Page:Devil-Worship in France 1896.djvu/325

Rh diabolism on the Masonic Fraternity has credibly another motive than that of political hostility, which seems held to justify almost any weapon that comes to hand. At the bottom of her hatred of Masonry there is also her dread of the mystic. Transcendental science claims to have the key of her doctrines, and there is evidence that she fears that claim. Black magic, which, by the hypothesis, is the use of the most evil forces for the most evil purposes, she does not fear, for it wears its condemnation on its forehead; but mysticism, which accepts her own dogmas and interprets them in a sense which is not her own, which claims a certitude in matters of religion that transcends the certitude of faith, seems to hint that at one point it is possible to undermine her foundations. Hence she has ever suspected the mystic, and a part of her suspicion of Masonry has been by reason of its connection with the mystic; she has intuitively divined that connection, which by Masons themselves, for the most part, is not dreamed at this day, and when suggested is generally somewhat lightly cast aside. It would