tter signed "Jachin"
appeared in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ declaring the "Freemasons who
have lately been suppressed not only in France but in Holland" to be "a
dangerous Race of Men":

No Government ought to suffer such clandestine Assemblies where
Plots against the State may be carried on, under the Pretence of
Brotherly Love and good Fellowship.

The writer, evidently unaware of possible Templar traditions, goes on to
observe that the sentinel placed at the door of the lodge with a drawn
sword in his hand "is not the only mark of their being a military
Order"; and suggests that the title of Grand Master is taken in
imitation of the Knights of Malta. "Jachin," moreover, scents a Popish
plot:

They not only admit Turks, Jews, Infidels, but even Jacobites,
non-jurors and Papists themselves ... how can we be sure that
those Persons who are known to be well affected, are let into all
their Mysteries? They make no scruple to acknowledge that there is
a Distinction between Prentices and Master Masons and who knows
whether they may not have an higher Order of Cabalists, who keep
the Grand Secret of all entirely to themselves?[350]

Later on in France, the Abbe Perau published his satires on Freemasonry,
_Le Secret des Francs-Macons_ (1742), _L'Ordre des Francs-Macons trahi
et le Secret des Mopses revele_, (1745), and _Les Francs-Macons ecrases_
(1746)[351] and in about 1761 another English writer said to be a Mason
brought down a torrent of invective on his head by the publication of
the ritual of the Craft Degrees under the name of _Jachin and
Boaz_.[352]

It must be admitted that from all this controversy no party emerges in a
very charitable light, Catholics and Protestants alike indulging in
sarcasms and reckless accusations against Freemasonry, the Freemasons
retorting with far from brotherly forbearance.[353] But, again, one must
remember that all these men were of their age--an age which seen through
the eyes of Hogarth would certainly not appear to have been
distinguished for delicacy. It should be noted, however, when one reads
in masonic works of the "persecutions" to which Freemasonry has been
subjected, that aggression was not confined only to the one side in the
conflict; moreover, that the Freemasons at this period were divided
amongst themselves and expressed with regard to opposing groups much the
same suspicions that non-Masons expressed with regard to