The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1901-08-14
DIR, TALMAGES SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE By THE NOTED
DIVINE.

Subject: Secret Societies-why Silence is
Sometimes Best - Organizations That
Work For Humanity's Service - The
True Tests For Secret Societies.
Copyright 1so1.l
| WASHINGTON, D. CA practical ques.
| ton which is asked in most houses and
| for many years is here asked by DR.. Tai
mage and answered; text, Proverbs XIV,
| 8, "Discover not secret to another"
| It appears that in Solomon's time, as in
all subsequent periods of the world, there
| were psople too much disposed to tell all
they knew. 1t was blab, blab, blab; ply
sicians revealing the case of their pa
tients, lawyers exposing the private af-
fairs of their clients, neighbors advertising
the faults of the next door resident, pre-
tending friends betraying condolences.
| One-half of the trouble of every COM
munity comes from the fact that SO many
people have not capacity to keep their
mouths shut. When I hear something dis
pararine of you, nv first duty is not to
tell you, but if t tell you what somebody
has said against you and then 90 out and
tell everybody else what told you, and
they 20 out and tell others what told
them that I told you, and we all go out,
some to hunt up the originator OF the
story and Others to hunt it down, we
shall get the whole community talking
about what you do and what you did not
do, and there will be as many scalps
taken as though a band of Modocs had
swept upon helpless village. We have
logical suggestion that we ought to hear
a good deal more than we tell. Let US
Join conspiracy that we will tell each
other all the good and nothing of the i'll,
and then there will not be such awful need
of sermons on Solomon's words, Discover
not a secret to another"
Solomon had very large domestic cir
ole. In his earlier days he had very con-
fused notions about monogamy and poly
gamy, and his multitudinous associates in
the matrimonial state kept him too well
salem. They gathered up all the privacies
and poured them into his ear, and his
family became sorosis or female debat-
ing society of 700, discussing day after day
all the difficulties between husbands and
wives, between employers and employees,
between rulers and subjects, until Solo
mon, in my text, deplores volubility about
affairs that do not belong to us and extols
the virtue of secretiveness.
By the power of secret divulged fam
lilies, churches, neighborhoods, nations,
fly apart. By. the power Of secret kept
charitles, socialities, reformatory move
ments and Christian enterprises may be
advanced. Men are gregarious-cattle in
herds, fish in schools, birds in focks, men
in social circles. You may by the dis
charge of q gun scatter flock of quails
or by the plunge of an anchor send apart
the denizens of the sea, but they. will
gather themselves together again. IF you
| by some new power could break the asso-
Citations in which men now stand, they
would again adhere. God meant it SO. He
into associations. You may plant one
| forget.me-no. or heartsease alone away
off upon the hillside, but it will soon
hunt up some other forget-me-not or
heartsease. Plants love company. You
will find them talking to each other in
the dew.
You sometimes see a man with no OPT
branchings of sympathy. His nature is
cold and. hard, ike ships mast ice
glazed, which the most agile sailor could
never climb. Others have thousand
roots and thousand branches. Innum-
erable tendrils climb their hearts and bios:
heaven sing in the branches. In conse-
quence of this tendency we find men COM
| ing together in tribes, in communities, in
! churches, in societies. Some gather to.
gether to cultivate the arts, some to plan
| for the welfare of the state, some to dis
cuss religious themes, some to hndle their
mirth, some to advance their craft. So
every active community is divided into as.
| sociations of artists, of merchants, OF
| bookbinders, of carpenters, of masons, OF
plasterers, of shipwrights, Of plumbers.
out against tendency divinely implanted.
| Your TRADES would accomplish no more
| than if you should preach to busy ant
hill long sermon against secret societies.
Here we find the oft-discussed question
| whether associations that do their work
| with closed doors and admit their mem
| bers by passwords and greet each other
| with secret grip are right or wrong. l
| answer that it depends entirely on the
nature of the object for which they meet.
| Is it to pass the hours in revelry, wassall,
blasphemy and obscene talk or to plot
| trouble to the state or to debauc uch the in
no man can mistake, "No!" But is the
object the defense of the rights of any
class against oppression, the improvement
of the mind, the enlargement Of the heart,
! the advancement of art, the defense OF
the Government, the extirpation of crime
or the kindling of pure hearted sociality,
then | say with just as much emphasis,
"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 an army never sends to the
opposing troops information of the COM
ing 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 enterprises
of Satan and his cohorts! When they
expect US BY day, We will fall upon them
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, 'eeThe sword of the Lord and of
Gideon!" Secrecy of plot and execution
is wrong only when the object and ends
are nefarious. Every family is a secret So
ciety, 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 capac-
ity, to keep secret; Men talk too much,
silence as we'll as time to speak.
Although not belonging to any OF the
great secret societies about which there
has been so much violent discussion, /
have only words of praise for those asso-
Citations which have for their object the
maintenance of right against wrong or the
reclamation of inebriates or, like the score
Of mutual benefit societies called by diff
ferent names, that provide temporary re-
lief for widows and orphans and for men
incapacitated by sickness or accident from
earning livelihood. Had it not been for
the secret labor organizations in this
country monopoly would long ago have
under its ponderous wheels ground the
laboring classes into an intolerable servi-
tude. The men who want the whole earth
to themselves would have got it before
this had it not been for the banding to-
gether Of great secret organizations. And,