It were devoutly to be wished therefore that the whole fraternity would imitate the truly benevolent conduct of those German Lodges who have formally broken up, and made a patriotic sacrifice of their amusement to the safety of the state. I cannot think the sacrifice great or costly. It can be no difficult matter to find as pleasing a way of passing a vacant hour--and the charitable deeds of the members need not diminish in the smallest degree. Every person's little circle of acquaintance will give him opportunities of gratifying his kind dispositions, without the chance of being mistaken in the worth of the person on whom he bestows his favours. There is no occasion to go to St. Petersburg for a poor Brother, nor to India for a convert to Christianity, as long as we see so many sufferers and infidels among ourselves. But not only are secret societies dangerous, but all societies whose object is mysterious. The whole history of man is a proof of this position. In no age or country has there ever appeared a mysterious association which did not in time become a public nuisance. Ingenious or designing men of letters have attempted to show that some of the ancient mysteries were useful to mankind, containing rational doctrines of natural religion. This was the strong hold of Weishaupt, and he quotes the Eleusinian, the Pythagorean, and other mysteries. But surely their external signs and tokens were every thing that is shocking to decency and civil order. It is uncommon presumption for the learned of the eighteenth century to pretend to know more about them than their contemporaries, the philosophers, the lawgivers of antiquity. These give no such account of them. I would desire any person who admires the ingenious dissertations of Dr. Warburton to read a dull German book, called _Caracteristik der Mysterien der Altern_, published at Frankfort in 1787. The author contents himself with a patient collection of every scrap of every ancient author who has said any thing about them. If the reader can see anything in them but the most absurd and immoral polytheism and fable, he must take words in a sense that is useless in reading any other piece of ancient composition. I have a notion that the Dionysiacs of Iona had some scientific secrets, viz. all the knowledge of practical mechanics which was employed by their architects and engineers, and that they were really a Masonic Fraternity. But, like the _Illuminati_, they tagged to the secrets of Masonry the secret of drunkenness and debauchery; they had their Sister Lodges, and at last became rebels, subverters of the states where they were protected, till aiming at the dominion of all Ionia, they were attacked by the neighbouring states and dispersed. They were Illuminators too, and wanted to introduce the worship of Bacchus over the whole country, as appears in the account of them given by _Strabo_. Perhaps the Pythagoreans had also some scientific