_Thirdly. Patriotism_ has no need of them. They tend to destroy citizenship, to exalt love of an order above the love of country. The boast during the late rebellion was sometimes heard that their members, owing to the oaths of mutual protection, were safer among the rebels than other captives. Was the converse true? Were rebels, being Freemasons, safe or safer against restraint and due punishment when, falling captive to those of their order? How far does all this extend? To courts and suits at law? Are criminals as safe or safer before judge and jury of their order? Have rebellion and vice found greater security here? This boast is confession--confession that the ties of an order are stronger and more felt than is consistent with a proper love of country. Is justice thus to be imperiled? Are securities of property and rights thus to be imperiled? Must we beggar ourselves by paying fees and dues to one another of these orders, now becoming more plentiful every decade, to make sure of standing on equal footing and impartiality with others, in the courts and elsewhere, and imagine that all this is helpful to patriotism or even consistent with it? _Fourthly. Religion_ has no need of them. "The church is the pillar and ground of the truth." "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The preaching of Christ and him crucified is and must continue to be the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation. _Religion_, then, has no need of these secret orders. We come now to this: Neither charity, morality, patriotism, nor religion imposes obligations on us to join them. _It will not pay_ was our first fact. We have now reached this other, that _no consideration of duty_ requires it. But, IS IT RIGHT? _First. Christ, our Master, neither instituted nor countenanced these orders_. Reviewing his whole earthly ministry, he said (John xviii: 20): "I spake openly to the world;" and "in secret have I said nothing." By this double affirmation he strongly suggested his preference for _open, unsecret_ ways and proceedings. _Secondly. In those rites, proceedings, and regalia which do appear, these orders are frivolous_, belittling, and unworthy of respect. If the revealed are such, what must the unrevealed be? _Thirdly. These orders stand convicted of deceit and falsehood_. They profess secrets and mysteries worth buying. Hundreds of high-minded men, of irreproachable character and integrity, who have, therefore, "renounced these hidden things of dishonesty," testify over their own signatures, that their secrets are but signs, pass-words, ceremonies, etc., covering nothing but emptiness and vanity.