# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 06 26_S171
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

171

nonsense much of importance lies hidden; the mysteriousness with which these societies surround themselves is probably nothing but the bacon which one must put in the trap if one wants to catch mice. Something must, of course, be there, to secure the money contributions through childish curiosity. But you cannot be certain about the matter, and as you entered with doubts, that is, with sin, so you must remain in it also with doubts, that is, with sin. For are you certain that everything has been revealed to you? Have you all the degrees? And if you have them, are you certain that the highest heads do not still keep something back for themselves? I see you smile with great self-satisfaction; you are perhaps a Prophet, or even a Sachem, or whatever they may call their chief, but, my dear friend, many a man in his high post has thought that he was the real man who had all the threads in his hand, and directed and guided everything, as he also actually saw through and knew everything, and has in the end nevertheless had to perceive that he was nothing more and nothing less than a simpleton, into whose eyes sand had simply been strewn: princely robe, crown, and scepter one sees upon the throne, but seldom the real prince and ruler. How do you know that the real purpose of the society has been revealed to you? Would it be such an unheard-of thing if it were known only to the real leaders, of whom one neither saw nor heard much, who put the simpler members of the society outwardly at the head, and kept them busy with quite childish and harmless mystery-mongering, while they, as the real leaders, kept the true secret for themselves and the right initiates, and had it carried out through the multitude? Even as an honorable citizen of the state you ought not to be a member of such secret societies, much less as a Christian.

C. You wrap yourself more and more, for me, in a mystic darkness, and speak in downright riddles! What in all the world has citizenship to do with secret societies?

P. Well, I think the practical people of America will soon teach you that, perhaps sooner than you think. Let it only become more attentive to you, and it will soon scatter you in all directions! And it is already incomprehensible to me how a republican people with its government, which ought to watch over its institutions with the greatest jealousy, allows such societies to exist, or, if it will not hinder them, can vote only for a single man who is a member of a secret society.

C. Come! turn round once, I must see whether the German police pigtail is still hanging at the back of your neck! Man! you must have a serious disorder of the liver, that you look at everything so black! It is just as if I heard Chinese spoken; I understand not a word of it.

P. And yet everything lies on the flat of the hand, so that a child could grasp it. How should it ever occur to me, even in a dream, to entrust anything in my private affairs to a man who is bound to his society, God knows for what; who is perhaps strictly pledged to carry on everything in the interest and for the advantage of the society, or who at least might be an unconscious tool which others, more deeply initiated, use to their own advantage but to my harm. And now, in addition, a public office! Do you believe that the people will look on at the game for long?

C. Thank God, this is a free country, and I do not fear that the European princely inquisitions will soon be transplanted hither; it would be too abominable, if precious liberty here should go to ruin in that way.

P. Precisely because liberty is so precious, it is the duty of every upright citizen to arm it with jealousy, and to stifle in the bud, by lawful means, all dangers that threaten it. What security have the faithful citizens that in your secret societies this precious liberty is not secretly undermined, so that they, or ambitious men through them, make themselves masters?

C. Paul, drink a glass of cold water, that you may wake up! You dream, and already see us marching with full music and regalia to the Capitol, deposing the President, driving the Congress apart, and proclaiming a second Napoleon emperor. Indeed, that is too funny. I really believe you are sick! How can you, a reasonable man, come upon such thoughts, which I would have credited only to the very poorest simpletons; about which one simply need not trouble oneself.

P. I have told you before that I do not suppose much of importance behind the whole nonsense, still less do I fear anything of the kind; for I know that my LORD and King in heaven rules and guides everything here on earth also. Should this country lose its liberty, which God in mercy forbid, this would be a punishment of God for the sins of the people, and we would have to submit to it with patience, however hard it might come to flesh and blood. But you cannot blame any reasonable man if he harbors distrust toward these ever more powerful societies, of which they themselves are the cause, since they purposely wrap themselves in mysteries, and shun the light. For even to civil relations the saying of Christ is fully applicable: "Every one that doeth evil hateth the light."

But suppose the societies were for the moment still quite harmless, of which, however, you can by no means be certain, yet the danger for the future lies by no means in the imagination of a few simpletons, but in the very nature of the societies themselves. They already have, alas, so perceptible and harmful a power that an honest man, who values the peace of his conscience more than his daily bread, and for conscience' sake cannot join these societies, is in bitter distress either to begin a business or to continue it, if he does not belong to these "fraternal orders," because the "brothers" naturally turn their custom to one another.

Now everyone knows that where there is power which cannot be watched or restrained, abuse lies very near. The desire to exercise power, and to rule with the oppression of others, is the constant game of the world, from the king to the lowest policeman; would not the distrust of the people be well founded, that the societies also might be tempted to it, when they have once risen to such a summit of power? The masses of the societies are organized throughout all the States; with the growing influence there grows naturally the proud consciousness of this influence and of this mighty power, and in the same proportion the pleasure in it. It needs only an outward impulse, and an ambitious, strong-willed, skillful man, and how easily is such a mass swept away to the carrying out of ambitious plans. And, as said, who guarantees to you that you are not even now an unconscious tool of such plans?

The distrust has also already here and there given vent to itself in English as well as German papers, and has pointed especially to the evil influence which this could have, at least, upon court proceedings. But even if there is nothing in it, a good citizen ought to avoid everything and anything that could produce distrust and anxiety in men's minds.

C. You would soon give up your fears and anxieties if you were among us and saw how finely and orderly, how brotherly, open, and free everything is transacted among us; you would soon be of one heart and one soul with us.

P. That is simply a thing impossible, for I have proved to you, and you have not refuted it for me to this moment, that it is against God's Word, therefore sin, to enter a secret society, because it is not of faith, and a still greater sin to remain in it, because all mystery-mongering is against Christianity. How a good citizen may take no part in such societies, because it is wrong, when it can be avoided, to give even only occasion for distrust and anxiety, that must have become clear to you also. How can you as a Christian answer for being a member of those which the LORD JESUS Himself has directly designated as such as shun the light, and are reproved by the light, not to say worse. Have you ever thought what offenses you and all Christians give to the Christian congregation, when they join such societies?

C. Offenses, well indeed, that I should not know