GENERAL PHELPS ON SECRET SOCIETIES.
THE following letter is worth preserving. It was written to the Boston Globe, with a view to the presence of the Episcopal General Convention which was then in session in that city:— I would beg permission to call the attention of Episcopalians to that article of their organization, the thirty-ninth, which treats “Of a Christian Man’s Oath.” If that article were religiously maintained, no member of the Episcopal Church organization could ever administer or receive such oaths as those that are in use by the Masonic Lodge. These Masonic oaths are unscriptural, extrajudicial, rash, and vain. They are not administered by the magistrate: they serve neither the cause of faith nor charity, and are void of justice, judgment, and truth. They serve the purposes of intimidation, of imposing assessments for wrong purposes, of inspiring hate and distrust, and circumventing law, and destroying the moral sensibilities of the community. The oath administered by the lodge is equally inimical to the vow of the church and the oath of the law, and leads men to trifle with and frustrate both. Yet religious conventions, nevertheless, meet year after year without taking any notice of the frightful demoralization that is being wrought upon the community through the teachings and practices of the Masonic Lodge. It would seem a mystery how this could be done if we had not already been furnished with an extraordinary precedent in the case of slavery, which some churchmen considered a divine institution. But it is exceedingly dangerous to the morals of society for churchmen to term Freemasonry divine, as many of them do. These views which I express have been entertained and propagated for many years by religious men and good patriots, whose opinions are worth considering; and now I repeat them again, on the assembling of another religious convention in Boston, with the design of calling the particular attention of the convention thereto. We know that the presence of God may be seen in history as well as in church organizations; and it behooves an organization, therefore, wherein God is said to dwell, to prove that its ways have been in moral accord with historic manifestations. The ungodly history of Masonry is known and can be traced. It is possible that our teachers and religious professors may not find time to examine into this question, or American theology may be too new or superficial to go into such subjects, but the historian will hardly be guilty of such neglect. It will be little creditable to our voluntary system of supporting religion if our preachers fear to assail corruptions that are worse than any that might arise from a union of Church and State. What would show a worse state of morals and of church corruption than this fact; viz., that the ladies and gentlemen of the United States never make any objection to sitting under the preaching of men or going to the Lord’s table with them, who have sworn, like so many Sicarii, to forfeit the life of a fellow-being for revealing a secret. This fact is testified to by members of churches themselves. And another fact hardly less damaging to the morals of the country is that the sums of money spent for erecting temples and altars, buying dresses and regalia, getting up manifestations and parades, with suppers and dances, in support of secret mystic practices, under the pretense of religion and morals, would go far toward maintaining the theological, scientific, and literary institutions of the country; yet the voice of the church remains silent on the subject. It must be self-evident that our civil institutions cannot be preserved without a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. The wear and tear and dilapidations of democratic tendencies upon the temple of liberty must be often examined into and repaired, and its foundations be kept sound and in good order, or the temple itself will go to decay. And we know of no other instrumentality for making the necessary examination and keeping up the repairs than the church. If the church itself is corrupt and neglectful, our civil institutions cannot stand. In a country where the political creed is that all men are free and equal, there is a constant tendency to carry this opinion into morals and into the church, and to regard the bad man as just as good as the good man. The man who swears to commit murder and keep it secret; who worships other gods than the Lord; who violates the Sabbath; who habitually and deliberately commits falsehood by maintaining a false institution that is the constant and perpetual source of falsehood and the very spirit of which is covetousness and illegitimate gain; in fine, the heathen or infidel who violates every one of the axioms of moral science, is placed on the same moral level with him who scrupulously observes them all. This is moral confusion, darkness, and anarchy, in which neither true religion nor civil liberty can long exist. Civil service reform is impossible under it. There can be no popular liberty where politics are corrupted and moral distinctions are confounded, as they are by Freemasonry. We have formerly heard a great deal about “chivalry” from the Southern part of the Union. If by chivalry is meant fair, open, and manly dealing, then certainly chivalry is a good thing. But chivalry cannot possibly exist where political men break out of the lists of fair and open conduct, and dodge down into the arts and practices of secret societies to take dishonorable advantage of their adversaries. The people who encourage such unworthy practices cannot long enjoy republican institutions. I would propose a practical measure for the adoption of our church conventions, which is to appoint committees of learned and pious men to examine into and report upon the compatibility of Freemasonry with the Christian religion, the testimonies of preachers and church-members who belong to the Masonic Lodge to be taken in the case.