War of the Intellectual Party

During what may be called the reign of Palmerston, the war of the intellectual party against Christianity, intensified in the dark counsels of the Alta Vendita, became accentuated and general throughout Europe. It chiefly lay in the propagandism of immorality, luxury, and naturalism amongst all classes of society, and then in the spread of Atheistic and revolutionary ideas.

During the time of Palmerston's influence not one iota of the advices of the Alta Vendita was permitted to be wasted. Wherever, therefore, it was possible to advance the program mapped out in the "Permanent Instruction," in the letter of Piccolo Tigre, and in the advices of Vindex, that was done with effect. We see, therefore, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, America, and the rest of the world, deluged with immoral novels, immodest prints, pictures, and statues, and every legislature invited to legalize a system of prostitution, under pretence of expediency, which gave security to sinners, and a kind of recognized status to degraded women. We find, wherever Masonry could effect it, these bad influences brought to bear upon the universities, the army, the navy, the training schools, the civil service, and upon the whole population. "Make corrupt hearts and you will have no more Catholics," said Vindex, and faithfully, and with effect, the secret societies of Europe have followed that advice. Hence, in France under the Empire, Paris, bad enough before, became a very pandemonium of vice; and Italy just in proportion to the conquests of the Revolution, became systematically corrupted on the very lines laid down by the Alta Vendita.

Next, laws subversive of Christian morality were caused to be passed in every State, on, of course, the most plausible pretexts. These laws were first that of divorce, then, the abolition of impediments to marriage, such as consanguinity, order, and relationship, union with a deceased wife's sister, etc. Well the Infidels knew that in proportion as nations fell away from the holy restraints of the Church, and as the sanctity and inviolability of the marriage bond became weakened, the more Atheism would enter into the human family.

Moreover, the few institutions of a public, Christian nature yet remaining in Christian States were to be removed one after another on some skillfully devised, plausible plea. The Sabbath which in the Old as well as in the New Dispensation, proved so great an advantage to religion and to man—to nations as well as to individuals—was marked out for desecration. The leniency of the Church which permitted certain necessary works on Sunday, was taken advantage of, and the day adroitly turned into one of common trading in all the great towns of Catholic Continental Europe.

The Infidels, owing to a previous determination arrived at in the lodges, clamoured for permission to open museums and places of public amusement on the days sacred to the services of religion, in order to distract the population from hearing Mass and worshipping God. Not that they cared for the unfortunate working man. If the Sabbath ceased tomorrow, he would be the slave on Sunday that they leave him to be during the rest of the week. The one day of rest would be torn from the laboring population, and their lot drawn nearer than before to that absolute slavery which always did exist and would exist again, under every form of Idolatry and Infidelity.

Pending the reduction of men to Socialism, the secret conclave directing the whole mass of organized Atheism has therefore taken care that in order to withdraw the working man from attending divine worship and hearing the Word of God, theatres, cafes, pleasure gardens, drinking saloons, and other still worse means of popular enjoyment shall be made to exert the utmost influence on him upon that day. This sad influence is beginning to be felt amongst ourselves.

Then, besides the suppression of State recognition to religion, chaplains to the army, the navy, the hospitals, the prisons, etc., were to be withdrawn on the plea of expense or of being unnecessary. Courts of justice, and public assemblies were to be deprived of every Christian symbol. This was to be done on the plea of religion being too sacred to be permitted to enter into such places. In courts, in society, at dinners, etc., Christian habits, like that of grace before meals, etc., or any social recognition of God's presence, were to be scouted as not in good taste. The company of ecclesiastics was to be shunned, and a hundred other able means were devised to efface the Christian aspect of the nations until they presented an appearance more devoid of religion than that of the very pagans.

But of all the attacks made by Infidels during the reign of Palmerston, that upon primary, middle-class, and superior education was the most marked, the most determined, and decidedly, when successful, the most disastrous.

We must remember that from the commencement of the war of Atheism on Christianity, under Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists, this means of doing mischief was the one most advocated by the chief leaders. They then accumulated immense sums to diffuse their own bad literature amongst every class. Under the Empire, the most disastrous blow struck by the Arch-Mason Talleyrand was the formation of a monopoly of education for Infidelity in the foundation of the Paris University. But it was left for the Atheistic plotters of this century to perfect the plan of wresting the education of every class and sex of the coming generations of men from out of the hands of the Church, and the influence of Christianity.

This plan was apparently elaborated as early as 1826, by intellectual Masonry. About that time appeared a dialogue between Quintex and Eugene Sue, in which after the manner of the letter of Vindex to Nubius the whole program of the now progressing education war was sketched out. In this the hopes which Masonry had from Protestantism in countries where the population was mixed, were clearly expressed. The jealousy of rival Sects was to be excited, and when they could not agree, then the State was to be induced to do away with all kinds of religion "just for peace sake," and establish schools on a purely secular basis, entirely removed from "clerical control," and handed over to lay teachers, whom in time Atheism could find means to "control" most surely.

But in purely Catholic countries, where such an argument as the differences of Sects could not be adduced, then the cry was to be against clerical versus lay teaching. Religious teachers were to be banished by the strong hand, as at present in France, and afterwards it could be said that lay teachers were not competent or willing to give religious instruction, and so that, too, in time, could be made to disappear. (1)

One may here call to mind the fact that it was while Lord Palmerston directed Masonry as Monarch and English policy as Minister, that an insidious attempt was made to introduce secularism into higher education in Ireland by Queen's Colleges, and into primary education by certain acts of the Board of National Education. The fidelity of the Irish Episcopacy and the ever vigilant watchfulness of the Holy See, disconcerted both plans, or neutralized them to a great extent.

Attempts of a like kind are being made in England. There, by degrees, board schools with almost unlimited assistance from taxes have been first made legal, and then encouraged most adroitly. The Church schools have been systematically discouraged, and have now reached the point of danger. This has been effected, first, by the Masonry of Palmerston in high places, and secondly, by the Masonry of England generally, not in actual league and knowingly, with the dark direction I speak of, but unknowingly influenced by its well-devised cries for the spread of light, for the diffusion of education amongst the masses, for the banishment of religious discord, etc.

It was, of course, never mentioned, that all the advantages cried up could be obtained, together with the still greater advantage of a Christian education, producing a future Christian population. It was sedulously kept out of sight that the people who would be certain to use board schools were those who never went themselves to any church, and who would never think of giving religious instruction of any kind to their children.

Nothing can show the power of Freemasonry in a stronger light than the stupor it was able to cast over the men who make laws in both Houses of the English Parliament, and who were thus hoodwinked into training up men fitted to take position, wealth, and bread itself, from themselves and their children; to subject, in another generation, the moneyed classes of England to the lot that befell other blinded "moneyed people" in France during the last century.

In England, the Freemasons had, unfortunately, the Dissenters as allies. Hatred for church schools caused the latter to make common cause with Atheists against God, but the destruction of the Church of England—they do not hope for the destruction of the vigorous Catholic Church of the country—will never compensate even Socinians for a spirit of instructed irreligion in England—a spirit which, in a generation, will be able and only too willing to attempt Atheistic levelling for its own advantage, and certainly not for the benefit of wealthy Dissenters, or Dissenters having anything at all to lose.

The same influences of Atheism were potent, and for the same reasons, in all Australian legislatures. There the influence of continental Freemasonry is stronger than at home, and conservative influences which neutralize Atheistic movements of too democratic a nature in England and Scotland, are weaker. Hence, in all Australian Parliaments, Acts are passed with but a feeble resistance from the Church Party, abolishing religious education of every kind, and making all the education of the country "secular, compulsory and free." That is, without religion, enforced upon every class, and at the general expense of the State. Hence, after paying the taxation in full, the Catholic and the conscientious Christian of the Church of England, have to sustain in all those colonies their own system of education, and this, while paying for the other system, and while bearing the additional burden of the competition of State schools, richly and completely endowed with every possible requisite and luxury out of the general taxes.

A final feature in the education-war of Atheism against the Church especially, and against Christianity of every kind, is the attempted higher education without religion of young girls. The expense which they have induced every legislature to undertake for this purpose is amazing; and how the nations tolerate that expense is equally amazing. It is but carrying out to the letter the advice of Vindex:—"If we cannot suppress woman, let us corrupt her together with the Church."

For this purpose those infamous hot-beds of foul vice, "lodges of adoption," lodges for women, and "androgynes,"—lodges for libertine Masons and women—were established by the Illuminati of France in the last century. For the same purpose schools for the higher education of young girls are now devised. This we know by the open avowal of leading Masons. They were introduced into France, Belgium, Italy, and Germany for the purpose of withdrawing young girls of the middle and upper classes from the blessed, safe control of nuns in convents, and of leading them to positive Atheism by Infidel masters and Infidel associates. This design of the lodges is succeeding in its mission of terrible mischief; but, thank God, not amongst the daughters of respectable Christians of any kind, who value the chastity, the honor, or the future happiness here and hereafter of that sex of their children, who need most care and delicacy in educating.

In the extract from the permanent instruction of the Alta Vendita, you have already seen how astutely the Atheists compassed the corruption of youth in Universities. It is since notorious that in all high schools over which they have been able to obtain influence, the students have been deprived of religion, taught to mock and hate it, allured to vicious courses, and have been placed under professors without religion or morality. How can we be surprised if the Universities of the Continent have become the hot-beds of vice, revolution, and Atheism? Moreover, when Masonry governs, as in France, Italy, and Germany, the only way for youth to obtain a livelihood on entering upon life is by being affiliated to Masonry; and the only way to secure advancement is to be devoted to the principles, the intrigues, and the interests of the Sect.

The continuous efforts of Masonry, aided by an immoral and Atheistic literature, by a corrupt public opinion, by a zealous Propagandism of contempt for the Church, for her ministers and her ministratons, and by a sleepless, able Directory devoted to the furtherance of every evil end, are enough in all reason to ruin Christianity if that were not Divine. But in addition to its intellectual efforts, Masonry has had from the beginning another powerful means of destroying the existing social and Christian order of the world in the interests of Atheism.

[Footnote 1: The late celebrated Mgr. Dupanloup published, in 1875, an invaluable little treatise, in which he gave, from the expressions of the most eminent Masons in France and elsewhere, from the resolutions taken in principal lodges, and from the opinions of their chief literary organs, proofs that what is here stated is correct. The following extracts regarding education will show what Masonry has been doing in regard to that most vital question. Mgr. Dupanloup says:—

"In the great lodge called the 'Rose of Perfect Silence,' it was proposed at one time for the consideration of the brethren:—'Ought religious education to be suppressed?' This was answered as follows:—'Without any doubt the principal of supernatural authority, that is faith in God, takes from a man his dignity, is useless for the discipline of children, and there is also in it, the danger of the abandonment of all morality' . . . 'The respect, specially due to the child, prohibits the teaching to him of doctrines, which disturb his reason'.

To show the reason of the activity of the Masons, all the world over, for the diffusion of irreligious education, it will be sufficient to quote the view of the Monde Maconnique on the subject. It says, in its issue of May 1st, 1865: "An immense field is open to our activity. Ignorance and superstition weigh upon the world. Let us seek to create schools, professorial chairs, libraries."

Impelled by the general movement thus infused into the body, the Masonic (French) Convention of 1870, came unanimously to the following decision:—"The Masonry of France associates itself with the forces at work in the country to render education gratuitous, obligatory, and laic."

We have all heard how far Belgium has gone in pursuit of these Masonic aims at Infidel education. At one of the principal festivals of the Belgian Freemasons, a certain brother Boulard exclaimed, amidst universal applause. "When ministers shall come to announce to the country that they intend to regulate the education of the people I will cry aloud, 'to me a Mason, to me alone the question of education must be left, to me the teaching, to me the examination, to me the solution.'"

Mgr. Dupanloup also attacked the Masonic project of having professional schools for young girls, such as are now advocated in the Australian colonies and elsewhere in English-speaking countries. At the time, the movement was but just being initiated in France, but it could not deceive him. In a pamphlet, to which all the bishops of France adhered, and which was therefore called the Alarm of the Episcopate, he showed clearly that these schools had two faces, on one of which was written "Professional Instruction for Girls" and on the other, "Away with Christianity in life and death." "Without woman," said Brother Albert Leroy, at an International Congress of Masons, in Paris, in 1867, "all the men united can do nothing"—nothing to effectually de-Christianize the world.

But as we have seen the great aim of the Alta Vendita was to corrupt woman. "As we cannot suppress her," said Vindex to Nubius, "let us corrupt her with the Church," The method best adapted for this was to alienate her from religion by an infidel education.]