Scottish Rite Masonry Illustrated - The Masonic Trowel

294 GEA.ND ELECT KNIGHT KADOSH.
welfare of humanity? For you must be aware that this
is the aim of all our teachings, of all that you have
obligated yourselves to perform.
These questions, my bretheren, however important
and however embarrassing they may be, happily admit
of an easy and simple solution. Your only difficulty
will be in the selection, out of the different means which
may present themselves; and in order to enable you
more speedily to arrive at that choice, I have only to remind
you of one thing, and that is, the solemn obligation
which you have just taken, and which we tacitly renew
every time that we reassemble. You have sworn to
combat isnaticism and superstition. Well, Sir Knights,
in this obligation you will find the source of all your
duties, and the possibility of performing them. It contains
the dogmas and morality which you will present to
those who are worthy of being employed in the noble
works for which we are associated. To wage war against
fanaticism and superstition, seems to me to be one of
the most glorious human efforts of virtue, for it is an
enterprise fraught with difficulty and encompassed with
dangers, offering no other recompense than the approval
of your own conscience, or that of those true brothers
who find their sweetest enjoyments in the promotion of
the welfare of their fellows, and for those who can appreciate
such recompense, it is the greatest that can be
given or enjoyed.
But what is fanaticism and what is superstition? will
perhaps be the question of the newly initiated, and how
can we combat them without causing disorders in the
body politic which they infect, without drawing on our
own heads the direful vengeance of those whose prosperity
depends upon them? What then are fanaticism and
tNITIATI0~. 295
superstition?
Ah, my brethren, the heart sickens and pales at the
mention of those words; the mind recoils with horror at
the reflection, they give rise to. To endeavor to paint
them, is to expose ones self to their fury. Merciful
God; in thy holy name their blasphemous atrocities have
been perpetrated. In the sacred name of religion they
have polluted thy footstool. When they are mentioned
we should drape our temples in mourning, and draw a
i’eil over the name of the eternal. Ah! my brethren,
vain would be the attempt to calculate the evils which
they have engendered; to count the tears or measure the
blood with which they have deluged this fair earth. Who
can reckon the number of their victims? That which
astonishes, while it consoles, is the admirable courage
ivhich you still display in entering the lists against those
uncompromising foes of human rights, whom no
earthly power has ever yet been able to subdue. Having
conceived Ihat there is some hope of success, you are resolved
to make the attempt, and you query with yourself
where are the weapons that you are to employ?
These weapons exist my brethren; they are within your
reach. It remains only for you to seise them and to use
them with the force of resolution, strengthencd only by
the consciousness that your cause is just. These weapons
are science, truth and humanity. Fanaticism is the offspring
of ignorance. To ignorance, oppose knowledge,
which springs from enlightened education. Instruct
the masses; teach them truth. To knowledge add
virtue, and the universe is saved.
There are no weapons more sure or more terrible than
those which I propose. The veriest despots and tyrants
tremble before them. Heaven has ordained no others.