THE SECRET NATURE OF THE ORDER. 151 



workings be secret. There are many reasons why this 

 secrecy should be imperative. It was intended to bind the 

 agricultural masses together firmly, but without severity. 

 To use the expressive language of Mr. Saunders : &quot; Unity 

 of action can not be acquired without discipline, and disci 

 pline can not be enforced without significant organization; 

 hence, we have a ceremony of initiation which binds us in 

 mutual fraternity as with a band of iron ; but, although its 

 influence is so powerful, its application is as gentle as that of 

 the silken thread that binds a wreath of flowers.&quot; 



Why should it not be secret? No member of any busi 

 ness firm would long retain his position if he should allow 

 the whole town to know the means used to forward the 

 enterprises in which the firm was engaged; for, by this 

 course, it would inevitably be bankrupted. If the lawyer 

 was not bound by oaths to preserve inviolate the secrets 

 entrusted to him by his clients, how could the ends of justice 

 be subserved? If the physician should tell at the street 

 corner, every thing that might come to his knowledge in the 

 course of his practice, the social privacy of our homes and 

 firesides would be gone, and all the decencies of life be out 

 raged. If the divine should tell every idle gossip, each 

 incident of sin or wrong done, that came to his ear, or if the 

 priesthood should reveal the secrets of the confessional, what 

 would be the result ? Society would be convulsed to its 

 center ; for that which was innocent in itself would be mag 

 nified into absolute wrong, and that which was only venial 

 would be contorted into the blackness of iniquity. 



Persons in every vocation and degree of life have secrets 

 that may not be told outside of the immediate circle in which 

 they move. Even our political organizations have secrets 

 that are not freely communicated. Our associations of every 

 kind, and corporations, hold secrets essential to their success 



