LORD RIPON AND THE TREEMASONS.

Evening Star, Issue 4109, 28 April 1876, Page 3

LORD RIPON AND THE TREEMASONS.

Monaignor Nardi, one of the ablest men about the Court of Rome, and a thorough man of the world, has had the agreeable task of describing to Roman society the last victim of Papal fascination. There can be no denying that the Marquess of Ripon is a most valuable prize, a very big stone, as Monsignor Nardi expresses it, to tumble down from the crumbling down old pile of the Anglican Church and roll into the adjacent but hostile territory. It is not merely rank, or material wealth, that the Marquess brings to the footsteps of the Papal Throne. He brings also such an accumulation of honors, and such a splendor of asso ciation, as it has rarely happened to any man to bring to any cause, and it is only by a last stroke to fortune that he now has a narrator who can do justice to them. After inheriting two sets of titles, estates, and political reminiscences, Lord Ripon, not yet fifty, has been in rapid succession Secretary for war, Secretary for India, Lord President of the Council, aud Chairman of the Joint High Commission which resulted in the amicable settlement of the Alabama claims and his own elevation to a marquesate. He is also what many Englishmen would think worth all the rest put together—a knight of the garter. This would be enough for most people, ; but as if to try how much honor human nature can bear without actually breaking down under the glittering burden,

Lord Ripon waft till the other day Grand Master of the Freemasons of England, whatever the meaning of that mysterious dignity ip. It has been insinuated at home that Lord Ripon sought a refuge from the darkness of that cave when he so unexpectedly betook himself to Rome. But we should rather infer from Monsignor Nardi’s apologies that the Marquis looks back regretfully to the ‘ ‘ craft ” he has been obliged to renounce, and has a weakness to be treated with a gentle hand. Freemasonry, says Monsignor Nardi, like all other secret societies, is a detestable thing. But English masons are very different from Italian, German, Swiss, Spanish, and Brazilian. In this respect, he goes on to say, with all the air of an ethnological philosopher, Masons are like the human kind. “As there is one species, but many races of men, so it is with the Masons, who, it appears, in England are chiefly given to eating, drinking, and merrymaking, although they occasionally do harm, and are in general enemies of our church.” This account of the “Brotherhood” must have Lord Ripon’s concurrence—indeed, by the expression “it appears” one may almost suppose that his Lordship has stated in equivalent terms the only business English Masons ever meet for. They meet, if we are to believe Monsignor Nardi and his informant, to eat, drink, and be merry in old English fashion ; and it is only when they are sufficiently sober or sufficiently inebriated that they do a little harm, the Church of Rome being. of course their pet aversion. Monsignor Nardi thinks this the best apology he can make for certainly the greatest man, by common measure of human greatness, that Rome has acquired from us since the days of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth he refers to. If Lord Ripon allows Monsiguor Nardi’s account of Freemasonry to pass without any protest on his part, it will be fair to assume, not only that he regards it as true, but that it is the apology—the confession we should rather say—he made on entering his new Communion and presenting himself to its chief. Outsiders in general will certainly attach this significance to the pompous eulogy in which the Marquess’s arrival at the Court of Rome is trumpeted to the world. In this case it will devolve upon the English Freemasons not to disclose any secret, but to assure the world that they do something more than eat, drink, and be merry, and are something more than a “Goose Club”—the apology actually offered for them at Rome some years ago by a distinguished English Prelate of the Roman Church. What we read in our Roman contemporary sounds very like a betrayal of secrets —that is, a confession that there is uo secret at all—inconsistent as that may seem with the devoted membership of a British statesman. If what the Monsignor says be true, then a bubble has burst, and it is the Marquess of Ripon’s honesty, or selfreproach, which has told the world what it has so long suspected. It would, however, be interesting to know whether the Marquess has given the same account of the other bodies in which he has served, and over which he has presided. Has he been able to inform Monsignor Nardi that in the War Office, the India Office—nay, in her Majesty’s Privy Council, they do nothing but eat, drink, and make themselves merry? If he could say this of the Joint High Commission on the Alabama claims, it might afford some clue to the result. If the Marquess is in a candid mood, perhaps he would throw some light on the mysteries of official administration which so often puzzle the world, and seem to admit only of the sort of explanation given of the great Masonic mystery,—‘Times.’ In reply to the above, “A Master Mason” writes to the ‘ Times ’ from Rome under date 24th January : —“lf you can afford me space I should like to say a few words about Rome, Lord Ripon, and Freemasonry. Masonry is not, as Monsignor Nardi supposes, a society in England for eating, drinking, and merry-making. Masons, no doubt, do upon occasions eat, drink, and make merry together, but so do Monsignori and so do Cardinals, and so might Popes, only there can’t well be more than one at a time ; and some of his predecessors are, perhaps, the last persons the present incumbent might care to have a visiting acquaintance with. Jt seems to me that Brother Ripon has been playing off one of his masonic jokes upon the simplicity of a Roman ecclesiastic; but if Monsignor Nardi really wants to know what masonry is, I will tell him—there is no secret about it. It is a system of morality allegorically hidden from the vulgar, but symbolically illustrated to the initiated. If Continental masonry does not appear to Monsignor Nardi to answer to this description, the mistake is his, not mine. The principles of masonry are quite as uniform and as catholic (perhaps more so) than those of the Roman Church, while it claims an antiquity much greater. It is possible that in countries where. oppression has driven men to secret means of resistance they may have formed societies - which outsiders may mistake for masonry—for political purposes; but those societies are not masonry, nor is masonry answerable for their existence. Can the Church of Rome say as much for itself? ‘Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.’ Masonic morality, if limited, is better than no morality. Thus, if masonry objected to treat a particular case of heresy by combustion, on the ground that the heretic was a mason, it would be so far superior to some forms of religion that have employed combustion to confute distasteful opinions, although a religion which refused to burn a heretic because he was a man might be superior in morality to masonry. As Rome condemns all who become or remain masons, it does not seem wonderful that the lodges are not filled with devoted Papists. How should they ? But whether it be the masons who are unfriendly to the Church, or the Church to masons, two things are clear—first, that St. Paul, who calls himself in plain words a twice Master Mason, was one of the craft; the other that St. Peter’s writings are full of ironical allusions. lam so far from saying that the last two witnesses may not be hostile to Rome, but I should have thought Monsignor Nardi would be the last man to admit it.”