Secret Societies and Subversive Movements

"[...]to investigate the character of Freemasonry he refused for months to open their books." Yet when in 1827 he read them for the first time he was astonished to find that they showed "a manifest tendency towards Freemasonry." Both Barruel and Robison, he now realized, were "learned men, candid men, lovers of their country, who had a reverence for truth and religion. They give the reasons for their opinions, they quote their authorities, naming the author and page, like honest people; they both had a wish to rescue British Masonry from the condemnation and[...]".