SAVED BY FREEMASONRY.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 66, 17 November 1914, Page 3

SAVED BY FREEMASONRY.

OFFICER RECOGNISES SIGN. COUNTERMANDS DEATH SHNTENCE ON FIFTY MEN. A remarkable incident, testifying alike to the power of Freemasonry and the splendid devotion of a citizen of Lou vain, has been reported to me, said a Renter's Ostend correspondent. At the time of the sack of the town the Germans seized fifty men, whom they bound and told that they were going to be shot. The firing party had already raised their rifles to take aim when one of the fifty, a Freemason, made one of the Masonic signs. The German officer in command of the squad was himself a Freemason, and just as he was going to give the order to fire he saw the sign, and recognised a " brother." He at once ordered the Freemason to leave the ranks, and told him to go away. '•' No," replied the citizen cf Louvain, "my fellow-ctitzens are no more guilty than I am. If you are going to kill them, I shall not go away, and I shall be killed with them." Touched by this act of devotion, the officer ordered the release of the fifty unfortunate men, who thus owed their lives to the intervention of a Freemason fellow-citizen.