Secret Societies—Are They Lawful to the Christian?
By H. H. Hinman
THERE is an aspect of this question of organized secrecy that seems largely to have escaped public observation. It is that all such societies are incorporated by the State, are "bodies corporate and politic" in the legal sense of the word; and yet they deny to the State not only all right of control, but all right of inspection. The State which created them may not know what they are nor what they do. No officer of the law may know the character and conduct of a Masonic lodge or other secret society, unless he has been regularly initiated, and taken the oath, or pledge of inviolable secrecy. This denial of the right of inspection belongs alike to all institutions having a covenant of secrecy. The secrets of the Mormon Endowment House, though often demanded by the courts, have never been disclosed to any judicial investigation, and the right of the American people to have positive and official knowledge of that institution is not only denied, but the authority of the nation set at defiance. In principle this is true of all. Nor do secret orders have greater respect for the rights of the church. Each member of a Christian church is answerable to it for all of his conduct, in which the interests of morality, religion, or the general welfare of the church is concerned. Hence it follows that the church has a right to inquire into the conduct of its members in all these respects. But the covenant that he has taken in the lodge may not be disclosed to the church. For his conduct there, and as a member of the secret order, he is held answerable to the order and not to the church. There may be every reason to believe that such conduct is wholly unchristian, and that it violates the solemn covenant he has made with the church, yet the actual facts cannot be investigated. A Masonic lodge would most surely insist on knowing whether one of its members had violated Masonic law, in any meeting of the church of which he was a member, yet it would sternly deny to the church the corresponding right to know whether one of its members had violated Christian morality in the lodge. It follows therefore, 1. That the claim of inviolable secrecy on the part of any institution or order chartered by the State is not only exceptional, being denied to all banks, insurance companies, and other business corporations, but is inconsistent with the rights of the Government and the supremacy of the civil law, and hence such charters should be withheld or withdrawn. 2. It follows that for members of a Christian church to be members also of a secret order, is to be unequally yoked, owning higher obligations to such orders than to the church, since the lodge may know what he does in the church, but the church cannot inquire what he does in the lodge. 3. That membership in a secret order is inconsistent with the purposes for which the church was instituted, and with worthy church membership. The primary object of church fellowship is watchcare. The covenant of every church includes this, and makes it the duty of every member of the church to watch over and kindly admonish his brethren, and to submit to such watchcare. It is also the right and duty of the church to investigate any charges made against any one of its members, and to defend them if innocent. It is well known that the opponents of free-masonry make serious charges against the morality of the order, and that they demand investigation before the church, yet members of the order are not permitted to plead to such indictment, or to disclose any of the facts in reference to the things thus charged. Surely this is not in harmony with the objects of the church.—H. H. Hinman, in Bible Banner.