Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

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AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 81
sentence, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country
and in his own house." Yet Bacon had a just confidence
" in that old arbitrator, Time, " and in the verdict of the " next
ages. " He had assured himself, long before he made his will,
tbat " the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than
the monuments of power, or of the hands ;
» that learning, " by
which man ascendeth to the heavens, is immortal, " for " the
images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted
from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation.
We appeal to those into whose hands this outline of a great
and wonderful life may fall, to lay aside prejudice acquired at
second hand, and to study for themselves the life and character
of Francis Bacon, as displayed, not in any one or two questionable
transactions, not from a few picked passages of his voluminous
works, or in a few letters written under exceptional circumstances,
but as the characters and lives of other great
men are studied, and as we humbler individuals would wish posterity
to study and to judge our own. Let Bacon be judged by
the whole general tenour of his life, and works, and letters; and
by their influence on his contemporaries and on posterity for
good or for evil.
It has unhappily become habitual to Englishmen to criticise
and represent this " glory of his age and nation" in such a manner
that the few blemishes which dim that glory are magnified
and intensified so as to obscure the picture itself.
The result is
that, perhaps, no other great man has been so much talked of,
and so little generally known or understood, as Bacon. Probably,
also, there are few men of any kind of whom, whilst contemporary
biographers agree in recording so much that is great
and good, writers of 150 years later date have delighted in
ignoring the good, and in bringing to the front and dwelling
upon every circumstance, or action, or word, which can admit
of a base or evil interpretation. Rather let us consider first his
many great virtues, his amiability, gentleness, sweetness of temper,
and consideration for others, his readiness to forgive injuries
and to acknowledge any error in himself, his generosity and liberality
as soon as he had any means at his disDosal, his magna-