# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1904_S27
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1904. 27

nothing remains but a conducting of business proceedings behind closed doors, through which passage is to be obtained only by means of a password.

To expatiate at length on the aforementioned mystery-like character of the lodge is unnecessary; that pronounces its own judgment in our eyes, but also cannot give us a clear picture of the lodge system as a whole. But about secrecy in general it is surely proper to say a word. There are many things that we do in quiet, that we do not let everyone see and know. But they are things of which it is nevertheless known what they are and that we do them. From the moral standpoint there is nothing to object to in such exclusion of publicity; on the contrary, it is required. Morality demands the exclusion of publicity. But if a number of people bind themselves together and, with exclusion of publicity and exclusion of the great mass of fellow men and fellow citizens, carry on things of which these do not know and are not to know what they are and what they are aiming at, then this is not compatible with love of neighbor, which seeks not its own but that which is another's; it is an offense against fellow men and for that reason to be called immoral, even though what they carry on need not be immoral at all. But, as said, we cannot make this reproach against every lodge. The lodge system is therefore not yet characterized.

If we want really to get to know the lodge, we must let it speak for itself; its real essence will become manifest where it lets itself be heard on what it promises those whom it takes into its midst, what it wants to make of them and how it intends to reach this goal. — What a person who becomes a lodge member has and becomes by becoming a lodge member, what the lodge wants to make of him, and how the lodge accomplishes this, that is what is really essential in the lodge system. This will come to light either already, at least in part, where the lodge openly proclaims its "purpose" in its constitution, or where a newly admitted member, after he has passed through all the ceremonies of initiation, is recognized and greeted by the head as an entitled member of the lodge. We now present in what follows, from the rituals of the lodges mentioned before, the official words of greeting addressed by the presiding officer to the members just admitted.

We begin with the Freemasons. The Freemason must go through a whole series of degrees. We pick out a few degrees, e.g. the third and sixth degree.

After admission to the third degree, according to the ritual the senior deacon says to the one admitted: "Brother" (here follows the name), "since your entrance into the lodge of the Freemasons you have now advanced to the