Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 93
sages of that deep and universal apprehension which was manifest
in him afterwards."
Having, then, this excellent gift of discernment or "judgment,"
Francis Bacon was never intolerant, for intolerance is a
sign of want of judgment, of that power or desire to grasp both
sides of a question and to judge between them which was a preeminent
faculty and characteristic of Bacon's mind. The tendency
to turn every question inside out, hind-side before and
wrong side upwards, is perceptible, not only in his arguments,
theories, and beliefs, but it pervades the whole of his
language, and is the cause of that antithetical style which is
peculiarly characteristic in his, writings.
Although he must, from his earliest infancy, have been influenced
by the mother whom he esteemed as a " saint of God,"
with a deep interest in the condition of the church, Francis
Bacon never allowed fervour to degenerate into the " over- weening
zeal or extremes " in religion which " do dissolve and
deface the laws of charity and of human society." Lady
Anne perfectly believed that the cause of the Non-Conformists
was the whole cause of Christ. 1 Francis never believed that;
and it seems to be a reasonable explanation of much that took
place between mother and son, that he was forever putting in
practice his own injunctions regarding the necessity for
so
great
tenderness and delicacy in matters of religion, and urging that
unity could only be hoped for in the church when men should
learn that " fundamental points are to be truly discerned and
distinguished from matters not merely of faith, but of opinion,
order, or good intention. " On fundamental points, on all that
is "of substance," they were of one accord; but Frauds
Bacon's religion was built upon a far wider and broader basis
than that of his pious, Calvinistic mother, or of many of her
relations. For the Greys, 2 the Burleighs, Russells, Hobys, and
Nevilles, in short, the whole kindred of Francis Bacon by the
male and female lines, professed the severest principles of the
1 Speckling, Let. and L. i. 3.
2 The wife of William Cooke (Lady Anne's brother) was cousin to Lady
Jane Grey.