p. 6Danger to the State

The United States is formed on Christian principles and the union was, in the mind of the framers, to be a Christian nation of Christian people and not a nation of heathens.

Today the spread of irreligion and forgetfulness of God and a future life is far wider than is generally imagined. The non-religious principle has corrupted the masses of the American people, has advanced unchecked until now a point is reached that may well excite the apprehension of all Christians. Four-sevenths of our fellow-citizens in the United States profess no religion at all. These people are honest and outspoken, kind-hearted and amiable, it may be, but know absolutely nothing of a religion that is supernatural in its teachings, are in no way occupied with the destination of the soul, living as it were certain that man had nothing more to expect beyond time and the grave than the brute.

Then there are those whose practical god is Mammon. Such people, perhaps, call themselves Christians because it would be unfashionable to be called a heathen or an infidel. But surely they are not Christians, for no one can be called a Christian who can not say the Apostles’ Creed with firm belief.

The disappearance of the spirit of Christianity from the great currents of our national life may be traced to secret societies. Their underlying principle is to transfer religion from a supernatural to a natural basis, from a theological to a human creed, to extinguish the Divine Providence in the government of the human race, and to govern man by the principles of humanitarianism, materialism and naturalism.

The baneful influence of the secret societies in the United States is so discernible that “he who runs may read.”

Take most of our public men and the present state of our social order. The judiciary department in our Government is composed of the most intelligent body of men in the land.

These judges have been educated in their youth, and afterwards by self-education, to know all about the law between man and man, nation and nation, between mine and thine, and the natural law, but the Divine law found no place in their curriculum or line of studies.

Their professors expounded to them the law of Lycurgus, of Justinian, the codex of Napoleon; the common law according to Beaconsfield and the law as explained by the ablest men in the land, but the Law, as given on Mount Sinai, was ignored.

The thousands of lawyers in our courts were taught all about the law, like the judges, and whatever is necessary to protect their clients, but the Sermon on the Mount was never taught them from the academic chair. Our doctors of medicine, those benefactors to mankind, are to know all about the body and its many organs, their operations and susceptibilities, but a soul never came under their dissecting knife, and so they are supposed to know nothing about the more important part of man. In all our instructions given in the public schools of whatever grade, from the humblest district school in a Western prairie or Virginian Negro settlement up to the universities endowed by the Government, the supernatural is ignored. Thus, those of our public men, educated in these abodes of learning, had the great disadvantage that whatever little religious training they have was obtained at home or in the Sunday-school. The majority of the parents of these men had neither time nor the inclination or knowledge to bother much about the religious part of their children’s education, and the lesson learned on one Sunday was as a rule forgotten before the next Sunday came. Most of our judges, senators, members of congress, governors of states, legislators, lawyers, professors in higher educational establishments, in reality most of our public men, are members of one or more lodges. Even prominent divines among the Episcopalian and other Protestant denominations have not hesitated “to ride the goat” and be admitted into the fraternity.

Now, a man may change his religious views, of whatever character they may be, but for the time being he will act in private or public life guided partly by his religion. No public officer can wholly separate himself from religious influence, especially if he holds his public office by the patronage of religious sects—and secret societies are religious sects.

George Washington in his Farewell Address to the American people, in September, 1796, uses the following words:

“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe, the regular deliberations and actions of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of the party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans, digested by common councils, and modified by mutual interests.”

“However combinations or association of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Josiah Quincy once said: “The liberty of a people is never more certainly in the path of destruction than when they trust themselves to the guidance of secret societies. Birds of the night are never birds of wisdom. … the fate of a republic is sealed when the bats take the lead of the eagle.”

The Catholic Church does not, and can not, allow her children to belong to secret societies. There is no question where she stands on the matter; she has the courage of her conviction. She can not make a truce with secret societies, hold no parley with them. She can not be frightened into silence nor cajoled into a compromise; her attitude is unrelenting. Her mission is to lay down the principles of salvation, to point out the road to heaven, to condemn error, and, when need be, to expel from her bosom obstinate unbelieving children. She is the friend and the wisest supporter of our republic. She wishes her children to be free men, and by her very principle tends to sustain, invigorate and perfect the American form of government. The strong and uncompromising standpoint of the Church on this question has a most potent and purifying influence on civil society.