o the sovereign pontificate upon the death of
Albert Pike and the transfer of the centre to Rome, seems to bear upon
its surface every reasonable sign that it cannot be an invented
narrative. Indeed, the first impulse upon reading the testimony of this
witness leaps irresistibly to conclude that the denial of the main
allegations is no longer possible. A searching analysis does, however,
reveal sufficient grounds to warrant a different judgment. In the first
place, whereas Signor Margiotta proclaims the supreme power of the
Reformed Palladium, the documents which he cites in his support are, for
the most part, documents of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, about
the immense jurisdiction of which there is no question. In the second
place, the authority of Albert Pike, as it is seen in most of the
documents, is in virtue, not of the Palladium, but of his position as
Supreme Chief of the Supreme Mother-Council of the Ancient and Accepted
Scotch Rite. What Signor Margiotta terms Universal Freemasonry is not
the Palladium at all, but simply the Scotch Rite; one of his own
diplomas, reproduced at page 120 of "Adriano Lemmi," is proof positive
of this; and in view of the universal diffusion of this rite, no one
would deny it the name. In the third place, the documents of Signor
Margiotta as regards the Palladium are not to be trusted, because in one
instance a gross imposition has been practised provably upon him, and he
may have been deceived in others. Hence, although he may be a member of
a society termed the New and Reformed Palladium, it may not possess the
jurisdiction or the history to which it pretends. In the fourth place I
deny that the Grand Central Directories of which I have given
particulars, derived from Signor Margiotta, in my second chapter, are in
any sense Palladian directories. That of Naples for Europe is said to
have twenty-seven triangular provinces, one of which is Manchester, and
Mr John Yarker is said to be Provincial Grand Master. Now, I have Mr
Yarker's own written testimony that he never heard of the Palladium
until the report of it came over from France. Mr Yarker is a member of
the 33rd degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, and he is also
the Grand Master of the only legitimate body of the Supreme Oriental
Rite of Memphis and Misraim in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Moreover,
in most Masonic countries of the world he is either Honorary Grand
Master, or Honorary Member in the 95 deg.