an end to the system of representative governments." By whom was this signed?-Austria, France, Prussia and Russia; the very countries that are today reaping their reward in the bloodiest and most causeless war the world has ever seen. Not signed by the Pope? No. Not directed at the Masons? No. The Pope's edict had already gone forth, and exists today, in a Bull, with Masonry as the object of his condemnation. Can you not, then, see the real causes of the European war, and the parts this country and our order have innocently played in it? Can there be any other end than the continued triumph of "representative government" and the attendant blessings of Masonry in clearing the skies of troublous eclipses by monarchies and by the union of Church and State? A hundred years is but a short time in the history of Masonry, and in that of the world's armageddons for the emancipation of common humanity. Both causes have gone on with increased momentum under the multiplied blessings of Deity; and during that time, France has sent her LaFayette to help establish a popular form of government in this country. She has also repudiated her acts in the "Holy Alliance;" also she has repudiated Rome. England is a republic in all but name, Russia has withdrawn her distorted vows, while the Roman is fast becoming a rival to the Jew as a "scattered people." And, as said by Fawkes: "The thunderbolts of the Catholic Church, which once terrified kings, today excite no more than a modified fear in peasants." How history does repeat itself, and how Masonry does withstand the tests of time, all the while becoming more powerful and more helpful to God and man. How harmless are the shafts that come, apparently, from political fanaticism, rather than from any branch of holy religion as taught by the Golden Rule. In this armageddon of the ages, the one planned by Christ and since continued by the Masons and other allied agencies, many of the churches have been almost silent spectators. Concerning it, nations have been divided, and yet they have gradually righted themselves until it is now becoming apparent to the student in history that the former claim of "Divine Right" will soon be as obsolete as the mastodon that has left his skeleton amid the fossils of the past. Masonry maintains that men are the sons and daughters of a Heavenly Father, by whatsoever name called. As children of this King, they are severally endowed with His glorious qualities and inheritances. Further than this, who dares to transgress upon the holy precincts of infinity? On what authority, pray, do any dare the claim, or put forth the pretense? Fie! Regardless of nations or men, Masonry recognizes but one Grand Master, without whose altar and word no lodge could have had either birth or existence on the face of the earth. Is there reason, then, that the profane as well as the Craft have flocked to its age-tried standard and practically all the world has come to it in the cause of real Divine Right and world betterment? Internationally, it knows no creed or country. It is the only neutral institution and is as large as all nations; and includes the here and the hereafter. Can we wonder, then, that it has withstood the ignominies of the past, and has always been in the forefront in charity and good deeds, often repeating the prayer of the Master, saying: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?" Be the ends of the European war what they may, Masonry has nothing to shun or fear. The murder and usurpation of Madero made Masonry stronger in Mexico. The war in Europe is but the fruit of antagonism to principles that are bound to triumph. Why worry, then, and wonder at the part played by instruments of the Grand Master? Rather let us rejoice and be glad, for, "God is His own interpreter, T FREEMASONRY IN PORTUGAL BY G. W. BAIRD, 33° HON., P. G. M. of D. C. HE Tableau-gèneral of the Grand Orient of Lusitania, dated at Lisbon, eleventh of August, 1916, is the first Masonic literature which has come to us, for many years, from poetic Portugal. The writer was made a Mason in that Orient in 1867, when Count de Paraty was Grand Master, and when Don Fernando, the Prince Consort, was a Mason and gave his moral support to the institution. At that time the Jesuits, who had been banished, were sneaking back but had not yet become active. Though the laws of the kingdom made it a penal offense to be a Freemason, the law was inert, probably because there were no sleuths to formulate charges against it. The members of the lodges never went in groups to their communications, but singly, or in pairs, and lighted themselves up the long flights of stairs by a little roulino" (a slender wax taper), which they lighted at a feeble. gas fet at the door; and they left the building with the same caution. On inquiry as to the cause of this precaution, I learned it was because of the existing law, the aggression of the priests and the force of habit. The writer dimitted from that lodge when returning to the United States, but, on visiting Lisbon, ten years later, could find no lodge whatever-even to visit. The treasurer of our lodge (Mr. A. P. Rego, whose tailoring establishment was on the Caes de Sodre) said the lodges had been broken up, books captured, etc., on information of the priests. Fortunately the names of the members were recorded only in the key, for, on the lodge books, only the sobriquet was recorded, and these nicknames were always of dead men. The writer's sobriquet was Andrew Jackson. This is not peculiar to Portugal; the same is done in Mexico and in other papalized countries. But from the "tableau" we have just received it seems evident that some lodges must have met secretly, as some did in Christian. New England during the "Morgan excitement." In 1910 a revolution in Portugal changed that limited monarchy to a republic, and in the new constitution the penalty for the crime of being at member of the Masonic fraternity was omitted, and the wording is such as to make conflicting acts void; and at once Masons were heard of. The writer suspected that one or more brethren must have had a hand in that diplomacy, and this "tableau" seems to confirm it. When the republic of Portugal was proclaimed, it asked formal recognition. of the great republic of the United States as well as of those of South and Central America, and of the empires of Europe, but the United States has never given that formal recognition, though the United States consuls have been instructed to "do business" with the Portuguese, which is a tacit recognition. We read, in the newspapers of that time, that His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons deprecated the Republic of Portugal as "interfering with the rights of the Pope," which seems to have been justified by authority from Rome. It will be found in the life of Pope Constantine that the triple crown of "his holiness," the pope, is adorned by three golden bands, surmounted by a cross resting on a globe. It is in the form of a mitre or beehive. It is symbolical of the three prerogatives of the papacy as expressed in the ritual of the coronation: "The pope is (1) the father of princes, (2) the ruler of the Christian world, and, (3) the vicar of Jesus Christ." Each of these prerogatives is represented by a crown. "On one side of the catafalque of "So it appears that one of the noted acts of Pius X was the issuing of an encyclical letter in which he declared the law separating Church and State in Portugal null and void, and interfering with the rights of the Church. "The present Grand Master in Portugal is Dr. Sebastiao de Magalhaes Lima, who gives what he calls two words on the History of Portuguese Masonry (Duas palavras da historia da Maconaria Portuguesa), from which we make the following excerpts, and which we have never seen in print before. "Masonry was introduced into Portugal about 1733-1740; and its existence was due to the Scotch, but it prospered after the invasion of the French." That "a lodge was held on board the frigate Fenix (Phoenix?) in the roads of the river Tagus, by English, French and Portuguese, which led to the planting of lodges in Lisbon." "In 1804 the Grand Orient of Lusitania was constituted and was organized by the 'religieux' [a member of a religious order] named Joseph Librato, who was of the Augustinian Order." "The French and the Portuguese Grand Masters were devoted friends, and they concluded a treaty in 1863 which led to the recognition of the Grand Orient of Portugal (or Luzitania) by the Grand Lodges of Ireland, Italy, Argentine, Uruguay, Saxony, Luxembourg, Hamburg, Brazil, Chile, New York, Canada, etc., and, in 1868 recognition came from the Grand Lodges of Egypt and Germany. "In 1869 there was a consolidation between the Grand Lodge and the Grand Consistory, and the name of Grand Oriente Lusitanian Unido [United Grand Orient] was adopted. "Josè da Silva quitted the Grand Orient in 1843 and formed the Grand Orient A. A. S. R. and this is probably the Consistory which consolidated with the Grand Lodge in Portugal. "In 1849 the Marshall Saldanha Orient and that of Passos Manoel amalgamated under the name of Masonic Confederation. "In 1867 Josè Elias Garcia consummated the fusion of the Grand Orient of Luzitania with the Grand Lodge of Portugal and the Masonic confederation under the name of Grand Orient Portugueze, and, in 1869 there was effected, with great solemnity, the junction of the Grand Orient Portugueze with the Grand Orient of Lusitanien under the name of Grand Oriente Lusitanien Unido. "From this moment," says the report, "Portugueze Masonry entered a period of activity for the aggrandisement of the Order which, thanks to the predominating elements, attained a remarkable splendor. "The notice of this fusion," continues the report, "was communicated to the Masonic powers, which immediately gave recognition," and a list, including England, Tennessee, Alabama, Germany, Norway, et al., follows. "A reconciliation," says the report, "with the Grand Lodge of Ireland, took place in 1872," but the Grand Master had made no mention of any break having occurred. "Six lodges of the Symbolic Rite, in 1882, separated from the Grand Orient of Lusitanien Unido and constituted the Lodge of Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons of Portugal. . . .” "In 1897 a number of Masons quitted the Grand Oriente Lusitanien Unido for the purpose of forming the Grand Orient of Portugal of which Joaquim Paito de Carvalho was Grand Master, but it was of short duration and disappeared in 1904. "The lodge of Commerce and Industry' was formed in 1894, whose members were mostly wholesale merchants, and some of the members of FREEMASONRY IN PORTUGAL that lodge afterwards formed the 'National Democratic Union,' with advanced ideas." "The lodge Montague was formed in 1900, by Luis de Almeida, who introduced into it the elements the Carbonari," of which he was chief at the time, and the lodge met in the same building with the lodge of Commerce and Industry. And here, apparently, begins the shadow of politics. "After the unfortunate insurrection of 1908, an effort was made by da Almeida and Santos to enthuse followers into the republican cause, which came near sacrificing more than 40,000 men of all classes of society in an effort to free the country of the well-known despotism which oppressed the people. The revolution of the fifth of October, 1910, was precipitated and was effective in freeing them of the Jesuitical 'reactions,' which were no longer concealed." The report continues more as a eulogy of two prominent Masons, men of science and character, who were prominent in the revolution, Admiral Candido Reis and Dr. Miguel Bombarda. Dr. Bombarda was an alienist of international reputation, was governor of the Government Hospital for the Insane, and was the nation's idol. Both Admiral Reis and Dr. Bombarda were mysteriously assassinated, and, 63 the Masons believe, it was by the Jesuits, which the police have never been able to disprove. The newspapers, during the time of this revolution, printed romantic stories about the scandal of Gaby Deslys, a beautiful young French actress, with whom the young king was said to be infatuated; about the murder of the father of the young king by a mob, and the contest between the Church party and the Republicans, but there was never any mention of the Masons. A remarkable incident was an attack on a nunnery, occupied principally by Irish nuns, but who were protected by the British flag which they displayed for the purpose; the Portuguese mob respected that flag. The friars resisted with firearms, with which they were abundantly supplied, but were finally expelled. Between 5,000 and 6,000 monks and nuns were ordered to be expelled; the chief Jesuit, the Marquis de Pombal, was arrested, and the Bishop of Beja was sent across the border. Though Roman Catholics to a man, they wrested the power from the priests. The Jesuits threw bombs out of their windows and the royal family yacht, the Amelie, fled to Gibraltar for British protection. These things were recorded in the Washington Post of October 10, 1910. |