# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1904_S22
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

22 Proceedings of the twentieth convention

Judaeorum, but in the lodge mean: Ignea natura renovatur integra [by fire nature is renewed whole]. To infer from the choice of such letters a mockery of the Christian religion or an aping of Christian things lies very near indeed, but it is not excluded that this choice is entirely accidental and happened without any malice. As for the speeches one hears on the occasions mentioned above, the prayers that may be spoken there, it is impossible for one uninitiated into the lodge system to decide how much and what of the lodge spirit and what of the speaker's personal views blows through the words. The same holds of the essays appearing in lodge periodicals. To form out of all this a judgment on the lodge system that claims correctness, or even a conclusive one, and to wish to proclaim it, would be an injustice to the lodge and to those who belong to it. Added to this is that the lodges, as secret societies, certainly do not themselves make manifest what they wish to keep secret.

A better means would be to hear such people as were once members of a lodge and then left it for whatever reasons. But may one expect from them in all circumstances an untroubled, uncolored judgment and report on the lodge system? There may be one or another among them who reports quite simply, factually and truthfully, but who guarantees to us that this is precisely the one we have before us and to whom we want to give credence? In general one must bear in mind that these people once belonged to the lodge and now no longer belong to it; they once esteemed it, now they despise it; they once loved it, now perhaps they hate it; they served it, now they harm it; they once held it good and useful, now they hold it useless or harmful; indeed, there may be among such people many who would still like to belong to the lodge and would, if there were not circumstances and conditions that bar and make impossible membership for them. Such considerations make it always questionable to want to build upon the utterances of such people, even if a George Washington is among them, a judgment that can claim infallibility. The accusation of the lodge: You hear, in order to get to know us, our enemies! — we shall never escape, and never obtain their assent that we judge them rightly.

Further and nearer to the goal would he come who, in order to get to know the lodge system, had himself received as a member into various lodges and who with this entry intended nothing more than this, that he wished to get to know the lodge. Suppose someone wished to do this. The lodge, if he came to it with such a declaration, would quite certainly not open its doors to him, for it wants members who want to be members because they want to belong to the lodge. So he would have to lie to the lodge from the start in order to carry out his purpose. That is not honest.