FREEMASONRY: ITS HISTORY AND AIMS. 



255 



f jrm, does not make the German, like the French- 

 man, blase, but pessimistic. At least, it sows the 

 seeds of pessimism. 



Finally, we may say that the present state of 

 Europe in general carries with it a pessimistic 

 tendency ; for dark clouds are overhead, spread- 

 ing twilight over the earth, the light that favors 

 pessimism. They are clouds which threaten ter- 

 rible storms — change in religions, change in so- 

 cial institutions all over the earth, change in na- 

 tions. One feels as though war, bloody, terrible 

 war, must come sooner or later — war that will 

 change the whole aspect of the earth — so that 

 the " earth-spirit," should he sleep a hundred 

 years and then awake, would not recognize his 

 earth, so altered will be its face. And, as before 

 a storm, when heavy clouds hide the sun, the 

 cattle hide their heads, and men fly to their 

 gloomy dwellings, and a dim, frightened feeling 

 creeps over their hearts, beating with void fear, 

 so do nations now feel the voidness in their 



hearts, the indistinct fear which is itself a form 

 of pessimism. 1 



So much for the social origin of pessimism in 

 Germany. The task of making a similar inves- 

 tigation into its intellectual origin has been al- 

 ready very ably performed ; but the present point 

 of view is important even in relation to that subject, 

 since the social sources are, if not the primum 

 movens to the merely intellectual, still their in- 

 separable concomitants. Even though the phi- 

 losopher's mind be characterized by the strongest 

 objectivity, and have the greatest influence upon 

 his social character, still his mind is not unpre- 

 cedented and isolated in its development. How- 

 ever strong an organism may be, yet to some 

 extent it must be influenced, and its growth modi- 

 fied, by the environment. No human being ever 

 yet existed who could truly say " Social institu- 

 tions have had absolutely no effect in helping to 

 form my opinion." 



— Nineteenth Century. 



EEEEMASONEY : ITS HISTORY AND AIMS. 



Br EDWARD F. WILLOUGHBY. 



THE installation of the Prince of Wales as 

 Grand Master of English Freemasons has 

 awakened a fresh interest in this ancient society, 

 which, embracing in its bond of brotherhood 

 kings and tradesmen, nobles and artisans, sol- 

 diers, scholars, and divines, of every civilized 

 people, is still viewed with the most varied feel- 

 ings of curiosity and suspicion, ridicule, or mys- 

 tery, by those who have not been initiated into 

 its secrets. 



Though it has always flourished most in the 

 congenial atmosphere of civil and religious lib- 

 erty enjoyed Under Protestant governments, yet 

 at no time has any branch of the Christian 

 Church been excluded from participation in its 

 privileges, and of late it has opened its portals 

 to Jews and other believers in the purer forms 

 of monotheism. Though numbering among its 

 members many of the best and wisest of men, it 

 has been persecuted by some European govern- 

 ments with relentless cruelty, and is still de- 

 nounced by the Piomish hierarchy as an impious 

 association, the members of which are ipso facto 

 excommunicate. In other countries it is often 

 looked on as a great benefit society, the high 

 pretensions and pompous accessories of which 



are calculated to provoke a smile of amusement, 

 if not of contempt. 



Great, however, as are the benefits of Free- 

 masonry, it is far more than a benefit society. 

 It may be defined, in its own words, as a " beau- 

 tiful system of morality, veiled in allegory, and 

 illustrated by symbols." It lives and instructs 

 in emblems and symbols, in which the leading 

 idea is that the Freemasons are a body of real 

 masons, engaged in the erection of a spiritual 

 temple, affording to each that encouragement 

 and aid, material or moral, of which he may 

 stand in need ; bound to practise collectively 

 and individually every public and private virtue ; 

 to contemplate all mankind as brethren, but es- 

 pecially those united by the same sacred tie, 

 whatever their nation, or their place in the social 

 scale ; to practise " charity " in its broadest and 

 deepest meaning ;*to do all this silently, secretly, 



1 To quote music again, Schumann has beautifully 

 expressed this feeling in a small composition called 

 " Presentiment of Woe," which, together with " Wa- 

 rum," already proves the just title of so-called Pro- 

 gram-music. It is a feeling that there must come a 

 sorrowful change, "/hich Rubinstein has expressed in 

 two Oriental songs, the " Oh, if only it ever remained 

 sol" 



