The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1901-08-01
SECRET SOCIETIES.
Rev. DR.. TaImage breaches on Or
ganizations That Work for
tiumsnity's Service.
WHY SILENCE is SOMETIMES BEST


tCopyriRht 1pof.1
WASHINGTON. d. CA practical ques-
ton which is asked in most houses and
ior many years is here asked by DR.. Tai
mage and answered; text, Proverbs XIV,
o Discover not secret to another"
IL appears that in Solomon's time, as in
all subsequent periods of the world. there
were people too much disposed to tell all
they knew IL was Dlab, blao, olabi phy-
sicians revealing the case OF their pa
tents. lawyers exposing the private af-
fairs OF their clients, neighbors advertising
The faults of the next door resident, pre-
tending friends betraying condolences.
0ne-half of the trouble of every COM
munity comes. from the fact that 80 many
. people have not capacity to keep their
4 mouths shut. When ] hear something dis
4 paraging of you, my first duty is not to
Tell YOU, but if tell you what somebody
4 has said against you and then go out and
i tell everybody else what | told you, and
they go out and tell others what told
them that | 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
4 do, and there will be as many scalps
taken as though a band of Modocs had
swept upon a helpless village. We have
two ears, but only one tongue, q physio-
/ logical suggestion that we ought to hear
a good deal more than we tell. Let us
| Join a 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.
Gle. 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
| informed as to what was going on in Jeru-
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 volubilty about
affairs that do not belong to us and extols
the virtue of secretiveness.
By the power of secret divulged fam
lies churches, neghborhoods, nations,
fly apart. By the power of secret kept
chariues, 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 a gun scatter a flock of quais
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
has gathered all the flowers and shrubs
into associations. You may plant one
forget-me-not 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 man with no out
branchings OF sympathy. His nature is
har tlrn el,,
glazed, which the most agile sailor could
never climb. Others have thousand
roots and a thousand branches. Innum-
cradle tendrils climb their hearts aud bios
som all the way up, and the fowls of
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 kindle their
mirth, some to advance their craft So
every active community is divided into as
sociatlons OF artists, of merchants, of
bookbinders, OF carpenters, OF masons, of
plasterers, OF shipwrights, of plumbers.
do you cry out against it? Then you cry
out against tendency divinely implanted
Your TRADES would accomplish no more
than II you should preach to busy ant
NIL 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. |
answer that 1T depends entirely on the
nature of the object for which they meet.
is 1t to pass the hours in revelry, wassail,
blasphemy and obscene talk or to plot
trouble to the state or to debauch the in
nocent, then | say with an emphasis that
no man can mistake, mol" But is the
dafa <&f H. -
class against oppression, the improvement
oi tae 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 i say with just as much emphasis,
There is no need that we who plan for
the conquest of right over wrong should
publish to all the world our intentions.
Inc 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 viii 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
by night. While they are Strengthening
Their lett wing we will fall on their right
by plan OF battle formed in secret con
clave we will come suddenly upon them.
crying, The sword of the Lord and OF
Sideon! Secrecy of plot and execution
Is wrong only when the object and ends
are nefarious. Every family is a secret So
clety, every business firm and every bank
ing and insurance institution,
Those men who have no capacity TO
keep secret are unfit for positions of
trust anywhere. There are thousands of
men whose vital need is cuturing a capac-
ity to keep a secret Men talk too much
and women, too. There is a time to keen
silence as well as time to speak
Although not belonging to any of the
great secret societies about which there
mas been so much violent discussion. /
nave only words of praise for those asso-
cations 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 dn-,
ierent names, that provide temporary re.
nei ior widows and orphans and for men
incapactated by sickness or accident from
earning livelihood. Had il not been for
tne secret labor organizations in this
country monopoly would long ago have
hInder ITS ponderous wheels ground the
.aporin& classes into an intolerable servi-
suoe lhe men who want the whole earth
70 themselves would have got it before
% s'ils hau ~ not been for the banding to-
ssl.nner OF great secret organizations. And.
wnile we deplore many things that have
peen done by them, their existence is n
tact,s tnsoss,slty ana their legitimate sphere dis