The Irish standard., 1901-10-12

way, too, might be explained how,
after the suppression of the order of
the Temple, some of the recalcitrant
knights, maintaining their influence
over the Free Masons, would be able
to transform their old ceremony into
an elaborate ritual that should impart
some of the errors Of the Templars to
the initiated. A document purporting
to be charter granted to a lodge of
Free Afasons in England and in the
time of Henry VII, seems to bear
likeness to Free Masonry now. In
Germany the guild was numerous and
was formally recognized by diploma
granted in 1880 by the Emperor Maxi
milan. But the sanction was finally
revoked by the imperial diet in 1907.
So far, however, the Free Masons
were really working stone masons; but
the so-called Cologne charter-the gen.
uineness of which seems Obvious
drawn up in 1886 at reunion Of Free
Masons gathered at Cologne to cele-
brate the opening of the cathedral
edifice, is signed by Melanchton, Col
igny, and other like names. Nothing
certain is known Of the Free Masons-
now evidently become a sect-during
the seventeenth century, except that in
1916 Elias Ashmole. an Englishman,
founded the order of Rose Croix, Rosl-
crucians, or Hermetic Free Masons-a
society which was said to have min
gled alchemy and other occult scien-
ces with pantheism. This order soon
became affiliated to some Of the Ma
sonic lodges in Germany, where from
the time Of the Reformation there was
constant founding Of societies, secret
or open, which undertook to formulate
philosophy or a religion of their
own.
As we know 1T now, however, Free
Masonry first appeared in 1925, when
Lord Derwentwater, supporter of
the exiled Stuart dynasty, introduced
the order into France, on the strength
Of asserted authority from lodge at
Kilwinning, Scotland. This formed
the basis Of that variety of Free Ma
sonry' called the Scottish Rite. Rival
organizations soon sprang up. Char
ters were obtained from a lodge at
York, which was said to have been
Of very ancient foundation. In 1854
Martinez Pasquales, Portuguese
Jew, began in some Of the French
lodges the new degree of "Cohens," or
priests, which was afterwards devel-
oped into a system by Saint Martin,
and is usually referred to as "French
Illuminism." But it remained for
Adam Weishaupt, professor of canon
law at the university of Ingolstadt, in
Bavaria, to give definite shape to
the anti Christian tendencies Of Free
Masonry, as Catholics regard them.
In 1776, two years after the expulsion
Of the Jesuits from the university, he
brought together number Of his pu-
paAo anu AAAOAuS duu OISdulZGu 'uu6 OE~
der of the illuminate, which he estab-
lished on the already existing degrees
of Free Masonry. The avowed object
Of the illuminate was to bring back
notwithstanding with the Tlumin-
ated-to the primitive liberty by de-
stroying religion, by substituting for
religion this newest philosophical in.
vention, and siby reshaping ideas OF
property, society. marriage, etc. One
Of the illuminate, Sicilian, Joseph
Balsamo, otherwise Cagliostro, orga.
nized what he called Cabalistic Free
Masonry, under the name Of the Rite
| of Misraim. He it was, who, in 1888,
predicted the overthrow Of the French
monarchy. Indeed, Free Masonry was
very active in the French Revolution
! In 1871 great assembly of all the
Masonic rites, held at Wilhelmsbad,
in Hanover, under the presidency of
the Duke of Brunswick, refused to
recognize Weishaupt's system, but at
the same time permitted the most un-
Catholic tenets of illuminism to be en-
grated on the higher degree O; Ma
sonry. especially of the so-called
! Scotch rite. About this time the
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