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name, and exercising in the midst of them the functions of the priest of the living God. In the next degree of the mysteries all his dominion over his children is to disappear, as his priesthood has already done. Nor was I afraid to assert in the beginning of this work, If Jacobinism triumphs—your very children shall be torn from you. I now repeat it; all this pretended sovereignty of the father is but a conspiracy against the paternal authority. The proofs are extant in the codes of the Sect.

Here again is Weishaupt deprived of the glory of the invention. Rousseau and the Encyclopedists had long since told us, that the authority of the father ceased with the wants of the son; this was one of their principles of rebellion. The man who invented his Illuminism only to convert it into the common sewer of every antichristian and antisocial error, could not leave your children in the dark as to these lessons of independence, though under the sanctuary of the paternal roof; nor with respect to the pretended right of governing themselves, and of acknowledging no other law than that of their reason, as soon as they were strong enough to disobey, or no longer needed your assistance. Tell the illuminizing Hierophant, that your children belong to you; it will be useless, for he has already answered, “The paternal authority ceases with the wants of the children; the father would wrong his children, should he pretend to any authority over them after that period.” This is but a principle laid down in the lesser mysteries. Follow up the consequences, or rather leave it to the revolution to develope such a principle. The reader will soon see to what this authority of the father is reduced. Scarcely can the child lisp the words Equality and Liberty, or that of Reason, when the commands of his parents become the most horrid despotism, oppression, and tyranny.—Nor is the Patriarchal sovereign to expect any more affection than obedience from his subjects or his children. In imparting the doctrines of Equality and Liberty, the Hierophant had taught them to blaspheme the love of one’s family even still more than the national love, or the love of one’s country, as being the more direct and immediate principle of the most disastrous Egoism. Let the father then enquire by what bonds his children still remain united to him, or how they are subjected to him, when, without fear, they may openly resist his Patriarchal power as soon as their feeble arms have acquired sufficient strength to gather the fruits which were to serve them as food. No, this hellish Sect acknowledges no ties. All those of nature, as well as those of government or religion, were to be dissolved in Weishaupt’s last mysteries. The child, like the savage tyger of the forest, was to abandon his parents when strong enough to go alone in quest of his prey. And this is what the Sect calls restoring man to his primitive state of nature, to the Patriarchal life, to those days when filial piety compensated for all the necessary laws of civil society. Yes, it is by the most abandoned depravation of all morals, by the extinction of the purest and justest sentiments of nature, that these conspirators consummate their last mysteries. In the name of Equality and Liberty, they abjure the love and authority of their country; in that name they curse the authority and love of their own family.

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As I proceed in revealing these plots, I know not whether the reader does not frequently ask himself, What then can these men want? Have they not fortunes to preserve in our state of society? Have they not children in their families? Can they be conspiring against themselves? or, are they ignorant that their conspiracies will fall back upon themselves?—Those who can propose such questions are little acquainted with the enthusiasm of error when inflated by the spirit of independence and pride, of impiety and jealousy. They have not, like us, heard the cant of the heroes, demi-heroes, and sans-culottesof the revolution—They will be equal and free; they will it above all things.—It must cost them many sacrifices, but they are ready to make them—They will lose their fortunes in the pursuit, but you will not preserve yours—He that served will become the equal, nor will he recognize either God or man above him.—Have we not seen the prince of the fallen angels exclaiming in his pride,

—Here at least We shall be free;— Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, tho’ in hell: Better to reign in hell, than servein heaven.
 

It is not to one of Weishaupt’s adepts that the ties of nature are to be objects. He must be as heedless of the duty he owes to his parents as of the affection due to his children, or the baleful consequences of the mysteries cannot affect him. Can the reader have forgotten the precept laid down for the Insinuators or Recruiters?The principles; look always to the principles, never to the consequences. Or, in other words, strenuously support and insist upon these great principles of Equality and Liberty; never be frightened or stopped by their consequences, however disastrous they may appear. These wretches, blinded by their pride, do not know, then, that one single consequence proved to be false, contrary to nature, or hurtful to mankind, is a sufficient demonstration that both nature and truth hold the principle in detestation as the prime mover of these disasters. These madmen, with all the confidence of an atheistical Condorcet, when once become the adepts of Weishaupt, will exclaim even in the very tribune of the National Assembly, Perish the universe, but may the principle remain! They will not see, that this principle of Equality and Liberty, devastating human nature, cannot be an Equality and Liberty congenial to mankind. These unhappy men fall victims, perishing under the axe of these disorganizing principles, and spend their last breath in crying, Equality and liberty for ever. No; they are all ignorant of the power of error stimulated by pride, who could think of counteracting the plots of the Sect by the cries of nature, or even by the self-interest of the illuminized adept.—They have not sufficiently comprehended the artifice with which the Hierophant insinuates, vivifies, and inflames the enthusiastic zeal of his adepts.

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