Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECHET SOCIETY. 269
acknowledge the existence of a God, an all-wise, all-powerful
Being, to whom we must render an account of ourselves. Let
us, then, leave quarrelling and controversies, and meet as men
and brethren on this wide platform of belief in a Grod, and desire
to benefit each other. " Some such sentiment seems certainly to
have been in the mind of the founder of Masonry, and, perhaps,
the method adopted in rude times for enlisting the sympathies
of the majority of ignorant but intelligent persons of various
nationalities and creeds was the best that could be devised.
There is no doubt that to the great society of the Freemasons
we owe a vast debt of gratitude, for the many humanitarian
works which they have inaugurated; for the many " fair houses,
for purposes of charity and education, which they have reared;
for many good lessons in morality and self-control which they
have systematically endeavoured to teach. And yet, although
the society was founded expressly to uphold order, and respect
for authority, as well as to promote learning and works of charity;
though its members were to consist of " men who are not only
true patriots and loyal subjects, but the patrons of science and the
friends of all mankind," there is reason to believe that Bacon
found the rules of the society, and the doctrines of pure Deism,
insufficient to ensure either patriotism or loyalty;
insufficient to
ensure the attainment of the highest truth, or of the greatest
good to the greatest number.
It is clear that he himself could not endure to remain in this
low ground, and he mounted, as we have seen, into the clearest
and sublimest heights to which the human intelligence or the
human spirit is permitted to penetrate. Not so all his followers,
if the scanty gleanings which we have been able to make in this
field are of any value. There is reason to think that more than
once the harmony of the Masonic brethren has been broken;
selfishness, ambition, and other ills which frail humanity is heir
to, and which will not be checked by any code of human laws,
by morality, however philosophical; by philanthropy, however
well meaning, seem to have crept in, creating quarrels and ruptures,
and, doubtless, in every case, fresh divergence from the
original scheme.