No sooner was Christ born than his infant life was sought; no sooner did he begin to teach than “the ancient serpent” sought his ruin; just before the triumph of his resurrection the enemy of mankind seemed to have finally and completely triumphed in his crucifixion; no sooner had his church, brought to life by his resurrection, begun her work of saving mankind than the devil was at work with his “mystery of lawlessness” for her destruction. All along it is Antichrist dogging the steps of Christ; before the second coming of Christ there is to be the second coming of Antichrist; before the final triumph over evil and revelation of the sons of God, Antichrist is to have that his last open and avowed manifestation--ἀποκάλυψις--and success, which the craft of Freemasonry is already so far on the road to compassing. Whether or no he is to receive a serious check before that terrific triumph over all but the few remaining elect we know not. But so unmistakable is his present manifestation that it is woe to those who blink their eyes and follow in his wake! Woe to those whose judicial blindness causes them to “believe a lie”! Woe to those who are caught napping! The next of the indications given us by the Holy Spirit of the Antichrist is his _modus operandi_--his method--the way in which he will effect his purposes, “whose coming is according to the way of working of Satan”--_cujus est adventus secundum operationem Satanæ_. The beast with seven heads and ten horns crowned with diadems described in the Apocalypse is, we are there told, fully commissioned with his own power by the red dragon, whom we are distinctly informed is the old serpent, who is called the devil (διάβολος, or slanderer), “Satan, who deceives the whole world.” Now, Satan is designated as “the prince of darkness” in opposition to Christ, “who is the true light, enlightening every one that cometh into the world”; he is the father of those who “hate the light because their deeds are evil.” When he would destroy Christ, “night was his hour and the power of darkness.” But in taking a survey of the craft of Freemasonry, what first seizes our attention? Is it not the profound darkness in which all its operations are veiled? Those terrible oaths of secrecy, made under the assured menace of assassination, attended with all that sanguinary gibberish, the lie involved in which is not known until the “seared conscience” is already in the chains of hell--surely, if anything is, these are “secundum operationem Satanæ.” In the _Vienna Freemason’s Journal_, MSS. for circulation in the craft, second year of issue, No. 1, p. 66, is the following: “We wander amidst our adversaries, shrouded in threefold darkness. Their passions serve as wires, whereby, unknown to themselves, we set them in motion and compel them unwittingly to work in union with us.”