The International, The Nihilists, The Blackhand, ETC.

There are multitudes in Freemasonry—even in the most "advanced" Freemasonry of Italy and France—who have no real wish to see the principles of these anarchists predominate. Those, for instance, who in advocating the theories of Voltaire, and embracing for their realization the organization of Weishaupt, saw only a means to get for themselves honours, power, and riches, which they could never otherwise obtain but by Freemasonry, would be well pleased enough to advance no further, once the good things they loved had been gained.

"Nous voulons, Messieurs," said Thiers, "la republique, mais la republique conservatrice." (Gentlemen, we want a republic, but a conservative republic ). He and his desired, of course, to have the Republic which gave them all this world had to bestow at the expense of former possessors. They desired also the destruction of a religion which crossed their corrupt inclinations, and which was suspected of sympathy for the state of things which Masonry had supplanted. But they had no intention, if they could help it, to descend again to the level of the masses from which they had sprung.

In Italy, for instance, this class of Freemasons have had supreme power in their hands for over a quarter of a century. They obtained it by professing the strongest sympathy for the down-trodden millions whom they called slaves. They stated that these slaves—the bulk of the Italian people in the country and in the cities—were no better than tax-paying machines, the dupes and drudges of their political tyrants.

Victor Emmanuel, when he wanted, as he said, "to liberate them from political tyrants," declared that a cry came to him from the "enslaved Italy," composed of these down-trodden, unregenerated millions. He and his Freemasons and Carbonari—the party of direction and the party of action—therefore drove the native princes of the people from their thrones, and seized supreme sway throughout the Italian peninsula. Were the millions of "slaves" served by the change?

The whole property of the Church was seized upon. Were the burdens of taxation lightened? Very far from it. The change simply put hungry Freemasons, and chiefly those of Piedmont, in possession of the Church lands and revenues. It dispossessed many ancient Catholic proprietors, in order to put Freemasons in their stead. But with what consequence to the vast mass of the people, to the peasantry and the working population—some twenty-four out of the twenty-six millions of the Italian people? The consequence is this, that after a quarter of a century of vaunted "regenerated Masonic rule", during which "the liberators" were at perfect liberty to confer any blessings they pleased upon the people as such, the same people are at this moment more miserable than at any past period of their history, at least since Catholicism became predominant as the religion of the country. If their natural princes ever "whipped them with whips" for the good of the state, Freemasonry, under the House of Savoy, slashes them with scorpions, for the good of the fraternity.

To keep power in the hands of the Atheists an army, ten times greater, and ten times more costly than before, had to be supported by the "liberated" people. A worthless but ruinously expensive navy has been created and must be kept by the same unfortunate "regenerated" people. These poor people, "regenerated and liberated," must man the fleets and supply the rank and file of Army and Navy; they must give their sons, at the most useful period of their lives, to the "service" of Masonic "United Italy." But the officials in both army and navy—and their number is legion—supported by the taxes of the people, are Freemasons or the sons of Freemasons. They vegetate in absolute uselessness, so far as the development of the country is concerned, living in comparative luxury upon its scanty resources.

The civil service, like the army and navy, is swelled with "government billets," out of all proportion to the wants of the people. It is filled with Freemasons. It is a paradise of Freemasons, where Piedmontese patriots, who have intrigued with Cavour or fought under Garibaldi, enjoy otium cum dignitate (leisure with dignity) at the expense of the hard earnings of a people very poor at any time, but by the present "regenerated" regime made more wretched and miserable than any Christian peasantry—not even excepting the peasantry of Ireland—on the face of the earth.

The consequence of the "liberation" wrought by the Freemasons in Italy is this: They clamored for representative institutions. All their revolutions were made under the pretext that these were not granted—and the mass of Italian people—seven-eighths of them—are as yet unenfranchised, after a quarter of a century of Masonic supremacy in the land.

The Masons represented the lot of the poor man as insupportable under the native princes. But under themselves the poor man's condition, instead of being ameliorated, has been made unspeakably worse. He is positively, at present, ground down, in every little town of Italy, by insupportable exactions. His former burdens are increased four-fold—in many cases, ten-fold. To find money for all the extravagances of Masonic rule—to make fortunes for the men at the top, and comfortable places for the rank and file of the sect, a system of taxation, the most elaborate, severe, and searching ever yet invented to crush a nation, has been devised. The peasant's rent is raised by Masonic greed whenever a Mason becomes a proprietor, as is often the case with regard to confiscated church lands. Land taxes cause the rents to rise everywhere. The tenant must bear them. Then every article of the produce of his little rented holding is taxed as he approaches the city gates to sell it. At home his pig is taxed, his dog, if he can keep one, his fowl, his house, his fireplace, his window light, his scanty earnings, titulo servizio, all are specially, and for the poor, heavily taxed.

The consequence of this is that few Italian peasants can, since Italy became "United," drink the wine they produce, or eat the wheat they grow. Flesh meat, once in common use, is now as rare with them, as it used to be with the peasantry in Ireland. Milk or butter they hardly ever taste. Their food, often sadly insufficient, is reduced to pizzi, a kind of cake made of Maize or Indian meal and vegetables or fruit when in season. Their drink is plain water. They are happy when they can mingle with it a little vinaccio, a liquid made after the grapes are pressed and the wine drawn off, by pouring water on the refuse. Their homes are cheerless and miserable, their children left to live in ignorance, without schooling, employed in coarse labor, and clothed in rags.

The Grand Duke of Tuscany had by wise and generous regulations placed hundreds, yea, even thousands of these peasants, happy as independent farmers on their own land. The crushing load of taxation has caused these to disappear, and their little holdings have been sold by auction to pay taxes, and have passed, of course, into the hands of speculators, generally Freemasons, who, when they become landlords, vie with the worst of their class, in Ireland, in greed.

In the States of the Church, where the careful, most Christian, and compassionate spirit and legislation of the Vicar of Christ prevailed, the peasantry ate their own bread, drank their own wine, and were decently, nay even picturesquely clad, as all travellers know, before the "liberation" of the Masonic Piedmontese. Not a family was without a little hoard of savings for the age of the old, and for the provision and placing in life of the young. Now, gaunt misery, even starvation, is the characteristic of these populations, after only some fifteen years of Masonic rule.

The vast revenues of the Church are gone, none know wither. The nation is none the better for them, and the populace, in their dire poverty, can no longer go to the convent-gate, where before the poor never asked for bread in vain. The religious, deprived of their possessions, and severely repressed, have no longer food to give. They are fast disappearing, and the people already experience that the promises of Freemasonry, like the promises of its real author, are but apples of ashes, given but to lure, to deceive, and to destroy.

The Freemasonry of France and other Continental nations, which has done so much to give effect to the principles of Voltaire and Weishaupt, wishes decidedly not to go beyond the role played by the Freemasonry of Italy. But in France, as in Italy, an inexorable power is behind them, pushing them on, and also fanatically determined to push them off the scene when the time is ripe for doing so. This the Freemasons of Italy well know; this the men now in power in France feel.

But if they move against the current coming upon them from the depths of Freemasonry, woe to them. The knife of the assassin is ready. The sentence of death is there, which they are too often told to remember, and which has before now reached the very foremost men of the sect who refused, or feared, for motives good or bad, to advance as quickly as the hidden chiefs of the Revolution desired and decreed. It "removed" Nubius in the days of Mazzini. It "removed" Gambetta before our eyes. It aimed frequently at Napoleon III and would most assuredly have struck home, but its aim was only to terrify him so that he as a Carbonaro would be made to do its work soon and effectively. Masonry obtained its end, and Napoleon marched to the Italian war, and to his doom.

It is this invisible power, this secret, sleepless, fanatical Directory, which causes the solidarity most evidently subsisting between Freemasonry in its many degrees and aspects and the various parties of anarchists which now arise everywhere in Europe. In the last century kings, princes, nobles, took up Masonry. It swept them all away before that century closed. In the beginning and progress of this century, the Bourgeoisie took it up with still greater zest, and made it all their own. For a long time they would not tolerate such a thing as a poor Mason. Poverty was their enemy. What has come to pass? The Bourgeoisie at this moment are the peculiar enemy of the class of workmen who have invaded "Black" or "Illuminated" Masonry, and made it at last completely theirs. The Bourgeoisie are now called upon by the Socialists to be true to the real levelling principles of the brotherhood—to practice as well as preach "liberty, equality, and fraternity"; to divide their possessions with the working men—to descend to that elysium of Masonry, the level of the Commune—or die.

It is strange how Masonry, being what it is, has always managed to get a princely or noble leader for every one of its distinct onward movements against princes, property, and society. It had Egalite to lead the movement against the throne of France in the last century. It had the Duke of Brunswick, Frederick II and Joseph II to assist. In this century we see it ornamented by Louis Philippe, Napoleon III, Victor Emmanuel and others as figure-heads; Nubius and Palmerston, both won from the leaders of the Conservative nobility, were its real chiefs. Now, when it appears in its worst possible form, it is championed by no less a personage than a Russian Prince, of high lineage, a representative of the wealthiest, most exclusive, and perhaps richest aristocracy in the world. We find that in all cases of seduction like this, the promise of mighty leadership has been the bait by which the valuable dupe has been caught by the sectaries. The advice of Piccolo Tigre for the seduction of princes has thus never been without its effect.

These new anarchical societies are not mere haphazard associations. They are most ably organised. There is, for instance, in the International, three degrees, or rather distinct societies, the one, however, led by the other. First come the International Brethren. These know no country but the Revolution; no other enemy but "reaction." They refuse all conciliation or compromise, and they regard every movement as "reactionary" the moment it ceases to have for its object, directly or indirectly, the triumph of the principles of the French Revolution. They cannot go to any tribunal other than a jury of themselves, and must assist each other, lawfully or otherwise, to the "very limits of the possible." No one is admitted who has not the firmness, fidelity, intelligence, and energy considered sufficient by the chiefs, to carry out as well as to accept the program of the Revolution. They may leave the body, but if they do, they are put under the strictest surveillance, and any violation of the secret or indiscretion, damaging to the cause, is punished inexorably by death. They are not permitted to join any other society, secret or otherwise, or to take any public appointment without permission from their local committee; and then they must make known all secrets which could directly or indirectly serve the International cause.

The second class of Internationalists are the National Brethren. These are local socialists, and are not permitted even to suspect the existence of the International Brethren, who move among them and guide them in virtue of higher degree. They figure in the meetings of the society, and constitute the grand army of insurrection; they are, without knowing it, completely directed by the others. Both classes are formed strictly upon the lines laid down by Weishaupt.

The third class compromises all manner of workmen's societies. With these the two first mingle, and direct to the profit of the Revolution. The death penalty for indiscretion or treason is common in every degree.

The Black Hand and the Nihilists, are directed by the same secret agency, to violence and intrigue. Amongst them, but unknown to most of them, are the men of the higher degrees, who in dark concert, easily guide the others as they please. They administer oaths, plan assassinations, urge on to action, and terrorize a whole country, leaving the rank and file who execute these things to their fate. It is unnecessary to dwell longer upon these sectaries, well known by the outrages they perpetrate.

These terrible societies are unquestionably connected with, and governed by, the dark directory, which now, as at all times since the days of Weishaupt, rules the secret societies of the world. Mahommedanism permitted the assassins gathered under the "old man of the mountain," to assist in spreading the faith of Islam by terrorising its Christian enemies. For a like purpose, whenever it judges it opportune, the dark Alta Vendita employs the assassins wholesale and retail of the secret societies. It believes it can control when it pleases these ruthless enemies of the human race. In this, as Nubius found out, it is far mistaken.

But the encouragement of murderers as a "skirmishing" party of the Cosmopolitan Revolution remains since the day of Weishaupt—a policy kept steadily in view. To-day, that party is used against some power such as that of the Popes, or the petty princes of Italy. Great powers like England, in the belief that the mischief will stop in Italy, rejoice in the results attained by assassination. To-morrow it suits the policy of the Alta Vendita to make a blow at aristocracy in England, at despotism in Russia, at monarchy in Spain; and at once we find Invincibles formed from the advanced amongst the Fenians; Nihilists and the Black Hand from the ultras of the Carbonari; and Young Russia, ready to use dynamite and the knife and the revolver, reckless of every consequence, for the ends of the secret directory with which the diplomacy of the world has now to count.

The professional lectures on the use and manufacture of dynamite given to Nihilists in Paris, the numbers of them gathered together in that capital, the retreat afforded them there to the known murderers of the Emperor Alexander, excited little comment in England. If referred to at all in the press, it was not with that vigorous abhorrence which such proceedings should create. Often a chuckle of satisfaction has been indulged in by some at the fact. The utterances of the "advanced" members of the Masonic Intellectual party in the French Senate excusing Nihilists, were quoted with a kind of "faint damnation" equivalent to praise. There is no doubt that in Russia a similar kind of tender treatment is given to the Fenian dynamitards employed by O'Donovan Rossa.

So long as the leading nations in Europe do not see in these anarchists and desperate miscreants the irreconcilable enemies of the human race, Paris, completely Masonic as it is, will afford them a shelter; and when French tribunals fine or imprison them, it will be as in Italy with a tenderness still further exhibited in gaols. The salvation of Europe depends upon a manly abhorrence of secret societies of every description, and the pulling up root and branch from human society of the sect of the Freemasons whose "illuminated" plottings have caused the mischief so far, and which if not vigorously repressed by a decided union of Christian nations will yet occasion far more.

Deus fecit nationes sanabiles. (God made the nations curable). The nations can be saved. But if they are to be saved, it must be by a return to Christianity and to public Christian usages; by eradicating Atheism and its socialistic doctrines as crimes against the majesty of God and the well-being of individual men and nations; by rigorously prohibiting every form of secret society for any purpose whatever; by shutting the mouth of the blasphemer; by controlling the voice of the scoffer and the impure in the Press and in every other public expression; by insisting on the vigorous Christian education of children; and, if they can have the wisdom of doing it, by opening their ears to the warning voice of the Vicar of Jesus Christ.

It is not an expression of Irish, discontent finding a vent in dynamite which England has most to fear from anarchy. Its value to the Revolution is the knowledge it gives to those millions whom English education-methods are depriving of faith in God, of the use of a terrible engine against order, property, and the very existence of the country as such. The dark directory of Socialism is powerful, wise and determined. It laughs at Ireland and her wrongs. It hates, and ever will hate, the Irish people for their fidelity to the Catholic faith. But it seizes upon those subjects which Irish discontent in America affords, to make them teach the millions everywhere the power of dynamite, and the knife, and the revolver, against the comparatively few who hold property. This is the real secret of dynamite outrages in England, in Russia, and all the world over.

I fear we are but upon the threshold of a social convulsion which will try every nation where the wiles of the secret societies have obtained, through the hate of senseless Christian sectaries, the power for Atheism to dominate over the rising generation, and deprive it of Christian faith, and the fear and the love of God. I hope these my forebodings may not be realized, but I fear that even before another decade passes, Socialism will attempt a convulsion of the whole world equal to that of France in 1789; and that convulsion I fear this country shall not escape.

Our only chance lies in a return to God, of which, alas, there are as yet but little signs amongst those who hold power amongst us. I mean of course a return to the public Christianity of the past. To this pass Freemasonry has brought the world and itself. Its hidden Directory no outsider can know. Events may afterwards reveal who they were. Few can tell who is or is not within that dark conclave of lost but able men. There is no staying the onward progress of the tide which bears on the millions in their meshes to ruin. The only thing we can hope to do is to save ourselves from being deceived by their wiles. This, thank God, we may and will do. We can, at least, in compliance with the advice of our Holy Father, open the eyes of our own people, of our young men especially, to the nature and atrocity of the evil, that seeing, they may avoid the snare laid for them by Atheism. To do this with greater effect we shall now, for a while, consider the danger as it appears amongst ourselves.