We mean by "secret
societies" not literary, scientific, or college associations, which
merely use privacy as a screen against intrusion, but those affiliated
and centralized "orders" spreading over the land, professing
mysteries, practicing secret rites, binding by oaths, admitting by
signs and pass-words, solemnly pledging their members to mutual
protection, and commonly constructed in "degrees," each higher one
imposing fresh fees, oaths, and obligations, and swearing the
initiated to secrecy even from lower "degrees" in the same Order.
Shall Christians join societies of this kind?
SUPPOSING IT TO BE INNOCENT, WILL IT PAY?
_First_. They consume time and money. Have you considered how much?
How many evenings, and whole nights, and parts of days? How many
dollars in fees, dues, fines, expenses, and diminished proceeds from
broken days? Will it pay? Can you not lay out this amount of time and
money more profitably?--a plain man's question. They propose helping
you to "friends," "business," in "moral reform," in "sickness, death,
and bereavement;" but can you not get as much of such good in ways
pointed out to you by Christ, your best and wisest friend?--ways which
will yield you more of personal cultivation, spiritual good, earthly
profit, social and domestic happiness, and openings for usefulness. If
so, these orders are unprofitable, and _will not pay_.
_Secondly_.
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