The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1901-08-29

state or to debauch the innocent,
then l say, with an emphasis that no
man can mistake, No! But is the
object the defense of the rights of
any class against oppression, the i'm
provement of the mind, the enlarge
| ment of the heart, the advancement
of art, the defense of the govern
ment, the extirpatio of crime or the
kindling of a pure hearted sociality,
then I say, with just as much en-
phasis, Yes.
There is no need that we who plan
for the conquest of right over wrong
should publish to all the world our
intentions. The general of any army
never sends to the opposing troops
information of the coming attack.
Shall we who have enlisted in the
cause of God and humanity expose
our plans to the enemy? No; we will
in secret plot the ruin of all the en-
terprises of Satan and his cohorts.
When they expect us by day, we will
fall upon them by night. While they
are strengthening their left wing
we will fall on their right. By a
plan of battle formed in secret con-
clave we will come suddenly upon
them crying: "The sword of the
Lord and of Gideon" Secrecy of
plot and execution is wrong only
when the object and ends are nefari-
Gus. Every family is secret society,
every business firm and every bank
ing and insurance institution. Those
men who have no capacity to keep a
secret are unfit for positions of trust
anywhere. There are thousands of
men whose vital need is culturing a
capacity to keep secret. Men talk
too much, and women, too. There
is time to keep silence as well as q
time to speak.
There are secret societies in our col
leges that have letters of the Greek
alphabet for their nomenclature, and
their members are at the very front
in scholarship and irreproachable in
morals, while there are others the
scene of carousal, and they gamble,
and they drink, and they graduate
knowing hundred times more about
sin than they do of geometry and
Sophocles. In other words, secret So
cieties, like individuals, are good or
bad, are the means of moral health or
of temporal and eternal damnation. All
good people recognize the vice of SLAM
dering an individual, but many do not
see the sin of slandering an organiza-
o1I IN,
this and other countries, some of them
centuries old, which have been wide
ly denounced as immoral and damag-
ing in their influence, yet I have hum
dreds of personal friends who belong
to them-friends who are consecrated
to God, pillars in the church, faithful
in all relations of life, examples of
virtue and piety. They are the kind
of friends whom I would have for my
executors at the time of decease, and
they are the men whom I would have
carry me out to the last sleep when
l am dead. You cannot make me be-
lieve that they would belong to bad in
stitutions. They are the men who would
stamp on anything iniquitous, and l
would certainly rather take their tes-
timony in regard to such societies
than the testimony of those who, hav-
ing been sworn in as members, by their
assault upon them confess themselves
perjurers.
One of these secret societies gave
for the relief of the sick in 1873, in
this country, $1,49O,274. Some of
these societies have poured a very
heaven of sunshine and benediction
into the home of suffering. Several
of them are founded on fidelity to
good citizenship and the Bible. I
have never taken one of their de-
grees. They might give me the grip
recognize it. I am ignorant of their
passwords, and I must judge entire
ly from the outside. But Christ has
given us a rule by which we may
judge not only all individuals, but all
societies, secret and open. ''By their
fruits We shall know them" Bad
societies make bad men. Good socie-
ties make good men. A bad man will
not stay in a good society. A good
man will not stay in bad society.
Then try all secret societies by two
or three rules.
Test the first: Their influence on
home, if you have home. That wife
soon loses her influence over her
hus band who nervously and foolish
ly looks upon all evening absence as
an assault on domesticity. How are
the great enterprises of reform and
art and literature and benefcence
and public veal to be carried on if
every man is to have his world bound
ed on one side by his front doorstep
| and on the other side by his back
window, knowing nothing higher
than his own attic or lower than his
own cellar? That wife who becomes
jealous of her husbands attention to
art or literature or religion or chari-
ty is breaking her own scepter of
conjugal power. l know an instance
where wife thought that her hus-
band was giving too many nights to
| Christian service, to charitable serv-
ice, to prayer-meetings and to reli-
| gious convocation. She systematical-