and its object the overturning of all government and religion.  Free masonry, being in high repute all over Europe when Weishaupt first formed the plan of his society, he availed himself of its secrecy to introduce his new order, which rapidly spread, by the efforts of its founders and disciples, through all those countries, and found its way even to the United States.  It would not be possible here to give even an outline of the nature and constitution of this extraordinary society—­of its secrets and mysteries—­of the deep dissimulation, consummate hypocrisy, and shocking impiety of its founder and his associates—­of their Jesuitical arts in concealing their real objects, and their incredible industry and astonishing exertions in making converts—­of the absolute despotism and complete system of espionage established throughout the order—­of the blind obedience exacted of the novices, and the absolute power of life and death assumed by the order and conceded by the novices—­of the pretended morality, real blasphemies, and absolute atheism of the founder and his tried friends.  Reference can only be made to these things as well-established facts.

“It is important here to bear in mind one or two facts, in order to realize what an engine of corruption this secret organization of the Illuminati was.  One fact is, the high popularity which these secret societies at that period enjoyed.  It was unbounded.  There is something which commends such secret organizations most powerfully to the depraved human nature.  Men love them because they are secret, and because they can wield such tremendous power.  The other fact to be considered, is the absence, to a such vast extent, of the controlling elements of true religion in the European mind, and its predisposition to skepticism.  The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century had broken the shackles of priestly Papal superstition over the human mind; and [true] evangelical doctrine not being introduced to supply the vacuum, the mass swung readily over from the regions of dark superstition to blank atheism.  Thus were the elements ready prepared to hand for such spirits as Voltaire, D’Alembert, Diderot, Weishaupt, and others, to work upon, and by reason of their secret powerful agencies, to mould to their own liking.

“It was now this damning system of infidelity, under the specious name of philosophy, light, and science, spread with such untiring industry over the European mind, that unhinged the whole framework of society, and prepared it, like a vast magazine, for an awful explosion.  All the principles that held society together in the fear of God and future retribution—­regard for human law—­respect for magistrates, parents, and the marriage-tie—­yea, in the very distinctions of virtue and vice, had been unsettled or taken away.  They had been reasoned down and laughed out of the world; and when these only restraints, which God has imposed upon human selfishness and passion were removed,