The unfortunate Prince who has taken refuge in this kingdom, and whose situation among us is an illustrious mark of the generosity of the nation, and of the sovereignty of its laws, said to one of the Gentleman about him, that "if this country was to escape the general wreck of nations, it would owe its preservation to Religion."—When this was doubted, and it was observed, that there had not been wanting many Religionists in France; "True," said the Prince, "but they were not in earnest.—I see here a serious interest in the thing. The people know what they are doing when they go to church—they understand something of it, and take an interest in it." May his observation be just, and his expectations be fulfilled!
IV. I would again call upon my countrywomen with the most earnest concern, and beseech them to consider this subject as of more particular importance to themselves than even to the men.—While woman is considered as a respectable moral agent, training along with ourselves for endless improvement; then, and only then, will she be considered by lordly man as his equal;—then, and only then, will she be allowed to have any rights, and those rights be respected. Strip women of this prerogative, and they become the drudges of man's indolence, or the pampered playthings of his idle hours, subject to his caprices, and slaves to his mean passions. Soon will their present empire of gallantry be over. It is a refinement of manners which sprang from Christianity; and when Christianity is forgotten, this artificial diadem will be taken from their heads, and unless they adopt the ferocious sentiments of their Gallic neighbours, and join in the general uproar, they will sink into the insignificance of the women in the turbulent republics of Greece, where they are never seen in the busy haunts of men, if we except four or five, who, during the course of as many centuries, emerged from the general obscurity, and appear in the historic page, by their uncommon talents, and by the sacrifice of what my fair countrywomen still hold to be the ornament of their sex. I would remind them, that they have it in their power to retain their present honourable station in society. They are our early instructors; and while mothers in the respectable stations of life continued to inculcate on the tender minds of their sons a veneration for the precepts of Religion, their pliant children, receiving their instructions along with the affectionate caresses of their mothers, got impressions which long retained their force, and which protected them from the impulses of youthful passions, till ripening years fitted their minds for listening to serious instruction from their public teachers. Sobriety and decency of manners were then no slur on the character of a youth, and he was thought capable of struggling for independence, or pre-eminence, fit either for supporting or defending the state, although he was neither a toper nor a rake. I believe that no man who has seen thirty or forty years of life will deny that the manners of youth are sadly changed in this respect. And, without presuming to say that this has proceeded from the neglect, and almost total cessation of the moral education of the nursery, I think myself well warranted, from my own observation, to say that this education and the sober manners of young men have quitted us together.
Some will call this prudery, and croaking. But I am almost transcribing from Cicero, and from Quintilian. Cornelia, Aurelia, Attia, and other ladies of the first rank, are praised by Cicero only for their eminence in this respect; but not because they were singular. Quintilian says, that in the time immediately prior to his own, it had been the general practice of the ladies of rank to superintend the moral education both of sons and daughters. But of late, says he, they are so engaged in continual and corrupting amusements, such as the shows of gladiators, horse-racing, and deep play, that they have no time, and have yielded their places to Greek governesses and tutors, outcasts of a nation more subdued by their own vices than by the Roman arms——I dare say this was laughed at, as croaking about the corruption of the age. But what was the consequence of all this?—The Romans became the most abandoned voluptuaries, and, to preserve their mean pleasures, they crouched as willing slaves to a succession of the vilest tyrants that ever disgraced humanity.
What a noble fund of self-estimation would our fair partners acquire to themselves, if, by reforming the manners of the young generation, they should be the means of restoring peace to the world! They have it in their power, by the renewal of the good old custom of early instruction, and perhaps still more, by impressing on the minds of their daughters the same sentiments, and obliging them to respect sobriety and decency in the youth, and pointedly to withhold their smiles and civilities from all who transgress these in the smallest degree. This is a method of proceeding that will most certainly be victorious. Then indeed will the women be the saviours of their country. While therefore the German fair have been repeatedly branded with having welcomed the French invaders[27], let our ladies stand up for the honour of free-born Britons, by turning against the pretended enlighteners of the world, the arms which nature has put into their hands, and which those profligates have presumptuously expected to employ in extending their influence over mankind. The empire of beauty is but short, but the empire of virtue is durable; nor is there an instance to be met with of its decline. If it be yet possible to reform the world, it is possible for the fair. By the constitution of human nature, they must always appear as the ornament of human life, and be the objects of fondness and affection; so that if any thing can make head against the selfish and overbearing dispositions of man, it is his respectful regard for the sex. But mere fondness has but little of the rational creature in it, and we see it harbour every day in the breast that is filled with the meanest and most turbulent passions. No where is it so strong as in the harems of the east; and as long as the women ask nothing of the men but fondness and admiration, they will get nothing else—they will never be respected. But let them rouse themselves, assert their dignity, by shewing their own elevated sentiments of human nature, and by asking up to this claim, and they may then command the world.
V. Another good consequence that should result from the account that has been given of the proceedings of this conspiracy is, that since the fascinating picture of human life, by which men have been wheedled into immediate anarchy and rebellion, is insincere, and a mere artificial creature of the imagination, it can have no steadiness, but must be changed by every freak of fancy, or by every ingenious sophist, who can give an equal plausibility to whatever suits his present views. It is as much an airy phantom as any other whim of Free Masonry, and has no prototype, no original pattern in human nature, to which recourse may always be had, to correct mistakes, and keep things in a constant tenor. Has not France given the most unequivocal proofs of this? Was not the declaration of the Rights of Man, the production of their most brilliant Illuminators, a picture, in abstracto, where man was placed at a distance from the eye, that no false light of local situation might pervert the judgment or engage the passions? Was it not declared to be the master-piece of human wisdom? Did not the nation consider it at leisure? and, having it continually before their eyes, did they not, step by step, give their assent to the different articles of their Constitution, derived from it, and fabricated by their most choice Illuminators? And did not this Constitution draw the applauses of the bright geniuses of other nations, who by this time were busy in persuading, each his countrymen, that they were ignoramuses in statistics, and patient slaves of oppression or of ancient prejudices? Did not panegyrics on it issue from every garret in London? Where is it now? where is its successor? Has any one plan of government subsisted, except while it was supported by the incontroulable and inexorable power of the guillotine? Is not the present administration of France as much as ever the object of discontent and of terror, and its coercions as like as ever to the summary justice of the Parisian mob? Is there any probability of its permanency in a state of peace, when the fears of a foreign enemy no longer give a consolidation to their measures, and oblige them either to agree among themselves, or immediately to perish?
VI. The above accounts evince in the most uncontrovertible manner the dangerous tendency of all mystical societies, and of all associations who hold secret meetings. We see that their uniform progress has been from frivolity and nonsense to wickedness and sedition. Weishaupt has been at great pains to shew the good effects of secrecy in the Association, and the arguments are valid for this purpose. But all his arguments are so many dissuasive advices to every thinking and sober mind. The man who really wishes to discover an abstruse truth will place himself, if possible in a calm situation, and will by no means expose himself to the impatient hankering for secrets and wonders—and he will always fear that a thing which resolutely conceals itself cannot bear the light. All who have seriously employed themselves in the discovery of truth have found the great advantages of open communication of sentiment. And it is against common sense to imagine that there is any thing of vast importance to mankind which is yet a secret, and which must be kept a secret in order to be useful. This is against the whole experience of mankind—And surely to hug in one's breast a secret of such mighty importance, is to give the lie to all our professions of brotherly love. What a solecism! a secret to enlighten and reform the whole world. We render all our endeavours impotent when we grasp at a thing beyond our power. Let an association be formed with a serious plan for reforming its own members, and let them extend in numbers in proportion as they succeed—this might do some good. But must the way of doing this be a secret?—It may be to many—who will not look for it where it is to be found—It is this:
"Do good,—seek peace,—and pursue it."
But it is almost affronting the reader to suppose arguments necessary on this point. If there be a necessity for secrecy, the purpose of the association is either frivolous, or it is selfish.
Now, in either case, the danger of such secret assemblies is manifest. Mere frivolity can never seriously occupy men come to age. And accordingly we see that in every quarter of Europe where Free Masonry has been established, the Lodges have become seed-beds of public mischief. I believe that no ordinary brother will say that the occupations in the Lodges are any thing better than frivolous, very frivolous indeed. The distribution of charity needs be no secret, and it is but a very small part of the employment of the meeting. This being the case it is in human nature that the greater we suppose the frivolity of such an association to be, the greater is the chance of its ceasing to give sufficient occupation to the mind, and the greater is the risk that the meetings may be employed to other purposes which require concealment. When this happens, self-interest alone must prompt and rule, and now there is no length that some men will not go, when they think themselves in no danger of detection and punishment. The whole proceedings of the secret societies of Free Masons on the Continent (and I am authorised to say, of some Lodges in Britain) have taken one turn, and this turn is perfectly natural. In all countries there are men of licentious morals. Such men wish to have a safe opportunity of indulging their wits in satire and sarcasm; and they are pleased with the support of others. The desire of making proselytes is in every breast—and it is whetted by the restraints of society. And all countries have discontented men, whose grumblings will raise discontent in others, who might not have attended to some of the trifling hardships and injuries they met with, had they not been reminded of them. To be discontented, and not to think of schemes of redress, is what we cannot think natural or manly—and where can such sentiments and schemes find such safe utterance and such probable support as in a secret society? Free Masonry is innocent of all these things; but Free Masonry has been abused, and at last totally perverted—and so will and must any such secret association, as long as men are licentious in their opinions or wicked in their dispositions.