CHAPTER VII.

We have endeavored in this part to dispose of a number of questions which are in the minds of many persons, and which if not removed prevent an intelligent and helpful study of this great sub- ject so fraught with interest to the Christian, the statesman and the lover of humanity.
The need for the discussion arises from the fact that secret societies are absorbing the time, thought, money and spiritual life of so many thousands of men. It is not possible that men should meet statedly year after year, in lodges of all kinds, going through ceremonies and as- ‘suming obligations without being improved or damaged. Society is purer or less pure because of secret oaths. The church is helped or hindered by the lodges. Government is more stable or less so because of secret orders.
The need for this publication is that the sub- ject is so important that all should be informed and yet so large that unless there be a brief, com- prehensive treatise upon it, it will be difficult for busy peopie to understand it. The lodges are so 63
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numerous, they differ in so many minor ways, their literature is so voluminous, that men are apt to think it difficult to understand the subject. Yet the principles of lodgism are few and plain, so that a wayfaring man even if not learned or possessed of leisure, may comprehend them. If these few underlying ideas be brought clearly to view no man who desires to know the truth about lodges need mistake it.
Freemasonry will be prominent in any intelli- gent discussion of the lodge question, because Freemasonry is mother, model and ruler of Mop- ERN SECRET Societies. The old heathen lodges are dead, like the nations which they ruled. The orders of our own time, excepting the Jesuits, are none of them quite two hundred years old. In 1917 Freemasonry will attain that age. The pretended antiquity of this order is now a matter of mirth for all well read members of the craft. By reason of its age and character Freemasonry is the most powerful modern lodge. In it secret- ism is most fully developed. Its members are usually the ones to get up other lodges, to go about establishing them, and to rule in their coun- sels. The rituals of other secret societies are copied in important particulars from the Masonie. Jesuitism, though perhaps more influential, is in origin and membership alien. Foreigners con-
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trol it, but Masonry, though of foreign birth, is acclimated, and our free institutions secured to us by Christianity, our material prosperity, the result of Christianity, and our personal ambitions stimulated by the teaching of Christ that men are of one rank, all have combined to make the United States of America a rich field for men who, failing in other occupations, can invent and sell lodge degrees. God has blessed us with holy ancestors and we are led by His blessings to idolatry and rebellion.
It is possible for any one who desires to do so to understand lodges without uniting with them. Their public ceremonies, e. g., the laying of corner-stones, the dedication of halls, the in- stallation of officers, their social gatherings, and their burial occasions, all teach what they are. They have also an extensive literature and per- sons who buy and read their books can learn about them. Then, too, in the case of all the greater orders there are godly men who have revealed their secret work so that it is possible not only to know the history, philosophy and religion of lodgism, but also to know its ceremonies, obliga- tions and penalties. And, finally, the Bible is a universal book. Persons who study it can know about lodgism and whether it is right or wrong. There is absolutely no excuse for one
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who, with all these sources of information at hand, rushes blindfold into secrecy.
It is often asked why such good men belong to lodges if they are evil? The answer is: First, that the truth is the best men do not usually unite with secret orders. The most able, learned, up- right and pious men have never been, as a class, found in lodgerooms. Second, many worthy men have gone into them in ignorance of their real, character. This was not needful or right. No man is justified in going into an order of which he is ignorant. But good men have at times been deceived into membership in these godless and wicked associations. It is true, however, that most of these persons openly or silently abandon secretism.’ An open, frank, self-respecting, God- fearing man cannot enjoy the ceremonies, oaths and obligations of lodges. Third, men who unite with and enjoy lodgism are corrupted by it and are injured as members of home circles, civil societies and Christian organizations. It is a mat- ter of common observation that the men who delight in the heathen ceremonies of secret soci- eties are of no value to churches, even when they are members of them. Jesus himself said: “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Fourth, the great mass of strong and effective men in busi- ness, the professions, and civil life, have not
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favored, but opposed lodgism. The men who need and use it are those who seek offices or favors which their abilities and characters do not naturally command. The leaders in lodgism are almost without exception of this.type.
Of all the lying pretenses on which lodge or- ganizations ask to be accepted, that of charity is the most evidently absurd. These societies carefully exclude all persons likely to need aid. In Masonry the candidates are put under oath never to admit large classes of persons who.may at any time be in need of assistance. Having ex- cluded all needy persons and those who are likely to be needy the lodges proceed to require all those who do come in to “pay in advance,” and then suspend any and all who fail to pay the annual dues or the asssessments. If these orders should keep their promises and relieve all their members who come to want, they would be no more char- itable than a dry goods store or an insurance company. Yet men who are supposed to have ordinary intelligence and honesty speak of the benevolence of lodges and belittle the church of Jesus Christ, without which lodgemen would not even know what the word charity means.
Concluding this review, we would say that while the lodge hatred of Jesus is veiled so as to deceive those who love Him, and is some-
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times denied, it is continually coming to the surface. By innuendo or by direct statement the Bride of Jesus is insulted and slandered. The church is doing this, that or the other thing, or is failing to do it, and so the lodges are created to supply the lack. Worst of all, these revilings of the church in the interest of lodgism are frequently in the mouths of
professed Christains. Men who are supported /
by the church often spend their time in drum- ming for the lodges, which, so far as they suc- ceed, destroy the very institutions which give these traitors bread. It is not strange that the
churches languish when such wolves in sheep's .
clothing tend the flock.
This is but the threshold of the subject, yet we believe that quite enough has already been said to justify the saying of Wendell Phillips: “Secret Societies are not needed for any good purpose and may be used for any evil purpose whatsoever; such organizations should be prohibited by law,” or the more searching words of Jesus, our Lord: “He that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be re- proved.”
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