Читать книгу The Life & Work of Charles Bradlaugh - J. M. Robertson - Страница 25

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A FREEMASON.

As Mr. Bradlaugh was very much tied to London after 1862 on account of his business first in a solicitor's office, and then in the city, he was unable for a few years to lecture so frequently in the country. Saturdays and Sundays were almost his only opportunities for provincial speaking, but these he utilised to the fullest extent that the claims of his London friends would permit. Quite a large proportion of his lectures were given for the pecuniary benefit of some person or cause in need of help. Very often, too, during this period his health gave way. City work for his livelihood, writing, lecturing, and debating for his opinions' sake, rushes to France, Italy, or Germany, and night travelling before the days when long railway journeys were made easy—were a heavy tax on even his strength. And in addition to this, which I might call the general routine of his life, he had the occasional duty of defending his rights in the Law Courts against both Government and private individuals, and the anxiety of a Parliamentary candidature.

Amongst those lectures given away was one in August 1862 on "Freemasonry," under the auspices of the Reformed Rite of Memphis, for the benefit of the family of a deceased brother Mason. In November of the same year he, as Orator of the Grand Lodge des Philadelphes, waited upon the Lord Mayor with two others as a deputation from their Lodge to present £14 5s. to the fund of the distressed operatives in Lancashire. Of this sum £9 was a donation made in the name of Garibaldi, and the further £5 5s. by the Lodge of which Garibaldi was a member, as they proudly put it. I have made a special note of these early appearances of Mr. Bradlaugh in his Masonic capacity, because his having been a Freemason has often been called in question, although I have before me some documents which ought to convince even the most incredulous. The first informs "all whom it may concern … that our Brother Charles Bradlaugh, born in Hackney (England), who has signed his name in the margin hereof, was regularly received into Freemasonry and admitted to the third degree in the Grand Lodge of the Philadelphs." This certificate is dated from London the 9th of March 1859, and is very much stamped and signed with eleven signatures (exclusive of Mr. Bradlaugh's), with a seal attached to it by a blue ribbon. His sponsor for this initiation was his dear and venerated friend Simon Bernard.[73] The second document in my possession, also signed with a dozen or more signatures, is a "diplôme de Maître" (diploma of Master) granted by the Grand Orient of France upon the demand of the "R ⁂ L ⁂ La Persévérante Amitié or ⁂ de Paris." This diploma is dated the 15th May 1862. The third is a much later document, and is to the following effect:—

"Sur la demande presentée par la R. L. Union et Persévérance o⁂ Paris l'effet d'obtenir un diplôme de Maître pour le F. Charles Bradlaugh né à Londres le 26 7bre, 1833, demeurant à Londres membre reçu d'honneur. Le Grand Orient a delivré au F. Charles Bradlaugh le présent diplôme de Maître.

"Donné a l'O ⁂ de Paris le 4 Novembre 1884 (E. V.)"

It is signed by M. Cousin, Président du Conseil de l'Ordre, the Secretary, officers of the R. L. Union et Persévérance, and others.

Mr. Bradlaugh belonged also to an English lodge affiliated to the Grand Lodge of England. He was received at Tottenham at the special request of the Lodge in the early part of the sixties, I believe, but I possess none of the usual certificates: these he returned to his Lodge when the Prince of Wales was made Past Grand Master. When it was announced that the lodges of England were about to honour the Prince of Wales "with a dignity he had done nothing to earn," Mr. Bradlaugh addressed to him "a letter from a French, Italian, and English Freemason." This letter was published in the National Reformer, and afterwards reissued in pamphlet form. It was read by his Mother Lodge, La Loge des Philadelphes, and gave such unqualified satisfaction that an address of approval was sent him from the Lodge. The pamphlet had a very extensive circulation, and went through several editions.

In March 1874 my father made a fine speech at the annual banquet at the Loge des Philadelphes. It fell to him to speak to the toast, the "loyal" toast of the Lodge, "To the Oppressed of all Nations." The oppressed of Italy, of Spain, of France, of England, of Germany, were each separately remembered, and then he carried the toast on "To the oppressed of all nations: to the women everywhere; to the mothers, who with freer brains would nurse less credulous sons; to the wives, who with fuller thoughts would be higher companions through life's journeyings; to the sisters and daughters, who with greater right might work out higher duty, and with fuller training do more useful work; to woman, our teacher as well as nurse; our guide as well as child-bearer; our counsellor as well as drudge. To the oppressed of all nations: to those who are oppressed the most in that they know it least; to the ignorant and contented under wrong, who make oppression possible by the passiveness, the inertness of their endurance. To the memories of the oppressed in the past, whose graves—if faggot and lime have left a body to bury—are without mark save on the monuments of memory, more enduring than marble, erected in such temples by truer toast-givers than myself. To these we drink, sadly and gratefully; to the oppressed of the present—to those that struggle that they may win; to those that yet are still, that they may struggle; to the future, that in it there may be no need to drink this toast."

At this time when English Freemasons chose to cast doubts upon the reality of Mr. Bradlaugh's membership, Freemasons on the other side of the Atlantic welcomed him to their Lodges.

While visiting Boston, Mr. Bradlaugh was by special invitation of the Columbian and Adelphi Lodges present at their Masonic festivals. The last occasion should almost be looked upon as historic, as far as the annals of Freemasonry are concerned, since it was a special festival in honour of the installation of Joshua B. Smith as Junior Warden of the Adelphi Lodge, South Boston, the first coloured Freemason elected to hold office in any regular Lodge. Eight years before[74] the St. Andrew's Lodge had made Mr. Smith and six other coloured men Freemasons, with the idea that they should establish a coloured men's Lodge, but the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts would not issue the warrant. In the interval Joshua B. Smith, already a Justice of the Peace, was elected to the Senate, and joined the Adelphi Lodge, which now took this opportunity of showing him honour.

Mr. Bradlaugh himself always liked to remember that he was a "Free and accepted mason," and the outward and visible sign of that is to be found in the fact that he almost invariably selected the Masonic Boys' School as the charity to be benefited by any money paid as damages for libelling his personal character.