what it called apostasy, with [44]terrible severity, or from Christians made vile by ignorance and slavery in the lands of their ruthless conquerors. Yet the grace of God prevailed to a wonderful extent, and innumerable souls were reconciled and became Catholic.

The Armenians, the Maronites, the Melchites, the Copts, the Nestorians themselves, sometimes abandoned in a body, their errors and schisms, or individually passed over to communion with the Holy See. In consequence, to-day, we have a Roman Catholic Archbishop in Athens, another at Naxos; and Catholic Bishops, Priests and flocks at Skio, Pinos, Andros, Santoria and Lyra, and other places in schismatical modern Greece. In the Turkish Empire in Europe and Asia, there are no less than sixty-six dioceses of various grades at present, not including those in formation, which amount to thirteen, under Vicars or Prefects Apostolic. The great Christian Community of the Armenians have also, by the constant care of the Propaganda, been kept in large measure from schism, and in the graces which spring from union with the Church. Incredible pains have been taken for the spread of the Faith in Egypt, Nubia, and the old Christian State of Abyssinia. Apostolic prefectures have been established in the remotest regions of Africa; and the spread of French and other European influences in Algeria and Tunis promises to renew the Faith of the great St. Augustine in the once fertile Christian Provinces which he enlightened by word and pen when he ruled the famous See of Hippo. A special congregation of Cardinals under the Cardinal Prefect devote themselves to the numerous, difficult, and important questions which arise from this department of the work of the Propaganda. Under it are also two flourishing Colleges—one for the Greeks, and the other for [45]the Armenians—which latter was founded by Leo XIII. under the able and zealous presidency of the late Cardinal Hassan.

Further to the East, the Sacred Congregation directed during the period which has passed from the opening efforts of St. Francis Xavier in India and Japan, to our own days, the missionary enterprise of the Church. Under its care, Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans penetrated to China, and worked the wonders we read of during the long reign of Kang-he, and later on of Keen-lung. Innumerable and bloody were the persecutions its Missionaries had to suffer there, as well as in Corea, Thibet, Cochin-China, and other nations bordering upon the Celestial Empire. The Propaganda, besides, looked with ceaseless solicitude upon the changing fortunes of the missions in India, and nourished them amidst the wars and diplomatic arrangements which transferred power from Portugal and France to Great Britain, or to her East India Company of traders. In America it never ceased to follow the tracks of the red man in his forests, and those of the poor negro in his slavery. The history of Indian tribes from Canada to Patagonia, is the history of its Missionaries, of their labours, travels, and martyrdom. It sent with equal zeal its Apostolic men to the islands of the Southern Seas, as these became known by the exertions of successive explorers. And in those vast regions, where barbarous or uncivilized man yet walks in the darkness of paganism and idolatory, it never ceased its exertions until now its bishops may be numbered by the hundred, its priests by the thousand, and its converts by millions. In all, it spread the knowledge of Christ; and orphanages, hospitals, schools, and other pious institutions, conducted by Catholic brotherhoods and sisterhoods of various [46]forms, now give to the pagan a knowledge of the earnest zeal and devotion of genuine Christianity.

But interesting, as this account is, of its labours—how easy and pleasing it would be to prolong the record if time permitted!—it is not more interesting than that of the work done by the Sacred Congregation for the salvation of the nations which lapsed into heresy at the period of the Reformation, and for the Faith in this country, and in every land that speaks our language.

If the Faith has again penetrated into Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and those Northern regions whence it was long banished by a vigilant and persecuting heresy, it is owing entirely to the zeal of the Propaganda; and we have only to recall the history of the Church in England, Ireland, and Scotland, to know how sleepless was its care of our fathers exposed to such long-continued persecution in the three kingdoms. Up to 1700, the law of the land prohibited a Catholic priest to put his foot into Scotland. Yet the few Scotch Catholic clans of the Highlands and the still more scattered Catholic families of the Lowlands, were never wholly without the ministrations of religion or the means of a Christian education. We have only to look at the annals of these dreary but sadly interesting times, to know that it was the care and the funds of the Sacred Congregation that kept both priest and schoolmaster in this country and so kept the Faith alive and in progress, until at length it needed a Superior over the missions, and at last, a Bishop, to take charge of the gradually increasing flock. The increase consequent upon the influx of Irish immigrants who swelled the Church to the proportions of greatness, continued to occupy the zealous attention of the Propaganda, until at length the moment came when our present Holy Father was enabled to restore to the [47]land evangelized by Columba and Aidan, its ancient Hierarchy.

Ireland occupied so distinct a portion of the care of Propaganda, that I have been frequently led to think the Sacred Congregation was chiefly, if not entirely, occupied with her concerns. And Ireland indeed deserved it all, for she has proved to be amongst all nations, far the most faithful daughter of the Holy See. Since the days of the terrible peace which followed the long struggle of Hugh O’Neill and O’Donnell for her freedom, and her ancient Faith, the Propaganda applied its whole energies to cure the woes of the Catholics of the country, to minister to them and preserve their Faith. Not only during the brief interval of national triumph secured by the Confederation of Kilkenny, when enormous assistance was given to Ireland through the Legate, Cardinal Rinuccini, but before and after that transient gleam of sunshine on the Church in Ireland, the assistance given to the country by the Propaganda was ceaseless. It took care that in Rome and out of Rome, in many Colleges and Convents, her Clergy should be educated gratuitously. It gave large and well sustained grants for education, the nature of which has been shown by my own Archbishop, who was himself at one time Professor of Hebrew at the Urban College, and had access to authentic documents proving that point, which, as an Irishman, so much interested him.⁠[25]

His uncle, Cardinal Cullen, who besides being for many years Rector of the Irish College in Rome, was also for a period Rector of the Urban College of the Propaganda, has more than once evidenced the same. The Propaganda, besides, found funds for the support as well as for the [48]education of the Clergy. And Ireland, I believe, is the only country which, having Colleges of her own, both in Rome and in other countries, obtained a right to a certain number of students in the Urban College. Of this number, at various seasons, were many of the most distinguished ecclesiastics of the Irish Church. Cardinal Cullen was a Propagandist, and so was the late Delegate Apostolic to Canada, of whom the Irish Church and Rome herself had such high hopes, Monsignor George Conroy, Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois.

In England, the history of its Church since the death of Elizabeth, is inseparably bound up with the Propaganda. The unwearied care which it bestowed upon that Church rendered so desolate by the action of the rulers—not, we must always remember, of the people—surrounding Elizabeth and James, is worthy of all attention. It never ceased that care from the appointment of the first single Bishop till it saw the ordinary Hierarchy of the country restored to something like its pristine glory. I need not say, that with the same care it followed the children of Ireland, who went forth to found the Churches of the United States, of British Canada, of Australia, and the other dependencies of Great Britain. Even at the present moment the Church in those regions, is not only equal to what she had been in the foremost Catholic States of Europe, but the wonderful zeal, energy, and generosity of her children, compensate for what Catholicity loses in older States, through the action of the Infidel Revolution.

But besides the continued works of zeal which the Propaganda has never ceased to foster since its foundation, there is another work which it carries on just as ceaselessly. The Church needs not only to be founded, but when founded in any locality or nation, it has to be administered and cared for. [49]This forms no small portion of the labour of the Propaganda. The zeal of its missionaries in many lands, the providential increase of the faithful in others, the self-arising return in response to the invitation and grace of God, in the cases of individuals everywhere within the borders of its jurisdiction, has rendered its work in our own days far beyond what it was at the commencement, or for many years afterwards. If we only consider the one duty of selecting the Bishops for the various dioceses in these Islands, in Canada, the United States, and Australia, we may form some idea of this work. We know how frequently priests and people are much exercised with ourselves regarding these appointments. Conflicting interests get at work. Public and private affairs are effected. Interminable correspondence arises, for grave issues are at stake. All this work must be settled by the Propaganda before it is presented for final solution to the Vicar of Christ, with whom of course rests the ultimate responsibility. Now, peoples of whose affairs we know absolutely nothing, have interests as dear to them, to be solved in the same way by the Propaganda. The Sees which concern them spread from the rising to the setting of the Sun. Then come questions affecting religious orders, in general and in detail. Everywhere there are important interests to be settled or conciliated; for it is wonderful how pious people can see the glory of God and the good of souls in directions so very opposite one to the other; and the more sincere and holy the parties on either side are, the more sure are they to be obstinate, for reasons of the most conscientious kind. If the Propaganda was not there with the patience and experience it possesses, and with the power of the Supreme Pontiff at its back, there would be no settlement for such disputes as sometimes arise between the most sincere, [50]devoted, and best intentioned people in the world. For what else but an authority that cannot be disputed could settle issues between people obstinate for conscience sake, and only too happy to endure martyrdom for conviction. Such people in our midst, who are not Catholics, break up the little section of Protestantism to which they belong into still smaller fragments, whenever they happen to be much exercised by opposite religious views; and hence we see over one church door the “Free Kirk,” and over another “Kirk of Scotland.” Indeed a certain good soul who became very solicitous for my own salvation invited me in a passenger car to join the Church of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, established in a suburb of London, in the year of Grace 1884. “Annual subscription £1, to be paid quarterly in advance.” As I already belonged to a Church of that title established in an upper room in Jerusalem in the year of Grace 33, I declined the invitation. It was, I suppose, a miniature “Free Kirk” which differed and broke off from some other, there being no one to settle the difference. But all differences in the Catholic Church are settled by an authority from which there is no appeal, and that authority is exercised for four-fifths of this world, materially speaking, by the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda, with a patience, skill, and knowledge which no words of mine could adequately express.

And here you will permit me to quote what I wrote on this subject upon another occasion on the Propaganda:—

Over the minutest as well as the gravest concerns of the immense expanse of its jurisdiction, the Propaganda has always watched with a sleepless vigilance. Sustaining, with an instinct and a power that must be surely largely infused by the Holy Ghost, the divine principle of [51]authority, it has never been blind to the slightest manifestation of its abuse. The humblest missionary, the humblest child wronged any where in the vast extent of its care, is certain to receive from its officials a just and a paternal hearing, and, if wronged, is certain of redress. There is not, and there never was on this earth, a tribunal more just, more patient, more kind to all committed to its keeping. Then, too, it watches over the interest of souls with constant assiduity. The most difficult questions are daily submitted to its judgment, and find invariably a solution which cannot be given except where the Vicar of Christ reigns and rules.

From all that we have seen of the designs of Atheism on last Monday evening, we cannot be surprised that such an institution as the Propaganda should be one of the principal objects of its hatred. And so it has been ever since Atheism, through the organization of Freemasonary, has had any power to persecute. It was amongst the very first of the institutions of Rome which the French revolutionists attacked in the last century. Napoleon, too, so far as in him lay, destroyed the whole of the work of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide. He took possession of the offices and buildings. He smashed the type formed for spreading the Gospel through the whole earth. He carried off to Paris the rarest and most valuable articles found in the museum and library. He suppressed the famous Urban College with a lie in his mouth, namely, that it was useless; and in his day, children from every nation under the sun were seen in the city of the Popes no longer. He suppressed and plundered the whole circle of great Missionary Colleges, which the zeal of the Popes had founded for the many nations needing light. He did simply what mischief he could do, and when the return of the Pope restored the work of the Sacred Congregation in part, he, on his second coming, showed himself no less an Antichrist against the spread, at least, of the Faith. The students whom the first coming of the French had scattered, returned soon after the restoration of the Pope, and settled at Monte Citorio. But in 1809, Napoleon, having a second time taken Rome, at once suppressed that second [53]College; and to obliterate the memory of the beneficent work of the Sacred Congregation, he destroyed the materials of the very type destined to civilize the barbarous nations of the world by literature as well as by the Gospel.

The tyrant’s fall in 1814, however, not only liberated the aged, suffering Vicar of Christ from the talons of the heartless Freemasons, but also let the work of the Missions of the Catholic Church take their ordinary course under the renewed zeal and care of the Cardinals of the Propaganda. In 1817, the students returned to their old home; and soon after, the various dependent National Missionary Colleges re-opened under the zeal and fatherly care of the Popes. Under the Pontificate of Gregory XVI. the Institution had not only its Colleges, but all its mighty energies at work, as if no revolution had passed over the sacred city. It continued with unabated energy to spread the Gospel as before, and daily to open out new fields of missionary enterprise. But when the Freemasons again got hold of Rome, all who know that the Freemasonry of our day is as malignant as that of the time of Napoleon, knew that the days of the Propaganda, so far as Freemasonry could affect it, were numbered.

To give you an idea of what it now suffers I shall quote from the Tablet the exact state of the case:—

“The landed property of Propaganda, in value about eighteen million lire, has for a long time attracted the attention of the Italian Government. As far back as 1873 a law was passed forbidding land to be held in mortmain; but it was not until Victor Emmanuel was dead that the Giunta Liquidatrice thought of applying it to Propaganda. Early in 1880 the Giunta resolved that the international character of the property of Propaganda should protect it no longer, and accordingly offered the whole of its lands for sale. Legal proceedings were then commenced, and have been carried on with varying success from that time till now. Beaten in the Court of Cassation, the Giunta appealed, with well-founded confidence, [54]to the Supreme Court, and now it is finally decided that the Congregation is for ever incapable of holding real property in Italy. If this were all, it might seem that we had been over hasty in describing as confiscation what in reality is only a forced conversion. But confiscation is the only word which rightly fits the appropriation to itself by the Government of more than half the property to be dealt with. If the lands were merely sold, the gain to the Government would not be apparent, and action would probably never have been taken, though Propaganda might well complain that Italian bonds were poor securities when taken in exchange for Italian farms. But it has been arranged that a tax of no less than thirty per cent. shall be charged upon the whole amount of the property doomed to conversion. Again, there is a transfer duty of four per cent., and six per cent. for land tax, making in all forty per cent. Then, for the benefit of the Government Ecclesiastical Fund—whatever that may be—there is yet another duty, a progressive tax, beginning at fifteen per cent. on 10,000 francs revenue, and going up to forty per cent. on larger sums. The result of this scarcely-disguised spoliation is to strike a blow at the Church, the full force of which can hardly yet be measured.”

The Appunti, already referred to, vainly striving to obtain justice, thus speaks:—

“If the Government, therefore, does not wish to show clearly to all that the pretended guarantees guarantee nothing, as is evident from other sources, it must abstain from limiting in any fashion the free possession of those means which are destined to the exercise of its great office. But whatever its aggressions are, and whatever device it may adopt to oppress the Holy See, it is well it should be known that the Apostolate among the infidels is a natural and a divine right, and, at the same time, a binding duty of the Pontiff, for the exercise of which he needs absolutely to have at hand the pecuniary means free from the supervision of the State.

“The Appunti meet the argument that there is no injury done by the forced conversion, as follows: ‘But it may be urged that the freedom of the ministry entrusted to the Propaganda incurs no loss by the sale of its estate, seeing that it has the free disposal of the amount inscribed in the Gran Libro. Now, let us repeat it again, does not the payment of this income depend entirely on the good will and the solvency of the Italian Government? If it were to fail, many large and necessary missionary establishments would suffer; and, what is more important, the very centre from which emanates the action for diffusing the Gospel throughout the world, would be so weakened as to be unable to supply its most ordinary undertakings.’

[55]

“The Appunti then shows what the nature of the extraordinary expenses of the Propaganda are: ‘Besides the ordinary expenses, which are many and very heavy, the Propaganda has continually to come to the aid of the extraordinary needs of the various missions. Taking only, for instance, the decade from 1860 to 1870, a good two millions of capital were consumed in extraordinary grants; and if these had failed, besides other evils, the Constantinople mission would have died out, for whose rescue it was necessary to expend over a million and a half. With these funds were saved large numbers of Christians during the recent famines in China and Tonquin; and recently, after the sale, pendente lite, of Propaganda property by the Royal Commissioners, if extraordinary resources had not been obtained from abroad, no aid could have been given to the missions in Egypt, Central Africa, the Christian communities of India, China, and Oceania, tried by terrible disasters.’”

The above remonstrance would be simply laughed at by the party in power in Italy if it were not supported by force from without. Indeed the only concern the Italian Government showed was lest Catholics outside Italy should insist on their clear rights to the possession of the funds of the Propaganda. The Infidel inner circle, of which I spoke so much to you last Monday evening, have long determined on the destruction of the Propaganda and all its missionary work. Antichrist has no greater enemy. The destruction of the Temporal Power, the disbanding of the religious orders, the whole system of disintegration and persecution to which they determined to subject the Church and the Vicar of Christ, would be useless so long as the Propaganda remained at its work, sustaining and propagating Christianity—and earnest, fervent Christianity, too—in the world.

Next, therefore, to the spoliation of the Holy Father’s temporal dominions and the spoliation and suppression of the Religious Orders, there was nothing the Freemasons in power now in Italy desired more than the suppression of the Propaganda. But the necessity of [56]going somewhat moderately and cautiously to work, in order the more efficaciously to succeed, has forced the Italian Freemasons to proceed with the suppression of the Propaganda in the circuitous, stealthy manner sketched out at the commencement. They have succeeded in causing the Executive of the Sacred Congregation to go to law with them in the Masonic Courts of Italy—“going to law with the devil and the court held in hell.” Somehow, an intermediate sentence was given in favour of the Institution. But how little the Freemasons in power valued this, was manifested by the fact, that before the appeal made by themselves against that sentence was decided, they actually disposed of some of the real property of the Institution. The whole thing appears to me to have been no more than the merest farce. They knew what the final result of the law proceedings would be. All they required was that the Church should acknowledge a local tribunal by contending with them, instead of appealing at once to the world against a flagrant act of injustice attempted against international right. Governments then wishing to shelve a difficulty with the Italian Ministry, could allege that it was an internal Italian question, admitted to be so by the aggrieved parties, who appealed to local tribunals, with which, of course, externs could not interfere.

So at least the question has been dealt with by our own Government; but most unjustly. If the Cardinals of the Propaganda contended for the rights of the Institution before the tribunals of Italy, that contention, no matter how it may have eventuated, could not affect the parties interested in the right. And who are the parties interested in the funds of the Propaganda. Is it the Italian people? Decidedly not. There is not a people in the world who are [57]less interested in the funds and in the work of the Propaganda than the Italian people. In fact, the founders and the endowers of the Propaganda founded and endowed it, on the condition implied by their acts, and expressed by the very terms of the endowment, that their money should be applied for the benefit of those who should not live in Italy. The inheritors of these funds are foreigners to Italy, and amongst these foreigners there are no people more wronged by the action of the de facto Italian Government, than the Catholic subjects of Her Britannic Majesty.

We shall see this by considering its foundation. Who, then, first founded the Propaganda? The man who gave the ground upon which it stands, and the palace in which its work is carried on, was not an Italian. His money did not come from Italy. He was a Spaniard, and the representative at Rome of the Sovereign of the Netherlands. He formed the foundation of the whole institution, and all subsequent lands and moneys given to it were to carry out his intentions. His money was taken, and his intentions were solemnly guaranteed by the legitimate Sovereign of Rome at the period. They have been respected for two hundred and sixty years. I ask, can it be right now for the Italian Government to take his money, to sell his lands and houses, to put the proceeds of his funds into its own vinculated, uncertain bonds, and in the process steal the half of the proceeds. This seems to me such a gross perversion of international right, that I believe if Spain was not dominated over by the same sect of Freemasons as rule Italy, she would force the Italian Ministry and King Humbert to disgorge the property left by Monsignor John Baptist Vives for the Propagation of the Catholic Faith.

The injustice of the forced sale of the houses, lands, and rents left by a Spaniard for the extension of the Gospel, in trust to Italy, is only equalled by a like act of injustice done in the case of an Irishman, and a Priest of the City of Dublin, Father Michael Doyle, of the Church of SS. Michael and John, Arran Quay. Believing that [59]his poor country would be benefited by having a certain number of its priests trained in the Urban College, he made an agreement with the authorities in Rome to give them a sum of money amounting to no less than £5,000 sterling, for the perpetual education of Irish-born missionary priests for Ireland. This was in the year 1825. His money was taken, and well invested by the Cardinals of the Propaganda; and since, several most useful and distinguished Irish priests have been educated on the proceeds. Here is surely, if ever there was, an international arrangement lawfully and equitably concluded. But what do the Italians do? They take this dead British subject’s money and the increase which belongs to it. They sell out the property bought for it. They put half the proceeds in their pocket, and the rest they leave in “vinculated” Italian bonds, to be disowned whenever the time comes to reduce or do away with income from that source in Italy.

I am certain that Mr. Gladstone, whose just and generous mind recoils from deceit of any kind, especially in purely commercial matters, would never have said that the Propaganda was an internal institution of Italy subject to Italian laws, if he duly considered the nature of these two cases of John Baptist Vives of Spain, and Father Michael Doyle, of Arran Quay, in the good City of Dublin. I believe he has not heard of them, for I remember Mr. Gladstone to have made a remark in reply, I think, to Mr. O’Donnell, that the general Italian character of the Propaganda, as he called it, could not be effected by a charitable “subscription.” Now, surely no man calls an ordinary commercial agreement a “subscription.” Father Doyle goes to the Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda and makes a bargain with him for the perpetual [60]education of a certain number of his countrymen—by the way he stipulated that some of them should be his relatives,—and the Cardinal Prefect takes his money. The Sovereign of Rome fiats the contract. That honest Sovereign carries it out to the letter. But the Italians come in who are not honest; they steal one-half of Father Doyle’s money; they put the other half in Italian “vinculations.” The result is that Father Doyle’s countrymen and relations cannot be educated. They—British subjects as they are—are simply robbed. And can it be believed by the generation that thinks nothing of many millions for the relief of a British subject in Khartoum, that when our Government is asked to make a gentle remonstrance to the Freemasons who have stolen Father Doyle’s hard earnings it answers:—“We really cannot interfere. The Italians are our very good friends. And as to the money of Father Doyle, why that was only a ‘subscription!’”

The case of Father Doyle is far from being the only case. To my knowledge, another ecclesiastic, now living, gave £1,000 for the education of a student in the Urban College. He meant most assuredly that his money should be spent for the one purpose he intended. When it comes out that £450 of his thousand has gone into the pocket of King Humbert and Co., and that £550 has been “vinculated” prior to being swallowed in the same way, will his Government in England turn round and tell him, “Oh, you only gave a subscription!” If Mr. Gladstone put his fortune into United States Bonds for the benefit of his family, and that the Government of the United States put half that fortune in its pocket and the rest into “vinculated” bonds of the same value as the vinculated Church bonds of Italy, how would our admirable Premier be pleased if told that his contract was only a “subscription?” It is exactly such [61]“subscriptions” that the Freemasons of Italy have stolen by manipulating the moneys of British subjects. Is England afraid or powerless to demand redress? If so, Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis indeed!

And then, not only such money as that of Vives and Father Doyle, but all the money the Propaganda ever got was given for the benefit of countries which were outside Italy. The magnificent gifts of Cardinal Barberini, whose revenues, by the way, came from Church sources outside, as well as inside of Italy, were given for the benefit of the Eastern nations, whose various rites I have already referred to. Have these poor people not a right to the benefit of his legacy now, as well as at any past period? Does their weakness make the right anything the less? Twenty-three priests are educated for them at the present moment. When the estates which does this blessed work are sold for a song by Italian Freemasons to other Italian Freemasons—Freemasons alone are likely to buy them—and when half the proceeds are pocketted by the men in power, and the other half goes into “vinculated” Italian bonds, how will it fare with the poor Churches of the Orientals, dependent for educated Priests upon the grand charity of the Propaganda? Surely the ruthless horde of barbarians who have laid violent hands upon the States of the Church must be devoid of all shame, of all honour, of all manhood, when they descend to such mean sacrilege. I think a man would prefer, if he were a man, to command a troop of banditti than a Ministry and a Parliament capable of staining themselves with such mean, such cowardly, such heartless theft.

Now, if Melchites and Circassians, Copts and Maronites, are thus pillaged by the spoliation of the Propaganda, so to a far larger extent are the subjects of [62]Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria. And how? The funds of the Propaganda were given principally for the benefit of her Catholic subjects in Ireland, in Great Britain, in Canada, in Australia, in the vast extent of India, in the West Indian Islands, in the Army, in the Navy, in the great military stations, and wherever, in fact, she has subjects.

In all this vast expanse of territory, the government and care of the Catholic Church is carried on by the Propaganda. Not only are many of the clergy educated for these countries in its Urban and other subservient Colleges, but the whole education of the Clergy is looked after, the Bishops and Archbishops are selected, the Dioceses are regulated, Orphanages, Convents, Hospitals, Schools, and Institutions of beneficence are created and superintended by it. The whole work of the Catholic Church, in one word, is done through its instrumentality alone, in all the dominions of Her Britannic Majesty.

Now, if the existing funds of this institution are taken, the Catholic subjects of Her Majesty must supply others, and the action of the Italian Government in taking these funds, consequently, puts a heavy burden on the subjects of Her Majesty, which they ought not to be asked to bear, in order simply to put money into the Italian Treasury.

They ought not be asked to bear such a burden, because they have a strict right in justice to the funds of the Propaganda, which, even when they were not given by British subjects or by other than Italian subjects or Princes, were always absolutely given for the intention that the Propaganda may be able to do the work, of which the administration of the Catholic Church in the dominions of Her Majesty forms an integral portion.

It is evident, then, that no matter who gave the funds [63]of the Propaganda, they were given lawfully and justly and according to the existing laws of Italy at the period, for our benefit. We received that benefit uninterruptedly for over two hundred years, and it is monstrous that we should be now deprived of a long existing, acknowledged right, by the violation of a clear international obligation on the part of the Italian Government.

Now to show that what I here state is perfectly just, a striking exemplification was given by one matter connected intimately with the spoliation I speak of. After the final sentence was pronounced by an Italian Masonic Court, the Italian Government proceeded, as a first step, to sell a College dependent upon the Propaganda. It happened, however, that this College did not belong to Copts or Maronites who had no Government to assert their rights, or to Catholic subjects of Her Majesty who might be told about “subscriptions.” It belonged to a people who, when abroad, know that they have a country ready to defend them against whoever may choose to rob them, insult them, or injure them. This College was possessed by the Catholics of a country called the United States of America—a country which happens to be pretty well known to the Italian Government. It is a Republic, supposed to be very Protestant, for it sends missionaries, largely supplied with Bibles and coppers for the “conversion” of poor people in the slums of some large towns in Italy. The Italian Masonic Government, who laugh at the anti-Catholic fanaticism of the English and American nations, thought, therefore, that it could deal with the Catholic subjects of the United States just as it might with the Catholic subjects of England. It considered that the bigotry of the zealous Methodism of New York and Massachusetts would be only too glad to hear that the resources [64]of “Babylon” were being swallowed up by the Freemasons of Italy. Accordingly the walls of Rome were plastered with large placards announcing the sale of the North American College. Now, if the Italians had ever a right to sell any property belonging to the Propaganda, it was this College. It was a free gift on the part of Pius IX., for which no consideration whatever had been asked from the American Catholic people or Bishops. It was given only a few years previously, and had been before a Convent for religious. Moreover, the Pope never gave the fee-simple of the premises to the American Catholics. That remained vested absolutely in the Propaganda. The house was therefore as much the property of the Sacred Congregation as that which it received by legal transfer from Monsignor John Baptist Vives. In attempting its sale, the Italian Government thought rightly that no more favourable point could be seized upon by which to manifest their “right to do wrong” to the property of the Propaganda. The Catholics of America had given “no consideration.” There was no deed of transfer to them. That had been asked and refused by the Pope. The buildings were only a few years previously the property of the Papal Government, which the Freemasons supplanted. It was a test case, indeed. Let us see how it ended?

The moment the Cardinal Archbishop of New York heard that the College of his Catholic fellow-countrymen was about being touched by the Italians, he despatched his zealous and able Coadjutor at once to Washington with a letter to the Government of his country. That Government, Protestant as it was, at once recognised that a right lawfully acquired—though without consideration or subscription, or deed of transfer—of American Catholic [65]citizens was about being violated. Did they talk about “Italian laws” or “subscriptions,” or “Italian internal affairs not concerning outsiders?” Did they seek, subterfuge, evasion, or delay for the purpose of making necessary inquiries? Far from it. Instantly there flashed across the Atlantic to the United States Embassy at the Quirinal, instructions to tell the Italian Government that it would touch the interests which American citizens had acquired in Rome at its peril, and demanding instant cessation of the sale of the North American College. There was no further parley about the matter. The Ministry of King Humbert knew that Uncle Sam had ironclads, and could make his arm felt upon Italian ports and in Italian waters. And what was the consequence? Well! Such American citizens as were then in Rome had the satisfaction of knowing that they had a country. They had the satisfaction of seeing, one hour after the ultimatum of the United States Government was received, a number of employes of the Italian Government running about the streets with ladders and water buckets and carefully rubbing away from the walls every vestige of the placards which announced the sale of the Catholic North American College of the Propaganda. The College remains, and will continue to remain unmolested, for the Americans have a Government not afraid of Italy.

In the face of this fact I assure you that we British subjects then in Rome felt and looked very small indeed. The Propaganda, we knew, belonged to us by rights as sacred certainly, as the portion of it exclusively appertaining to North America belonged to the United States. It was handed over for our benefit by legal deeds of transfer. It was ours. It had absolutely nothing to do with Italy. It had everything to do with us. It was always so considered [66]by the Popes. Outside its own limits it has positively no jurisdiction in Rome or in any part of Italy. Its funds were contributed for us and to us, and to that portion of the world—always outside Italy—committed to its care. Its spoliation was clearly, even if none of our money was in it, a violation of our most justly acquired legitimate rights, unquestioned and in action for generations.

We expected some effort would be made by our rulers for us. We expected some representations, more gentle, perhaps, than those made by the President of the proud Union, but, as we thought, with some reason, not less efficacious, would be made by our Government. We confidently predicted that such would be the case. But we were bitterly disappointed. Our bishops in a body made representations far more energetic and explicit than Cardinal M’Closky or his Coadjutor made to Washington; but nothing came of them. The Catholics of the United States had a country. We felt that we had a country but in name, which for one reason or another treated us as stepchildren or outcasts, or worse and more humiliating still, was impotent to help us in our need.

Yet I believe that this policy of the Ministry would not, if the case were fully understood, be endorsed by our non-Catholic fellow-citizens. I am sure a very large proportion of them would deem the complete inaction of the Government, not wise, or sound policy—certainly not the policy of the British Lion that used to be, in cases of the violation of the rights of British citizens, so potent once. I am sure they will feel for and with us when they come to understand that it is a question of unjustifiable interference with rights lawfully acquired by British subjects in a foreign nation which are interfered with by that nation. [67]I am sure of this from the feeling which would, I know, possess myself, if, for instance, the Government of France, or any other Government, induced any body of my Protestant fellow-countrymen to acquire in France legitimate interests for their religious necessities, and that upon the coming into power in that same country of another form of Government, monarchical or republican, such incoming government should have confiscated the rights so acquired by my fellow-countrymen. If, for instance, the Wesleyans of England established a training-school for health or other reasons, say in the south of France. If they were permitted to do so by the lawful government of that country. If the funds of that institution were recruited from Wesleyans in England, in the United States and all the world over. If the Wesleyans had the free use of that sanatorium for a number of years, and depended upon it for the training of their choice ministers, and for the management of their affairs. If their Moderator happened to be a Frenchman, and needed such an institution for the government of their body. If they could not dispense with it without serious loss and money outlay; and all this because the new Government of France had decided that such establishment should perish. If in pursuance of this law such Government proceeded, as France did actually at the Revolution, to confiscate all religious rights, and amongst the rest the legitimately acquired rights of English Wesleyans, I know that I would expect that the most strenuous efforts of the rulers of England should never cease until France was taught that while she might plunder the interests of Frenchmen as long as Frenchmen let her, she should desist from such a course when the question came of plundering the rights of English citizens lawfully and peacefully acquired. I am certain there is not a [68]Catholic in the land who would not feel aggrieved at the injury thus inflicted on his unoffending fellow-citizens, and who would not move with them until the wrong insolently inflicted in defiance of international rights was redressed.

Speaking of these, I am yet sanguine that our rulers will open their eyes to see the grievance which Catholic British subjects suffer in the spoliation of the Propaganda. For my part I cannot altogether blame the Ministry. I think we have not pressed the matter upon them sufficiently, and they need, and, indeed, invite this kind of pressure. I know, too, that they are much disinclined to disoblige Italy, which the great Whig leader, Lord Palmerston, formed, though, as we have seen last Monday evening, for motives very much other than the real good of England. Still English Statesmen have had proof enough of what they may expect from “United Italy” since its formation. And I am persuaded, notwithstanding seeming favourable symptoms regarding Egyptian affairs, that England is destined to experience still more of the nature of Italian Masonic “gratitude.” I think I know the feelings of the party now ruling in Italy. It is perfectly intolerant of English domination in the Mediterranean, and would, if it could, give a blow to her rule in Malta, in Cyprus, in Gibraltar, and in Egypt to-morrow. Masonic Italy is best kept in order by wholesome fear, and had England shown a bold front in favour of the rights of British subjects involved in the spoliation of the Propaganda, she would have obtained, I firmly believe, much more from the respect her conduct would inspire than she will ever get from the love of Piedmontese Freemasons. There is also something in the blessing of God which follows the doing of the right thing for the oppressed, and [70]perhaps much more will be soon lost to the nation by the want of this blessing in the conduct of Egyptian affairs than ever could be gained by siding with the heartless violation of British international rights by the Freemasons, now working their unholy will upon the city and the property of the Popes.

On this subject I had in London lately a long conversation with a great and good Catholic Irish Statesman, Mr. A. M. Sullivan. He was, of course, acquainted with the fact of the spoliation of the Propaganda, but he only knew in part the nature of the injustice. When I laid that fully before him he suggested that I should deliver such a lecture as I have given this evening upon it, and he promised to take the chair at that lecture, and to speak also himself upon the matter, as he of all living Irishmen could best do. He had, I must say, great faith in the justice and spirit of fair play characteristic of Mr. Gladstone, and he believed that if the great Premier were properly approached by the Irish Parliamentary Party, he would use his influence to have the injustice done to us by the Italian Freemasons removed. He thought it, perhaps, difficult to get back lands already sold, but he also thought that the men in power in Italy would surely yield to the pressure of England and liberate the vinculated bonds, thus at least saving us a portion of our property. He thought the case of Father Michael Doyle, one which no Government could refuse to recognise, while that of the other donors to the same institution, whether Spanish or of any other nation, was equally strong. I grieve that this good man is gone from our midst whilst the injustice I complain of, and which he would willingly have removed, lives on; but I feel myself bound to give utterance not only to my own but to his sentiments, however feebly, [71]regarding the merits of a case for redress, although in itself it is all-powerful.

Our duty is to seek this redress if only to save our national honour. But come what may, I believe that all who have heard what I have stated this evening will agree that it is our duty to save at any cost an institution so valuable and so necessary to us. By it, we reach and save the Heathen. By it, we comfort the sadly oppressed Oriental Catholic, still groaning under the oppression of the Mahometan. By it, we carry on the vast machinery of the Church of God in three-fourths of the entire world. As Catholics, we can never permit Italian Freemasonry to destroy it. We must sustain it; and how can we? Lately, on hearing the news of its Spoliation, an Italian noble, faithful to the traditions of his princely house, gave us an example. He left it several thousand pounds which the Italian Freemasons tried to prevent the Propaganda receiving, but failed. It is for us who benefit by the Institution to follow so noble an example. It is a way by which everyone blessed with worldly wealth may make a most useful protest against the Spoliation, and at the same time contribute to the continuation of the work of the Sacred Congregation. It can find for twenty times the wealth it had at any time, immense fields, yet unexplored by the Christian Missionary. I do say that no one ought permit a shilling to go where an Italian Freemason can manage to steal it, but money for the Propaganda can be left in trust to one’s Bishop or Archbishop, as the case may be, and, as the testator may direct, that money can be applied either in a lump sum, or still better, as principal, producing interest, for the purposes of the Propaganda. It will then go surely and safely to its destination. I indicate this as one way by which God’s people may help a work [72]so worthy. There are many other ways which the generosity of the faithful will easily discover. But there is one unfailing means which all, even the very poorest, can employ to assist the great Institution in the day of its need. That is by fervently praying to God, through the intercession of His Blessed, Immaculate, Virgin Mother, that the pride of the infidel may cease, and that the elect of the Lord may be liberated; that counsel, and love, and strength may reign amongst the faithful of Christ; and that surrounding His Vicar in a spirit of filial unity, they may show an unbroken, intelligent front to the foe, and so sustain the grandest cause ever given by God to man to support on earth—the cause of Christian Faith and Civilization, now imperilled by the most deadly enemies of the Cross that have ever appeared in this world.

The following statement is taken from the second edition of the Persecutions Suffered by the Catholics of Ireland Under the Rule of Cromwell and the Puritans, by the Most Rev. Patrick Francis Moran, D.D., Archbishop of Sydney. Dublin: 1884. Appendix ii., p. 464:—

The many links that for centuries have united Ireland with the Holy See are familiar to our Irish readers. Even during the persecution of Elizabeth we find our country engaging Rome’s special care. Pro-nuncios were despatched to her shores, to guard and defend the interests of the Catholic faith; her children, who rose in arms to assert her rights, received from Rome not only words of encouragement but funds to aid their cause; and when her clergy were persecuted and imprisoned, the Holy Father not only stretched out to them an assisting hand, but by repeated briefs solicited the mediation of foreign princes, that the rigour of the persecution might be relaxed, and the captives restored to liberty.⁠[26]

During the period of which we treated in the preceding pages, at the very commencement of the struggle of the Confederates, the saintly Scarampo was sent to encourage them, and guide them by his counsels. Later still, we find the Nuncio Rinuccini sent on a like mission, besides being the bearer of ample subsidies. At every stage of their momentous proceedings, letters were sent from Rome to the French and Spanish monarchs, as well as to the minor princes of Germany and Italy, exhorting them to lend their aid to the Irish nation; whilst other letters were from time to time transmitted to the bishops and confederate leaders, rejoicing with them in their triumph, condoling in their afflictions, healing their dissensions, and exhorting them to union and constancy in the cause of justice and religion.

It would be easy to give further instances of the solicitude of the Holy See for its faithful children; and to record the many letters of exhortation and encouragement which were addressed to the citizens of Dublin, and others, during their long struggles and sufferings in the [74]cause of religion and their king; but we reserve them for another occasion, not wishing to extend this note to too great a length.

We shall merely state for the present that during the interval of Cromwell’s triumph, we find the assistance of the Holy See bountifully given to the banished clergy and people; and immediately after the restoration, letters were again addressed to all the Catholic powers, praying them “to commission their respective ambassadors at the English Court to defend and protect the interest of the poor Catholics of Ireland, and especially of the priests who were imprisoned for the faith in many parts of that kingdom.”⁠[27]

Thirty years later, when the sword of persecution was again unsheathed against the Irish Catholics, the Pope was still their unflinching advocate. Remittances were yearly sent from Rome to the Court of St. Germain for the relief of the Irish exiles, whilst additional aid was bountifully supplied to the banished and persecuted members of the Hierarchy. In the Vatican archives we find it registered that 72,000 francs were then annually supplied by Rome for the support of the Irish secular clergy and laity; on the 15th of July, 1698, we find an additional remittance of 23,655 livres for the religious who were banished from Ireland. Instructions were, moreover, sent to the Nuncios in the foreign Courts to give every protection and aid to the Irish Cathodes; and even a jubilee was proclaimed in Italy to solicit the prayers and alms of the faithful of that country for our suffering people. In the month of January, 1699, we meet with a list of 27,632 livres received from the Holy Father, and distributed to various Irish ecclesiastics who had lately taken refuge in France and Belgium. In the month of February there is another list of 11,832 livres similarly distributed; and in March, as we learn from a letter of the Nuncio in Paris to Cardinal Spada (dated 9th March, 1699), 53,000 livres were sent by the Pope to St. Germain, and distributed by King James to “the Irish ecclesiastics then sent into exile.” There is another list dated from St. Germain, 29th March, 1699, which we give entire. Its details must be peculiarly interesting to our readers:—

“To Mr. Magennis, Superior to the College des Lombards	1,200
To do. do. to be distributed amongst the Irish Missioners	1,200
To Mr. Nolan, Superior of another Irish Community in Paris for the support of the poor students in his community	1,000
To Mr. O’Donnell for the Irish nuns in Ipres	1,000[75]
To the almoner of the Queen for the use of the Community of poor Irish girls at St. Germain	500
To Father Nash, an Irish Franciscan, for some members of his Order	41
To various other religious	99
To the confessor of the Queen for a young ecclesiastical student	150
To Mr. Burke, chaplain to the Queen, for an Irish Carmelite	60
Set apart for four missioners coming from Ireland	600
To a poor Irish officer who has a wife and six children	150
In all, six thousand scudi.”

Again, on the 8th of June, 1699, the secretary of the king, writing from St. Germain, acknowledges the receipt, from the Holy Father, “of 37,500 livres to be distributed amongst his subjects, persecuted for their faith.”

When, about the middle of the eighteenth century, the enemies of Catholicity had recourse to new arts to assail the time-honoured faith of our nation, and sought to poison the sources of instruction of our Catholic youth, the Holy See was again ready, not only with its exhortations and counsels, but also with its pecuniary aid to support Catholic poor-schools through the country, and from that time to the close of the century, when the Pope was momentarily deprived of his states and driven into exile, 1,000 Roman crowns were annually transmitted to our bishops for that purpose.

Thus were the Roman Pontiffs at every period the fathers of our country, the guardians of our persecuted people, the support of our exiled clergy. “The blessings of faith were transmitted to us by the Popes, not only as the successors of St. Peter, but as sovereigns of Rome; and when an opportunity is given Catholic Ireland of making them some return, it would be strange, indeed, if she did not gratefully remember the services rendered in her hour of distress.”⁠[28]

THE
VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOOD COUNSEL,

A HISTORY
OF THE ANCIENT SANCTUARY OF OUR LADY OF GOOD COUNSEL IN
GENAZZANO, AND OF THE WONDERFUL APPARITION AND MIRACULOUS
TRANSLATION OF HER SACRED IMAGE FROM SCUTARI
IN ALBANIA TO GENAZZANO IN 1467.

With an APPENDIX on the MIRACULOUS CRUCIFIX, SAN PIO,
ROMAN ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION, Etc.

BY
MONSIGNOR GEORGE F. DILLON, D.D.,
MISSIONARY APOSTOLIC.
(A VISITOR FROM SYDNEY TO THE SHRINE.)

The large demand for the above has caused the author to prepare a New Edition in a more popular form. This will be shortly published by M. H. GILL & SON, Dublin, and will be sold, handsomely bound in cloth, at 5s.

LONDON: BURNS & OATES, ORCHARD STREET.
DUBLIN: M. H. GILL & SON, SACKVILLE STREET.
NEW YORK: BURNS & OATES.

The whole profits arising from the sale of both these works, as well as the profits from the present work on the War of Antichrist with the Church, &c., have been given over by the Author to the Right Rev. Monsignor Kirby, D.D., Bishop of Lita, Rector of the Irish College, Rome, for the benefit of the suffering Nuns in Italy, now despoiled of all their property by the existing Italian Government. For some account of the sufferings of these afflicted servants of God, see end of present notice, page 13.

[2]

The Author has been honoured with the following letters from His Holiness Pope Leo XIII., and from Cardinal Simeoni, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda:—

Our Most Holy Lord Leo XIII. received the copy of the volume presented by you, in which you give in the English language the history of the ancient Sanctuary of the Virgin Mother of God, situated in the town of Genazzano, in the diocese of Palestrina, and which is venerated with the greatest piety by the faithful and by the constant concourse of devout pilgrims. As in this work the Holy Father perceives not only the evidence of your filial duty but also the affection of religious piety by which you study to advance the honour of God’s Mother, he deems your counsel and service acceptable and pleasing, and desires that by this my letter you should receive a pledge of his paternal love and commendation. The Supreme Pontiff moreover hopes that the salutary fruits which at this time are so much to be desired, may respond to your wishes, and that those who read your writings may be moved to implore the protection of the Mother of God for the Church which, amidst the many adversities by which it is oppressed, places the utmost confidence in Her. Finally, granting your prayer, Our Most Holy Lord, in testimony of his paternal benevolence and in presage of all celestial graces, most lovingly in the Lord imparts to you the Apostolic Benediction.

While I rejoice to convey to you these tidings I willingly take the occasion offered me of professing to you the sincere esteem by which from my heart I am

Your devoted Servant,

Charles Nocella,
Secretary for Latin Letters to
Our Most Holy Lord Leo XIII.

Rome, May 27th, 1884.

Rome, May 17th, 1884.
Office of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda Fide.

I have received with particular satisfaction the book entitled, The Virgin Mother of Good Counsel, etc., which you, while constrained to repose for some time in order to re-establish your health impaired by your missionary labours, have written during your sojourn in Rome.

It is in every way worthy of a good ecclesiastic and of a zealous missionary to cultivate love for Most Holy Mary and to propagate devotion to Her, and as you have laboured for these ends by writing the history of one of the most celebrated Sanctuaries of Italy, I must rejoice with you in the result, and I hope that I shall have the pleasure of seeing your holy intentions happily crowned with success.

You have also added in an appendix to your work wise observations upon the Roman education of the clergy, and have referred opportunely to the institution of the Propaganda and its salutary influence over the entire world. This also has proved to me the excellent spirit with which you are animated, and I feel assured that the sentiments which you manifest will always serve to render yet closer the bonds which unite the faithful of all countries to the Roman See, the Mother and Mistress of all Churches.

Finally, I return you thanks for the gift which you have made me of this your admirable work, and I pray the Lord, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, whom you have desired to honour by its means, to grant you His choicest benedictions.

Most affectionately yours,

John Cardinal Simeoni,
Prefect of the S. C. of the Propaganda.

For Monsignor the Secretary,
Ant. Agliardi, Minutante.

[3]

A large number of the Archbishops, Bishops, Dignitaries, and Superiors of Religious Orders in England, Ireland, Scotland, America, and Australia, have also, since the publication of the work, warmly congratulated the Author on its appearance, and promised to extend its circulation.

Notices and Reviews of it appeared also in many newspapers, periodicals, and reviews, amongst which were the following:—

From “The Freeman’s Journal,” January 16th, 1885.

From “The Tablet,” August 30th, 1884.

From “The New York Freeman’s Journal and Catholic Register,” December 20, 1884.

From “The Catholic Times and Catholic Opinion,” September 26th, 1884.

From the “Weekly Register,” January 3rd, 1885.

From “The Ave Maria,” Indiana, U. S., November 1, 1884.

[12]

From “The Irish Ecclesiastical Record,” October, 1884.

From “The Dublin Review,” October, 1884.

SUFFERINGS OF THE NUNS OF ITALY.

Catholics are already aware that by the laws of Italy the whole property, real and personal, of all religious orders, both of men and women, was confiscated in that country. A very small pension, heavily taxed and not always satisfactorily paid, was allowed to the older members—the younger ones getting nothing, or next to nothing—perhaps two-pence a day to live upon. For this the Government took their lands, their funds, their house property, their Convent buildings, their very churches, cemeteries and all the furniture, sacred and secular, they possessed. They were disbanded, prevented from receiving novices, or, as religious orders, even educating children. Sometimes public feeling forced their persecutors to give them a few rooms in their old homes, or to huddle several communities into one large barrack. In cases where a part of their Convent only was allowed them, the rest was used as Government offices, or very generally for soldiers’ barracks. It thus became a kind of living death for these poor religious. They mostly, however, held together with wonderful tenacity, and as the old inmates died out the younger ones, with but a few half-pence a day to live on, grew on in years and weakness and want. Many of these—indeed all the choir sisters—brought fortunes, which were placed in the common funds of their several institutions, and so found and taken by the mean-spirited Freemasons now in power in Italy. The consequence is that these poor nuns, long absent from the thoughts of relatives, die in great numbers and in much want. The present work and that on Our Lady of Good Counsel have been given over by the author for their relief. He has just received the following letter from Monsignor Kirby, who lays out, with every care and judgment, all he can get together for the benefit of these suffering spouses of Christ.

“I received the alms you kindly forwarded from their Lordships the Bishop of Leeds and the Bishops of Aberdeen and Dunkeld, in aid of the poor nuns in the Papal States. May God reward them for their charity.

“But what shall I say, my dear Monsignore, for your own generous offerings for these suffering Spouses of Jesus Christ? Through your assistance I have been able to relieve many holy suffering communities in Frascati, Viterbo, [14]Foligno, Assissi, Monte Falco, and other localities, not forgetting the nuns you specially mentioned for relief in Rome. They suffer terrible privations, but their charity and patience would do honour to the early Christians. They pray constantly and earnestly for those who assist them in their bitter need....”

Still more touching descriptions of the destitution of these poor servants of God may be obtained from the Divin Salvatore of Rome, which devotes many of its columns to the service of the collection made in favour of the despoiled nuns.

The following items, taken from a current number of that journal, will give an idea of the need existing. The Editor says:—

“On the 7th of March we received the following letter from a venerable religious, who has the care of a parish and of a monastery:—‘The letters you sent me have arrived, as so many angels of comfort, with your charity. The Mother Abbess did not know what to do in the future. She had to withdraw the one plate of nourishment hitherto given daily to the religious. My heart is afflicted, because I know that if they have not food the choir cannot be sustained, and already some of them are prostrated, from weakness of the stomach, in need of ordinary food.’ The day after the Prioress of a Dominican Convent writes:—‘Our misfortunes are at their height, and it seems that everything conspires against us. The very old and helpless sisters must be deprived of the lay sisters’ help, whom we took into the religious life, but who must now leave us for want of food. The aged will have to die for mere want of necessaries. We do not ask the Government for anything to maintain lay sisters, but these are now not even permitted to us. For charity pray to God that some may be moved to pity us.’ Four days ago a Benedictine Superioress thus commenced her letter to us:—‘The day before yesterday, having shed many tears before the Image of Most Holy Mary, beseeching Her to send me some help, because I had at last arrived at extreme necessity, your letter arrived with alms. Ah, so great was my joy, that before opening it I carried it before the sacred Image to thank Our Lady, and have called the nuns, who did the same. My Father, believe me, that in order to exist together, we suffer much want indeed.’ Five days after another Superioress writes to us:—‘The moment I received your most valued letter, I exclaimed, Oh, my dear St. Joseph, how much I thank you who hast given to that good Father the inspiration to help me in my present agony. I cannot describe to you the sorrowful condition in which I find myself. As many farthings as you have sent me, I pray that they may become so many precious graces, which may fill with benediction the families who give such blessed help to us poor abandoned religious.’”

Not long after another Superioress wrote:—

“Do you then discharge our duty to the kind and pious benefactors who do not forget the suffering spouses of Our Lord in times when so many hate and illtreat them, and seek new means to render them, if that were possible, unhappy. But that can never happen, because it is our greatest felicity to be hated by the enemies of Jesus Christ. At present we are prohibited to receive young-lady boarders, who, by their payments for education, might help us not a little in our misery. But we confide in the good, generous hearts who come to our assistance.”

On the 17th of May, from the ends of Italy, the following letter came to us:—

“On Tuesday I received, as a consoling angel, your letter with the bountiful alms it contained. What my joy was on that day I cannot tell you. I seemed like one confounded to such an extent that my nuns understood that some extraordinary grace had been given me by our great Patriarch St. Joseph. When I told them what had been given they were in jubilee at it, and I cannot tell you how many prayers and fervent communions will be offered, and have indeed been offered already to God for those who have been so kind to [15]us. Oh, my Father, if you but knew what my sorrow had been that day. An implacable creditor pressed me, and I had not on that day one loaf of bread to take the hunger away from my poor community. My Father, I cannot tell you what terrible hours I passed. During certain days I felt as if a knife had pierced my heart. I wept scalding tears, and almost lost confidence. Ah, Father, do not forget us, for charity sake, I beseech you, with all my heart.”

A few days after this (for we take the letters at hap-hazard as they come to our hand) we received another, which thus commences:—

“Oh, my Father, how much am I obliged to you. You have called me to life again. I went to ask the Archangel Raphael to be mindful of us, poor deserted sisters, and the holy Archangel heard me! Wherefore may God be blessed, and thanks without end for your charity and that of our benefactors. See how wanting in discretion I am, my Father, the more you are mindful of us, the most distressed of all. I do not wish to be importunate. That would not be well. But our misery surpasses perhaps the misery of other convents. All my poor lay sisters are long barefooted, and I cannot get them shoes, for I have no means to buy leather. We, the choir sisters, wear clogs of wood, which, when once made, last very long; but our poor lay sisters work very hard, and wear away their clothing very much.”

Another letter comes from a Benedictine Abbess in Tuscany. She says:—

“Reflecting on our sad circumstances, and knowing by experience your charitable heart, I have at last determined to ask you for some charity, for the love of Jesus. We are twenty-five in community, without a morsel of bread in our house, and deprived absolutely of the means to obtain it; the Lord having permitted that we should be abandoned by all, because we are all in great distress and tribulation. Your Reverence by these words may understand my internal affliction and the nature of the sword that pierces my heart.”

Here is a letter from a holy Prioress of Augustinian nuns, driven out of their convent and obliged to rent a house:—

“I reply, with deep gratitude, to your precious letter, and thank you infinitely for the alms sent in it. I thank the Giver of every good, and after Him all those who have concurred to aid us, and you who are the head of the good work, so full of charity, as is that of assisting us poor creatures reduced to extreme necessity. For as this necessity is all the more increased as we, most unfortunate, have been driven out of our convent, and with sorrow and fright, have been obliged to rent this poor house at a sum beyond the possibility of our being able to pay. May Jesus, our Spouse, be blessed for all these misfortunes. There remains to us one only consolation. It is that daily we have the holy Mass in a little chapel, and we can remain with Jesus in the Eucharist. Where Jesus is there is nothing that we can desire. They have at length taken our convent from us, but of Jesus no one can deprive us.”

Another Superioress writes:—

“I am always more and more confirmed in the belief that your reverence is inspired by God. Three days passed and I had not a farthing to buy bread for my poor community. But I had recourse to our sweet Mother Mary with loving confidence, that she would give me the means of keeping life in my poor daughters. I wept with emotion and exclaimed, ‘Blessed is he who confides in the Lord.’”

Another letter, dated 24th of last October, is as follows:—

“My Father, how grateful I am. I found myself at the height of misery, but seeing your gift my heart bounded with joy. Oh, I can at least give a little to my dearest daughters who, poor children, for the most part, are infirm and weak in stomach because of long abstinence from [16]nourishing food or drink of any kind! But how can I help them? I cannot get boarders, and benefactors there are none, because our relatives have to think of their own families. My only resource is your charity. You dry my tears. You console my heart in so many and such great necessities.”

A Superioress of Tuscany, after having recommended a sick sister whom she called, “an angel of innocence and of goodness, and on the point of taking wing for paradise,” and having received some assistance, writes:—

“Jesus watches over His spouses. This morning I received your offering for the sick sister, which the great charity of your reverence sent me. I am confused in seeing myself so benefited without any merit. The sick sister remains alive, always the victim of her beloved Spouse Jesus. She wastes away as wax before the fire. She suffers with heroic virtue, and wishes that your reverence would bless her in order to have greater strength to suffer more and more in union with Jesus crucified, whom she has always before her eyes, and continually kisses. I do not know how to describe her satisfaction at the charity shown her, nor to tell you her gratitude. I will tell you only that with all her heart she says to you, ‘May Jesus reward him together with the benefactors.’ She is young, only twenty-four years of age, and is in the monastery three years and three months. The Lord has placed this beautiful flower (she is called Rose) in His garden, and He will take it at His pleasure. It seems that we are not worthy to possess it.”

The number of the Divin Salvatore, from which the above extracts are taken, has been selected almost at random from a file of that excellent journal. The editor very feelingly ends the record as follows:—

“We repeat that these few extracts from letters are given solely as a sample of numberless other letters of the same class, which might form many volumes. Ah, how many pages, besides, would be necessary if we should have to narrate the sufferings and the secret martyrdoms endured, during, now more than twenty years, by so many thousands of Italian religious ladies for the sublime love of that Crucified God, to whom they were and are consecrated. But such pages are written in characters of gold only in the book of eternal life, and from this book it is not given to us to copy. Let it suffice to know that these admirable creatures so intensely hated by the world of the sectaries (Freemasons, etc.,) because guilty of being models of virtue, flowers of purity, doves of innocence, beings more of heaven than of earth, have won, and still win by their undaunted perseverance, a most glorious victory over this world, enemy as it is, of the Name and the Cross of Christ.”