It refuses to allow its adherents to become members of the Masonic order, because it is a _secret Order_. The trouble is that it is a _secret Order_ itself, with its _sworn members_ and _bound priests_, its prowling Jesuits, nuns and friars, the most dangerous and complete and perfect—the consummation of all secret Orders, from the hired girl in the kitchen, and the hired man on the farm, up through every position held, every situation in life, and every office held by a Papist, to communicate intelligence to a set of men bound up in this _Order of secrecy_, who are not even citizens in our Government, that they may report to the Holy See in Rome! It is a secret, Pagan and Jewish mixture with Christianity; an intriguing, insidious and stealthy scheme, prying into the secrets of every nook and corner of every land, and every move of every civil government on earth, and a friend to no civil government on the face of the earth, only so far as it can be made subservient to the purposes of the Pope.
The new Cardinal in this country is a minion of the Pope, and, without being a citizen of the United States, when he pleases to do so, will control the vote of some six millions of our population; and this all done by the _secret workings_ of the Papacy, without any man seeing the secret wires that are pulled to do it. These priests, bound all over by religious _vows or oaths_, in a _secret conclave_, plan schools to be taught by nuns, all in the _secret Order_, and gather up vagrant children, while many of their own children are beggars, to make Romanists of them, and shut them out from the light of the common schools and colleges of this country.
Then how do these priests propose to gain power? Do they propose to come out in open day; publicly teach the people and enlighten them? Not a word of it. Do they propose to discuss their claims? Not a bit of it. How then are they doing this work? _Insidiously._ It is all in the dark, except an occasional demonstration like that we had here on the first Lord’s day in July. What were the people taught on that day? Did any one hear any instruction? Thousands of dollars were expended. Thousands of people were weary and exhausted, but no one was enlightened. No one was taught even Romanism, except those, who from the word of God have learned the power of the grand delusion, the mystery of iniquity that now works. They can understand the power of the sorceries practiced to deceive and allure unwary souls.