# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1904_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

32 Proceedings of the twentieth convention

can, if one is concerned to get to know this lodge more closely. In this preface it says: "The principles of the Order of the Hermannssöhne [Sons of Hermann] are: to improve and ennoble the social condition of the participants; . . . to offer to the striving after inner progress and bodily well-being such a support that each member feels and thinks himself the brother of the other. Singly and as a whole we step to the side of the suffering brother and his family. To support the sick, bury the dead, and provide for widows and orphans is our acknowledged task. Should not everyone willingly do his part for so important and high a purpose? — By helping others he finds help himself. — Divisions, of whatever kind they may be, we do not know; quarrel and envy, hatred and strife we combat, and arising discords are settled by ourselves according to principles of humanity. — Through friendship engendered by mutual and equal right, through love engendered by benevolence, we fight together the battle of life, which loyalty makes easier for us through the never-failing sympathy of the brothers."

We note that in this preface the same spirit blows, the same thoughts are expressed as in the addresses of the lodge heads to the newly admitted members. The Hermannssöhne are commonly regarded as the most harmless people among all existing lodges; we therefore wish to select this one from the excerpts read and subject it to a closer, more detailed examination.

The principles of the Order of the Hermannssöhne are: to improve (that is a promise of earthly happiness) and to ennoble (that is moral education) the social condition of the participants (that is, their position in human society); to give the German-speaking citizens of this great republic of the United States opportunity to look after their spiritual and bodily interests (moral education and earthly happiness the lodge thus wants to offer) by union in individual corporations which, however, a common bond encircles (the means to attain the purpose is the creation of brotherhood); to offer to their striving after inner progress and bodily well-being such a support that each member feels and thinks himself the brother of the other (a repetition of the foregoing, doubtless intensified in the writer's intention by the addition of feeling and thinking, but in truth weakened). Singly and as a whole we step to the side of the suffering brother and his family. (Here and in what follows the manner is described in which brotherly love is active.) To support the sick, bury the dead, and provide for widows and orphans is our acknowledged task (resting on mutual obligation within the circle of the lodge