Secret Societies Part 3

The topics committed to us involve the following points:

1. The moral character of secrecy. Is it an element of an invariable moral character? and, if so, what? and, if not, what are the decisive criteria of its character?

2. a.s.sociations or combinations involving secrecy. Are they of necessity right or wrong? If not, what are the decisive criteria?

3. Religious rites and worship in societies or organizations, open or secret. Are any kind allowable? and, if so, what?

I. Secrecy, Its character.

A presumption against secrecy arises from the known fact that evil-doers of all kinds resort to secrecy. This is for two reasons: (1.) To avoid opposition and retribution; and, (2,) to avoid exposure to disgrace. The adulterer seeks secrecy; so do the thief and the counterfeiter; so do conspirators for evil ends.

Secrecy, whenever resorted to for evil ends, is wrong. But may it not be resorted to for good ends? and is it not recognized as often wise and right in the Word of G.o.d? We answer in the affirmative. There is a certain degree of reserve, or secrecy, that should invest every individual. Our whole range of thought and feeling ought not to be promiscuously made known. There is a degree of secrecy necessary in the order, social intercourse, and discipline of the family. There is secrecy needed in dealing with faults and sins. Christ adopts this principle in his discipline. He says, "Tell him his fault between him and thee alone. If he repents, conceal it." There are confidential communications for important ends, or for council.

Concealment may be used as a defense against enemies, as in the case of the spies of Joshua, or the messengers of David, or when Elisha hid himself by the brook Oherith, by G.o.d's order. So G.o.d hides the good in his secret place and under his wings.

Secrecy is opposed to ostentation and love of human applause. Hence, alms and prayer are to be in secret. G.o.d also resorts to secrecy in an eminent degree. He hides himself. He dwells in thick darkness. It is his glory to conceal his designs. In part, this is inevitable by reason of his greatness; in part, he resorts to it of set purpose.

It is a special honor and blessing of the good that he discloses his secrets to them.

Secrecy, then, is not of necessity wrong. Its character depends upon the ends for which it is used, and the circ.u.mstances and spirit in which it is used. There is a secrecy of wisdom, love, and justice, as well as a secrecy of selfish, malevolent, and evil deeds.

II. Secret societies.

Of these there may be two degrees.

1. Where not only the proceedings of the society are secret, but even the existence of such a society is concealed.

2. Where the existence is avowed, and the signs and proceedings only are secret.

In a.s.sociations, secrecy may be resorted to in both these ways for evil ends. Men may combine in a.s.sociated societies to prey on the community, and the existence of such societies be hidden.

Counterfeiters, horse-thieves, burglars, may thus a.s.sociate for wrong, in the deepest secrecy.

So, too, secret a.s.sociations whose existence is avowed may combine for selfish ends, and in derogation of the common rights of the social system. They may defend their members, to the injury of justice, in our courts. They may interfere with the management of churches and societies. They may bring an influence of intimidation to bear on public men. They may disseminate false principles of religion and morals. They may co-operate for political ends, and to effect revolutions.

And yet it is no less true that, in certain circ.u.mstances, secret societies of both kinds may be resorted to for good ends.

Secret societies may be rightfully resorted to for common council and united action, in the fear of G.o.d and with prayer, in a very dangerous state of the body politic, to resist inc.u.mbent evils, and the existence of such societies not be disclosed, if the state of the case would thus give them greater power for good. So, as a defense against known disloyal secret organizations, secret loyal leagues were rightfully resorted to as a means of united and concentrated action against organized disloyalty. And if, in resisting moral evils, secrecy gives power and advantage in devising measures to resist vice and crime, it is not sinful to resort to it.

All boards of trust generally have secret sessions, and legislative bodies resort to secret sessions rightfully, if the state of affairs demands it. It will be seen that secrecy is justified and demanded by peculiar circ.u.mstances or obvious ends to be gained. The reason of the case, therefore, is against secrecy, and in favor of open action, where no such justification can be made out. It is the nature of truth and right to be open. All things tend to it. There is nothing covered or concealed that shall not finally be proclaimed.

On the other hand, if secrecy is resorted to without reason; if it is made the basis of false pretences; if it a.s.sumes the existence of something that is not, then it is not defensible. If it involves a profession of information to be communicated, and influences for good to be exerted, that do not exist, then it is a species of intellectual swindling which admits of no defense. The sciences and arts, the Bible and nature, are open to all. So is the book of history. What new science, or art, or history, or religion is there for secret societies to disclose?

III. Religious rites or worship in societies, open or secret--are any allowable? and, if so, what?

In order to answer this question, we need to consider certain fundamental and vital principles of Christianity.

1. All men, as depraved and guilty, need regeneration and pardon through the intervention of Christ.

2. There is access to the true G.o.d only through Christ: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but through me."

3. "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father; but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also."

All Christian churches are based on these truths, and the center and culmination of their worship is this recognition of Christ in the Sacrament as the Lamb of G.o.d, who taketh away the sins of the world.

Christ, too, is the center of the worship of heaven.

Hence, if Christians a.s.sociate with others in worship, it can rightly be only on the ground that the worship centers in Christ, and acknowledges him as Lord, to the glory of the Father.

Hence, if, for the sake of extending an organization, men are admitted of all religions--Pagans, Mohammedans, Deists, Jews--and if, for the sake of accommodating them with a common ground of union, Christ is ignored, and the G.o.d of nature or of creation is professedly worshiped, and morality inculcated solely on natural grounds, then such worship is not accepted by the real G.o.d and Father of the universe, for he looks on it as involving the rejection and dishonor, nay, the renewed crucifixion of his Son. As to Christ, he tolerates no neutrality. He who is not for him is against him. These principles do not involve the question of secrecy. They hold true of all societies, open or secret.

If, on such anti-Christian grounds, prayers are framed, rites established, and chaplains appointed, ignoring Christ and his intercession, G.o.d regards it as a mockery and an insult to himself and his church. In it is revealed the hatred of Satan to Christ. By it Christ is dethroned and Satan exalted.

These principles do not exclude worship and prayer from societies. In any societies, true worship in the name of Christ will be accepted.

Let us now apply these principles to the societies of Free Masonry, the modern mother of secret societies. Concerning these we hold it to be plain:

That they have neither science nor art to impart as a reward of membership. The time was when there was a society, or societies, of working masons, coming down from the old Roman empire, and extending through the middle ages. These were societies of great power, and wrought great works. The cathedrals of the middle ages were each erected by such a corporation, and attest their skill and energy.

But these corporations of working masons have pa.s.sed away, and Masonry is now, even in profession, only theoretical, and in fact, so far as this art is concerned, is not even this. It does not teach the theory of architecture. The transition took place in 1717, after a period of decline in the lodges of working masons. All pretences to a history back of this, or to any connection with Solomon or Hiram, are mere false pretences and delusion for effect. No art is taught and no science is communicated by the system.

Practical ends, then, alone remain; and, in fact, the founders of the system avowed "brotherly love, relief, and truth" as these ends. The cultivation of social intercourse is also avowed as an end by defenders of the system. But such ends as these furnish no good reasons for secrecy; nor is secrecy favorable to a wise and economical use of the income of such bodies for purposes of benevolence. An open and public acknowledgment of receipts and expenditures is needed as a safeguard against a dishonest and wasteful expenditure of funds.

Nor is this all. The secrecy of the order, taken in connection with the principle of hierarchal concentration, and with the administration of extra-judicial oaths of obedience and secrecy, renders it, as a system, liable to great abuses in the perversion of justice, in the overriding of national law, and the claims of patriotism.

But the most serious view of the case lies in the fact that it professes to rest on a religious basis, and to have religious temples, yet is avowedly based on a platform that ignores Christ and Christianity as supreme and essential to true allegiance to the real G.o.d of the universe. Its worship, therefore, taken as a system, is in rivalry to and in derogation of Christ and Christianity.

And, as a matter of fact, this and similar systems are by many regarded as a subst.i.tute for the church, or as superior to it.

Moreover, devotion to them absorbs time and interest due to the church, and paralyzes Christians by a.s.sociation with worldly men, and by the malignant power of the spirit of the world.

This system, and those who imitate its hierarchal and centralizing organization, also give power to those hierarchal principles and systems against which Congregationalism has ever protested as corrupting and enslaving the church.

The system also cultivates a love of swelling t.i.tles, and of gaudy decorations and display in dress, that are hostile to the genius of our Const.i.tution, and to true republican and Christian dignity and simplicity.

From this system other organizations have borrowed much, and some do not essentially differ from it in practical working.

Other organizations, however, for the ends of temperance reform, have adopted modes of organization, display in dress, and secret signs for the purposes of recognition and defense. The ends and proceedings of these temperance societies are so well known that it is often denied that they are secret societies; yet they do, avowedly for purposes of defense, resort to secrecy, and have imitated modes of dress and organization found in Masonry. And members of Masonic lodges declare that they involve, in fact, all the principles of Masonic organizations, and rely on them ultimately leading to their own order.