MINUTE S
OF THE
CHRISTIAN CONYENTION,
HELD AT
AURORA, ILLINOIS,
Oct. 31st and Nov. 1st, 1867.
CONTAINIliNG
THE fROCEEDINGS AND   ESOLUTION
OF THE CONVENTION)
H  D D R E S S E S
OF REV. MESSRS. HART, SMITH, TRAVIS AND BLANCHARD,
WITH COPIOUS XTRACTS ROM CONGRATULATORY LETTERS..   
WITH COPIOUS E,XTRACTS FROM CONGRATULATORY LETTERS.
C~fICA GO:
DEAN & OTTAWAY, STEAM BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS, 148 LAKE STREET.
1867.
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INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
The Christian Convention at Aurora was the result of a deep
conviction that the evil of organized secrecy has reached such
dimensions that longer silence and inaction cannot be innocently
maintained. It was seen that the dark floods of secret influence
were not only overflowing the plains, but were covering the hills
and reaching the mountains; not only filling the world, but pouring
into the church; not only infecting the youth, but grave ministers
were being carried away with the dissimulation. While the press
and the pulpit were,as a general rule, observing as studied a silence
on the subject, as might be expected if they were subsidized or
struck dumb with terror. Organized Deism was seen in open
day laying the corner stones of christian churches.  Even the
General Association of Illinois, a body which has heretofore
borne decided testimony against the chiefest of the dark Orders,
lately refused to entertain a resolution against using the charitable
education funds of the churches in educating Masons and Odd
Fellows for the ministry. Perplexed and distressed by this state
of things, a few like-minded christians determined to invite a
convention for prayer and consultation. They regarded it merely as a local movement, not expecting members from more than
a few counties at most. A portion of the religious press showed
great reluctance to publishing the call. Others, however, secular as well as religious, gave it unsolicited insertion and commendation. And when the convention assembled, to the surprise of
those who had called it, earnest men were found there from Ohio,
from Mithigan, from Indiana,'from Iowa and Nebraska, as well
as firom Illinois.
There were Episcopal Methodists and Protestant Methodists,
Friee Methodists, Wesleyans, Baptists and Free Will Baptists,
United Brethren, Congregationalists and Presbyterians, all speaking the same things.   Eighty-seven  members enrolled  their
names, and letters of congratulation poured in firom Wisconsin
to Maison and Dixon's line, and from 1hode Island to Washington Teriitoiy.  We were thrilled aid awed.  We were evidntly
in the focus of that light whic.h shinetlh firom one end of heaven
to the other.  The spirit which  biooded over the chaos at creation was evidently moving on the deep of mind, was lifting np the
staid:ard promised "when the enemy cometh in like a flood."
We were reassured that ttheie wert reserved at least "seven thousand men that have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal."
We gathered what we could of the light which shone around us,
and the result is the work before you. We ask for it a candid
and prayerful reading.
COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION.
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MINUTES.
Pursuant to the following call, a convention met at the City
Hall in Aurora, and was called to order by Benj. Hackney, Esq.
"In compliance with the expressed wish of persons of different
denominations, the undersigned respectfully request such of
their fellow Christians as may choose to do so to meet them in
convention on Thursday, Oct. 31st, at 3 o'clock P. M., at the City
Hall in the city of Aurora, Ill., for prayer and consulsation on
the following topics: 1. The relation of prevalent Secret Orders
to the Christian religion. 2. The duty of professing Christians
in reference to them. 3. The propriety of calling a Nation1al
Convention on the subject."
Signed Joseph Travis, Royal Arch Mason, I. A. Hart, a seceding Mason of 1828, E. P. Hart, Master Mason, C. L. Stow, J.
Blanchard, David West, D. W.  Stockwell, B. Hackney, Philo
Carpenter, T. G. Damon, M. M. Miles, Seth Griffiths, W. Tyler,
J. Denny, O. Dewey, Edward Ebbs, S. McCarty, Charles Gill,
Newton Otis, S. Town, B. West, E. Denny, N. D. Fanning, J.
G. Terrill, C. H. Underwood, W. Stannard, Master Mason, Lewis
Bailey, L. Bishop, G. H. Fox, Joseph Catterlin, Isaac Preston.
In view of the fact that the word "christian" admits of various
significations the Committee of Arrangements passed the following resolution and caused it to be published with the call, viz:
That the Convention be composed of the various evangelical
denominations.
A temporary organization was effected by calling Rev. N. D.
Fanning, of Elgin, to the chair, and appointing Rev. C. H. Underwood, of Freeport, and Joseph Denny, Esq., of Aurora, clerks.
After which, the Convention spent a season of earnest prayer for
the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The following brethren were then chosen a Committee on Permanent Organization: Benjamin Hackney, Esq., Rev. Edward
Ebbs, Rev. Jamnes I. Baber, Rev. J. P. Richards and-I,. W. Mills,
Esq.
Prof. O. F. Lumry, Joseph Denny, Esq., and R. T. Morgan
were appointed Committee on the Roll. [See Appendix F.]
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During the retirement of these committees the Convention
spent the time in the reading of the Scriptures and in prayer.
The Committee on Permanent Organization reported recommending Rev. Jonathan Blanchard, D. D., of Wheaton College,
for President, Philo Carpenter, Esq., and Rev. R. Loggan for
Vice Presidents, Rev. N. D. Fanning, Secretary, and Rev. J. P.
Richards and Joseph Denny, Esq., Assistants.
The report was accepted and adopted.
Questions of privilege being raised by Dr. Kilbourne and Wyatt Car, Esq., adhering Masons, the Convention voted that they
be permitted to speak and to record their names as members,
which, after speaking, they declined to do; Dr. Kilbourne entering a formal protest against the Convention taking any action in
reference to Free Masonry.
The Rev. I. A. Hart, of Wheaton, a seceding Mason, was then
called for, and addressed the Convention until the hour of recess.
[See Appendix A.]
The Committee on Permanent Organization was made the
Business Committee of the Convention.
The Committee on the Roll reported. Report accepted and
adopted. [See Appendix F.]
Recess until 7 P. M.
EVENING SESSION.
The first half hour was spent in prayer.
Rev. J. Travis was substited for B. Hackney, Esq., as chairman
of the Business Committee.
Rev. I. A. Hart resumed his remarks which had been interrupted by the hour of recess.
At the close of these remarks the President gave notice that a
large number of letters had been received firom various parts of
the country, addressed to the Convention, some of them of great
interest and value.
Rev. I. A. Hart moved that a committee be appointed to examine these letters and read to the Convention such letters or parts
of letters as the time will permit or they shall judge for the edification of the assembly. Adopted, and Rev. J. Terrill, F. Wells
and C. L. Blanchard, Esqs., were appointed said commnittee, to
which the officers of the Convention were afterwards added.[See Appendix B,]
Rev. Joseph Travis, in behalf of the Business Committee, reporited the following preamble and resolutions viz:
WHEREAS Christianity in its origin is an (emanation from Christ,
in its experiences is a union with Christ, and admits of no rival
in the hearts of His subjects, and,
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humility and Christian love. Mr. Clark was also added to the
Business Committee.
Rev. Mr. Danforth, of Chicago, requested leave to speak concerning a new secret order among the Spiiitua-lists, which he
thought likely to become remarkable among secret orders, both
for its corruption and its extent.  He was heard accordingly and
made disclosures which were both startling and disgusting.
Philo Carpenter, Esq., Rev. C. H. Underwood, Rev. Edward
Ebbs, and S. H. Salls, Esq., were appointed a Committee of Ways
and Means for publishing the Minutes.
Recess until 2 o'clock, P. M.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
Opened with prayer by the President.
In answer to the call of the Convention Rev..R. Loggan, of
Nebraska, and Isaac Preston, Esq., of Lockpoit, Ill., addressed
the meeting.
W. W. Richardson, Rev. Messrs. Geo. Clark, H. HIawkins, N.
D. Fanning and Edward Ebbs were appointed a committee to
nominate a National Executive Committee.
The Committee of Ways and Mleans, after alluding to the importance of diffusing information on the subjeet which has convened us, recommended the opening of a subscription for the purpose of printing and circulating the Minutes of the Convention,
embracing the proceedings, resolutions, letters and speeches, as
far as practicable. That the subscription shall show the P.O.
address of the subscriber, and that one-half the amount of his
subscription be returned to each subscriber in copies of the MIinutes. That the subscription be opened here and also in the
churches in sympathy with the object. That the other half of
the printed Minutes be circulated by the Committee of Publication, some depository being established by them, of which notice
shall be given in the Minutes, and that such committee be chosen
to whom the funds may be sent, and whose business it shall be
to see that said Minutes are properly printed and circulated.
The report was accepted and adopted.
Rev. I. A. Hart, Rev. J. Blanchard, Prof. O. F. Lumry  In11 1,.
W. Mills, Esq., of Wheaton, and Rev. N. D. Fanning, of Elgin,
were chosen Committee of Publication.
A subscription was circulated in the Convention and the amount
of $160 was subscribed on the spot for printing the Minutes.
Recess. 
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WVHEREAS Masonry, with its kindred systems, neither emanates
from Christ, nor consists in union with Him, but adheres to rites
and ceremonies not deducible fiom the Word of God, and imposes obligations upon men's consciences often inconsistent with
that Word, therefore,
Resolved, That it and they sustain a relation of rivalship to our
common christianity, and are therefore anti-christian.
Resolved, That we believe our duty to be plain, viz: first, to
religiously abstain firom any affiliation with these societies; sece
ondly, to calmly, truthfully and lovingly expose their unchristian
character, and thirdly, by all legitimate means to oppose their
progress and influence amongst us.
Rev. Joseph Travis, seceding Royal Arch Mason, was called
for and addressed the Convention upon the preceding resolutions.
[See Appendix C.]
The officers of the Convention were made a Committee, with
plenary power to revise the resolutions which had been or might
be offered.
On motion, it was voted to meet at 8 o'clock to-morrow morning for prayer, and that the business session open at 9 o'clock.
The Rev. Milton Smith, of DuPage Co., Ill., and Rev. James
I. Baber, of the State of Nebraska, then addressed the Convention with ability and great earnestness.  [See Appendix D.]
MORNING SESSION.
Convention met at 8 o'clock, and spent an hour in devotion.
The business session was opened at 9 o'clock with prayer by
the Piesident.  The Convention resolved to hold a meetiig in
the evening, and invited President Blanchard to occupy a principal share of the time with an address.
Wm. B. Lloyds A. J. Bailey, R. T. Morgan, P. V. Livingston
and J. F. Ellis were appointed to prepare and post printed notices
of the meeting through the city. A collection for the object was
taken up, amounting to $10.81.
Rev. C. H. Underwood, Rev. H. T. Bessy, Sylvanus Town,
Esq., W. W. Richardson, Esq., and P. Hurlesq, Esq., were appointed a committee to report the names of such religious periodicals and papers as are believed to be friendly to the object of
this Convention.  (See Appendix E.)
The reading of letters to the Convention next followed. (See
Appendix B.)
Rev. Geo. Clark, of Oberlin, Ohio, interested the Convention
by an address, which was characterized by much earnestness,
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EVENING SESSION.
Opened with prayer by Rev. J. G. Terrill.
President Blanchard spoke for an hour and three quarters with
telling effect. (See Appendix F.)
After which, the business session was opened by prayer.
The following gentlemen were recommended by the nominating
com,nittee, and approved by the Convention, to constitute the
National Executive Committee, to correspond with other coinmiltees, to fix the time and place, to call and arrange for a National,  Ch,iitiai  Convention, opposei to Secret Societies, with
power to fill their own vacancies and add to their numbel as they
may judge expedient. Pres. J. Blanchard, of Wheaton, Ill.,
Prof. H. Fairchild, of Oberlin, O., Rev. B. F. Roberts, Rochester, N.Y., Rev. John Lawrence, Nashville, Tenn., Rev. A  Crooks,
Syracuse, N. Y., Rev. A. C. Vau Roalte, Holland, Mich., Rev.
Nathan Brown, New York City, Rev. AIl-. Livingstoll, Wis., T.
P. Stevenson, Editor Christian Statesman, Philadelphia, Rev.
De Los Love, Milwaukee, Wis.
The following resolutions were adopted:
WaE,r.s our republican institutions were dictated and sustained by a free discussion and ample elitcidation of their foundation principles, and resort has never been had to secret combinations of any character for their maintainrace, and
WHEREAS the same is true of all the teachings and works of
Christ respecting His kingdom, as also of the apostles and martyi s, and the whole church of God in its reformatory movements;
an (,
WuEREAS permanent social secrecy is the invariable badge of
all associated evil doers, and we are commanded to shunii the very
appearance of evil; and,
WHEREAs the history of secret temperance orders for the last
twenty years plainly demonstrates that organizations operating
secretly for good objects are easy stepping-stones to the more
imyvstic and dangerous orders; therefore, as tlhe earnest friends of
the temperance reformation, we ask for it an open field and free
discussion, believing that it is impossible to reform mHen by ceremonial obligations, but al(one by the creation of a right feeling
and principle, through the truth, untrammeled by rites and ceremonies and unimpeded by the suspicion which always follows
secrecy; we therefore deem it unwise and unsafe to affiliate with
or in any way to countenance such secret organizations.
Resolved, That the thanks of the Convention be tendered to the
various papers that have published the call for this Convention,
hoping for like courtesy on future occasions from the newspaper
press generally.
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Resolved, That the thanks of the Convention be tendered to
the citizens of Aurora for their ho.pitality to the members,
and to the City Council for the use of their hall.
Resolved, That the removal and overthrow of the secret orders
be made a subject of special prayer on the first Sabbath evening
of each month, wherever practicable, and thanks be given to God
onl tile next day of public thanksgiving, for the auspicious inauguration of this movement.
The hour being late, the Convention adjourned sine die, with
singing the Doxology in Old Hundred.
J. BLANCHARD, President.
N. D. FAXNING, Secretary.
APPENDIX A.
SPEECH OF REV. I. A. HART.
MR. PRESIDRNT AND BRETHREN:
When, to avoid confession of crime a man commits suicide, that suicide is the strongest kind of a confession.  So, when men murder a man
for disclosing their secrets, by that act they confess and declare that he
has actually and trlly disclosed their secrets, more strongly than they
could do it by words or affidavits.  Masons have said to me, when I have
confessed to the truth of Morgan's and Bernard's revelations, " You are
a perjured man." The haste and holy horror with which the last speaker
fled fromn this house upon the call for a speech from a seceding Mason,
was plainly meant to convey the same impression. Well, if I am a perjured man, it is because I have violated my oath by disclosing Masonic
secrets. I have disclosed no such secrets unless Bernard's book is true.
The Mason who says I am pejured says, thereby, that the book is true.
For on no other supposition can my attestation of it amount to perjury.
And if I am perjured, he is perjured, and by the same act-the attestation of Morgan's book. And his attestation is even stronger and less
to be suspected than mine; because it is an unintentional and unwilling
attestation. Yes, I love to have Masons talk about seceding Masons
being perjured. They never say it to me but once, and only sucheb as
Masons would pronounce indiscreet ones do that.  A smart  and wily
Mason never says that. He says, " According to your owvn account of
the matter you are perjured, and therefore are not fit to be believed."
That's shrewd.  During the war detectives went and joined the IK. G.
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Cs. for the express purpose of disclosing their secrets and thus defeating
and breaking them up. What patriot says they are perjured? And if
paramount duty to country justified these detectives in treating the oaths
they took in these dark conclaves as a nullity, a promise honored only in
the breach of it, how much more would they be justified in violating
those oaths, if they had gone into them in good faith, lured and wheedled
in by goodly professions of loyalty and solemn assurances that the order
was pure in its principles and objects, in perfect harmony with their duty
to God and their country?
Not fit to be believed?   Who were the old seceding Masons?   They
were counted by thousands.   They were men  than whom  among  the
Masonic fraternity certainly there were none in better repute up to the
day of their seceding.  Their entire testimony is a harmonious  unity.
They agree perfectly. There was not, and is not to-day, a man in all
the land, whom his neighbors would believe under oath, that dares to
utter a straight forward contradiction to their testimony.   Not fit to be
believed? And yet the valorous legions of Masonry, were, to a man,
silenced in their presence and fled in dismay before their testimony; forsook their lodges and did not return to them for about the space of
twenty years, and very few of the old Masons even thlen. If f,lse witness against Masonry had such power, what would the truth have done?
But now, after forty years, we find these routed legions are again in
the field.  What seemed a dead carcass is again raised to life.  It even
boasts more largely than ever, and its vain boasting is deluding a generation which knew not Morgan. The greater part of the original seceders sleep with the fathers; and although no well informed and truthful
man dares squarely contradict their testimony or impeach their characters,
yet great efbforts are made, by indirection and inuendoes, by cunningly
framed questions, by special pleading and  quibbling, and double entendres, to make  the impression that their  testimony was false, and still
more to bury them out of mind or push them into insignificance or forgetfulness, by the imposing grandeur of the  living orders.   It seems,
therefore, both appropriate  and necessary to recall that testimony, and
that the few who survive should repeat it to an age who have come upon
the stage of life since these things were transacted.   I may  be told that
it will be useless: that Freemasonry has now reached such a magnitude,
and has so entrenched itself that it can hurl defiance at all its enemies
and treat the assaults of such miserable dclotards as old seceding Masons
with utter contempt and scorn. As to the scorn of Masons or of men, it
is a small matter, since even Paul was accounted a fool for the truth's
sake, and all true reformners have shared this odium.  Anrd if it were not
so, "He that is down needs fear no fall."  Just reproaches  I have  no
right to complain of, and unjust ones give me no concern, especially if
thereby truth may be elicited and good may come to my b.ethren of man kind.   As to the effect of our testimony upon the colossal power of Ma sonry and other secret orders, that will be not as men pronounce, but as
God wills, feeble or mighty.   We may seem, in this effort, like one who
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attempts to match the north wind with his breath; and yetwe may gain
this satisfaction, if no more, the consciousness of having done our duty.
I therefore, as one standing on the shore of the silent river, take this
occasion to renew a seceding Mason's testimony once more, before I make
the returnless passage, anxious mainly to do my  duty, and leave the
results with Him who disposes of our lives and of all things, making
great events to spring often from slight causes, and bringing to nought
the counsels of the proud.   I am not certain that the time has fully come
to speak or act with immediate or decisive success against the secret orders
of the day.  But I do feel as sure as I do of Christ's final triumph, that
it will come. It will come. And then, and not till then, let my epitaph
be written.
I ask now your indulgence while I state some of the reasons why I
renounced Freemasonry, and feel it my duty to testify against it and all
analagous institutions.  In doing this, let me premise that I do not pre tepid to be revealing Masonic secrets.  That work was done up forty
years ago; and yet men reproach and sneer at me as a revealer of secrets,
when I only take a universally conceded liberty, that of freely discus sing matters that have become the property of the public by being print ed, stereotyped and sent over the land for forty years.  Secrets, for sooth!! The truth is, Free Masonry has no secrets, and never had any
worth knowing.  But if their pomps and boasts awakens any one's cu riosity, and you cannot resist the suggestion that where there is so much
smoke there must be some fire, and you must trace the thing to its source
and know what it is that makes all this parade and ado, I testify to you
that at a very trifling expense you can learn more in a few hours from
books of the secrets and wonders of Freemasonry, and 0. F. too, than
you can by attending their lodges for years, and retain your purse, your
life, and your conscience in your own keeping, instead of  committing
them to a mysterious and irresponsible tyranny. I say you can learn
more from books in a short time than by attending the lodges for years.
For if there be anything that gives plausibility to their pretense of high
antiquity, it is the fact that in this age of advanced civilization and improved methods of instruction they still cling to the laborious and uncertain methods ot the most primitive and barbarous times, of relying wholly
upon oral tradition and the individual memory for almost everything in
their history, in their creed and liturgy and work, that is peculiar to them
as Masons.   To that extent they are behind the age, and copy the USAGES
of the savage period, if they have not descended from them. I say, then,
to all who are curious regarding these  mysteries, "Read and you'll
know." If a Mason with a dignified sneer asks you if you really suppose you can get any knowledge of what has never  been revealed, and
never can be revealed, from such debauched and miserable swindlers as
aIr. Morgan, or David Bernard, or Jabez Richardson, be you sure that
this swagger is all the more a real and certain lie, for being only an implied and acted one.  From these books you can know Freemasonry as
certainly as you can know the American Revolution from Marshall's and
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Remsey's histories, or the laws of the United States from the published
journals of Congress, or the ('bristian religion from the Old and New
Testament.   I feel, therefore, at perfect liberty to speak of any or all
their " secrets," as they call them, because they are no secrets.  If they
were, I wouild be justified " in foro conscientea " as I believe I would
be in Heaven in disclosing them. Tho' even as it is, I am far from feeling safe from those arrows which are shot secretly at the upright. by unhappy men in whom Seeretism has engendered a fanaticism which makes
them verily think they do no more than right and justice when they kill
the traitors of Masonry.   Or. failing through fear or poli(cy to as.'assinate. sloot poisoned words and wreak Masonic vengeance on their victim
in the words of their own oral lecture: "By  pointing him out to the
world as an unworthy and vicious vagabond, by opposing his interests,
by disarranging his business, by transferring his character after him
wherever he may go, by exposing him to the contempt of the whole fraternity and of the world, but of our illustrious order more especially, during his whole natural life."- (L. on M., p. 394.) This is their boasted
charity.
But I shall not be hit or hurt by their arrows, unless it be
given to the archers from above to hit me; and if God shall so
will, I say with John Brown, 1 may be worth as much to hang
as for anything  else.  I propose, therefore, to use  my right of free
speech as I find occasion, and to treat all pretended obligation to the contrary as Paul did idols-as nothings in the world-as I would a promise
or an oath extorted by fraud or fear not to inform against marauding
bandits nor to warn  my friends of their approach or of their designs.
The obligation to give warning of approaching and insiduous danger is
divinely imposed and pre-existing, and therefore paramount to all oaths
or promises which man can impose. The attempt to do it is as impious
as it is futile; and because Freemasonry attempts to do this and to seal
up free speech, and commands silence on pain of death, therefore I denounce it, and will denounce it if I die for it.
But in general terms I will say, 1 renounced it because I found it to
be in no respect what it professes to be, but to be built up upon a foundation of false pretenses.   Upon close inspection I became satisfied that
however sincere and well-disposed a large part of its members might be,
the institution itself, from turret to foundation stone, is a thoroughly
false institution.  It is a stupendous lie, and the truth is not in it.  Their
very name is a misnomer. They are not Masons-they are not free.
Look at the initiatory ceremonies and general work of the lodge room.
These all seemed to me like the creations of evil fairies.  First, the candidate is divested of all his clothing, except that he is allowed to have on
one slipper, one leg of a pair of drawers, one arm of a shirt, a hangman's rope about his neck, and a bandage over his eyes that effectually
prevents his enjoying, or at least seeing the splendor of his costume.
Thus neither barefoot nor shod, neither naked nor clothed, in fit array for
the gallows, without a penny or a pin, the Masons play that he is a poor
blind candidate, journeying from the west to the east in search of light.
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As in this ludicrous and indecent plight he gropes his way to the door
by the aid of a conductor, and after a short parley, he is bidden
to " enter in the name of the Lord."   And then while he marches slowly
around the room, come funeral scripture readings and solemn prayers, as
if he were in the p)erils of death; and then amidst the darkness, and the
excitement, and the gloom of these ominous allusions to uncertain ter rors, enough to unnerve common men, the awful oath is thrust upon him.
Then and there he must take it, no matter what it imports or whether he
has enough of self-possession left to be morally accountable or not.  Then
they play that they open the blind eyes, and imitate the Omnipotent in
creating light.  And  then follow the opening of the wondrous myste ries; and what are they?  Why, the poor blind candidate sees an open
Bible, which perhaps Ie never saw befbre.  He sees, too, a square and
compass, and is tol( that IMaisons use these carpenter's tools as a rule of
moral rectitude-about as sensible as making a God of wood or stone;
and then he is taught (marvelous attainment!) where to place his thumb
in shaking hands, so as to say thereby " I am a Mason; moreover a
password is given him, and he is grieeted a brother Boaz. And then fol low some pleasant instructions and practical jokes that would be really
amusing if the whole scene did not savor as much of the profanation of
things sacred as of puerile amusement.   Is there anything of reality or
truth in all this?  Is the candidate poor? is he blind? is he journeying'? Is it praying, to ask God-no, the Grand Architect or Grand MIas ter of the Celestial Lodge-to preserve him from dangers which are only
the creations of their fancies?  Their fancies are exceedingly fruitful in
creations. They play that they are in Jerusalem, working upon Solo mon's temple. Some ale workmen, some overseers; one is Solomon,
one Hiram Abiff.  Oh! they are kings and princes, and priests and
high priests, and grand commanders and grand sovereign pontiffs. They
are worshipful and most worshipful, most excellent and most puissant,
and all sorts of nice things.  And as they assume the titles of nobility
and hierarchy, so they affect their pominps and their glittering array.  Is
there any truth or reality in all this?  Or is it all a glittering show of
empty, deceitful vanity? At the best empty creations of fancy, better suited to amuse children than waste the time and dilute the thoughts
of men.   To me all seemed heartless and unreal. except, perhaps, the
call from labor to refreshments, especially when bar-roomus and saloons
were at band.  The refreshments were real, but the effect of them often
was to people the brain with fancies still more weird and unreal.  And
there was one thing more-the payment of dues was real.  That  "'nobody can deny."  But the devotion I found there seemed to me to have
no sort of relation to true Christian devotion. If anybody can find
Christian worship there, they can find what I cannot. And so I came
to the conclusion that as childhood was past with me, I had better put
away childish things.  It would be more  profitable for me  to work
than to play that I work; more edifying to pray than to play we say
prayers.  If all their plays were such as might benefit the innocence of
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childhood, I would smile on it and let it pass. But the genius of this
institution ever and anon mingles with its pleasantries the irreverent and
the malign. They often play murder, and the arrest and punishment of
the perpetrators, or the assassination of some betrayer of their secrets,
thus familiarizing their members with the idea that the power of life and
death belongs to the lodge, and preparing them to sacrifice on this altar
of Moloch such victims as Wm. Morgan and many others who have from
time to time been disposed of in the same way.   Their regal and hierarchal titles, their kingly and aristocratic robes, their papal and pagan pomps,
might be passed over as peurilities, did they not tend powerfully to engender the spirit that sustains the civil and ecclesiastical despotisms of the
Old World, and thus work insidiously and dangerously against the simplicity and purity of religious worship for which our fathers fled to the
western wilderness, and as insiduousl]y and dangerously against the republican liberty and equality for which they shed their blood. But here
I dismiss these shadows, and come to something more tangible. A more
positive and decisive objection to the Order I found in
II. Their Oaths. First, I believe the oath of God to be a sacred instrument for the investigation of matters that concern men's highest and
dearest rights; an instrument appropriated to the State and the Church.
When employed by the proper functionaries, and for the proper objects,
" the oath is holy and an end of strife." But for private persons or
ordinary voluntary associations to employ it for personal and private ends,
is to usurp and profane it. It is to violate the Savior's command,
"Swear not at all." These private or extra-judicial oaths are condemned
by the soundest jurists.  Sonme  of the States have  positive enactments
against them. The Odd Fellows claim that even they are innocent of
this wrong, though I think they have used only a formal evasion while
they retain the substance of an oath-an indirect appeal to God and the
terrors of death.   The secret temperance orders all disclaim the use of
oaths, and thus admit that this objection to Freemasonry is well taken.
But if extra-judicial oaths were allowable, that would be very far from
excusing Masonic oaths. Their peculiarities would fix the seal of their
condemnation.
(a) Thou shalt not forswear thyself, is God's command. The Masonic oath is nothing but a foreswearing of one's self in every instance.
As I understand this matter, a man who takes an oath forswears himself,
unless he knows, beforehand or at the time, what he swears to do, and
knows both the practicability and lawfulness of the doing, and at the
proper time does it,  "Thou  shalt not forswear thyself,')ut shalt perform unto the Lord  thine oaths."   But that these conditions should  be
fulfilled in the Masonic oath is an utter impossibility, and therefore no
man can take it and not forswear himself; e. g., in the first oath he
swears to " keep the" secrets of Freemasonry which I have received, am
about to receive, or may hereafter be instructed in. How could he know
whether this oath bound him to conceal lawful secrets, or innocent pleasantries, or mysteries of iniquity?  He  could not know, and therefore
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14
could not take the oath without forswearing himself in palpable violation
of God's command.
(b) Swear not at all, is Christ's command in reference to all such
swearing: "Neither by Heaven, for it is God's throne; neither by the
earth, for it is his footstool; neither shalt thou swear by thy head, for
thou canst not make one bair black or white."  When a man swears under penalty of death, does he not swear by his head?   Is it not to violate the command,  "Neither  shalt thou swear  by thy head "?   From
first to last there is scarcely a Masonic oath in which this is not done.
The deponent swears that his life may be taken in every savage and conceivably horrid form, if he proves false. Now then, I affirm that, unless a man has a right to commit suicide  he has no right to take such an
oath. And unless those who administer the oath have a right to murder the
false deponent in form stipulated, they have no right to administer such an
oath.  It partakes of the guilt of murder either to take or to administer
such an oath.   Men shudder when they read of the laws of Draco being
written in blood; but a pictorial work on Masonry would present as an appropriate vignette to every oath, throats cut and streaming with gore, bodies
severed in twain and the bowels burning to ashes between the parts, limbs
torn from the body, tongues torn out by the roots, eyes dug from their
sockets, skulls knocked off and the brains exposed and broiling in the
sun. Whether these would be appropriate emblems of an institution that
claims especial eminence in all the element. of love and gentleness, I do
not decide; but such were the gentle persuasives which Freemasons employed to ensure the silence of every one she trusted with her secrets.
Their oaths were disgusting, shocking, murderous-that was another reason why I denounced the institution. It did not satisfy me to be told
laughingly, as tyros in Masonry will tell you now, that nothing was meant
by the e )bloody imprecations —a mere flourish of rhetorical tragedy, a
pretty hard joke, "only this and nothing more."   If that were true, it
would be an impious profanity. This scattering of fire-brands, arrows
and death, and saying, " Am I not in sport?" was not to my taste. But
the history of the Morgan affair settled the Masonic interpretation of their
oaths, and demonstrated that they were no mere brutumfulmen, but that
Masonry meant to rule its members, if inclined to revolt, by the terrors
of horrid assassination-and that in these terrors was the secret of their
secrets being kept so closely and so long.  There at length the world has
the solution of that mystery. Fear has done it. This most ancient,
most honorable, most pure, most mild and most charitable institution carried a concealed dagger, which ever and anon flashed terror into the souls
of the wavering, while it carried death to those who dared to speak the
truth concerning it, and returned to its covert with such electric quickness that the world never saw it.  Murder its members for speaking the
truth! Morgan might have told as many lies as he pleased about Masonry, but no sooner does he tell the truth than he must die.   Could an
institution that frames such deedsj by law and oaths have an author or a
patron saint less wicked than the Prince of Hell?
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15
(c) There are other things in those oaths that to me seemed the footprints of the same infernal patron-e. q., swearing not to defraud or
wrong a Mason to the value of one cent, or of anything, " knowing him
to be such," nor to insult his female relatives, knowing them to be such.
Those clauses always shocked me. I seemed to see old Cloven-foot himself peeping through some crack, and chuckling and ready to split his
sides in repressing his laughter, to see how piously he had got these men
to license general fraud and licentiousness, under pretense of being extra honest with Masons. As if when the Almighty thundered forth his
law, "Thou shalt not steal," he had managed to have this poor hoodwinked and frightened creature to answer him to his face, "Lord, I
won't steal from a Mason if I know him; otherwise I shall do as I please
about it." When God says, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," the
answer is, "Lord, I won't, if all the women will be wives, or daughters,
or sisters, or mothers of Masons, and inform me of the fact: otherwise I
shall do as I please about it." I remember how this was glossed over at
the time, and I have heard the same glossing lately, viz: that a promise
or oath to do part of our duty is not a refusal to do  the whole.   This
does not, to my mind, relieve such oaths of a manifestly corrupt implication. It is coolly informing the Author of a universal and unconditional
law that determines our d~ty definitely towards all mankind, that we will,
upon certain conditions and contingencies, observe that law towards a very
small portion of them-a  making void the  law of God in a way  that
seems to partake of the insolence of blasphemy.
(d) And again, these oaths often bind the subject, i. e., if they have
any validity or binding force at all-if they were not made void and null
by very wickedness-they would bind the subject to do that which is
positively andpalpably wicked-e. 9g., "to keep the secrets of a brother
or companion Mason as sacredly in my breast as they would be in his
own, murder and treason excepted," in the third degree-" murder and
treason " not excepted in the seventh.   God forbids us to help the wicked
.y biding their crimes, and thus  screening them from justice.  But Masonry s,. ears us to do it.  The government, in the legitimate use of its
God-given prerogatives, swears us to testify the whole  truth within our
knowledge touching certain crimes. But Masonry forswears us not to
testify, if the culprit be a Mason.   Which oath shall be violated?-the
oath of one's country and of God, or the oath of the lodge? The oath
of the government certainly is binding. If the Masonic oath is binding,
too, then is the Mason's soul briought into a snare wherein he must be inevitably perjured, obey which hle mnay.  Into such a dilemma of bondage
does the Masonic oath bring its hapless subject.  To keep that oath is to
make himself particeps criminis in murder or treason, or any other
crime, and to stain his soul with the guilt of perjury.   And yet the true
Mason will be almost sure to prefer the double guilt of screening a criminal from justice and perjuring his soul, rather than deny the validity of
the sinful obligation  by which Satan  has brought  him  into  bondage.
This is not the only case in which the Mason's oath conflicts squarely
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16
with right and duty, and binds him, if that were possible, to commit positive sin.  He is sworn in some degrees to warn a brother of approaching
danger (e.g., a criminal of the approach of the sheriff, rebels in arms of
the approach of the loyal forces): "To aid a brother when engaged in
any difflculty," " to espouse his cause so as to extricate him, if in my
power, whether he be right or wrong." If that is not the Devil's bond,
I would be willing to give him a carte blanche and let him do his worst.
"Oh,"  but  says the Mason, "these  obligations refer only to worthy
brethren, and don't bind us to screen bad men or to help them in any
evil." That seems to me a very weak sophism. What has a truly just
man to do with having secrets kept for him respecting murder or treason
or any other crime? What need has a good man to have you espouse
his cause so as to extricate him, whether he be right or wrong? The
just have no need of these benefits; they are meant, therefore, for the
unjust, and can be meant for no other. The truth is, that in Masonic
phrase the worthy Mason is one who keeps his oaths and pays his dues,
then whatever difficulty he gets into, by whatever crime, his brethren
of the mystic tie are bound to stand by him and help him out if in their
power. And if this is not to be in league with the Devil, what is it?
And so some of them in the higher degrees are sworn to commit murder,
by sacrificing the traitors of Masonry, and int,he lower degrees they are
taught the same by implication and indirection. But this is so cautiously
and  artfully put forth that the honest and well  disposed in  the lodges
don't exactly so understand it, and the leaders don't want they 3bould,
for fear of revolt among the conscientious portion; therefore we are often
told that the men who murdered Morgan were bad Masons, and we must
not judge the institution by them-bad or stupid men, who took a joke
in earnest and carried it quite too far.  And  then we are told "the best
societies sometimes have bad members-there are bad men in the church,
and that's true-good and bad everywhere, and that's true-and it is a
blessed thing to be charitable."   But charity is not a fool.   In the church
of Christ thile institution is I)etter than the members, but in the lodge the
members are better than the institution. And I never could doubt, and
can't to-day, that the men who murdered Morgan were more consistent
as Masons than those who condemn them.   That act of abduction and
murder was the-eonsistent carrying out of Masonic principles and obligations to their legitimate results.  It wasn't so much the poor man who
lately deposed on his dying bed in the city of Racine, that with his own
hand he pushed Morgan into the Niagara river, as it was the order and
institution of Masonry itself.  He  and his assistants were the faithful
servants and true exponents of the mystic order, only they failed in the
vital matter of perpetual secrecy.   Most grievous  unmasonic conduct
that.  Hence they are branded as bad Masons-" a mob of excited lliasorns," so their Masonic historian styles them, showing that, Spartan-like,
the Masons do not punish for crime, but only for getting found out.   Violating secrecy, or failing in it, seems to be the unpardonable sin with
Masonry.
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IV. Of the many false pretenlcses which I found in Masonry, I have
time barely to iMention a few, and not to  prove and illustrate them as I
could wish.   1st. They claim the most hoary  antiquity, going back to
the ages of myth and fable, where thle memory of man runneth not to the
contrary.   The mayor of Chicago had the hardihood to put forth this
idea at the  laying of the corner-stone of their water works lately,  and
their spread eagle orators indclulge so much in this  littering twaddle that
charity would fain hope they believe it; vwhile yet the finger index of
history points infallibly to 1717 as tlheo period of the origin of specuilatitre
Miasonry.   It is not as old by a century as the Plymouthl Colony, andc
the Book of Mormons proves Mormon (,)itiquity as clearly as the Miasons
can prove theirs.  2d. They made great pretenses of bein,[ possessed of
valuable mysteries of knowledge, of science anild arts.   -!ut  in this respect I found their archives and arcana to be as barren as Sahara.   As
to aniy valuable information, any oi/iyi)za1 idea, historical, sc,entific, moral
or religious, they have absolutely none.   All its stores would not be a
perceptible increase to the stock of k;n:owledge in an infant class in a common school.   These things may perhaps Lbe loolkel upon as small or indifferent matters, but I have aliwayis su,pp,)sep  Ily fa1,se pretense clearly
made out, is the braind of the impostor or the swindler.  3d. Then there
is the claim par excellence of relief and ellariiy.  I-Ire they boast themselves superior to everything that is called  reat        oo good, I had almost
said in earth or hleaven,  and yet I fonuln  th.e n  bsoluely perverting and
destroying the vital idea of -'iactieal benevolen ce.s  taught by Christ.
Their teachi.ngs and p.actice tenl buh  to blot out the light of thleit he,.venborn idea from the world and restore t' midaihit of suprele selfishness.
For Paul teaches that a man ma.y (,ive his goo'ts to icfcd tlhe poor to any
extent, and have not charity; a:d( Clhriit tel s,is ti:.t puLli ens and siinners do good to tanl ( endl to each( 1 ohier tTo       -I            I, u h   anlad are
entitled to no praise.  A\nd tis i;, a', t',,    0!as'n,; do oI  teach, as Masons,
and they don't do any such vast  iaouant otit a, t  iipoverish tlenmselves very materially.   All tl,hey bestow in teii  wy of relief is what the
receiver has bought at a fair bargtain wt'i} l his moine, and even of suchl
relief neither Masons nor Odd Fellows use n  rete  per centage of their
vast Incomes (and their publishled reports will piove it) —-they do not expend a greater percentage of their incomes in such mocki benevolence
than fishermen do for bait; anld I am not uncharitable in saying bjoth are
done for the same purpose-so ca(c, f/lttdgeo;t,.   These orders do  not
exist for the sake of relief, but relief is bestowed for the sake of the orders.  Talk  About the benevolence of the  order towards  the needy
Talk of this as the obic! of the order, when o10 conceivable scheme which
human foresi,ght can devise is omitted to keep as many who are likely ever
to want relief from the order as possIble.  All thle  ofeebler sex, all the minors, all the infirm and crippled, all the enslaved, all the aged, all who
are poor, and not likely to be oltherwise-none are received who  seem
likely to come to want.   And all who come in pay a stipulated premium
for a right to a dividend if want should overtake tlhem, and it may be one
2
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in fifty or a hundred claims his purchased dividend. And this with a great
flourish of trumpets is called benevolence.   I do not wish to undervalue
any sums which these orders may pay to the needy; but I say that to
call this benevolence, is false teaching. They are not benevolent institu tions. In no human institution is selfishness more fully incarnated and
intensified than in these very institutions.  If I was ever certain of anything, 1 became certain that the true idea of benevolence never had a
place in Freemasonry, or has utterly perished from it if it had. Benevolence is not its object. What is it? I will tell you in one word —Favoritism.   This is not one of their secrets, it is rather one of their most
effective'boasts. And this I own is not wholly a vain boast. It is as
truthful as Satan's offer of the whole world to Chtlst, and is substantially
the same proposal. Nor should they regard it as an accusation from me,
since themselves glory in the substance if not in the name-albeit, in so
doing they glory in their shame.   "Cast in your lot with us," say they,
"we will all have one purse, will help you to social position, to business,
to office. We'll relieve your necessities, will aid you in your law suits.
We'll beat back your enemies and extricate you from trouble.   You must
join us if you expect to do anything; you can't do anything if you don't."
I don't say that these pretensions are altogether false.  But I do say that
if they are true, they ought to sink the institution into deeper damnation
than if they were false. If a man cannot achieve the success in life he
deserves, by honesty, and skill and industry, without selling himself to
these secret orders, and himself paying the purchase money, it is because
they conspire to prevent him, by neglect, or even by actively diverting
the good which he merits fiom him, and conferring it upon others because
they belong to their caste and clan.  If the one in whose favor this diversion is made is equally worthy as a man, he can get on without this favoritism. If he is not as worthy, it implies injustice of very especial meanness.
In either case I charge that if Masonry makes its promise of favoritism
good, it is guilty of an unjust and contemptible interference with the
business of its neighbors. And he's a mighty mean man who will either
justify such favoritism, or seek or accept its benefits.  It is not only a
mean interference with other folks' business, but it is a wicked interference with God's plan and law for the government of human society.   "If
thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?"  God's impartial law of
human rights enacts that, in the race and competition of life, every one
shall have a fair and equal chance; and men have re-enacted it in the
proverb, "Fair play is the jewel." A just weight and a just measure, and
the same to every one. According to his worth, shall be thy love; accordiuJg to what thou receivest shall be thy payment; according to his
merit, thy meed of honor; according to his necessities (not his pass-word),
thy charity. Mian's chief end, as God appointed it, is to glorify God and
do good  to his fellow men impartially.  Masonry's chief end is slyly to
gain control of the governments and religions of the whole world, and
parcel out the chief benefits of both among the fraternity; always remembering that outsiders have no rights which they are bound to respect,
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only in so far as they may have men's persons in admiration because of
advantage. In civil matters this is the way they operate. With the slyness of a cat au d the cunning of a fox they monopolize the chief offices.
Having gained office by favoritism, they use it for the exercise of favoritism. The magistrate will refuse a warrant against a brother Mason; or
if the case be so clear that he dare not do that, he will get before the
sheriff and inform him of "the app?roaching danger."   The sheriff observing the hailing sign of distress will fail to see the man that made it;
or witnesses will be absent from the stand, or refuse to testify to the tchole
truth; or the judge will rule out the evidence that would convict; or the
juror will "espouse his cause so as to extricate him from his difficulty;"
or the jailor will forget to take out his key when  he locks up; or the executive will pardon-and thus truth will be strangled. Your Jeff. Davises will go free, your Johnsons cannot be impeached, truth will be
strangled in our streets, and equity cannot enter, and judgment will be
turned into hemlock, and society, law and government will exist, not
equally for all, but mainly for a caste. I do not slander Masons when I
say of the leaders they are as much bent on ruling as ever the slaveholders were. If they were as open and bold about it, I should fear them less
and respect them more than I do. But before a secret conspiracy, whose
rights are safe, andi what is our defence? It is a leopard watching the
gates-it is a snake in the grass.   I know  they claim to  have  nothing to do with politics. That is only one of their false pretenses.
They swear their higher Masons to promote brother Masons' " political
preferment in preference to another of equal qualifications."   And this
oath they intend shall be, and it is, a far-reaching instrument of political
power.   By it the high Masons calculate to control, nolens volens, the
political influence of the whole fraternity, and thus the nation, and make
their grand commanders most puissant in fact as well as in title.   And
yet I believe I should let all this pass in silence, if it were not for one
thing more, which I consider worse than all the things I have alleged
against Masonry put together.
V. And that is its position on Religion. I am aware that Masonic authorities are not clear as to what that position is.  One will tell you that
it is not a religious institution at all, but if a man lives up to it he'll be
about as good  as the best.  Another, that it is a good enough religion
for him. Another, that a man cannot be a true Mason and not a true
Christian; and another will not scruple to declare that it is ahead of the
churches, and if he can belong to but one, it shall be the lodge. I leave
it to others to thread the mazes of ambiguity and contradiction which
abound in Masonic authorities, oral and written, on this point-only remarking, that this very incertitude and diversity argues anything but a
frank, honest and desirable position. My object is simply to testify to
what I know and believe. I believe that the great mass of Masons, by
which I mean those who really in their hearts approve of Masonry, do
make a religion of it. Neither have I any doubt that it is, in theory and
in practice, and in God's estimate, a religion.   But as such, it is a false
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religion, and whoever  reclies upon  it misi,es the only salvation and loses
his soul.
This objection to Masonry will be derided as foolishness by those who
look upon all religions alike, because they have true faith in none.   To
them there may be Lords many and Gods many, and the s.keptic's Great
First Cause, the Jupiter or Baal of the ancient, and the Vishnu of mod ern Pagans, or the Indian's Great Spirit, are as good as the God of the
Christian.   But to us there is but one God, the Father of all, and one
Miediator, Jesus Christ, neither is there salvation in any other.  This is
the one grand, absorbing issue between the true religion and all the other
religions of the world.  Jehovah takes IHis stand on  this platformr —" I
am God, and there is none else." All others are a "vanity and a lie. I
know them not, nor their worshipers."   W.hat agreement hath tile Tem ple of God with idols?  What concord hath "Christ with Belial"? or
what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?  Therefore  "come out
from among them, my people, and be separate; touch not the unclean
thing, and I will receive vou " saith the Lord.   In the estimation of this
world's wisdom, this is a narrow platform, a bigoted and insufferable in tolerance.   Nevertheless, the true God  and the true religion is, and has
been, and eternally will be, just so narrowly and inflexibly intolerant.
(Godl and His church occupies this position, and he says to His servants,
"Let them  return to you, but return not thou to them."  All other
religions, all worldly systems betray a conscious inferiority and falseness
by what they fondly deem a nobler and more geherous liberality.  Oh,
yes! Jehovah, you arc a Godcl; your religion is a good one. And I,
Zeus, am a God, and my religion is good also; and so is Jupiter's, and
so is Baal's, and Molochl's, and Vishnu's, and the Great Spirit's, and other
Gods as numerous as the stilrs.  Just own to this, and your statute shall
have the first place in our Pantheon. Jehovah scorns the proposal as an
insult, and they rave and kindle the fires of persecution. And right on
this issue the battle is set in array, and on this line it will be fought out
if it takes the whole period of the world's continuance. The question is
not whether our religion is trute; that is conceded on all hands; but
whether it is the only one that is true. According to Josephus, the worshipers of Baal, at Peor, said to the Israelites whom they enticed to their
feasts, " Seeing you have come to our country you ought to worship the
proper Gods of the country, especially as your God is so exclusive and
peculiar that he belongs to but one little nation, and our God is common
to every nation." And the rebels who joined themselves to Baal Peor
said to Mloses, "We will no longer submit ourselves to the teachings and
laws of one man, who pretends to be God's mnouth, but will be jf-eo to
ga,ether our knowledge, i. e., our religious knowledge, from all people, and
to do that which is agreeable to our own minds. You may enjoy your
narrow and tyrranieal religion if you will, but you shall not impose it
upon us.  That was large-mindedness and liberality, as they deemed it.
And that is the precise religious attitude of Freemasonry.   Its God is
fetmmon to al people.  It is a spiritual harlot, treating the Gods of all peo
I 
11e alike, and yielditng to each whatever favors they demland, exceptiug onlly
the intolerant Nazarene; of him it sometimes says, " Crush the wretech."
And like all harlots, her ways are inoveable,  too, so that  "thou  eanst
not know them,"-for among( Christians she would carry the idea that the
God she worships is their God, and the Bible she talkes as her guide  is
the book of the Clii'istian law.   But in Aral)bia, it is thle Ioran; in India,
the Shliasters; in China, the works of Confue.us; in Salt Lake, the Book
of Mormon.   All these arc the sacred writings to mi[asons.   Baal of old
meant God in general, without specifying any one in particular.   God, iii
Masonie language,  means precisely the satmei, and-  the same  leaven of
idolatry which silently and secretly  crept into thi- camp  of Israel and
taughlt the Israelites to svwear by BIaal, is to-day creeping, into the Christian churchl and teaching( Christia.ns to sweari'  )y tle same  deity.   It is
idolatry under a neo  name and with new rites.   For God, in  the Masonic lano'ua, e, is the e.ect translation and synlonym of Baal in the lan jliage" ot 3Iidian az,id all the Oriental naition.    Wrhn, therefore, the
Christian and the.Jew, the MIahlomiedan'rnd tlie Tartar, the MIormon
and the Sav  ge, toi Infidel aild the )ervisl ii    t t)gce ter on tlhe square,
profess tteir  cotmnon trust in Gocd, inld hov      eter ii,   worship  of God,
ithcat Gotl do they woiship?:  Who can tell liwhether it is the God of the
Christ':n or tl(e Paain? of the Fire worshipe(r or the ])evil worshiper?
c1-to crn to i' l  Of onle thin(r all 1nc111 may be suie.   Our God accepts
no suchLel dboub  honae.  Ile is not worslhip d ill ucL  comnpany.   It is
to.him  stiang,c fire, ain utter abominatiQn.   Andl ias we kanow  our God
will a     cknoledge no suchi coalition, we  ai.t3r say witlh Paul, " We,know
that tlie thians whichl tlie G-entiles saeriliec they sacrifiee to d(evi.'."  As
the truc God  will rot 1r-cive it, of course thle Devil takecs it.  To  the
&,e'  t 11and infildel, to atiy one vwo0 does liot worship Christ as the ozly hope
of sinners  s the true (-od and eterlnal life, it will be no oUjection to MIasonry that iii all its claims of teaching  the way  to  heaven, in all its
prayers, in all its liturgies and funeral serv-ices, in all its expressed hopes
of a resurrection and of heaven, it has no definite or certain recognition of
Jesus  (C/tr-ist in his true character.  Jesu-   vwho bought  us with  I,is
)Ilood, Jesus the 1Cesurrection  and the life, Jesot whom  all heaven worships, Jesus to vwhiom God hath given a name that is above every name,
Jesus whom all the saints love beyond all that words can express;  that
thal,Lt dcar name lshouldl have no place in Masoiie voceabularies or lIasonic
theiology, will be no serious objection againist Ficemasonry to those  who
honor and losve him not.   But to every true 0i'iend of Jcsus this slight
p)ut ui,on Him should be a fatal and conclusive objection to  the  vhole
semhIeo.  WVill tne Mason  deny  this,,nd  say  that they do  recogynize
Christ because in one of their written prayers,  at least, tlhey a.sl God to
lpardon their sins "for his Son's sake "'?  But who is God?   Until that
-; dcefinitey determined how shall it be known who hIis Sonz is'  Julpiter
was the son of Satturn, and Saturn was the son of Chronos, and IIercury
was the son of Jupiter.   And I know not but every one of the one thousand millions of Indlit's gods has his son.   Yes, and with some so-called
21
I 
22
liberal Christians, Theodore Parker was  as much God's son as Jesusyes, every mother's son of us is that. Who is God's Son, in Masonic
phrase? I tell you the ways of this harlot are moveable. Masonry is
Christless. It has a religious basis, and that basis is Deism. It has its
worship, but that is not Christian worship. It has its code of rules and
duties, but that code is not the gospel of Christ —it is the false code of
honor and of the mere moralist. All its religious tendencies are towards
that false liberality that confounds error with truth, that fellowships and
brothers everything but evangelical and living piety, and uniformly repels
that with scorn, and persecutes it with covert and bitter hate.  It is very
religious! 0, yes! But the misfortune is, that it is a religion of human
works, and not the living, conquering, saving faith of Christ. It is the
righteousness of the law by which Paul assures us, with God's authority,
that no fesh shall be justified in his sight. Oh! thou self-complacent
mortal, who glories in being a "worthy Mason,"  and " fondly hopest to
reap in Heaven the merited reward of thy virtuous life," I solemnly declare to you, in God's name, that this is all delusion. Your virtues are
spurious; your righteousness but "filthy rags."   You are in one of Satan's most fatal snares, and I warn and beseech you to escape for thy life
from all thy works, and all thy sins, and all thy confidence in this refuge
of lies, and come to Christ, that you perish not with all them that hasten
after strange Gods. But alas! alas! few that have tasted this circean
cup will heed the warning or accept the heavenly call. From the smallness of the number of those that are converted to Christ after espousing
Freemasonry, it would seem as if God had said, "They are joined to their
idols, let them alone." The Christian who adheres to these lodges usually loses his spirituality, if he ever had any, and is lost to the church on
earth, if not in heaven. And Christ may complain and say of him as he
did of old, "He did not know that I gave him corn, and wine, and oil,
and multiplied his silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal."
Yea, and he might add, offered it on an altar that literally smokes with
the blood of human sacrifices. Wherefore it is clear to my mind that all
Christians should keep from the worships of these lodges as from idolatry,
as from an unclean thing that cannot be touched without spiritual defilement to the temple of God, which temple ye are. Love all men, but
confine the law of religious fellowship and brotherly love to the household
of faith. I apply this especially to Freemasonry. Odd Fellowship I
esteem but little better; indeed no better, only not quite so mature in
badness. Good Templars and Sons of Temperance are the unintentional
tools of Freemasonry, its pioneers and armor bearers.  Or, to change the
figure, its primary and Sunday schools; or, to borrow a figure from their
own specialty, they sustain to Masonry a relation like that of beer to
brandy, and it is useless to condemn one while you use the other. [ho
only remedy is " total abstinence." Still some reflecting and kind-hearted Christian may ask, "How  can these things be?  If Masonry is so
false and corrupt, how is it that so many great and good men adhere to
it." That is the grand defence and the real mystery of this dark order.
I 
28
I have time to answer this in no other way than simply by a:king a  r
questions in reply: 1st. If Masonry is so good as it pretends to be, how
is it that so many bad men adhere to it, and are loudest in its praise?
2d. If Masonry is so good and useful, how is it that so many good men
not only withdraw silently, but positively and earnestly condemn and denounce it? 3d. If Satan is transformed as an angel of light, ought we
to marvel that many well-meaning people should mistake him for a real
angel of light?  Or, in the words  of Clirist, that he should  " deceive
many; yea, if it were possible, the very elect?"  If he could not skill to
do as much as this, what would be the use of his transforming himself as
an angel of light at all? And why should he not call into requisition
"all deceivableness of unrighteoutsness" in this as well as in any other
system of false religion, by which to deceive mankind and war against
Christ?  4th. If idolatry is as abominable  as God, by Moses and the
Prophets, declared it to be, how was it that so many great and good men
in Israel were drawn  into it, even Solomon himiself, even the great body
of that ancient church, and persisted in it to their ruin? Whoever can
answer that question, need not be stumbled at the numbers or the standing of those who have been enticed into joining themselves to this modern
Baal Peor.
APPENDIX B.
The following extracts fi'om letters to the Convention will serve
to show how it was hailed fiom all parts of the Northern States,
and disclose a unanimity of sentiment that intimates the working
of one all-pervading spirit, and that the time for a general movement has come, and God is in it:
Retv. W. W. Ames writes from Dunn Co., Wis.:
I am rejoiced that suchl  a call as brings you together has
sounded over the land.  *  *' To  my  nlind, it'is as the
rallying trumpet of Divine Providence, summoning the children
of light to an onset against the unfiruitful works of darkness,.'  *
*  *  Christianity has nothing to cover up.  It is the lig(rht of
the world in the persons of the disciples and churches of Jesus
Christ.  They are not the children of the night nor of darkness,
but the children of light, and are commanded to let the'ir light so
shine that others seceng their good works, may glorify their Father
I 
Icould niot roeftaiii-ficin thius ex,):S1l~m    o
sci~n- the call for your (i-n't on            Itws i1)OOby ay
that the miur4ler of W~7ii. M1ol]i,~ti)  f~os I~ e  l -."low to MIasol,].,y.
IVe,'], tl-e inistitution, d;,(Ily abj-out  s                  oth~e sp~ace
of' atbo,,t thiirty year, r,-h  it b~ega'i~  to Si'o' O'~il   of  eur~
lif,,ly iinstitu,.till", ill fthie fii-stplace,   osti e        inniocen,Yt
ojs   uhas SOi1is of' Tei-i,)eraiic,, Cadets of TI'iul)er~ance, &c.,
so as to, if p)ossible., cucii, thec, I)iiblie mii,.d tlie p.-cjtidiee existing
ag,-ainst secr-et socie~ties, anid teewere imadie stelppiug —stonies byr
whic  tlhe lo(I-c i'oomi (,f'?ao]  l~as becn  anid is being flled
iu ).             T]'le ball sh~ouild be, set iinimotion thjat shiall cxpcl
th-is vile ii~itrudCer from,,all evange,,clical clitrel-es, th~oughI- all Masoni  rycare-cs for the chutrchi is ihat s]ie sl-l',l g,ive it at good niame, its
chiief aiim being p~oliticali.  YeF,, evei-v minister- that eai  be ini(iuced to becorle a p~oor, bli,.nd  adI ~     e  free o,f cill,arg(e, is capital well investedi.  It 1)asts; for,,, ~5tItin, hisf(lc ell-    be(,oiie candlcicates ic)i- the   llctY.
ter,wichl Ave  r~egriet i,,,c.!C(o'le  to ab~~efor wan'Iit of'
~-acc.   l~e says
I aim muich tl4ca,ed w~ithi 3 ou,r (nlfor-'aii Aitli-Sccriet- Society
( ( n~ entio as wovll -is with,I, reg,ardl to, the s,il)0t els ),,op,,osed for coiii~"itertion.  I would glad]-, conviene o'vithl youi, huit th~e in,firmnities of
f'ol-r-io~s mie tha,,t plaue              The  radtest priniciple of
zIl.-Ile  of secr-et self-seeI~in,, societies or fraternities, is nione
'    dar'  l (.r72es~s itselfl.  Tllc Scr-iptuires,, tr-ea,tingcr of' sOcrlecy,
lo-%'r-t    the thei teri-i of d1tnss;  en,ce, any mieasur~e pr~o    iosc.no  miatter how  atr~ociousq, e. y., aniother'Mloigcan  iiurder-,
iL,aiy be a,,doitedI by it, if' it only be dark en,,ough- to st,andI~ tiie tcst
I 
seei'ret s(-,cie-ty, wvere It,-,re to.-dav lie would dlou,btless exclaim-, withi
thei Patri —rcli  J.-c,,b, I 0  m~y  soul, comie  not  thou, iiuto their  sec-.,,t, aidii(  1             I~-tl~'i    1oiei1'oo(I     win-iie  hionoi'  I)e  not  thiou
J.           Jl-.~,  i., of Stel,)i,31lsOll Co., Ill.,   rie
11Your Con.veiitioii  ha.,s imy3  enitir-e  sympilatliy, aIs  I renionuiced
-Alasonriy -it')ouit Iiai,c y\,ears ae,  ill ~   other secr-et or-(-ailizationis
as wvell.
N.                                             -).0iy:  ~yt'ihA~~n;iilitiated(,'1l)oiit 16 oi-1r
-iears
II~rof. JonAl.igl     of OeilCI-iii, ),\itC
The di,setiissioii 1e)etn   loiivstill g,oes'Oil ]leie.   PI-e-st.
I ~iiie )i-eacliedl ver-y al)!y  (-ii t.le'  sa iet    eadiri(- cop)ious. extr-iact.s t'-i om Lil~~                       - It  iiaT sonii',N,-  thei  substantial cor-"
i'eies o.!L hi\-iih, wvitli i'e-Lard to tieo f,~i-st three degi'ees, lie attest  el'2-o~i~  hts ouic~ I,)c(soItctl /iv~e(je     I   ~ o    ell  exipress tie.
Iitcii-erst 1I'c,,el ilk, this  stul eet.   Theire ai-e  ic  (otoiibt, large  iiumibei-s olt' (,,o0oIei  Iu~le~of tic M.-isonic ol:(del. thiough- to mec~
it is 1, iiattci- of'.~tn~ie tltl,tt  it  I1(~(   )e  so).   AN'C imust
look at the f, iet q., it is, an(' malke wise  aiim   i             eft~i-ts  to rescue-u  oitr br-ethiren- and the tliouis,,tids of oiii' cotirtryinieni',nd n-eighIbor-s whlo arec eiitangi,led ini — n inst~itution-I of'thle niaturle of'wliicli tlli),
ai-e I)rol-)ab.ly ii0 morec awar-e tli'l  i veiolIisan    other defendc,I-s of slap,very wiere awar,l.e of the ila'.Lce  of that  cursesc  of 0111'
land.    We jiiiist pi-repare for, 1i-eiiiscisti-iictioni and(  bitter- per1secuitioni ninch't of' it to pr)iocee.cd fi-oi-,ocud ])tt blinided  aei  to wholl
their secret,-ociety is as the(, ap])l,.I  of'tli(eii' eyec.   -i -'1   I   ~iu
wvill dm,) en,d ulilail th,e spir)iit withl, i   iN,e  coii(idue,t tie, cointro
I 
versy, the temnpe'ance as well as the zeal in our management of
the case; on our dealing little in hard words and much in hard
arguments and firaternal persuasions. It seems to me that at the
present time it is much more important to enlighten the church
and the nation on the subject of secret societies than to determine what the churches ought to do with entangled members
and candidates. If the light is made strong enough, thle entantangled, if truly good men, will generally rescue themselves without the help of disciplinary measures, and the enlightened must
manifest a spirit of patience and fiaternal confidence."
Rev. Wm. Dillon, Butler Co., O., wrlites:
"Dear Brethren and Friends  "To you I send greetings.  I congratulate you upon the purpose for which the Convention is assembled, and bid you God
speed in devising measures to stay the plague of sebrecy. The
church with which I stand connected, namely, the United Brethren in Christ, numbering 100,000 communicants, positively forbids
the admission to membership any who are connected with secret
societies."
The venerable Father Dodge, of Milburn, Ill, now in his 85th
year, and nearly blind, but seeing clearly, sent us the following
brief but weighty testimony:
"Whilst I have nothing but kind feelings towards members of
secret societies, I am opposed to them, especially the Masonic,
because so far as my observation has extended, their influence on
the spiritual interests, both of individuals and communities, is
bad. I believe they are among the obstacles that must be removed before the kingdoms of this world will all become the
kingdom of Christ.'.'
Rev. J. G. Schoaff, of Bigr Spring, Pa., writes:
" As a Christian minister I have been pained to see the intoxication new so prevalent in the country, on the subject of secret
societies, and 1 have a confidence that God will yet destroy it.
My opposition to these societies arises fromn a thorough conviction of their deistical character."
From Moses Pettingill, Esq., of Peoria, Ill.:
"I feel in my very soul the fearfully growing power and evil of
Masonry and Odd Fellowship, the former especially; having been
familiar with the history of Masonry and their doings in Western
New York, from the September that Morgan was abducted on
through the few years of excitement that followed. Previous to
that September, I had great confidence in the institution. But
witnessing as I did the trial of some of the abductors, and know.
26
I 
ing personally quite a number of the conspirators, I became convinced of the utter rottenness of their boasted' handmaid of religion.' What mockery!! In numbers and influence they are
mighty, and the friends to oppose tham sadly too few. And I
am sometimes led to exclaim,'"Who will venture to stay their
vain pretentions, pomp and foolishness?' God alone is able
to bring all their boasted greatness low, as he has the slave power.
And when a majority of Christiall men and women shall be found
praying for the overthrow of this great deceiver, as they did for
the overthrow of slavery, it will.fall, yea, tumble as that did."
MX Bennett, Presiding Elder of M. E. Church, writes from Kilbourne, Wis.
"I am glad there are others thinking and feeling in regard to
the character of certain societies in our country as well as myself,
and I hope your movement will not be permitted to fail, however
small the beginning,.  *  *  *  *  I have never been an antiMason, deeming Masonry a mutual aid society; I have been
willing that those who saw their interest in insuring in that company should do so. But within two years past circumstances
have not only set me to thinking, but sent my thoughts out over
a wider plain of investigation, and I have convinced myself that
most of the voluntary societies of the present are, in the mode of
their organization, essentially vicious and vitiating."
Letter fiom the Editor of the American Baptist, New  York
city:
I was truly rejoiced to learn that you had called an anti-Masonic Convention in Aurora, to consider the subject of secret
societies and their relation to the churches. Were it not so far I
should have been glad of an opportunity to attend such a Con
tion, but as it is, must be content with wishing you God speed in
your very difficult but very necessary effort.  Freemasonry is
swallowing us up.  It governs in church and state.  The last
churlch in this city belonging to the denomination with which I
am connected, that has resolutely stood out till this time against
the admission of adhering Masons, has now thrown the gate
open, and contents itself with merely placing on its records a recommendation to withdraw from the institution. Even this slight
protest will not be allowed to remain long.
a I have sent you by mail a few numbers of our paper, in which
the subject has been discussed, and hope you will receive them
before your meeting.  Please notice what is said about the source
firom wlhich Elder Bernard obtained the higher and mlost obnoxious degrees. I have evidence for the facts I state, duly signed
by the responsible parties, that the copy from which Bernard's
degrees were taken was in Dr. Dalcho's own handwriting, and
27
I 
28
was the official document in thle hands of the proper authorities
of the 32d and.33d degrees.  Aiasons are endeavoring t(o narrow
us down to the first thlree degrees, pretending that the upper de grees are not real Masoinry.   Ve  must  not let them thus de ceive us.  The high degrees are thle 9eal onies-those for which
the lowelr are made.  The h igh- JItsots, and not the low ones,
control the order.  Anti-Masons are often led astray by buying a
botgus book calle,-l "M Aorgan's Freemasonry Exposed," &e.-a
work which is onl many of tli  bookstands in New York, through
the influence  of Ailasons, whlile not a genuinie book like Bernard
or Steain. s is to )be seen aiiywliere.  The spuri ous book is mlade
up of the thlree degrees which Morgan published, giveg, cor-rectly,
and then foilr others in whichl the oaths are thrown out, and their
places supplied by a few uinmeaning affirmations; the whole char acter of the degrees are changed, and the whole winds up withl
a confession of  lortgan that he never was   a real 3Mason! Thou sanlds buy these books, and  seeing how different the degrees are
fiom Bernard, and thinking that ~5:lorgai wrote them, give up the
search in despair, sllp)osillng that PBernardl, Stearns, Morgan atnd
all are in irreconcilable cont,iradietion.
"I hope you will call.i National Coiivenitioni, as sug,geted,
and that it wvill be a general one, not merely religious, but taking
the subject in all its bearings, and invite all real anti-Masons of
whatever sect or name, to unite; and if you could f,)rni a,reglr
society, and establish a  ncwsi)al)er oi0-c_i, it vwould be of rreat a.dvantage.  The coInmon religious paoies c~mnnot mieet the gigantic
evil it' tllhey would, and ala.! too maiiiy of thenI-would not if they
could. We lave eontendted an.inst it itno0u)aper, notwithstandimg it has cost us thousands of subscribers and crippled us in ourI
general missionary operations, an(l I trust we have done SOmething toiwards checking  the evil, but it is al work that cannoiot be
cecomplished by one or twro religious papiers.  There must be a
iregular orcganiza,tiot, wvitli t seia l orlgan to iueet the cgiant evil
inl an eftfctual iauie."
A. S.afoird, Oi(leums Co., N.Y., writes:
"3Iy heart greCatly  ejOiCes tlhaLt Cihristianis 0  v.irious   ordeis
tiiC wakingr up to this dan.~erous and rapidly increasing evil, the
iival of Christianity.  It 1has  long beeni apparent to the writeri
that the combined efforts of fitlleli men and angrels have been en(rated to produce  a religion so pleasin g to the iatural heart, that
Pagans, iiifidclels aind skeptics are all equally qualified for its fellowship without renouncing their contradictory viewvs of God or I-lHis
word, anid  this undercl  the iname of Freenliasonrly.   *   *        *
It cannot be successfully contradieted that 3[asoiiry claims to (do
for the lhumaii heart that whichv   the grace of God  alone can do,
viz: cleanse and purifv, and prepare it foir tlChe bliss of IIeaveCnn;
I 
nii(d tihis is to'ivttl Chiristianitiy.   Sturely it, i.s high tiiel these f.ls
systems were publicly exposed, tliat tlhe world  mav no longer I)e
d(cci ved l)r thloei' failse  i. n....'
It may here be stated, instead of giving thle w1ords of the several coicrrespondents, tlhat witih eCiti-e iiia-.ntimity tlhey declare in f:.lveol of a National Coiiveitioin.
Ti'e lettei of Iolli. Aaroiil W'"liite, of' lllodle Island, did not a' ]ive ii season to b)e read iii tle Coii velitioil, tand( is partly of a pri vate eharaatet-, hut its testit)ioiiy is too valuable to be  left out or
abridged:
" DE.r  1l'uoTIIEn-oA111 lettel of October 28thl, enclosing a
letter fiom Dr. Blaiicliard of October 22d, was received by me
on the 31st ult.-of course too late for an1 answyer to reach the
AInrora Convention in due season.
J nI the warifire aga'ilist the institution of Freelnasonry, which
tool place i  182(6 ad l832, you and I felt quite an interest.
The iresilt of tlat conflict was sluch  tlhat I thllotlght, and still
tliiinl, tlhat the, ol(d mnonster lireemasoii-y was klilled.  It certainly
lay miotioile:ss loi a number of years.  Its lodgles were nearly all
disbanded, tlheir hlalls were sold, and their jewels acnd gewgaws
scattered as curiosities.  Their special regimentals were given in
part as second-hand clothing' to the Odd(l Fellows, while the reiminants were patched into tinsel garments and used by some of our
fanciful college boys.
Recently, however, attempts.lavc  e been ade, by L newv geneiratioii, to re-enilter and resuscitate the old forsaken c   arcass, and
some are fcarfiil that, like the Demioniac of old, the last state ofl
Freemasonry will be w-orse than the first.  As an  old soldier in
thlle confict, I have felt some interest in the inovenlcut, and kept
watcl, and I iimust say that thle present action of FreciiasonIry has
no more resemblance to its former action tha,i do the (.;ontortions
of a galvanized carcass to the regular motions of nat:.:'al vitality.
The additioil of a few more years gives to us two a great advantage over our younger friends in this imattei.  We  remember
what Freemasonry once  was, vwhlen its churches were  in every
villagre and its members included a majority of the wealth and iinflenee of community.  At that time, the world wvithout, and,sits
votaries within the wvalls of the lodge, believed that the instittution was possessed of certain ineffable secrets known only to the
initiated, andi by them seen but dimnly, whose talismanie  power
gave protection to the humblest Mason, similar to that afforded
by the charms of the NorthmOen, the relies of the Catholic, the
amulets of the Mahometans, and the medicine bags of our Western Indians.  Under this imagination the institution of FreemSsonr!y was certainly feared)- all.           5
'19
I 
s0
"During the searching ordeal of the Morgan excitement, Freemasonry was -thoroughly analyzed.  Its character, its constitution, its mysteries, its secrets, and all that it had, for good or ill,
was opened to the eye of the werld; and not only to the world,
but Freemasons themselves had a better opportunity of seeing
what Freemasonry actually was thani they ever had before. At
that time Rhode Island was the Mecca of Masonry. It was the
seat of the beast, and on that seat it received the deadliest blows,
for in Rhode Island the institution was, by legislative action, subjected to legal investigation, in which the secrets and constitution
of the society were brought forward by its highest officers.
These officers then swore that these revealed secrets were all that
they had ever known, and I believe they swore to the truth, for
their testimony was published and has never been contradicted.
"Most men of the present generation have, I think, a very imperfect idea of the true character of the Morgan excitement.
By most it is regarded as a temporary ebullition of popular frenzy-a kind of a crusade. This is a great mistake. William Morgan, a member of the Masonic society, published a small book in
which were disclosed some of the secrets of the order, and
by so doing exposed himself to certain Masonic penalties. These
penalties some misguided Masons undertook to enforce, and actuially did enforce, by the instrumentality of legal forms and civil
process. Now, in all civil society, legal formns and civil process
are regarded as things sacred, and this monstrous perversion of
them, to effect a purpose for which they were never intended,
was looked upon as a kind of sacrilege, and justly aroused the
indignation of every one. The excitement ran like fire, and never stopped until the institution in whose behalf the crime had
been committed, was completely overthrown.  I verily believe
that a large portion of the then Masonic society in our free States
were as much pleased to see its fall as the rest of the world.
They saw the danger of having this Morgan case as a precedent.
It changed the nature of their terrible oaths. By the aid of civil
process these horribly constructed scarecrows became living demons, of whom they were sure to become the first victims.
" The Masonic society still exists in name, and other secret societies are among us. The Masonic society has its signs, passwords and means of recognition, and so have other secret associations; but I do not see that the Masonic society, in its present
condition, is entitled to more jealousy than any other secret society using the same machinery. In my opinion, all secret combinations of men have a dangerous tendency. Public opinion is
one of God's great checks, restraining the evil propensities of
mankind. Everything calculated to weaken this restraining power must be pernicious.
" I will now slightly touch upon two topics having particular
I 
31
reference to what may be considered our friend Dr. Blanchard's
particular case. He occupies two important positions. First, he is
a special teacher of youth; next, as a minister of the Gospel he is a
special teacher of men.  Now, as a teacher of youth, h(' is held
responsible for their moral welfare. To perform this duty faithfully and well he must understand the disposition and opinions of
his pupil, and should know the temptations, associations and
teachings to which he is exposed. Would such a teacher be willing to have his pupil conniect himself with an association, all
whose teachings and moral influences are purposely kept unknown
to him?
"Again.  If I were a teacher of men, and had in my congregationl a member who insisted on attending the services of another teacher, whose sermons and prayers were studiously and
effectually kept out of my sight and hearing, should I not be
jealous?
"I have no wish to enter again into the Masonic controversy.
At three score and ten a man should leave the field to younger
and abler combatants.  Still, I have no objection, if you think
proper, to Dr. Blanchliard's seeing this letter. I think he is right,
and if my good opinion is any encourageinent to him I will gladly
let him have it.
"These remarks are for his particular use; not that I despise
the power of the press, but if I can make an impression on the
mind of an honest and earnest man, such as I consider him to be,
I valne that impression more than I do the circulation of twenty
newspapers.
"From your affectionate brother,          _       WH
From Rev. A. A. Phelps, Rochester, N.Y.
To the Anti-Secret Society Convention, of Aurora, Ill.:
" DEARI BRIET.HREN-I hail you as the friends of CGod and hu.
manity, committed against one of the direst abominations of this
or any other land. The pressure of duties incident to a change
in the field of my ministerial labor, deprives me of the very great
privilege of mingling personally in your ranks. I must not, however, allow so rich an opportunity to pass, without speaking one
earnest wordfor truth.
"Observation, research and the philosophy of the case force
me to the conclusion that all secret societirs stand in the way of the
world's progress.  A  bad institution ought not to be secret, because secrecy is favorable to the abuse of power and the perpetration of crime. A good institution need not be secret, because
truth challenges the severest scrutiny, and all valuable knowledge
is for the world. Good works grow up in the simplicity and sunlight of the Gospel; hence there is no need of curtains of con
,,AARON WHITE."
I 
principles aInd reveigful sl1)lit; despite its salrillions  ceemonies an,d  senseless inmuni-i  eries; d(espite its sl)(ycritial pretelsionris nd muritlderouts exploits, it ]:s;rowii to t)e onle of tlhe luost
popular  and Ipowerfittl ilstitutiols of-' tlhe lad.  Civil ln.ws  succuinb  to  AIasoiiic  laws.  Politi.a  (o,ilc           c  iostly tille(d 1)v
devotces of the orderi.     Iiohl-li-iii(l(cd c(ri -,  ndl(] r t l(e l)rc)tectiig
wing of the iiystic bro,terl-(lo,.l"  ('(-)i,t itcd  witli illil)ullity.
III miany sectiouIs of our cotii  t'x' tllt!'v is,,utlliiig  of   i.stieC btf
an empty lnamie.   Mlasoiils intenllt to rI1cl tie Iaiin, t;l(  a11       "lr,y
tlley be(gin to 1-run up tlhe strea, lig banneirs oi'     i(tcrt.
"Wotldcl to God that tl,'e (i   abonina,tioii stoatiiil l}iri!  Bult,
alas! it has infiused its deadly vius iinto miost oft thlte i elioious orgatlizations of tllhe country, and tlireatelis to  di aliii off  tlliat little
piety remaiajs ini the churchles.   ])octor s of d(iviinity lea(d the wa,
followed  by  tlhousands  of lesser  ministeria      l lilghts.   Of  course
niultitudes of the laity feel jlUstifidc(  in foll)wiing, the footsteps of
their religious lealdeis.   rlI(e consequence  is that the clhurch  becomes the nursery of tlhe lod,ge, aind  Christ and  ):lelial ae priactically unite(.   In  tlie tiame of (Go)d we  enter  ouir solemn-ll protest
ag,ainst the unautliorLized union!  If wvorldly incI ite illl formi  stuch
unholy alliances, for pecuniary, l)olitical or ally othler purpose, let
Christians remember  that they  a:re  a peculiar  p)eople, and inmust
stand onl the high-  l)ltiine of nioral p)uiity, or be  sho,in of tlher
strelgth.
"It is tilme to crty atloud( against this girowliiig evil, whichl threatelis to rle tlhe State andl  ruin the church.   By all means  let iis
hlave a National Convention  to  discuss this whole subeject, and
sendcl out a record of fiets  and  arguments  that shall  tlhrill the
liearts of the millionl!  L,et it be held in  some  celntral locality,
that we may secure the attendancee of the  strongest  anti-seciet
I 
33
society men from every part of the couintry; and as soon as. pri,ac
ticable, th.it we ilmay lose 1io time ill strikintr sone effectulal blows
befbre tle last opportunity for successful effort is swel)t butfoe
the resistless tide! lMay thie Go(l ot irutli stir all ClhristelidoIn
on tile subject, aild nerve the arm of every philanthiropist to deeds
of noble dLrilg!
"Very truly yours,
"A. A. PHIIELPS.
" Rochester, N. Y., Oct. 8, 1867."
APPENDIX C.
SPEECH  OF REV. MR. TRAVIS.
Rev. Mr. Travis, seceding Royal Arch Mason, sai(d
We do not come here to expose the secrets of F'reemasonrv.
It has none to expose.  The writings of Elder Bernard and otllers give all the secrets and work of the order.  We meet it not
as a social, 01or benevolent, or political arrangement, but we meet
it on its anti-Christian character.  Our principal attention is bestowed upon Masonry for the same reason that the Washingtonians aimed their chief attacks against ctistilled liquors.  As John
Hawkins said, when the old sow and her pigs get into your corn,
you don't weary yourself with chasing the pigs, for you know if
you diive the old sow out the pigs will follow.
When the foundation-stone of this government was laid, it was
based upon tile Bible and the doctrine of the equality of mannot because Socrates taught it, but because the Word of God
taught it. The Queen of Englantd is reported to have said to a
barbarian prince visiting heri, when he inquired the cause of Briitaiii's prosperity, "The Bible is the cause." As we hlave stood
upon the Bible, so have we been blessed.  When Lincoln came
out for the equality of man, our battles were all victories..We
are opposed to sec(iet society influence as opposed to Christianity.
We  defend Clhristianity in the resolution against secriet order1s.
The spirit and influence that pervades them is not tl.at of Cliistianity.  It is the old leaven.  You may have a bank note ever so
nicely engraved, but if it lacks the signature it is valueless.  If
these societies lack the spirit of Christ they are as naught, no
3 
34
matter if they have all the doctrines of the Bible and all the rites
of a church. Because Masons and Templars do things that
Christians do, that does not give them any claim to that name.
Compare the systems of secret societies with the teachings of
Christ. They do not profess to have emanated from him; don't
recognize him, i. e., the leading ones; don't mention his name;
don't recognize him, and he has no part in their ceremonies.
Suppose a Union soldier during the war went down to a river
and drank, and that a rebel soldier should come to the opposite
bank and drink, and then claim that hle was a Union man, because ho had quenched his thirst in the same manner and from
the same stream as a Union soldier did, would you acknowledge
such a claim to be just?  Such is the claim of secret societies.
They claim to be right, even Christian, because they do in form
some things which Christians should, while they neither cultivate
the spirit of Christ, nor seek to honor or exalt him at all, but the
contrary. It is for this reason, and this only, that we oppose
them. They are decidedly anti-Christian. They put men under
bonds and rites, that Christ never put upon men, ruling by fear
instead of love. And as they do not initiate their members in
the name of Christ, do not even profess to belong to him, we
have no ground for regarding Christ as belonging to them; for
he says expressly that " he that is notfor me is against me."
[The Committee regret that they have not been able to obtain
a more full report of Mr. Travis' remarks, and none of Mr.
Clark's, Mr. Loggan's or Mr. Preston's.]
APPENDIX D.
SPECH OF REV. MILTON SMITS.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentleme n:
The subject before us is one that needs to be handled candidly.
I am no Mason, never have seen the inside of ra lodge. Masons
differ on the subject; some say it is a religious institution, others
say it is not. Some Masons affirm there are only three degrees,
others say seven and still others, thirty-three. That some consider it a religious organization, there is no doubt. Members of
churches have joined the Masons, and have left the church altogether, saying Masonry is as good a religion as they want; these
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85
are consistent. If it is a religious order, it is not necessary to
belong to any other religious body I am disposed to grant it to
be a religious institution, and propose to let them have all the
benefit they can derive from it. We are not allowed to belong
to two religious bodies at once. I propose to apply tho same
rule to thenm-if they prefer the lodge, let them enjoy it; if they
prefer the (church, let them abandon the lodge.  One thing is evident, our rock is higher than their rock-they themselves being
judges.  Masons are bound to help those who can give the Masonic sign of distress.  Christianity binds its votaries to recognize the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and to
provide for suffering humanity under all circumstances. Masonry
says " thou shalt not commit adultery with a Mason's wife or
daughter." Christianity says " thou shalt not commit adultery
at all." I think the Bible shuts Christians out of Masonic lodges.
"Be not unequally yoked together with  unbelievers."  The
Christian puts on the Masonic yoke; he has for his companions
Jews, Mohammedans, etc.  When the Christian enters the lodge
the blessed Savior goes with him, and he turns to his brother
Jew and says, "Do you love the Savior?"  "Who is the Savior?" says the Jew, —" that impostor who was crucified eighteen
hundred years ago? No, sir! I have no respect for your Savior."  The minister closes his prayer, "for Jesus' sake."  The
Jew cries out, "Hold! that is not Masonic!"  He spits on Jesus,
and the Savior is turned out of the Lodge. The Christian next
inquires of the Mohammedan, "Do you love the blessed Savior?"
The reply is again, "Who is this Savior?  Great is Allah, and
Mohammed is his Prophet! but who is Jesus?" and again Christ
is expelled. I will not take my friends where they will be insulted-no, nor my enemies either-consequently, if the Savior will
dwell in my heart, I will not introduce him where he will be insulted.  " What part hath Christ with Belial, or he that believethi with an infidel?"
There is another view of the subject. I have no doubt it preventsjustice between men, when one party is a Mason. Thaddeus Stevens more than intimated that Masonry prevents the impeachment of President Johnson. If the clause is true, " murder and treason not excepted," this doubtless is the reason why
Jefferson Davis is not hung. He has committed nothing worse
than murder and treason. True, it is on a large scale, yet it is
only the same-murder and treason-and Masonry says "he
must be saved!" President Johnson says he has ever acted in
accordance with the principles of Masonry, consequently he has
pardoned the whole batch of rebels.
"- Now, Sir, I do not intend to lay violent hands on this misguided fraternity. Two things will effectually kill it. 1st. Cease
to baptize it in the name of the Holy Trinity. Slavery would
I 
never have survived a decade if the Christian world had pronounced it man-stealing, and classed its aiders and abetters with
sheep-stealers.  Let ministers and members be shut out whenever
they come connected with Masonic lodges, and the institution is
more than half dead. The Wesleyan Methodist denomination
settled this matter more than twenty years ago, and no Mason
has ever been admitted. They deem the two elements antagonistic, and all who came clad in Masonic armor and asked admittance, have found the church FULL. 2d. Cease to vote Masons
into office. They monopolize nineteen-twentieths of all the civil
offices. Congressmen are Masons, judges are Masons, and there
are probably not ten sheriffs in the State who are not Masons.
When men learn that Masonry does not profit them, religiously or
politically, they will drop it, and insure somewhere else. At all
events, we have nothing to fear from an open contact with Masonry. One thing, it dreads the light. Let the Gospel be applied
to this as well as other evils. If its fruits are bad, hew it down
and cast it into the fire.
APPENDIX E.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE PRESS.
The grave questions which have called us together are not only
matters of interest with us, but are equally so with thousands of
honest hearts all over the civilized world. The evils to whiclh reference is had in the deliberations and prayers of this Convention,
are not only formidable, but all the more dangerous because of
their universality. A matter of such general bearing should be
so treated as to elicit the general sympathy and co-operation of
all who regard the independence and triumph of the Redeemer's
kingdom as of paramount importance. To accomplish our high
design, all the available channels of information should be seized
upon, all the windows thrown open that floods of light, in the
form of appropriate literature, may be scattered broadcast over
the land.  Your Committee regard the Press as a powerful agent
for the accomplishment of this result. And while we regret that
we are not more fully informed as to the number of journals
36
I
1% 
37
whose columns are open to articles bearing upon the objects of
this Convention, it is with pleasure that we mention the following:
The Religious Telescope, Dayton, O.
The American Baptist, New York City.
The Church Union, New York City.
The Independent, New York City.
The American Wesleyan, Syracuse, N. Y.
The Earnest Christian, Rochester, N. Y.
The Morning Star, Dover, N. H.
The Northern Independent, Auburn, N. Y.
The Christian Press, Cincinnati, O.
The Christian Statesman, Philadelphia, Pa.
The Committee further recommend that an abstract of the proceedings of this Convention be furnished to each of these periodicals, and any others the Convention may name.
C. H. UNDERWOOD,
H. T. BESSE,
W. W. RICHARDSON,
PARKER HURLESS,
Committee.
A voice has reached the President of the Convention from the
Pacific Coast, asking with intense earnestness: Why does almost
the whole press preserve such a total and studied silence on a
subject that is so intimately connected, for weal or woe, with every interest of society, government and religion, as that of the
prevalent secret orders of the day? Where are the periodicals
that clamored for the free and fearless discussion of slavery?
That with unsparing severity rebuked the studied silence of the
Southlern and border press on that question? If they continue
this silence now, they must at least give some  satisfactory and
justifiable explanation, or else retract their former position; relinquish all the honor of their past noble record; recall all their
severe criticisms and their sharp rebukes of the men and the journals which maintained a similar silence, upon questions no more
important, no more pertinent, no more pressing than this subject
of secret societies. Otherwise they should expect men with
whom consistency is sometimes as sacred as right, to gather up
all those criticisms and rebukes and hlurl them back whence they
came, with the emphatic utterances: " Thou art the man."
Wherein  thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself, for
thou that judgest doest the same things." " Behold thou hast
instructed many, but now it is come upon thee and thou faintest,
it toucheth thee and thou art troubled." The evil to be exposed
is in your own community and at your own door, and you are
found to be even as they whom you lately rebuked for their reQreancy and despised for their cowardice, 
U
APPENDIX G.
PRESIDENT BLANCHARD'S ADDRESS.
On the 24th day of June, 1717, just 150 years ago, four lodges
of working Masons-all that then existed in the South of England-met at the Apple-tree tavern, Covent Garden, in the city
of London, and formed the first Grand Lodge of "Free and Accepted" Masons.  This was the origin of Freemasonry as it now
exists, i. e., in the lodges of persons who are not Masons, but
persons of all and no trades and professions.
There are, in history, some few traces of lodges or corporations
of working Masons of an earlier date; and Masonic writers have
carefully gathered and given all the historic notices there are.
Mackey, in his "Lexicon of Freemasonry," (Philadelphia, 1866)
collates and quotes all the standard writers on Masonry, and the
information which he gives concerning its history, before and
since the Apple-tree tavern meeting in 1717, here follows.
Before that time "every lodge was independent;" Masons met
when, where and in such manner as they pleased; initiated their
apprentices, fellow-crafts and master-masons as they chose; their
meetings were composed of such working Masons of the neighborhood as could conveniently meet; their annual gatherings
were called " assemblies," and were strictly voluntary meetings
of mechanics who laid brick and stone in mortar, and who met
for conviviality, sociality and the interests ofthat particular craft.
Since the Apple-tree meeting, the local lodges are affiliated,
governed and taxed by Grand Lodges.  They meet under rules
and practice rites prescribed by higher bodies; the annual meet.
ings are called "Grand Lodges;" they are no longer composed
of individual working Masons, but of "grand officers," "masters," and "wardens of lodges "; they are in no sense voluntary
meetings, but meet by charter and permission of a Grand Master!
But what marks the modern lodge as a totally and entirely different thing from those which existed before the Lolldon meeting of
11717, is this: that at that time Masonry ceased to be operative and
become speculative, and the lodges have since had no more to do
with building than have convents of priests!
On this clear and substantial proof, given by Masonic authorities, rests the assertion that the Freemasonry of this and other
countries had its origin at the London meeting, June 24th, 1717!
At that:time and place four local lodges undertook to charter,
tax and govern all other Lodges of Masons in the world, and they
succeeded but too well in the attempt. They attempted more.
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39
Retaining the tools, symbols and names of the old lodges, in order to swell numbers and receipts, by taxing others besides masons, they turned those old lodges into something entirely and
totally different from what they were before-they, in fact, dropped out the nature of the old lodges and made a new set, as different from the old as a convent is from a trades-union.  They
dropped stone-masonry, and set up what they call a "world-wide
religion"! They left stone and mortar and set up priest-craft
and rites!
TIlE TERMS " FREE AND ACCEPTED MASON."
The words "Free and Accepted Mason" have a specific and
definite meaning. The word " Mason " meant a worker in stone
or brick, and this sort of mechanics were accustomed to erect
and inhabit temporary lodges near the great building (cathedral
or other) while employed upon it; as the Irish build along our
railroads.  This word,  "lodge," was transferred to a meeting of masons, as the word "church"  means the building or
the people. Thirty such mechanics' guilds or lodges have met for
centuries in London. They are mentioned in Rees' Cyclopedia
in the order of their importance. There were twelve which had
pre-eminence by tll,ir age and wealth.  The stone-masons were
not of this twelve, but were of an inferior guild.  These "guilds"
or lodges, of Loirse, were rivals, and their rivalry led them to
wish to have titled persons as chairmen; the same which now
puts an English Lord in the chair at an Exeter Hall meeting.
Hence Mackey informs us that the first Grand Lodge, at the
Apple-tree tavern, " Resolved to hold the annual assembly and
.feast, and choose a Grand Master from themselves till they Should
have the honor of a noble brother at their head."-(Sec. 169.)
But English noblemen did not lay stone or brick, that is, were
not masons.  The lodge therefore voted to "accept" them as
members, and give them the "freedom" of the lodge.  Accept.
ing them made them " accepted," and the freedom of the lodge
made them "free'."  This made them "Free" and " Acceptecd"
Masons. Thus the word'free;" in Masonry, has no reference to
popular liberty, but meant, and still means, simply "entitled to
the privileges of a secret clan or lodge," and the first Freemasons
were titled aristocrats. (See Mackey and Morris' Dictionary,
art. "Accepted.") Indeed, the desire of respectability, numbers
and fees had led lodges of working Masons to "accept" some
members who were not such, as early as 1663-Mackey, p. 16)but the practice became general at the revival and spread of the
lodges from the Covent Garden meeting of June, 1717, when, in
a short time, the "accepted," or non-working Masons, became the
majority, and took control of the funds; and the drones have
ruled the bees and held the hives ever since! So a "Free and 
40
Acepted Ma.qon" is simply no mnason at all, butt a member of a
ysterm of priest-craft and mock iites, professing to fit mein for
lieavell-" the lodge above!"
FREEMASONRY A SIMPITE DESPOTISM.
It is absolutely necessary, in order to correctly  understand
Fieem:lsonry, to clearly a)pprehend the kind and sort of work
wlichl thle tour lodges, met at the Apple.tree tavern, performed.
'J'lie fir.t formed tliemselves into a Giand Lodge, and then ord.-in(d tlat l n(o lodge or' body of MaIsons could legally meet and
tiati,sact their own business without getting (and of course paying for) a warrant or clihrter fiom their Giaii(l Ma.ter! By  this
:act tlhe li-)ei-ties of a lai'ge and industrious cl-;ss of mankind  (the
b)iilders in stone and brick) were seized, usurped and taken awvay
witlhout color or even pieteuce of right.  It is exactly as if four
sl)iritu;il ciicles, four debating societies, or any other tfoir bodies
of men should get together, resolve themselves into a sovereign
body, and ordain that uo similar bodies of persons should nmeet
togt,tlier without submitting to and paying tlhemn a tribute!  And
the Grand Lodge, or central government which they formed was,
and is still, a simple, absolute despotism!  No  -language can be
cleai'el or stronger on this point than that of Dr. Mackey, who, on
page 18S3 f his Lexicon, says:
"TaHE GOVERNMENT OF GRAND LODGES IS COM31PLETELY DESPOTIC.  WHILE  A GRAND LODGE EXISTS, ITS EDICTS  MUST BE
RESPECTED  AND  OBEYED  WITHOUT  EXAMINATION BY ITS  SUBORDINATE LODGES!"   And  the "Lexicon" goes on to  argue
that if a Grand  Lodge should decree contrary to the aicielit
constitution,'; there is no redress for its  subordinates!"  but
the only way to reach the offending Grand Lodge would be by
revo(luntionariy action of other Grand Lodges against it!  One can
scartculy believe his own eyes wliile readilg such abominable laws,
which yet exist, and are in force and operatiing all around lus!  In
thle words of Grattati, "They resemble rather a judgmnent of God
thlan an act of leg,islatuie!!"  And what adds to the cool effiontery of this wholesale usurpation and "despotism," Dr. Mackey
tells us that tlhe foiur lodges which' made it took good care to exeml)t themselves fiom its opeiration.  He savs:
"Iii compliment to the four old lodge.s, the privileges which
they had  ilwa,ys possessed, were practici,lly reserved to them.  It
was enacted that no laiw, iule oi regulation, to be hereafter made
or ).passed in Grand  Lodge, should ever deprive them of such
])iivileges,"-that is, of assemn-bling together without permission
asked ol' ti'ibute paitl, and dloing tlieir own business in tleir own
way.  Bad men, like Lotis Nipoleon, and bad systems, like Jesuitismi, often owe thleir success to their boldness and impudence;
and this Masonic usurpation succeeded by like means, and now,
I 
41
weekly, trains thousands on thousands among us to the theory and
practice of a despotism of the da,k ag(es!
Thus it appears by the highest Masonic authority, that the four
lodges at Apple-tree tavern, created a pure, unmixed despotism,
and imposed it on all Masons except themselves, and on all others
since drawn into it; that this despotism was and is submittel to
because it is daik-as the Christian churches submitted to the
Papacy; and despotic power once gained, by admitting "accepted" "Masons who were not really such, they seized the fuinds,
the tools, the symbols, nay! the order itself; and turned it into
something, totally different from what it was originally designed!
Never since Satan entered and subverted Eden, was a darker,
cooler, more complete or more daming revolution accomplished
in the ideas and institutions and against the rights of men!
WHY THEY SUBMIT TO IT.
MIen never submit to despotism from the mere love of it-it is
always for the sake of something which cannot be h:ad without
it.  Thus, for the pomp, and show, and license of Monarchy, the
Hebrews, though warned by Samuel, submitted to the despotism
of a king.  Thus, for the inspiration of superstition, and the delirium of strange rites, all Asia and Afi'ica to-day submit to
pri.sts.  Thus, Moirmons submit to the hoirible reign of their
prophet; and thus, for like reason, Freemasons submit to a gover ment declared by their " I.exicon" to be "completely despotic "! Nor does the most abject superstition exclude firom its
dupes the shrewdness of self-interest or the cunning of leg,erdemain.  Mormons are at once most thriving and inost abject; and
when once priestism and delusion have inaugurated a movement,
the eagles will gather to its carcass.  Tihe present delegate of
Utah at Washington boasts that he is "only Mormon enough to
go to Congress;" and thousands of Freemasons are to-day in
the lodge who have onily "received the mark of the beast in their
hand." In both head and heart they detest it, but they yield to
its claims and practice its idolatries, as Christ did not Satan's, for
" the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them;" for gain, glory
or votes; or, once in the eel-pot of the lodge, thlough inly loathing it, the sharp points of Masonic vengeance prevents their leaving it.
WHAT IS MASONIC VENGEANCE?
If Freemasonry should not persecute, even to murder, those
who thwart, expose or oppose it-when it can do so without
losing more than it gains by the operation-it is the fitst system
of spurious rites which has not done it since Cuin killed Abel for
that very cause.  The power of Freemasonry, as of all false religions, is in the rites; these gone, all is gone. Hence, every sys. 
42
tern of rites contrived as a substitute for, or rival of the rites
given by Jesus Christ, must have despotic power to protect itself.
Hence, too, priestism and despotism are hand in hand the world
over. Even in Christian countries the power of every church
grows despotic in direct proportion to the rites and government
it has added to Christ's; and Mormonism could not hold together
a month if the Mormon chief was not an absolute despot!
Hitherto we have quoted Masonic authorities; we shall also
quote anti-Masonic authorities-and any person would stultify
himself by saying or insinuating that the seceding Masons on this
floor, who are listening to this report, and who will vote upon its
statements, are not to be believed. There are here to day among
us brethren who have taken the Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft,
Masters' and Royal Arch degrees; some were made Masons before and some since the Morgan outrage, and if these, added to
the thousands of good men who have renounced the lodge and
exposed its secrets, are not to be believed-if the Rev. Charles
G. Finney, known on both sides the Atlantic and revered wherever known, and who has lately from the Oberlin pulpit assured
us that the Masonic degrees are correctly revealed, as far as he
went in them-if, I say, such men as these cannot be relied on,
then nobody can be relied on. But men who renounce error and
declare the truth, ought to be, always were and always will be
believed; and such are seceding Masons; such the martyrs of
all ages-and the slur or insinuation that we might know more of
these things by joining the lodge, only discredits his veracity and
sense who makes it. What, then, by the "cloud-of witnesses"
firom 1826 to this day, is "Masonic vengeance?"
The victims of its many murders are dead, and only the resurrection trumpet can bring them into court; but the' theory,'at
least, of its vengeance is found in its oaths, a slight portion of
which will be sufficient. In the Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft
and Masters' degrees, the candidate, blindfolded, stripped'to his
shirt, kneeling, after being led beast-like with rope about his neck,
obligates himself to conceal the present and future proceedings of
the lodge under the following, among other, penalties: "To have
his throat cut firom ear to ear;" "his tongue torn out by the
roots;" "his left breast torn open;" "the heart and vitals,taken
out;" "the body severed in two;" "the bowels burned to ashes';"
with other like penalties, the ideas of which were taken from the
Inquisitionii, and from torments and tortures [actually inflicted2,in
the savage and bloody wars and executions of the dark ages. If
we are to hope that such more than fiendish penalties wouldinot
now be inflicted, why has such a lodge-literature [been kept up:?
-a literature borrowed from the acts of inquisitors, and fit only
for beasts and devils. There are men on this floor who are ready
to-testify, with President Finney, of Oberlin, that these horrible
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43
oaths, with their more than horrible penalties, were imposed on
them in the lodges, and forty-five thousand out of a little above
fifty thousand, who seceded after Morgan died, the same. Why
have such oaths been kept up through a whole century of progress and light, unless for purposes of intimidation, and to subject
seceding Masons to real danger of assassination?
The late Judge Daniel H. Whitney, of Belvidere, Boone Co.,
Ill., published in the American Baptist, and afterwards in a pamphlet over his own name, that members of that lodge, while he
was Worshipful Master thereof, attempted to screen a brother of
the same lodge who had seduced and murdered a young girl
named Ellen Slade; that an arrangement was made to assassinate
him (Judge Whitney) in the lodge room, and that he verily believed that he would have been assassinated, had not an excited
populace outside become aware of his danger, and would instant
ly have avenged his death! The whole pamphlet of Judge
Whitney, published in 1852, should be re-printed and circulated
for general use.
But if we suppose the same causes, to wit: light and progress,
and fear of the people, which protect us fiom the inquisition and
the stake, ordinarily secure us from these Mi sonic penalties, there
is other vengeance, meaner than murder, if not more cruel. And
the late Hon. Owen Lovejoy, in personal conversation with the
writer of this report, said that Masonic lodges had been used by
Masons for the destruction of political opponents, by sending to
distant lodges certificates duly certifying that their victims had
been expelled the lodge under infamous charges; and that these
false certificates, going on secret records in the principal lodges
throughout the State, would be believed by the fi'aternity, who
could have no means of knowing the falsehood of the paper, while
the victim, not being a Mason, could not know of its existence.
And Mr. Lovejoy further stated that such a paper was sent to a
Chicago lodge, containing malignant charges against himself, but
that the paper was met and quashed by a personal fi'iend of his
who was a member of the lodge, and who informied him of the
fact!  Moreover, a letter lately dated from the Tremont House
in Chicago, purporting to come from a member of a lodge, states
that it i~no uncommon thing for wicked men who are Masons, to
firame or cause to be preferred charges against men outside whom
they wish to destroy, falsely averting that they had been Masons
in other jurisdictions; carry their case by false testimony, so far
as to get it on record, and thus set the fraternity against them as
unworthy Masons; when their victims and the public outside
could never know a word of the matter.  The writer says this is
called "'putting a black shirt on a man!"  The letter further states
that "the enemies of the secret orders in the lodges are more than legion;" but that deterred by their dread of its facility for destroy 
44
ing the characters of men by such and similar methods, they
either hold their peace, or even speak in praise of the order.
There are, of course, multitudes of high-minded and honorable
men who pass for Masons, who would abhor such practices, but
who pay little or no attention to the proceedings of lodges; and
who, if they know of them, or suspect them, allow them to pass
as evils which they cannot correct.
THE REVIVAL AND GROWTH OF MASONRY.
The new centralized organization fiamed in 1717, at Covent
Garden, contained the three elements of success found in all false
religions, viz: despotism, solemn rites and mysteries, and showy
parades; and, like all such false religions,.it spread. The old
Eleusiroian Mysteries, Mahometanism or modern Mormonism,
neither of them excelled it in the accumulation of funds or the
rapidity of its march. From the Apple-tree tavern lodge, in
spite of bitter feuds and sectarian quarrels, which kept up two or
three rival Grand Lodges, wrangling for the spoils, until 1813,
when, "under the Duke of Sussex, they were happily united"
(Mac. Lex., L71), in the short period of twenty-one years it had
spread from that center into France, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, the United States, Saxony, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Portugral, Turkey, Asia, Afiica, and among the exported convicts at
Botany Bay. -A few years later it had gained footing in Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Poland, Bohemia, Canada, the West India
Islands and Brazil, so that now "most of all the existing Grand
Lodges on earth have derived their origin, directly or indirectly,
from that Apple-tree tavern lodge."-(Chase's Dig. Masonic Law,
p. 15.) Nothing in modern times has equalled the spread of this
dark, despotic order, unless it be the spread of Spiritualism, from
the "knockings" in the little village of Hydesville, near Rochester, N.Y., in 1848, which in twenty years boasts in its books
that its " circles" count more members than all the Christian
churches in this country!
In September, 1826, William Morgan was kidnapped by Masons (see Morris' Dictionary of Freemasonry, art. Anti-Masonry)
and murdered. The discussion of Freemasonry was taken before
the people, and 1,500 lodges answered by giving up their charters! Even the Grand Lodge of Illinois, then an extreme frontier State, suspended its existence for several years, but was reorganized in 1840. After the first shock of the Morgan discussion, and a few feeble efforts to stem the tide by the lodge-men,
the lodges out of the slave States everywhere went down. Robert Morris, I.L. D., states that of a little more than 50,000 in all,
45,000 seceded.  Lodge meetings were held in churches by seceding Masons, and the degrees conferred in open daylight.  All
the lodge-secrets were thus revealed, and the whole system was
I 
45
loathed and detested as a swindle and a cheat. But the slavepower, which then controlled the politics, and the organized religion of the country, protected and preserved Freemasonry from
discussion in the slave States, and Freemasonry, in turn, protected slavery until it fell by civil commotion and the proclamation of
President Lincoln.
The recovery of Freemasonry from popular odium and detestation is, perhaps, without a parallel in the history of human error
and folly; and it shows that the forces on which the secret orders depend to manage minds are strong and mighty. Beginning
with Odd Fellowship, which, as the name indicates, was a mere
piece of secret and solemn buffoonery, the spirit of idolatry, cast
out by the fall of Freemasonry, seized upon several popular virtues, as temperance, patriotism, and even upon Protestantism, in
the Know Nothings; and these, by educating the people, creating
a       thirst for sham mysteries and harlot rites, have piloted Freemasonry back into popular favor, so that Freemasonry was never so
popular in this country as at this hour! Without answering one
argument which condemns it (for it cannot), it has glided back
into power
"Still as the breeze and awful as the storm."'
Like the brothel, which is the Scriptural type and emblem of
all false religions, it has crept back into our towns and villages by
night and in silence. Like the brothel, too, propagating itself,
not by reasons addressed to the understanding, but by lures which
appeal to lusts; bitter, and haughty and scoffing, it already presents itself, by its representatives, in public places —laying cornerstones of churches, with prayers to its unknown God; omitting
the name of Christ, for whose worship the church professes to be
built,-it has to so vast an extent silenced press and piilpit, or
subsidized them in its interest, that bold men stand silen6 and the
timid quail before it!
Some faint idea of its rapid return to power can be had from
the following facts:
In the State of Michigan the applications for Masonic initiation
for the year ending January, 1864, were 2,858; in the year following, 5,075!  Under the rule requiring $5 to be sent in by each
applicant, along with his application, whether he be received or
not, the revenue of the order from mere applicants, in that single
year, would be more  than twentfy-ve thousand dollars.  In our
own State of Illinois, from 1840, when the Grand Lodge was reorganized, to 1866, the number of lodges has a,isen to 430, with
a membership of twentylfve thousand.-(Morris, art. Illinois.) The
charge for initiating a candidate into these secrets, which are not
secrets) varies from twenty up to fifty dollars for the first three
degrees.  If we take the smallest sum for an average, the degree.
I 
46
fees of Illinois Masons, excluding other dues, cannot have been
'ess thanifive millions of dollars.
THE MONEY-WHAT BECOMES OP IT?9
There are no means of knowing or even estimating the amount
of money drawn by secret orders from the industrious masses,
and placed in secret hands, which makes no reports to the people
who pay in the funds, or to the legislatures which chartered the
lodges; and Masons in general are as ignorant as outsiders of the
amount raised, or what becomes of the money. The lodge pays
no interest on deposits, declares no dividends, publishes no defaulters. WVhen, in tile Morgan discussions, fifteen hundred lodges
suspended or went down, and 45,000 out of 50,000 Masons left
their lodges forever, though millions on millions had accumulated
in their hands, in city blocks and other real and personal property, the mechanics and laborers who had paid in the money received nothing back; and no poor were known to suffer by the
stoppage of their vaunted charities! Indeed, as has been forcibly said, " These orders expend no more in proportion to what
they receive, in charity, than a skillful fisherman would expend
in bait."
But the history of society, and what few statistics we get, show
that more money can be drawn fiom men by means of secret societies, than by any other voluntary means whatever.  And, in
the absence of returns, we are left to infer, firom the known tendencies of such accumulations, that, as in past years, so in the
present, the gains of these orders by rents, fines, dues and degree fees, are expended for regalia, stolen by defaulters, or squandered upon favorites; and that, in one way and another, the
money they receive constitutes a vast corruption-fund for the support of idleness, luxury and vice.
RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY.
Stone-laying masonry is older than the Pyramids; as old as
stone walls.  And the small, independent, voluntary societies of
stone-masons, which appear in English history, had friendly relations to the Christian religion.  But Freemnasonry, which dates
back no farther than our g randfathers, holds no relation to Christianity but of rivalship and substitution. There is no way for a
Christian minister or church to be at peace with the lodge, but
to submit to it, and thus virtually becomie a part of it. The Covent Garden lodge did not limit its aspirations to taxing and governing the little lodges of stone-masons. It opened its doors to
and "accepted" members from all trades and professions, and
set deliberately at work, like all spurious religions, for the conquest of the world.  Hence, like the Roman Empire, which undertook the same conquest by its arms, which this order did
I 
47
by its rites, it undertook to include and fuse in itself all the religions of men. And the lodge stands, since the Covent Garden
meeting, a sort of spiritual pantheon of the nations.
On a point so important, let us hear the Masonic authorities
themselves:
Mackey says: "The religion of Freemasonry is pure theism,
on which its different members engraft their own peculiar opin:ons, but they are not permitted to introduce them into the lodge."
(Lex., art. Religion, p. 402.) This is explicit. The worship of
the lodge excludes Christ.
Chase (Digest of Masonic Laws 1864, p. 206,) says: "To  require that a candidate profess his belief in'the div'ine authenticity
of the Bible' or' a state of future rewards and punishments,' is a serious innovation in the very body of Masonry."
Again, same book and page: "It is Anti-Masonic to require
any religious test, other than the candidate should believe in a
God, the Creator and Governor of the Universe."
Again, p. 208, same work: "Freemasonry calls no man to account for his belief of any religion on the globe."-( Constitution
Grand Orient, France.)
These quotations might be indefinitely multiplied, showing that
the intent and meaning of the lodge was to construct religious
rites and worship, which should do precisely what Satan proffered
to do for Christ, viz: Unite'I all the kingdoms of the world" in
one religion.
Now, it needs no words to show that the religions of the world
are not the religions of Christ, but Anti-Christ. The lodge is,
therefore, Anti-Christ, by the definition of its own authorities.
Hence, Dr. O. I. Tiffany, at the laying of the corner-stone of
Douglas' monument by Andrew Johnson, at Chicago, read a
prayer, which he had written for the occasion, in which no name
or attribute of Christ occurred! The same professed Christian
minister officiated at the laying of the corner-stone of the M. E.
Church at Kankakee, Ill., without once uttering the name of
Christ.  It would have been  un-Masonic to do so.  For why
should Jews, Mohammetans, Pagans and deists be asked to recognize Christ in the prayers of the lodge, to which vast numbers
of them belong?  Thus the lodge is, by constitution, by definition, by nature and by necessity a Christ-excluding or Anti-Christ
iaD religion.
It is a religion; and it is nothing else.  Its "work" consists of
religious ceremonies. It has no more to do with building or
stone-masonry, from which it sprung, than a squad of Monks or
Mormons, or a phalanx of Spiritualists. Its candidate begins at
the door of the lodge with uttering a Jew's or deist's religious
confession of faith. Inside the lodge all is professedly religious
ceremony. He kneels at an altar; binds himself by oaths; 
48
Christless prayers are said over him; he enters a religious covenant; he is called a "brother," living and dead, and is buried as
a brother; and the liturgy of the lodge lands him in heaven, "the
lodge above." The motto on the seal of our Grand Lodge of
Illinois, "Faith, Hope and Charity," is a religion condensed;
and he who, in the face of these facts can deny that FreemasoInry
is an anti-Christian or Christ-excluding, Gentile religion, is either
deceived, or else ignorantly, wilfully or judicially blind t
OBJECTIONS.
But the Entered Apprentice is told at the threshold that the
obligation he is to assume is not to infringe his "religion or his
politics." Yes, but the very prayer which is said over him while
on his knees, and in which he is expected to join, is a Christless
prayer!-See the New Masonic Trestleboard, p. 22.
" But the name of Christ is sometimes used in prayers offered
in the lodge." True; but these are un-Masonic prayers, used to
deceive Christians, and when Jews and deists are not present to
object.
"But the higher and templar degrees abound in allusions to
Christ."  True, again; but these are properly no part of "Universal Masonry." (See Morris' Dictionary, art. Blue Lodge.)
They are side-degrees, like those invented for women; "denominational excrescences" which Masonry will "shake off."-Id.
p. 30.
But the "Holy Scriptures" are one of the "lights" of Freemasonry, "carried in processions," etc., etc.  This is also true.
But "Holy Scriptures," in lodge language, meant, "in Christian
countries, the Bible; in other countries, those books supposed to
contain a revelation of the divine will."  Arabs are Masons.
Have Arabs the Bible?  In a few instances, too, Christian Masons have car'ied votes in some Grand Lodges to recognize the
Christian Scriptures.  But all such votes have been promptly condemned by other Grand Lodges, as against the ancient coiistitutions, in words like the following, found in Chase's Digest, p. 208:
"Masonry has nothing whatever to do with the Bible.  It is not founded
on the Bible.  If it was it would not be Masonry, it would be something
else."'f his is not only Masonic authority, but simple truth.  The
system was devised with the intent and purpose to include what
is common to the religions of the earth, and to exclude what is
peculiar to them; and Christ is not included in the various reli
gions of this earth, and therefore ite is excluded by Freemasonry
-which is thus proved to be one of the "many Anti-Christs"
now in the world.-1 Jno. 2: 18.
I 
49
SUBVERTS THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
But the Christian religion is found in Christian churches; and,
as in theory the lodge excluides Christ, so in practice  nod
in fact it sulverts ihe churches whiich worship and obey him.
The proof of this is manifest-thus:
1. Mlasoniy, along with other secret orders to which it has
given birth, divides up the members of a Christian church into
several distinct " lbrotlier-hoods," so that the wo.'d " brother " ill
slo(h a church has either none or an uncertain meaning; thu, a
milister stands in the pulpit before a church made up  of mem beirs of the secret orders, himself belonging to several.  Before
him are say, ten Freemasons, half of them Christians, the other
half skeptics or nothing; anotlher set, "Odd Fellows;" another,
"Good  Templars," or "Grand Army;" another set,  " Sons,"
etc., etc., and all "brothers."  Now let him address this motley
group of rival and conflicting "brotherhoods," all sacred and
holy: "     My dlearly beloved BRETHREN-It dotli not yet appear,"
etc., etc.  Who under the whole heavens can tell whether he
means "brother Christian," "brother Mason," or what "brothers"
he does mean!?  These orders empty and eviscerate the very
word brother of all its meaning and import.
2. These orders divide up a church of Christ (which is his
body) into separate squads, each pledged to secrecy from the
other, and so kill and destroy Christian fellowship in that church.
3. They thus destroy the unity of the "body of Christ," by
tlhese sheet-iron partitions of secrecy, so that His blood cannot
flow freely to his members.
4. In their oaths and obligations they do not swear in the name
of Chri.,t, and so exclude and set him aside as the author of moral
and religious obligation.
5. They occupy the time and social feelings of the Christians
who join them, leaving neither time nor disposition for the social
meetiings of the church.
6. No man can give his chief allegiance to both church and
lodge at once.  "He will cleave to the one and forsake the other,
or hiold to the one and despise the other."'
7. When ClIistians, who belong to lodges, retain any traces of
Chlristianity, tihey ire despised and condemned by Masons.  A Masonic writer (" Mystic Star," May,  1867, p. 136,) says: " These
men of sectarian bias are the bad material, the soft, cross-grqailed,
crunibling, shaky, cracked, unmaniagreable candidates wvith whom
we have most trouble."  He  specifies "Presbyterians," "Quttakers," and "Baptists," as such " bad material"! I Being thus
suspected, they must lose their lodge-influence or go with it
against the church.
4 
50
8. There is something ill the lodge rites which destroys all relish in those who practice them for the rites appointed by Christ.
9. Judge Whitney (Pamphlet, p. 22,) says that a high Mason
and worthy man remarked to him, about the time of Ellen Slade's
murder, that "A Masonic lo7dge is the strangest mecdley of priests
and murderers, deacons arid whoremasters, church members and
gamblers, decent men and loafers, drunkards and rowdies, that THE
ALL-SEEING EYE looks downl upon."  So promiscuous  a body
must, of course, collide with a neighboring church on questions
of Christian doctrine and public morals; and in every such collision, church members who are Masons, must be )proscribed by
the lodge, or take part with it against the church.  In either case
the church is weakened.
10. Prayer, baptism, and the communion supper are rites appointed by Christ, as channels through which God's grace and
presence come to men.  All Masonic, and other mian-made religious rites, by drawing people from these roads to Christ, in a
hunter's phrase "put men upon a false scent," and so cheat them
out of their approaches to God.
11. A neighboring lodge has power to intimidate and corrupt
the ministry, by agreeing in secret to withdraw their patronage,
and drive him from his pulpit, unless he will bow the knee to
their dark idolatries; and thus compel the church to receive a
pastor chosen secretly in the lodge, and so, virtually take possession of the church, and adulterate and [slowly change the gospel
preached from its pulpit into "another gospel which is not another."
We conclude, therefore, that Freemasonry is hostile to, ac,d
subversive of, the Christian religion, and that the two cannot
permanently continue side by side in the same country. And
that the duty of Christians in these lodges is given in the Word
of God: " Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of
her plagutes I"
SPEECH OF REV. JAMES J. BABER.
Questions being raised whether discussion on the other side
would be allowed, MIr. Baber said:
I have repeatedly challenged discussion in Iowa, but it has been
refused. It is contrary to Masonic rules to discuss or defend
Freemasonry before the uninitiated vulgar.  Good reason why.
I got set against Freemasonry first fromt what its enemies said.
I thought that was hardly right, so I went to considering, and set
myself against it stronger still by my own reasoning; and then I
thought that wouldn't do, and I;went to its friends and its books,
I 
.and that set me against it the most of all.  I am inot going to impose my opinions upon anybody, but I want to read a little firom
books that are regarded as authority among  Masons.  Town's
work on Masonry is one of that kind.  It is endorsed by the
Grand Lodge  of N. Y., and by Hon. DeWitt Clinton, a high
dignitary of the order.  Ilere is an extract: " Our principles being drawn frontm Revelation, we  are not bound  to make  them
known."  IIere is another: "Speculative  Masonry consists of
the very essence of the Christian system."  They have  strange
notions, surely, of what the essence of the Christian system is.
They even  profess to work miracles, to foretell future events, and
claim  affinity with the Ancient Egyptian  Magi.   Essenc(,e of
Christianity! I want to show you how nice they mix it.  In the
eiglhthl degree they say they shall be pi)iests,  tc., before God's
thronie forever and ever, (no matter whether Christian, Mohamniedan or Pagani, if they are only Masonis).  But in another place
they elaini that all the Bacchanalian gaoing of Hieathen ages belong
to them.  Ilow nicely these two things agree.  The truth, plainly
told, is tliis: tlhey want to grow, swell and infidelize the world;
therefore they are all thiings to all people, and nothing in particula,.  It is blank, outright Deism.  They call God the Supreme
Arelitect of the Univei'se.  Tlhey follow the universal religion of
iiatu:'e, and make it the nucleus around which they revolve.  At
all events, we knownv they don't revolve around Christ.  They say
they are reinarka)l)y benevolent.  -Yes, it reaches a worthy brothei, be he Jewv or Cihristian, but no one else, be he ever so worthy.
Elder Bradley, another Mason in authority  of unquestioned
soundness, ofltrs an apology for the non-admission of females
witl.iiii M:isonic p).les.  It is that the delicacy and modesty of fei-les could not staend tlhe ordeal of the scrutiny, &c., of the initiatioIl of any important degree of Masonry.  How moral! How
Christian! But they build on a back shanty to accommnodate the
ladies-aid in my opinion they have  many side-shows in the
shape of modern dark-lantern societies. Praying in the name of
Jesus is contrary to the universality of Masonry. By Masonry
I mean the whole batch of societies-they are all alike. They
must hide spies and fugitives firom justice the same as an innocent
manl. In the records of the Rhode Island Legislature the Masoilc oath is recorded, as sworn to by the highest Masonic authorities in the State, and it runs thus: "Moreover, do I promise
and swear that I will keep the secrets of a brother Mason as sacred and inviolable in my breast as they would be in his own,
murder and treason only excepted." This was sworn to there,
but it was said they generally added the mental reservation, "at
my option." We are told they are full of heaven-born benevolence. Probably they are towards sound and able men; but for
a man with a wooden  leg, one leg, or no legs at all, why they
Si
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52
cannot do anything for him just now. You often hear Masons
say it is a good insurance company.  If a man only keeps healthy
and well, then I guess likely it is. But if hlie gets sick, and has
no money to pay dues, I shouldn't wonder if it mightbe a little
shaky.
6 
5S
APPENDIX F.
:R 0LL
NAMES.             P.O. ADDREES.            DENOMINATION.
G. A. Jones ----------— Wheaton, Ill. -—.Congregationalist.
Rev. Milton Smith, ----— Danby, Ill. —          - Wesleyan Methodist.
S. H. Salls,. —--------— Decorah, Iowa. — Congregationalist.
R. E. Adams and wife, -.Wheaton, Il..      do.
Miss Bailey, -------------— do.    do.              do.
Chas. Preston, --------— Earlville, Ill.     I     - do.
Wm. Cowan and wife, ----- Wheaton, Ill.  -— Wesleyan Methodist.
Rev. Benjamin Danforth, — Chicago, Ill. -. —.Protestant Methodist.
Rev. John Miller, ----------------------- United Brethren in Christ.
Silvanus Town ---------— Aurora, Ill. ---— New England Congregationalist.
Rev. W. F. Maly, —. —-— Chicago, Ill. ---— Free Methodist.
Q. Wilcox, -----------— Earlville, Ill. --— Congregatio,alist.
C. C. Breed,. —--- E. PawPaw, Ill. —   do.
J. M. Deitz, ------ ------- Marengo, Ill. — Free Methodist.
Rev. N. D. Fanning,-           - do.   do.. ---- do.    do.
Edwv-rd Gillett, -------— Aurora, Ill. ----— New Engltlid Congregationalist
Isaac Preston,.. —------—. Lockport, Ill. --— Congregationalist.
H. L. Kcllogg,. --------— Wethersfield, Ill.-   do.
R. J. Morgan, —- ------— Wheaton, Ill.              do.
Rev. Joseph Travis ------ Elgin, Ill. -----— Free Methodist.
John Hubbard, --------— Freedom, III. --— Congregationalist.
Rev. Henry hIawkins, --— Granville, Ill. — Wesleyan Methodist.
JolhnH. Lathrop, ------— Aurora, Ill. ---— Methodist Episcopal.
Rev. A. C. Van Raalte, —-Holland,-Mich. -— German Lithlieran.
W. T. Elliott, ---------— Aurora, Ill. ----— Congregatio nalist.
Rev. S. Roberts, ---------— do.   do. ---— Free Methodist.
John Gardlner, ----------— do.   do. ---— Union Baptist.
Oliver Dewey, ----------— do.   do. ---— New England Congregationalist.
J. Denny. --------------— do.   do. ---— Congregationalist.
D. W. Stockwell,        — do. io -;- do.      First Baptist.
Rev. Edward Ebbs, ------   do.  do. —-— New England3Congregationalist.
Pilo Carpenter, --------— do.   do. ---— Congregationalist.
Samuel Brown, —---------- do.'. do.  ---—. Free Methodist.
J. H. Porter, ------------- do.   do. ------ do.    do.
Hiram Baxter, ----------— do. Ldo. ------ do.    do.
.Benjamin Hackney ------— do.   do. ------ do.    do.
John E."Burleen,      A-'do.   do. —--- do.    do.
R. B. Smith,......o                do. —'do.    do.
Chas. Gill, -----------— Ado.'? do.. —-.. —Union Baptist.
J. D. Sperry, -----------— do.   do. ---— Free Methodist.
Rev. Mr. Clark and wife,  -Oberlin, 0. ----— Congregational.
Dr. M. M. Miles. —------- Aurora, Ill. ----— Union Baptist.
Mr. Rawson and wife, --— Wheaton, Ill. ---- Free Methodist.
B. West -------------— Aurora, Ill. ---— Baptist.
Rev. Robert Loggan, ---— Plattsmouth, Neb. United Brethren.
Rev. James I. Baber, -. —Swede Point, Ia. -  do.       do.
r
::.,..:'   I 
I
54
ROLL-CoNTINUED.
NAMBS.              P.O. ADDRESS.             DENOMINATION.
Rev. M. S. Drury, -------........Castalia, Ia.......U —-— United Brethren
Dr. W. W. Richardson,   - -- do.   do. —----- do.        do.
Rev. I. A. Hart, -------— Wheaton, Ill. -—.Congregationalist.
F. Wells, ------------— Galesburg, Ill.               do.
Rev. Cyrus H. Underwood, Freeport, Ill. --— Free Methodist.
O. F. Lumry, ----------— Wheaton, Ill. --— Congregationalist.
A. H. Post,. —--------— Geneva, Ill.         I       -- do.
D. C. Cooper,........... Elgin, Ill. -----— Presbyterian.
Mrs. Cooper, ----------— do.  do. --------- do.
L. W. Mills, ----------— Wheaton, Ill. -.Wesleyan.
Mrs. E. Mills, -----------— do.    do. ----    do.
Rev. Lewis Baily ------- Belvidere, Ill. - Free Methodist.
Rufus Stratton, -------— Rockford, Ill. ---- do.    do.
John Dorcas,  ---------— Redcock, Ia. --— United Brethren.
J. L. Fonda, ---------— Wheaton, Ill. --— Congregationalist.
C. A. Blanchard,. —-------- do.    do.               do.
Wm. B. Lloyd, ----------— do.    do.                  do.
Albert E. Matson, --------- do.    do.                do.
J. D. Dickenson,. ---------— do.    do.               do.
Rev. H. T. Besse, ------— Princeton, Ill. — Wesleyan Methodist.
Rev. L. W. Whitney, ---— Nora, Ill. —------- do.            do.
Parker Hurless, -------— Adeline, Ill.. -— United Brethren.
A. B. Frazier, --------— Polo, Ill. ------— do.           do.
Elder T. B. Ashley, ----— Plainfield, Ill. -— Baptist.
Amos J. Baily, --------- Wheaton), Ill...Congregationalist.
W. O. Hart. —------------- do.    do.                do.
P. V. Livingston, --------— do.    do.                do.
J. F. Ellis, --------------— do.    do.               do.
Rev. J. G. Ferrill, -----— Winnebago, 111.  -Free Methodist.
Rev. J. E. Roy, -------— Chicago, I ll. —--- Congregationalist.
Rev. J. Richards, ------— Avon, Ill. ---------    do.
J. J. Updyke, --------— Geneva, Ill. ---— Free Methodist.
B. G. Updyke, ----------— do.   do. ------ do.    do.
Joseph Denny, Sr.,  - - -  - Aurora, Ill. ------ Congregationalist.
Rev. Jonathatn Blanchard,   do.   do.         -      -- do.
Mrs. Blanchard, --------— do.   do.           -      -- do.
;:; *   i: I 
PAGI.
Apple-tree Tavern. —-----------------------------------------— 38, 39
Attestation of Morgan and Bernard's Revelations - 8, 10, 11, 13, 25, 27, 28, 30
Convention-Call for ---------------------------------------------- 3
Minutes of.. —---------------------------------------------- 3, 8
Committees of. —------------------------------------------ 6, 7
National -------------------------------------------— 28, 29, 32
Letters, Congratulatory and Extracts from-Of Rev. W. W. Ames ----- 23
Jos. B. Nessel.. —-------------------------------------------- 24
Wm. Elder. —--------------------------------------------— 24
J. Mense --------------------------------------------------— 25
Prof. Morgan. —-------------------------------------------— 25
Rev. Wm. Dillon -------------------------------------------- 26
Father Dodge ---------------------------------------------- 26
Rev. J. G. Schoaff. —--------------------------- -------------- 26
Rev. M. Bennett. —------------------------------------------ 27
Moses Pettingill, Esq.,... —------------------------------------ 26
Rev. N. Brown.. ---------------------------------------------- 27
Hon. Aaron White ----------------------------------------—.29
A. Sanford..... —--------------------------------------------— 27
Rev. A. A. Phelps -----------------------------------------—.31
Masonry-Its antiquity. ----------------------------------------- 17, 38
Its mummeries...... ------------------------------------------- 11, 13
Its oaths dissected --------------------------------------- 13, 16
Its charity.... —---------------------------—. —-----------—.17
Its secrets. --------------------------------------------— 10, 29
Its false pretenses... - -. —-----------------------------— 11, 17
Its real object ------------------------------------------- 18, 19
A religion, but deistical, anti-Christian and Baalistic. 19, 21, 26, 28, 34, 35
Its titles -------------------------------- 12, 25, 39
Christless. —-------------------------------------------- 21, 22
The enemy of justice and equity -------------------— 18, 19, 32, 35
Vindictive and murderous-. ---------------------— 14,16, 32, 41, 43
Blasphemous.. -------------------------------------------- 15, 25
Political ---------------------------- 19, 24, 43
A simple despotism ------------------------------------------ 40
Not to be tolerated in the churches -----— 5, 22, 24, 26, 27, 32, 35, 36
Relation of 0, F., G. T. and S. T. to ------------------ 7,22, 24, 26, 2a
The terms "Free and Accepted Mason"... —--------------------- 39
Why they submit to it. ------------------------------------- 41
What is Masonic vengeance?.. —------------------------------ 41
Its revival and growth --------------------------------------- 44
The money-what' becomes of it? ----------------------------- 46
Relation to Christianity ------------------------------------- 46
Objections...... —-----------------------------------—.48
Subverts the Christian church................................-...49
I:D E' X 
I 
56
INDEX-CONTNUED.
PAGE.
Report of Committee of Ways and Means. —----------------------------- 6
On the Press and notice of Rev. J. B. Chamberlain's letter fromn Walla
Walla, W. T,.. —---------------------------------------- 86, 37
Resolutions            - ------------------------------------------------— 5, 7, 8
Roll.. —--------------------------------------------------------- 53, 54
Revelations-Of Bernard, Morgan &c., attested --- 8, 10,'1, 25, 27, 28, 30, 33
Spurious, ---------------------------------------------------- 28
Spiritualists-New secret society of. —--------------------------------- 6
Speeches-Of Rev. I. A. Hart -------------------------------------- 8, 23
Rev. Joseph Travis ------------------------------------------- 33
Rev. Milton Smith ---------------------------------------- 34, 36
Prest. J. Blanchard ---------------------------------------- 38, 50
Rev. James I. Baber.. —------------------------------  -— 50, 51, 52
I