d when in the fulness of years the pontiff of Luciferian
Freemasonry himself passed on to the higher life of fire, which is the
Palladian notion of beatitude, and in the peace and joy of Lucifer, the
sovereign pontificate itself, after resting for a short period upon
incompetent shoulders in the person of Albert George Mackey, was
transferred to the Italian; the seat of the Dogmatic Directory was
removed to Rome; a split in the camp ensued, inspired by a lady
initiate, since famous under the name of Diana Vaughan, and to this we
owe most of the revelations. Furthermore, with the death of Albert Pike
the cultus of Lucifer is said to have undergone a significant
transfiguration. For him the conception of Satan was a blasphemous
fiction, devised by Adonaite priestcraft to obscure the veridic lustre
which inheres in the angel of the morning-star; but this view
represented, as it is said, rather the private opinion of the Masonic
pontiff, impressed by his strong personality on the lodges he
controlled, and propagated by the instruction of his rituals. The more
discerning among his disciples regarded it as the besetting weakness of
their grand old man, and surreptitiously during his life-time the cultus
of Satan pure and simple, that is, of devil-worship, the adoration of
the evil principle as evil, was practised at numerous Palladian centres.
After his death, it is said to have unmasked altogether, and Adriano
Lemmi himself is depicted as an avowed Satanist.

Now, I believe it will fairly interpret the feeling of all readers to
admit that when the authority of a great church has been brought into
operation to crush a great institution by charges which most seriously
discredit it--which represent it as diametrically and in all respects
opposite in its internal nature to its ostensible appearance--we must by
no means make light of the impeachment; we must remember the high
position and the many opportunities of knowledge which are possessed by
such an accuser; we must extend to that accuser at least the common
justice of an impartial and full hearing; _a priori_ considerations of
probability and inferences from our previous knowledge, much less from
opinions obtained at second-hand, must not be permitted to prejudge a
case of so great importance; we must be prepared, if necessary, to admit
that we have been egregiously deceived; and if the existence of
Palladian Masonry can be proved an undoubted fact, we must assuredly do
ful