Masonry V. Agnosticism.*

them treat the body with contempt , discourage marriage , and reject the doctrine of the resurrection of the body , and its reunion with the immortal spirit . " So these roved from one extreme general , or conjecture individual , perhaps , to another . We are told , some even asserting there was no moral difference in human actions ; and thus , confounding right with wrong , gave loose rein to all the passionsand asserted the innocence of blindlfollowing

, y all their notions , and of living by their tumultuous dictates— " in whom the god of this world blinded the minds of them which believe not , " that is , rightly , to say , " lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ , who is the image of God , should shine unto them , " and so arraign and rebuke their unbelief , excesses , folly , hardness of heart , and superstition . The tenets of the ancient Gnosticswe learnwere revived in Spainin the

, , , fourth century , by sectaries called Priscillianists , after him put to death in the year 382 by Maximus . In some sort , it seems , there are ever those who perversely follow them . Their doctrines and views are said to resemble those of the Manicha 3 ans , another sect ; and so , along through the years since , there have been manifold changes of doctrine , with diverse displays of distrust , and more or less speculative unwisdom among men . Butwithout tracing

, the errors and extravagance of such philosophists from as late as the fifth to the nineteenth century , we may reasonably conjecture what so many theories in assortment of strange speculators they embrace , and how " science " socalled falsely affects them .

It is Gorgonian in effect and operation to remind one of famed Medusa ' s serpent tresses that they who contemplated—such the story—turned to stone . So scepticism , changing , petrifies the fount of faith , hardens the heart , and blunts and blights belief in Deity . As from a volcano of abnormal thought ¦ —chimerical cogitation coming to the surface—constantl y has flowed forth much matter extraneous and corrupt , useless and effete as waste lava that

clogs the way and covers with ashen deadening showers otherwise goodly field and vineyard ; and thus have come many unhappy visionary figments and monstrosities of more modern mental affectation and vaunted freethinking . I say mental merely , because not spiritual technically , as God ' s law of standard propriety is indeed spiritual , and not of human invention . For of the human barely emanates bald " agnosticism ; " to name it , that latest " moonflower " in

the vague hapless mead of mortal efflorescences , adopted of adventure and born of philosophic speculation . It consists of mere specious arrangement in presenting , with kaleidoscope expression , man-pleasing notions . It is simply deifying the human will , and heralding self-satisf ying ideas ; of bringing all things in earth or heaven to the creature ' s grade and metre , or echoing the animal instead of the angelic ! It is the creature paramountman first

, , God last ! Man ' s Creator questioned , discussed , criticised , disparaged , set aside , ceased to be thought of , deemed and determined unnecessary and superfluous , defied and finally vituperated and ignored . This is the agnostic passive of our day ; for such is the outcome of agnosticism ' s milder cnltus , if it be worth the name .

To claim non-knowledge as the reason for not believing , or rather for occupying the stool of professed ' uncertainty , belongs to either folly or ignorance . Idiot or ignoramus , with a table of logarithms before him of which he knows nothing , is less to blame for denying their fact and utilit y than the " full y informed " of this enlightened day , scriptures in hand , saying , " we don't know there is any God , and feel justified , therefore , not only in

questioning the divine , but also in doing just as we lawlessly choose . " That is but the selfish natural language of man ' s upstart lawlessness , after all , which he wishes and seeks unrestrictedl y to indulge ; for , in denying the source , the invalidity of that from it follows of a sequence that can be gainsaid and negatived , the- presumption is , with impunity by the wilful defiant . And this agnosticism , as other isms we are cursed with , claims , not conservative