and may be justifiable much oftener and for less weighty reasons.  Still habitual secrecy, or secrecy, except at particular times and for special reasons, is, according to the common judgment of men, suspicious and unjustifiable.  Now, with secret societies secrecy is the general rule.  They practice constant concealment.  At all times and on all occasions must the members keep their proceedings secret.  If an individual would thus studiously endeavor to conceal his actions; were he to throw the veil of secrecy over his business operations, refusing to speak to any of his fellow-men concerning them, he would justly expose himself to suspicion.  His fellow-men would lose all confidence in his integrity.  If habitual secrecy on the part of an individual, in regard to business matters, is confessedly suspicious and wrong, it must be so, also, on the part of associations of men.  There is less excuse, indeed, for concealment on the part of a number of men banded together than on the part of an individual.  An individual working in the dark may do much mischief, but an association thus working can do much more.  All those considerations which forbid individuals to shroud their actions in secrecy and darkness, and require them to be open, frank, and straightforward in their course, apply with equal or greater force to associations.

3.  In the case of secret societies, the reasons for concealment set the impropriety of it in a still stronger light.  So far from there being any necessity or special reason to justify habitual secrecy in their case, we believe the very design of their secrecy to be improper and sinful.  We present the following quotation from a book of high authority among those for whose benefit it was specially intended: 

“If the secrets of Masonry are replete with such advantages to mankind, it may be asked, Why are they not divulged for the general good of society?  To which it may be answered, were the privileges of Masonry to be indiscriminately bestowed, the design of the institution would be subverted, and, being familiar, like many other important matters, would soon lose their value and sink into disregard.” —­Webb’s Freemason’s Monitor, p. 21.

The same author intimates that the secrecy of Masonry is designed to take advantage of “a weakness of human nature.”  He admits that Masonry would soon sink into disregard if its affairs were generally known.  Although this remark is made with special reference to the giddy and unthinking, yet it is certainly not the contempt of such persons which Masons fear.  They would not care for the contempt of the giddy and unthinking, if they could retain the esteem of the thoughtful and wise.  The real reason, then, for concealing the doings of Masons in their lodges, is to recommend things which, if generally known, would be regarded with contempt.  The design of concealment in the case of other secret associations, we understand to be the same.  The following is an extract from an address delivered at the national celebration of the fortieth anniversary of Odd-fellowship, in New York, April 26, 1859, and published by the Grand Lodge of the United States: