MYSTERIUM INIQUITATIS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 51, 18 April 1874, Page 10

MYSTERIUM INIQUITATIS.

" VIOHVANS," writing to the 'Tablet' on the now famous letter "Mysterium Iniquitatis," explaining the persecution iv Germany, says: — " I hare read with much interest the communication from your German coi respondent in your last week's issue. Perhaps it will not be unpleasing to many of your readers if you print the following passage in confimatkra of what he states. It is translated from the ' Koluisohe Yolkszeitung' of the 3rd inst. ; — " An incautious sincerity may sometimes prove of great value and importance. How often have the Freemasons protested that they are the lambs and that they never muddy the water ! About a week ago, October 25th, we came across the subjoined noticeable words in the ' Rheinische Herald' (the ' Herald of the Rhine,') a journal which appears at Worms, and which confesses itself openly to be the organ of the Masonic Lodges. 'It is our purpose briefly to call attention to the sentence which is about to be put into execution with reference to that black regiment, the passive instruments of a religious organisation, built up at the other side of the mountains,' (the Alps,) ' upon mediaeval foundations ; a judgment which the Spirit pronounced aa it sat upon the bench as judge. They guessed right, those apostles of darkness, when on the return of the Emperor from our victorious war, and, on the opening of the first Imperial diet, they foreboded their coming fate, like ravens which fly croaking around their nests. They took the measure of their enemy correctly, when they commenced railing in their papers against freemasonry and its disciples We believe that we are telling the simple truth when we say that with regard to the sentence which is now being carried out against the Oltraniontanes it was the spirit of freemasonry which spoke the word in that ever memorable letter of our Emperor to the Pope. The idear entertained by the Emperor William, who, as is well known r is a member of the Sect, are by no means new, nor are taken up by him, as the enemies of the empire are always ready to assert, at the inspiration of his present councilors. The fact i» that the Emperor, while yet in the prime of manhood, had already given utterance to those very sentiments in presenoe of the brotherhood, and that, too, at a tim.9 when the world at large had formed 8 very different opinion of him. But t\e worde littered by him at that time were words of a prince and of a man, and he has kept to them ; for now the Bmperor is carrying thorn out, as history will testify after another thousand years.' " [This admission may be taken as a reply to tho correspondent of Thames ' Evening Star,' who wrote defending the Freemasons from the charge of instigating the persecution. — Ed. N.Z.T.3