# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1904_S34
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

34 Proceedings of the twentieth convention

list of the "neighbor." To this count only the members of the lodge. The much-praised provision for widows and orphans consists in the payment of a fixed sum, with which the provision has reached its end, no matter whether it suffices or is adequate. The business activity of an insurance company is stamped in the lodge as benevolence, which from the outset brands the lodge's concepts of humanity, loyalty, truth, brotherly love, etc. Even if it says, e.g., in the ritual of the Knights of Pythias: "The high and insurmountable barrier that separated man from his fellow man has fallen. All sit together as brothers in concord and love. The descendants of Abraham and the adherents of the crescent are mingled with those of the cross into one happy family, knowing no difference in creed and faith," they show, not only in that they do not recognize the immorality of such a union, but also in that they extend their so-called love only to those thus united, that their morality stands on a very low level and has nothing in common with that revealed through the Apostle, who says: "Let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith."

They teach morality, teach it by word, picture and example, and for moral teaching they have no right. Teaching morality does not belong even to the state. It has to demand it, simply demand it, and to use the sword if it is not rendered to it; it is a punisher of the evil and rewarder of the good; but to teach it, it has not. How dare the lodge presume to set itself up as a teacher of morals!

It wants, however, not only to demand and teach morality; it wants also to make moral people. For this purpose it builds up brotherhood and bestows the title of brother. The consciousness of brotherhood is to be the mainspring, the inner power and strength, that drives the lodge brother to a moral life. This comes out clearly from the excerpts read before and from the rituals of the various lodges. The foundation that is laid here is false, the means that is to serve for the education of a moral person is powerless.

        "The ground whereon I'm grounded [*Der Grund, da ich mich gründe*]
        Is Christ and His blood."

The lodges — with the Freemasons at the head — are builders who reject the cornerstone. All that they want to build up: brotherhood, brotherly love, love, loyalty, truth, true humanity, etc., can be learned only if one brings Christ, can exist only where Christ dwells, can be had only by him who can say: "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Christ must be Alpha and Omega, beginning and end.

For this reason the very circumstance that the lodge people call one another brother is offensive to us. They do not found their brotherhood on faith in