the past? Is it to encourage them in their own warlike preparations when they shall return again to their homes, by leading them to suppose that the security and prosperity of the American people are in any manner enhanced by the paltry military and naval parade that we should be able to make; and yet quite enough for the needs of this great country, where the probability of an attack is reduced to a minimum, and that minimum dependent upon some possible insult, real or fancied, that we may offer to another nation.

We have some would-be statesmen, cabinet officers, and others who are weak enough to suppose that a military parade at the opening of the World's Fair would add dignity and respectability to our government; that it would make an impression upon our foreign visitors. There is nothing that so much impresses foreigners, coming to this country, and especially the nobility of the Old World, as the absence of armed soldiery, the simplicity and approachableness of our public men; and, especially, the ease with which the President of the United States may be seen; and the fact that he is safe anywhere without bodyguard or escort.

No! we do not want any military parade at Chicago to welcome our guests. We want American ladies and gentlemen of dignity and culture who will fairly represent the progressive civilization of this age and show that the great American republic is governed by civil law, by mental and moral power, and not brute force; that we are not awed into submission by the perpetual vigilance of military power, but are cultivated into right thoughts and right actions, because we deem them best for the good of the community. The Columbian Exposition is to be a grand display of mental, and not physical strength.

Let, then, the olive branch of peace float from the harbor of New York and from the grand Exposition buildings on the arrival of our guests in 1893. Let no booming of barbarous cannon or other display of war's savagery mar the pleasure of what can and should be made the greatest peace convention the world has ever seen-a genuine love feast of nations.

BELVA A. LOCKWOOD.

THE FOLLY, EXPENSE, AND DANGER OF SECRET

SOCIETIES.

BY CHARLES A. BLANCHARD, PRESIDENT WHEATON, ILL., COLLEGE.

THE

HERE is
are old.

no new thing under the sun. Secret societies Since Adam and Eve after their first disobedience sought to hide from God, men have been accustomed to concealments. The Mysteries of India, Egypt, and Greece in ancient times, the Jesuits at the beginning of modern history, and the Masons and Odd Fellows of more recent date are but examples of this form of social organization. In our time, however, the principle of secret association has received its widest development. In fact, so universal have lodges become that no man can claim to be intelligent concerning this age, if he does not in some measure understand them.

They may be rudely classified as religious; e. g., the Jesuits, Freemasonry, Odd Fellowship, the Knights of Pythias, etc.: political; as the Know-nothings, Knights of the Golden Circle, the Order of American Deputies, the Kuklux Klan, the White League, etc.: industrial; as the unions of carpenters, bricklayers, conductors, engineers, etc.: insurance; as the Royal Arcanum, the Modern Woodmen, the Order of the Iron Hall, the Ancient Order of United Mechanics, etc.: and the social; as the college fraternities.

It is, of course, understood that the classes of organizations are not mutually exclusive, and that they are designated by what seem to be their leading characteristics. The purpose of the Order of Jesuits is to build up the Romish Church, and

it clearly belongs in the list of religious orders. Odd Fellowship, on the other hand, while clearly religious, also involves so much of the insurance element as to make its classification a matter of doubt. Freemasonry, while clearly religious and, to a very insignificant extent, beneficiary, is so persistently engaged in seeking political power as to create a doubt whether it should not be designated as a political order. With this fact of interlapping and doubtful assignment in mind, we believe the classification of these orders as religious, political, industrial, insurance, and social sufficiently accurate for practical purposes.

Before passing to our special theme, there is one difference between the ancient and modern orders to which attention is requested. The old were manipulated by priests and were exclusively religious; the modern are in most instances composed of men in the various professions and industrial pursuits. The Romish order is really, not apparently, an exception. Though some of the others are predominantly religious, and have chaplains, prelates, priests, etc., etc., the membership of these orders is made up of, and their religious offices are filled by, men who do not devote themselves exclusively to the religion of their order. They are lawyers, merchants, railway men, farmers, ministers of the Christian religion, blacksmiths, peddlers, or physicians who are chosen to be chaplains, prelates, priests, etc., on lodge nights, and public occasions of the orders.

It should also be remarked that in discussing the folly, expense, and danger of secret societies, it will be impossible to conduct a detailed examination of each of the swarming host of lodges which now seek to sell their degrees to the young men of America. Dr. Gifford has well said that an attempt to catalogue them would be like an endeavor to make a census of the lice in Egypt. Under such circumstances we must, so far as possible, confine ourselves to general characteristics; and when we digress therefrom, name the particular order whose practices are under consideration.

All secret societies require persons coming to their membership to assume obligations which are unknown to the candidates. At least they are supposed to be unknown and, if the order

is able to conceal them, they are really so. Of course, no society can be secret which frankly tells those whose membership it solicits just what is expected and required. This simple test decides the character of those orders which, like the Good Templars and the Grand Army of the Republic, desire the support of those who are unfriendly to secretism. If these orders freely lay before candidates their oaths or obligations, and permit them to consider the promises they are to make; and if, in these obligations they do not bind them to conceal things now unknown, they are not secret orders. If, on the other hand, any order seeks to secure from a proposed member an obligation which he is not permitted carefully to examine or a promise to conceal things future and unknown, that order is a secret one. Now, promises are, or should be, sacred. When a man says "I will" or "I will not," all that there is of the man is behind his word. If the promise is poor, shaky, and unreliable, it is because the man is poor, shaky, and unreliable. But in order to this integrity, this sterling character, it is essential that the man pause before he promise; that he know exactly what he is covenanting to do or leave undone. With this plain, selfevident principle, the whole list of secret societies is at war. Promise to conceal rites and ceremonies as yet unknown, promise to submit to laws not yet framed, promise to conceal the acts of bodies and of individuals, which acts are as yet unperformed, these are the requirements of every lodge.

It is no answer to say that in all other respects the obligations are unobjectionable, and that the transactions, yet future, are such as honorable men would naturally not divulge. All this may be true, but it is manifestly impossible for the initiate to know that it is so; and whether he is bound to honorable privacy or to the concealment of trivialities or conspiracies and crimes, his word is passed, and that without any knowledge that he has a right to make the pledge required. It seems inexplicable that men who would, under any other circumstances, insist upon knowing what was required before promising to conceal or obey, should be so prompt to assign their consciences, judg ments, and wills to a group of men gathered in a lodge.

The folly of promising to do, one knows not what, seems sufficiently obvious; but this folly rises almost to moral insanity, when one considers the circumstances under which these pledges are made. In the first place, some of these orders, notably the Masonic and Odd Fellows, so situate the candidate as to render it almost certain that the average man will neither understand nor remember the obligation which he assumes.

The Masonic candidate is stripped of his clothing until he has on only his shirt and drawers. He has one foot bare, the other slippered. His eyes are bandaged, and he has a small rope about his neck and arm. In this condition he is led about, halted here, caused to kneel there, questioned in a third place, and finally brought before the altar, and put in position to take his oath. Of course, a rude, uneducated rowdy may pass through this manipulation at the hands of a company of his kind, and retain his wits so as to comprehend, in part, the obligations he is assuming. It is entirely safe, however, to say that a self-respecting gentleman would be so full of shame, astonishment, indignation, and a desire to get away from such an experience, that he would almost certainly fail to understand or remember the oaths which are given him to repeat, sentence by sentence.

The candidate for membership in an Odd Fellows' lodge is not put through so degrading an experience; yet there seems to be the same desire to humiliate and confuse. He is blindfolded, given to understand that he is in danger of death, is twined with chains, and lectured by men in masks, until at last he is ready to be obligated; when his pledges are pieced out to him, and he, parrot-like, repeats them. How is a man under such circumstances to have any adequate idea of the promises he has made?

All this would be sufficiently foolish if it were understood, as in most cases where honorable men combine for mutual help, that, in case the member becomes satisfied that the organization is evil in character and tendency, he may freely withdraw and use all his natural rights in the way of criticism and condemnation. Members of political organizations and churches do this