Our latest Tale for Our Time charges on: Lord of the World, Robert Hugh Benson's speculative fiction of 1907 about how our world might be a century hence - ie, right now. If you're thinking Mr Benson's passages about tensions between Catholicism and freemasonry have dated a bit, well, here's what Joe Biden was doing on his penultimate day as Dead Husk-in-Chief:
BREAKING: Joe Biden @JoeBiden officially joined the Freemasons, on January 19, 2025.
He was made a Master Mason of Prince Hall Grand Lodge.
Catholics are forbidden under pain of excommunication, from joining the Masons.
Source: https://t.co/akjfb3ST1b pic.twitter.com/0KJ07UzvjS
— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) January 24, 2025
The bit about "pain of excommunication" was ended forty years ago, but it was certainly true in Robert Hugh Benson's day. And it is still the case that masons cannot receive Communion. So it's an interesting move from "practicing" Catholic Joe Biden.
Alison, a Steyn Club member from the English Home Counties, writes about what Benson got right and got wrong - including the freemasonry:
I find it incredible that Robert Benson was writing in 1907 about communism, during Edwardian times. The Communist Party of Great Britain was founded in 1920 and Benson was writing ten years before the Bolshevik Revolution.
The public singing of masonic hymns is slightly wide of the mark, though I have no doubt that some familiar hymns tend that way. The Church was ordered to sing psalms, not man-centred hymns or third rate pop music imitations. I had a party last year, just off Trafalgar Square, and I was forced to hire a 'not so secret' room regularly used by masons with very weird furniture. Goodness me! I had everything removed into a permanent side storage room. As for the degradation of Christian hymns, the lyrics of choruses in church ("little ditties") today are fit only for primary schoolchildren (i.e. repetitive and dumbed down).
The assassination attempt in Trafalgar Square is very close to home with 'a near miss' even closer to home. Also familar is the brainwashing of the general population. Benson captures the sense of an invisible unspoken web of censorship (strange how that operates) but he seems to have missed a) the sexual revolution b) the horrifying abuse of women c) the barbaric murder of children d) pedophilia and e) the identity of 'that religion'.
In tonight's episode, Percy finds Victoria Station in chaos as a vast mob of his fellow citizens descends on the capital. But for what reason?
The noise was indescribable, the shouting of men, the screaming of women, the clang and hoot of the huge machines, and three or four times the brazen cry of a trumpet, as an emergency door was flung open overhead, and a small swirl of crowd poured through it towards the streets beyond. But after one look Percy looked no more at the people; for there, high up beneath the clock, on the Government signal board, flared out monstrous letters of fire, telling in Esperanto and English, the message for which England had grown sick. He read it a dozen times before he moved, staring, as at a supernatural sight which might denote the triumph of either heaven or hell.
EASTERN CONVENTION DISPERSED.
PEACE, NOT WAR.
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD ESTABLISHED...
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can listen to Part Nine of our adventure simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
If you've yet to hear any of our Tales for Our Time, you can do so by joining The Mark Steyn Club. Membership is available now - and, if you sign up, you'll be all set for Part Ten of Lord of the World this time tomorrow (and all the earlier episodes, of course). And, if you've a friend who likes classic fiction, don't forget our special Gift Membership - which makes a perfect birthday present.
