# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1904_S21
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1904. 21

What means do we have for getting to know the lodge system, the lodges, which are after all secret societies, and getting to know them in such a way that we obtain a true picture of them? For we wish neither to do the lodges an injustice, by saying even a little word about them that we could not at any time answer for before God and men, nor to deceive ourselves, by letting something escape us that is indispensably necessary for the clarity and correctness of the picture we draw.

The measure with which we measure, the scale in which we weigh, is the Word of God and nothing else. That is infallible. If we let the Word of God give its judgment, a false judgment is excluded. But that to which we apply our yardstick must be no phantom. If what we weigh is not really what we want and ought to weigh, then the result obtained is of no use to us; it is, although measured with the right measure, nevertheless lie and distortion. We must therefore have a true picture of the lodge system, know what is truly characteristic of the lodge system, and this must be something that is found not only in individual lodges but in all, something that is not more pronounced in one and less in another or perhaps not at all, but comes to light in the same way in all lodges. Only this can really come into question when one wants to get to know the lodge system proper.

What means do we have for informing ourselves about what the lodges are and want? I should like to answer: We have four means of getting to know the lodge system. Of these four, however, two are not sufficient in the guarantee they offer, one is wrong, and only one is really usable and promises correctness and fairness.

One way of informing oneself about the lodge would be to observe it on the occasions when it appears in public and where, in what it does, it also welcomes those who are not lodge members: at public festivals that it arranges, at ceremonies of laying cornerstones for lodge halls and temples, sometimes even at dedications of such buildings, at processions that it arranges, at funerals of deceased members and similar occasions. There one can observe the badges they wear, the ceremonies they perform, the addresses they give, the titles they give one another, and more. From all these things one can after all draw conclusions about the character of the lodges, but is not safe from false inferences. The ceremonies one may very well misinterpret, the badges misunderstand. Often the lodges use the sign of the cross, but they do not think thereby of the cross of Christ, but of the cross that indicates the water level of the Nile by its movable crossbar. Others have the letters I. N. R. I. These, however, are not to be interpreted as Jesus Nazarenus, Rex