Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1901-08-02
SECRET SOCIETIES.
Rev. DR.. Talmage breaches on Or
CARNATIONS That Work for
humanity's Service.
WHY SILENCE is SOMETIMES BEST.
lConYriRht 1901. /

copyright 1901
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,
g. Discover not secret to another.
1t 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. 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 | hear something dis
paraging of you, my first duty is not to
tell you, but if tell you what somebody
has said against you and then 60 out ana
tell everybody else what | told you, aid
they 90 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
do, and there will be as many scalps
taken as though band Of Modocs had
swept upon helpless village. We have
TWO ears, DuC Oily Ouc IOHRuc, a
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 ne had very con-
fused notions about mOnogamy and poly
gamy, and his multltudinous 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
ali the difficulties between husbands and
wives, between employers and employees,
between rulers and subjects, until Solo
mon, in my text, deplores voubiity about
affairs that do not belong to us and extols
the virtue OF secretlveness.
By the power of a secret divulged FAM
lilies, churches, neighborhoods nations,
fly apart. By the power of secret kept
charities, 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 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
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 a ships mast ice
glazed, which the most agile sailor could
never climb. Others have a 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
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.
Do you cry out against it? Then you cry
out against a 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 a 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, "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,
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 arc 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,
D1lIiii9G The sword of the Lord and of
Of plot and execution
keep a secfe. ale i ends
trust anywhere. There arc 4S...s1