Gods, were
accounted Atheists, and accordingly put to death. We need not hold a
brief for the Grand Orient, but it behooves us to understand its
position and point of view, lest we be found guilty of a petty bigotry
in regard to a word when the _reality_ is a common treasure. First, it
was felt that France needed the aid of every man who was an enemy of
Latin ecclesiasticism, in order to bring about a separation of Church
and State; hence the attitude of the Grand Orient. Second, the Masons
of France agree with Plutarch that no conception of God at all is
better than a dark, distorted superstition which wraps men in terror;
and they erased a word which, for many, was associated with an unworthy
faith--the better to seek a unity of effort in behalf of liberty of
thought and a loftier faith. (_The Religion of Plutarch_, by Oakesmith;
also the Bacon essay on _Superstition_.) We may deem this unwise, but
we ought at least to understand its spirit and purpose.

[176] _Theocratic Philosophy of Freemasonry_, by Oliver.

[177] "History of the Lost Word," by J.F. Garrison, appendix to _Early
History and Antiquities of Freemasonry_, by G.F. Fort--one of the most
brilliant Masonic books, both in scholarship and literary style.

[178] _Symbolism of Masonry_, by Dr. Mackey (chap. i) and other books
too many to name. It need hardly be said that the truth of the trinity,
whereof the triangle is an emblem--though with Pythagoras it was a
symbol of holiness, of health--was never meant to contradict the unity
of God, but to make it more vivid. As too often interpreted, it is
little more than a crude tri-theism, but at its best it is not so. "God
thrice, not three Gods," was the word of St. Augustine (_Essay on the
Trinity_), meaning three aspects of God--not the mathematics of His
nature, but its manifoldness, its variety in unity. The late W.N.
Clarke--who put more common sense into theology than any other man of
his day--pointed out that, in our time, the old debate about the
trinity is as dead as Caesar; the truth of God as a Father having taken
up into itself the warmth, color, and tenderness of the truth of the
trinity--which, as said on an earlier page, was a vision of God through
the family (_Christian Doctrine of God_).

[179] _The Bible, the Great Source of Masonic Secrets and Observances_,
by Dr. Oliver. No Mason need be told what a large place the Bible has
in the symbolism, ritual, and teaching of the Order, and it has an