We have thus briefly stated the objectionable features of what are generally called secret societies. It is mainly to their secrecy, oaths, and promises, their profanation of holy things, their exclusiveness and their setting up of false claims, to which we object. These are the things objected to in the foregoing treatise. We have written without any feeling of unkindness, and we trust, also, without prejudice. We had intended to urge additional considerations to show the evil nature and tendency of secret societies; but we have been restrained by the fear of swelling our treatise beyond a proper size.
SHALL CHRISTIANS JOIN SECRET SOCIETIES?
[Shall Christians Join Secret Societies?] [Supposing it to be Innocent, Will It Pay?] [Is it Obligatory?] [Is it Right?]
SHALL CHRISTIANS JOIN SECRET SOCIETIES?
"With charity for all and with malice toward none," we bring this question to all those who would serve Christ. 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?