Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

312
ABBE BARRUEl/S VIEWS
grees; but it is not their occult science which constitutes
them English Masons; for the first three degrees are all
that are acknowledged in England." [Vide p. 160.]
This is the view the Abbe Barruel takes of the occult
lodges of French Free Masonry. To our ears his language
is occasionally severe; but then we forget that he lived in
the darkest scenes created, not merely by the irreligious
principles of Brother Frederic, Brother Voltaire, and Brother
Robinet! but by the active labours of Brother Orleans
and Egalite, Brother Condorcet, and Brother Mirabeau I !*
The lodges were the schoolrooms, these were the teachers,
and 600,000 men of France were the pupils. It is astonishing
to what extent they carried the use of Free Masonry.
Paris alone Contained 150 lodges* Good men and
bad met there to prosecute the schemes of revolutionary
reform. The result showed what principles predominated
in the schools of the political reformers; and the Abbe,
who observed t^e working of the elements, who laboured
to avert the threatened destruction, and who, finally, saw
every Christian altar in France demolished; the throne
overturned; and was himself banished by the factions which
had jnutually torn each other, and deluged Paris with blood
—maybe pardoned for the indignation he expresses against
those nocturnal fraternities, in which all this evil was
hatched.
" We live in free America, and not in despotic France.
We live under a constitution securing liberty of conscience,
and not under the terrors of Papacy. Shall we fear the
machinations of corrupt politicians? the doctrines of impiety?
the schemes of selfish reformers?" No, reader;
* " On! On ! my dear brethren, pursue your great lecture,
41 And refine on the rules of old Architecture;
" High honour to Masons, the craft daily brings,
14 To those Brothers of princes, and Fellows of fcings."
Book of Con*, ed. 1792, p. 244.