The Freemason Clavel confirms the foregoing account by Ragon. Thus, like Ragon, he quotes, the principle expressed in a ritual for the initiation of a Master Mason:
It is expressly forbidden to Masons to discuss amongst themselves, either in the lodge or outside it, religious and political matters, these discussions having usually the effect of creating discord where formerly peace, union, and fraternity reigned. This masonic law admits of no exceptions.[669]
But Clavel also goes on to say:
To efface amongst men the distinctions of colour, rank, creed, opinions, country; to annihilate fanaticism, and ... the scourge of war; in a word, to make of the whole human race one and the same family united by affection, by devotion, by work and knowledge: that, my brother, is the great work which Freemasonry has undertaken, etc.[670]
Up to a point many a British Freemason reading these passages will declare himself completely in accord with the sentiments expressed. Humanitarianism, the obliteration of class distinctions, fraternization between men of all races, conditions, and religious creeds, enter of course largely into the spirit of British Masonry, but form simply the basis on which Masons meet together in the lodges and not a political system to be imposed on the world in general.
British Masonry thus makes no attempt to interfere with the existing social system or form of Government; the essence of its teaching is that each member of the Fraternity should seek to reform himself and not society. In a word, individual regeneration takes the place of the social reorganization advocated by the Grand Orient under the influence of Illuminism. The formula of the "United States of Europe" and of the "Universal Republic" first proclaimed by the Illuminatus, Anacharsis Clootz,[671] has long been the slogan of the French lodges.[672]
In the matter of religion, Grand Orient Masonry has entirely departed from the principle laid down by the British lodges. If the Catholic Church has shown itself hostile to Masonry, it must be remembered that in Catholic countries Masonry has shown itself militantly anti-Catholic. "Freemasonry," one of its modern orators declared, "is the anti-Church, the anti-Catholicism, the Church of Heresy (la contre Eglise, le contre Catholicisme, l'Eglise de l'Hérésie)."[673] The Bulletin of the Grand Orient in 1885 officially declared: "We Freemasons must pursue the definite demolition of Catholicism."
But the Grand Orient goes further than this and attacks all forms of religion. Thus, as has been said, those "ancient landmarks" of British Masonry, belief in the Great Architect of the Universe and in the immortality of the soul, had never formed an integral part of its system, and it was only in 1849 that for the first time "it was distinctly formulated that the basis of Freemasonry is a belief in God and in the immortality of the soul, and the solidarity of Humanity." But in September 1877 the first part of this formula was deleted, all allusions to the Great Architect were omitted, and the statute now reads: "Its basis is absolute liberty of conscience and the solidarity of Humanity."[674] British Freemasonry, which does not admit liberty of conscience in the sense of Atheism, but demands that every Mason should profess belief in some form of religion and which insists that the Volume of the Sacred Law--in England the Bible, in Mohammedan countries the Koran, and so on--should be placed on the table in its lodges, thereupon broke off all relations with the Grand Orient. In March 1878 the following resolution was passed unanimously:
That the Grand Lodge, whilst always anxious to receive in the most fraternal spirit the Brethren of any foreign Grand Lodge whose proceedings are conducted according to the Ancient Landmarks of the Order, of which a belief in T.G.A.O.T.U. is the first and most important, cannot recognize as "true and genuine" Brethren any who have been initiated in lodges which either deny or ignore that belief.[675]
The Grand Orient, says M. Copin Albancelli, not content with renouncing the Great Architect whose glory it had celebrated on every possible occasion and whose praises had been incessantly sung in its lodges, demanded of its initiates that they should declare themselves to be absolutely convinced that the Great Architect was nothing but a myth.[676] More than this, violent anti-religious tirades have been permitted and even applauded in the lodges. Thus in 1902 the Freemason Delpech in his discourse at a masonic banquet uttered these words: