The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1901-08-03
intentions. The general of any armv

AoN".ioh VI the coming attack.
Shall we who have enlisted in The
III of God and humanity EXPOSE
III 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 thew
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
themS 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 a 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 n
capacity to keep a secret. Men talk
too much, and women, too. There
is a time to keep silence as well as a
time to speak.
Although not belonging to any of
the great secret societies about which
there has been so much violent discus
sion, / have only words of praise for
those associations 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 different
names, that provide temporary relief
for widows and orphans and for men
incapacitated by sickness or accident
from earning a livelihood. Had it not
been for the secret labor organizations
iii this country monopoly would long
ago have, under its ponderous wheels,
ground the laboring classes into an
intolerable servitude. The men who
want the whole earth to themselves
would have got it before this had it
not been for the banding together of
great secret organizations, and while
we deplore many things that have
been done by them, their existence is
a necessity and their legitimate sphere
distinctly pointed out by the Provi-
dence of God. Such organizations are
trying to dismiss from their assoc
citation all members who are in favor
of anarchy and social chaos. They
will gradually cease anything like tyr
amy over their members and will
forbid violent interference with any
mans work, whether he belongs to
their union or is outside of it, and
will declare their disgust with any
such rule as that passed in England
by the Manchester Bricklayers' asso-
citation, which says any man found
running or working beyond a regular
speed shall be fined two shillings six
pence for the first ~offense, five shil-
lings for the second, ten shillings for
the third, and if still persisting shall
be dealt with as the committee thinks
proper.
There are secret societies in our col
leges that have letters of the Greek
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 a hundred times more about
sin than they do of geometry and
Sophocles. In other words, secret 80
c%ieties, like individuals, are good oil
bad, are the means of moral health OIL
of temporal and standardization. AL
good people recognize the vice of Sian
dering an individual, but many do not
see the sin of s~landering an organiza'
ton. There are old secret societies in
this and other countries, some of then
centuries old, which have been wide
ly denounced as immoral and damag'
ing in their influence, yet 1 have hun
dreds of personal friends who belong
to them-friends who are consecratec
to God, pillars in the church, faithful
in all relations of life, examples o.
virtue and piety. They are the kline
of friends whom I would have for my
executors at the time of decease, ant
they are the men whom 1 would have
carry me out to the last sleep wheI
| am dead. You cannot make me be
lieve that they would belong to bad in
stitutions. Theyare the men who would
stamp on anything iniquitous, and
would certainly rather take their ties
timony in regard to such societies
than the testimony of those who, hav
ing been sworn in as members, by theil
assault upon them confess themselves
~perjurers.
One of these secret societies CAV,
for the relief of the sick in 1878, il
this country, $1,490,274. Some o
these societies have poured a yer.
heaven of sunshine and benedictiol
|, into the home of suffering. Severa
, of them are founded on fidelity t
good citizenship and the Bible.
have never taken one of their de
grees. They might give me the gri
a thousand times and l would no
recognize it. l am ignorant of thei
passwords, and 1 must judge entire
r ly from the outside. But Christ ha
, given us a rule by which we ma
|, Judge not only all individuals, but a
= societies, secret and open. by thei
fruits We shall know them" Ba
societies make bad men. Good socie
I ties make good men. A bad man wi
! not stay in a good society. A goo
9 man will not stay in a bad society