In illustration of the former of these we quote the words of Brother Gotthold Salomon, D.Ph., preacher at the new Synagogue at Hamburg, member of the lodge entitled “The Dawn in the East,” in Frankfort-on-Main, who thus writes in his _Stimmen aus Osten_, MSS. for the brethren: “Why is there not a trace of anything appertaining to the Christian Church to be found in the whole ritual of Freemasonry? Why is not the name of Jesus once mentioned, either in the oath administered, or in the prayers on the opening of the lodges, or at the Masonic banquets? Why do Masons reckon time, not from the birth of Christ, but from the creation of the world, as do the Jews? Why does not Freemasonry make use of a single Christian symbol? Why have we the compasses, the triangle, the hydrometer, instead of the cross and other emblems of the Passion? Why have wisdom, beauty, and strength superseded the Christian triad of faith, hope, and charity?”[37] Brother Jochmus Müller, president of the late German-Catholic Church at Berlin, says in his _Kirchenreform_ (vol. iii. p. 228): “We have more in common with a free-thinking, honest paganism than with a narrow-minded Christianity.”[38] In the Waarscherwing (vol. xi. Nos. 2 and 8) we find the following: “The laws of the Mosaic and Christian religions are the contemptible inventions of petty minds bent on deceiving others; they are the most extravagant aberrations of the human intellect. “The selfishness of priests and the despotism of the great have for centuries upheld this system (Christianity), since it enabled them to rule mankind with a rod of iron by means _of its rigid code of morality_, and to confirm their power over weak minds by means of certain oracular utterances, in reality the product of their own invention, but palmed off on the world as the words of revelation.”[39] In a review of Kirchenlehre and Ketzerglaube by Dr. A. Drechsler in vol. iv. of the _Latomia_, we find: “The last efforts made to uphold ecclesiastical Christianity occasioned its complete expulsion from the realm of reason; for they proved but too plainly that all negotiations for peace must result in failure. Human reason became aware of the irreconcilable enmity existing between its own teachings and the dogmas of the church.” At a congress of Masons held at a villa near Locarno, in the district of Novara, preparatory to a socialistic demonstration to be held in the Colosseum at Rome, in answer to the sapient question, “What new form of worship is to supersede Catholicism?” the equally sapient answer was returned, “Communist principles with a new religious ideal.” From a document published, the author of _Secret Warfare of Freemasonry_ tells us,[40] by the Orient of Brussels, “to the greater glory of the Supreme Architect of the world, in the year of _true light_ 5838” (1838), we quote the following: