THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

mockery, and truly shocking to Christian feelings.
Again, Freemasonry is a system of gross hypocrisy. It professes to be a saving
institution, and promises salvation to those who keep its oaths and conform to its
ancient usages. It also professes to be entirely consistent with the Christian
religion. And this it does while it embraces as good and acceptable Masons
hundreds of thousands who abhor Christianity, and scoff at the Bible and
everything that the Bible regards as sacred. In a Christian nation it professes to
receive Christianity as a true religion; in Mohammedan countries it receives the
Koran as teaching the true religion; in heathen countries it receives their sacred
books as of as much authority as that which is claimed in Christian countries for
the Bible. In short, Freemasonry in a pagan country is pagan, in a Mohammedan
country it is Mohammedan, and in a Christian country it professes to be Christian;
but in this profession it is not only grossly inconsistent, but intensely hypocritical.
Notwithstanding all the boasts that are made in its lower degrees of its being a
true religion, if you will examine the matter through to the end, you will find that,
as you ascend in the scale of degrees, the mask is gradually thrown off, until we
come to the "Philosophical Lodge," in the degree of the "Knights Adepts of the
Eagle or Sun;" in which, as will be seen, no concealment is longer attempted. I
will make a short quotation from this degree, as any one may find it in "Light on
Masonry."--P. 18.
"Requisitions to make a good Mason.--If you ask me what are the requisite
qualities that a Mason must be possessed of to come to the center of truth, I
answer you that you must crush the head of the serpent, ignorance. You must
shake off the yoke of infant prejudice, concerning the mysteries of the reigning
religion, which worship has been imaginary and only founded on the spirit of
pride, which envies to command and be distinguished, and to be at the head of the
vulgar in affecting an exterior purity, which characterizes a false piety joined to a
desire of acquiring that which is not its own, and is always the subject of this
exterior pride and unalterable source of many disorders; which, being joined to
gluttonness, is the daughter of hypocrisy, and employs every matter to satisfy
carnal desires, and raises to these predominant passions altars upon which she
maintains without ceasing the light of iniquity, and sacrifices continually
offerings to luxury, voluptuousness, hatred, envy, and perjury.
"Behold, my dear brother, what you must fight against and destroy before you can
come to the knowledge of the true good and sovereign happiness! Behold this
monster which you must conquer--a serpent which we detest as an idol that is
adored by the idiot and vulgar under the name of religion!" -- See "Light on
Masonry," pp. 270, 271. 8th edition.
Here, then, Masonry stands revealed, after all its previous pretensions to being a
true religion, as the unalterable opponent of the reigning or Christian religion.
That it claims to be a religion is indisputable; but that it is not the Christian
religion is equally evident. Nay, it finally comes out flat-footed, and represents
the reigning or Christian religion as a serpent which Masons detest, as an idol
which is adored by the idiot and vulgar under the name of religion.