584 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tification as more apparent than actual, and the documents adduced 

 as chiefly authentic " ; so difficult is it for minds thus constituted, 

 with the rational faculties dwarfed and stunted by being constantly 

 kept in the leading strings of credulity, to recognize the falsity of 

 what they wish or are told to believe. 



Another of Taxil's confederates was Domenico Margiotta, ac- 

 cording to his o\vn account a native of Palmi, in southern Italy, 

 and professor of literature and philosophy. His principal work, 

 Adriano Lemmi, Supreme Head of the Freemasons, published in 

 French in 1894, gives a long list of his titles, designed to impress 

 the public by indicating his high position in the Masonic order. 

 Hacks calls him a " Member of the Sovereign Sanctuary of the 

 Oriental Rite of Memphis and Mizraim," a purely fictitious desig- 

 nation. This cunning device was also crowned with complete suc- 

 cess, and caused the fabricated disclosures to be hailed with enthu- 

 siasm. Here, exclaimed the clerical journals, we have '" not an 

 apprentice or novice like Taxil, but one of the highest dignitaries 

 of universal Freemasonry and Luciferianism, who is initiated and 

 instructed in all its mysteries and occult observances," being appar- 

 ently ignorant of the fact that Taxil was in the main the real 

 author of the book. 



One of the most common accusations brought against the Free- 

 masons is that of desecrating the host by stabbing it with a dagger. 

 A German Catholic journal, The Pelican,* affirms that not only 

 Masonic devil worshipers, but also Jews, infidels, and heretics in 

 general commit this sacrilege in order to show their deadly hatred 

 of Christianity. In proof of this charge, the following " historical 

 fact" is published in the number for July, 1897: Several con- 

 secrated wafers were once stolen by Jews from a church at 

 Langenses, in Silesia, and, after being pierced through with 

 knives, were hidden in the forest. They were discovered by a 

 Polish nobleman, whose four horses, as he was driving by, sud- 

 denly kneeled down and refused to go on, although he beat them 



* The manner in which The Pelican makes piety profitable is most extraordinary and 

 should win the admiration and excite the envy of the " yellow press." The editor informs 

 the public that he entered into a compact with St. Joseph, promising; to distribute fifty 

 books in which this holy person is glorified, provided the journal receives two thousand 

 suVjscribers. In less than a year the number of subscribers was twenty-five hundred. A 

 promise to distribute one hundred books of this kind, if St. Joseph would procure eight 

 thousand subscribers, raised the list of subscribers to twelve thousand ; and this barter 

 went on until The Pelican could boast of ninety thousand subscribers. The editor also 

 announces that he has engaged two hundred and eighty priests to say masses for the readers 

 of his i>aper and to pray for and bless their children, and concludes this astounding piece 

 of i)uffcry as follows : " Experience teaches us that the benediction of a single priest is 

 effective. What, then, can not be obtained if two hundred and eighty priests unite in 

 blessing us 1 " 



