Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/787

 FREEMASONRY 751 some degree of subordination among the various lodges was obtained. The confusion at this time between Dresden and Scotch rituals, between the old and simple forms of St John and the wildest complications of Rosicrucian superstition, was increased by the appearance of Cagliostro and other systematic impostors. Cagliostro, as every one knows from Carlyle s famous essay, was the Grand Cophta 1 of the Egyptian system, a product of his own fertile brain. With the view of weeding the brotherhood of such rascals, the Grand Orient in 1777 introduced the Mot de /Semestre, or biennial pass-word. The rivalry of such romantic systems as Martinism 2 was still, however, keenly felt, and in 1781 the Grand Orient adopted four of the higher degrees, viz., elu, chevalier d orient, ecossais, and chevalier rosecroix. All this while an active hostility was kept up between the Orient and the original Grand Lodge, each of which was sup ported by a separate Rosicrucian organization besides its own proper lodges. The work of both was suspended dur ing the Revolution, but in 1799 a national union was effected by Roettiers. No sooner, however, was this done, and the statutes, originally based on the English constitu tions, thoroughly revived, than French masonry again suffered from an invasion of mysticism, first, in the form of the Scottish Philosophic Rite (including such profundi ties as the luminous ring and the white and black eagle), and, secondly, in the American Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite of 33 degrees, which the charlatan De Grasse- Tilly ex pounded with great success, but which in 1804 was amalga mated with the Grand Orient, the great marshals Massdna and Kellermann being then the leading members of the two bodies. The union did not last, as Napoleon disliked the constitution of the /Supreme Conseil, which was largely in fluenced by the aristocracy. His brother Joseph, assisted by Murat and Cambace&quot;res, was allowed to take office in the older organization. An order of templars appeared in 1804, and was followed by the absurd Rite Misraim, which contains 90 degrees of the most fantastic kind. The French clergy in their denunciations of Freemasonry set an ex ample of bigotry, which the masons themselves followed in their treatment of Clavel, author of Histoire Pittoresque de la Franc-maconnerie, one of the few rational books on the subject in the language. During the reactionary Catholic policy of the grand master Murat the younger (1852-62), the liberties of the Orient were greatly interfered with and its funds almost exhausted. Since then it has slowly recovered. It has now 292 lodges: and the Supreme Conseil, which has become more democratic in constitution, has 50. The Grand Orient has lately ceased to require belief in a personal God as a test of membership. Space does not admit of a detailed description of the advances of Freemasonry in other parts of Europe and in America. In Germany, where the chief lodge at Berlin is known as the grand royal mother lodge, Zu den drei Welt- Kugeln, it was patronized by Frederick the Great, and op posed by Maria Theresa. Its relations with the Illuminati of Weishauptare of extreme historical interest; and the question of the higher degrees was discussed at the great conference of Wilhelmsbad in 1782. The cause was helped by the ad hesion of such great men as Lessing in his Ernst und Fall:, G espr ache fur Freimaurer Herder in his Adrastea ; Fichte in his Briefe an Constant and Eleusinians of the 19th Cen tury and Goethe, who wrote several masonic songs, and whose Wilhelm Meister is a favourite book among the craft. Germany has now 314 lodges, some of them, however, un- 1 See Goethe s comedy of this name. 1 Martin was connected with the Chevaliers Bienfaisants, Amis Reunis, and Philosophes Inconnvs. He was a disciple of Jacob Boehme, and believed masonry to be divinely inspired. The system resembled that invented by the Philalethes, of which Court de Gebelin, the Camisard historian, was a member. der the Swedish rite. The critical history of the institution and much of its general literature has been written there. The chief historians are Schroder, Krause, Fessler, and Findel. Kloss has published a bibliography which is sup plemented by the American Barthelmess and by Findel. Marbach, Ritterhaus, and Lowe are the poets of the order in Germany, as Morris is in America. One of the most recent German publications is Sarsena, oder der Vollkom- mene Baumeister, Leipsic, 1874. As regards America it is sufficient to refer to the great anti-masonic movement of 1826, which was caused by the kidnapping and supposed murder by masons of a man called Morgan of Batavia, and which continued for some time to influence the presidential elections. Convictions for abduction were obtained. There have for more than a century been negro lodges in the United States. In Brazil in 1876 the hostility between masonry and the Catholic Church was shown in the pro duction of the play Os Mason e os Jesuitas, in which the dishonesty of the priest is contrasted with the manly virtue of the mason. As regards the future of Freemasonry, it is impossible, at least for outsiders, to say much. The celebration of the brotherhood of man, and the cultivation of universal good will in the abstract, seem rather indefinite objects for any society in this unimaginative age. There is, on the one hand, a tendency to degenerate into mere conviviality ; while, if schools, or asylums, or other charities are supported, to that extent of course the society becomes local and even exclusive in its character. In the meantime, masonry is to blame for keeping afloat in the minds of its members many of the most absolutely puerile ideas. A more accurate knowledge of its own singular and not undignified history would tend more than anything else to give worth and elevation to its aims. No one now believes the stupid slander that freemasons are engaged in any definite con spiracy against the state, religion, or social order. There is, however, something in their fundamental principles, the fraternity of men and their indifference to theological belief, and also in their recent movements, which perhaps justifies the suspicion, and even hatred, with which they are re garded by the Ultramontane party. Masonry in each country of course takes its colouring from the state of thought and feeling by which it is surrounded. But it cannot be disputed that the German, Dutch, Belgian, and French magazines of the craft occasionally exhibit a tone which is not favourable to Christianity regarded as a special revelation. The tendency of political opinion in such an association is also necessarily democratic ; and while it would be absurd to make the brotherhood answerable for the opinions of Mazzini or the outrages of the commune, and while the majority of brethren are loyal subjects, and pro bably also orthodox Christians (in the theological sense), the institution itself undoubtedly &quot; makes for &quot; liberty in matters both civil and spiritual. The singular myth, that modern freemasonry is derived through Scotland from the historical order of the Templars has been treated in great detail and finally destroyed by Wilcke in his History of the Order, 2 vols. , Halle, 1860. The claim was rested on (1) the Charta transmiisionis or tabula aurca Lannenii, alleged to have been written in 1324 by Larmenius, the successor of grand-master Molay, who suffered in the persecution; (2) an old parchment copy of Templar statutes; (3) several alleged relics of the martyred Templars all preserved in the archives of the Masonic Templars at Paris. An abstract of the controversy will be found in the p.ppendix to Findel s History, which also contains the form of examination of a German Steinmetz, the Constitutions of the Masons of Strasburg (1459), including the Statutes of Parlircrs and Fellows, and the Regulations of Apprentices; the Examination of the English Masons ; a series of the old English Charges or Exhor tations; the General Regulations of 1721; and the spurious Cologne Charter. The appendix of Mr Fort s work contains the Reyhmc.nts sur les Arts ct Metiers rfe Para, of the 13th century, as collected by tftiennc Boileau, provost under Louis IX. The masonic legend of