often church goers, often conspicuously charitable and in general pillars of respectability. Speaking of the vast majority of the lodge members, there is nothing with which they are less in sympathy than subversion of the existing social order, or hostility to any form of sincere religion. Most of the members and the official heads of masonry are above suspicion but we must point out the obvious: Not only are secret societies dangerous, but all societies whose object is mysterious. The whole history of man is proof of this position. In no age or country, has there ever appeared a mysterious association which did not in time become a public nuisance! The advantages to be derived from freemasonry are not clearly conspicuous while the dangers are obvious, one never knows where it actually leads to and who are the effective leaders. The Masonic oath is immoral in principle: It is imposed by an authority which has no adequate sanction, differing in that respect from the oath exacted for example, by a magistrate, a judge, or an ecclesiastical superior who are in their varying degrees the representatives of the commonwealth or of God. Again, the scope of the oath regards either secrets that are nowadays no secrets at all or else secrets which are criminal and contrary to public policy. Thirdly the manner of the oath taking is irreverent and, in the extravagance of the penalties invoked, it borders on the blasphemous. Fourthly, by the form used the mason may be said