Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1901-08-29
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 lsOl.,
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"
1t appears that in Solomon's time, as In
all subsequent periods of the world, there
were we people 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 at
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 l hear something dis
paraging of you. my first duty is not to
tell you, but if l tell you what somebody
has said against You and then 60 out and
tell everybody else what l told you, and
they go out and tell others what 1 told
them that l told you, and we all go out,
some to hunt up the. originator OF the
story and others to hunt it down.. we
about what you do and what you did not
do, and there will be as many scalps
taken as though band of Modocs had
swept upon a helpless village. We have
two ears, but only one tongue: physio-
logical suggestion that we ought to hear
HOOQ zeal more Undn we tell. Leu 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 s. words, Discover
not secret to another
Solomon had a 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
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 volubiity about
affairs that do not belong to us and extols
the virtue of secretiveness
BY the power of a secret divuiged fam
lilies, churches, neighborhoods, nations,
fly apart. BY the power of a secret kept
charlUles, socialities, reformatory move
ments and Christian enterprises may be
advanced. Men are gregarious--cattie IN
in social circles. You may by the dis
charge of a 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-
would again adhere. God meant it so. lie
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 a man with no out
branchings of sympathy. His nature is
cold and hard, like ships mast ice
glazed, which the most agile sailor could
never climb. Others have thousand
roots and thousand branches. Innum-
cradle tendrils climb their hearts and 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
| mrth, some to advance their craft. So
! every active community is divided into as
! sociations of artists, OF merchants, of
| bookblnders, 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 a 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
bcrs by passwords and greet each other
! with secret grip are right or wrong. |
] answer that it depends entirely on the
nature of the object for which they meet.
Is it 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, Mo- 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
by night. While they are strengthening
their left 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
Gideon." Secrecy of plot and execution
is wrong only when the object and ends
are nefarious. Every family is secret %
ciety, every business firm and every banA-
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 culturing capac-
ity to keep secret Men talk too much
and women, too. There is time to keep
silence as well 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 a livelihood Had it not been for
the secret labor organiza sions 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