44c
THE MASONIC WORLD
1948
held. The Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows and the Hibernians all had their advocates. General Rosencranz, a Catholic, spoke on behalf of the Grand Army of the Republic. Archbishop Kenrick of Missouri could see nothing objectionable to the K. P. or Odd Fellows. The action of the "Molly Maguires" and the Cronin murder in Chicago placed the Hibernians in a bad light with the public. One advocated the organization of the Catholic Knights of Pythias, which might have been followed by the Catholic Masons. Finally, after considering the matter for years, the hierarchy finally made a decision-that the chief American secret societies were forbidden for Catholics; The decision came in 1894 after "troubling the American bishops for a century." Support was thrown behind the Knights of Columbus, organized about that time, and while it was a secret society, yet it did not have those terrible (~) oaths which seemed to distinguish the Masonic fraternity. ATTITUDE OF ASSEMBLY OF GOD
Missouri is the home of a publication called the Pentecostal Evangel. It is published at Springfield, Mo., the "Queen City of the Ozarks." The August, 1947, edition has three articles which are definitely antiMasonic. One is headed Masonic Blasphemy, a second, The Masonic Apron, while the third and longer article is May Christians Join Lodges 1 The latter article pretends to expose the Masonic secrets. Here are some of the statements: According to its highest authorities the avowed purpose of Masonry is to establish a world brotherhood-a world brotherhood that is not Christian. A man to be a Mason must profess to believe in God but nothing is said to him about Christ. Thus it is that the Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists, Parsees, and every other believer in the existence of God, though he be a hater of Christ, can be a Mason. Masonry does teach the necessity of the New Birth, but in utterly un-Biblical language.... The Master of the lodge represents the sun in the west ('). This is, in modern form, the heathenish Baal worship of which we read in the Bible. Salvation, according to Masonry, comes by being faithful as a Mason; the religion of Masonry studiously leaves Christ out.
\Ve should like evidence to prove the following statement: A minister who was a Mason and insisted on praying in the name of Jesus, was prosecuted for so doing and convicted of conduct unbecoming a Mason. He appealed his case to the Grand Lodge of Ohio where the lower court (') was upheld.
Other statements are equally unauthentic, proving nothing except that the bodies of the Assembly of God, through their hierarchy, are anti-Masonic. The Grand Lodge of Ohio officially denies the statement made above. Most denominations desire world brotherhood-but they want one