all religions. Were
they on the footing of an insurance company or a merchants' exchange,
or any similar body, this fact would not be so. But they profess to
include religion among their elements, and its services, in whole or
in part, among their ceremonies. They have prayers and solemn
religious rites. And in these _Christ is dishonored_. His exclusive
claims are disallowed or ignored, and this not by accident, but of set
purpose. Out of twenty-three forms of prayer in the "New Masonic
Trestle-Board," (Boston edition, 1850,) only one even alludes to him,
and that one in a non-committal way. These secret orders are under
bonds not to honor Christ as he claims, lest the Jew, or the Deist, or
the Mohammedan, all of whom they seek to enroll in equal membership,
should be offended. When the higher "degrees" of Masonry allude to
Christ and Christianity, it is but as one amidst many equals. We
repeat it: Did these orders stand on the same footing with mercantile
or other bodies in this matter, this objection might go for nothing;
but they do not. Unlike them, they profess to have religious services.
Indeed, they often boast of their religiousness, and avow their full
equality in this with the church of God itself! Yet, if you join them,
their "constitutions" prohibit you acknowledging, in their boasted
religious services, what Christ, your Lord, not only claims for
himself, but commands you to give unto him: that glory which is due to
his holy name. Are they, then, not _Anti-christ_ in this thing? And
can you, without sin, consent to it, or uphold institutions which
forbid you and others, in religious services, to honor him as your God
and Savior, and which thus place him on the same level with Zoroaster,
Confucius, or Mohammed?

_Ninthly. These orders--the things now alleged being true--impede the
cause and kingdom of God, and are, therefore, hostile to the largest,
best, and deepest interests of mankind_. Recognizing this, churches,
conferences, associations, synods, and many eminently godly men,
living and dead, have put forth their solemn testimony against them.
Great lawyers, like Samuel Dexter; great patriots and statesmen, like
Adams, and Webster, and Everett; great communities, like the American
people from 1826 to 1830, have united to declare them not only "wrong
in their very principles," but "noxious to mankind." But many
Christians, rising higher and standing on "a more sure word of
prophecy," have discovered i