s remained a possibility. And the friction between
them was largely due to the circumstance that they both aimed at
universal sovereignty, and had a similar international organisation, a
similar net thrown over the nations, and in a like way mysteries, dogmas,
and rites. It was deity against deity, faith against faith, conquest
against conquest: and so, like competing tradesmen in the same street,
they were a source of mutual embarrassment, and one of them was bound to
kill the other. But if Roman Catholicism seemed to Pierre to be worn out
and threatened with ruin, he remained quite as sceptical with regard to
the power of Freemasonry. He had made inquiries as to the reality of that
power in Rome, where both Grand Master and Pope were enthroned, one in
front of the other. He was certainly told that the last Roman princes had
thought themselves compelled to become Freemasons in order to render
their own difficult position somewhat easier and facilitate the future of
their sons. But was this true? had they not simply yielded to the force
of the present social evolution? And would not Freemasonry eventually be
submerged by its own triumph--that of the ideas of justice, reason, and
truth, which it had defended through the dark and violent ages of
history? It is a thing which constantly happens; the victory of an idea
kills the sect which has propagated it, and renders the apparatus with
which the members of the sect surrounded themselves, in order to fire
imaginations, both useless and somewhat ridiculous. Carbonarism did not
survive the conquest of the political liberties which it demanded; and on
the day when the Catholic Church crumbles, having accomplished its work
of civilisation, the other Church, the Freemasons' Church of across the
road, will in a like way disappear, its task of liberation ended.
Nowadays the famous power of the Lodges, hampered by traditions, weakened
by a ceremonial which provokes laughter, and reduced to a simple bond of
brotherly agreement and mutual assistance, would be but a sorry weapon of
conquest for humanity, were it not that the vigorous breath of science
impels the nations onwards and helps to destroy the old religions.

* Some readers may think the above passages an exaggeration, but
such is not the case. The hatred with which the Catholic
priesthood, especially in Italy, Spain, and France, regards
Freemasonry is remarkable. At the moment of writing these lines
I have