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 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 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 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.
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
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
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 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
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 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.
“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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.