_First. Charity_ has no need of them. They are not truly charitable
institutions. "Mutual insurance societies" they may be, though of an
inferior sort, as we have seen; but that does not elevate them into
_charitable_ institutions. To bestow on your widow and orphans, your
sickness, and funeral some pittance, or the whole of what you paid
during health and life, is not _benevolence_.

But, further, it is well to ask, in determining how greatly _charity_
depends on them, how broadly they go forth among the poor outside
their membership. During the anti-masonic excitement of 1826-1830 some
two thousand lodges suspended. The resultant suffering was less,
perhaps, than what would follow the suspension of a single soup
association, any winter, in some city. Blot out the whole, and how
small the injury to the charities of the country!

The Church of Christ is commanded to "do good unto _all_ men"--"to
remember the poor." It is engaged in this work. It blows no
trumpet--it does not parade its charities; but it shrinks from
comparison with no one of these orders, nor with all of them combined.
_Christians_ need not to go into them to preserve _charity_ alive, or
to find the best ways of exercising their own.

_Secondly. Morality_ does not depend on them. We need say nothing of
"what is done of them in secret." But, looking at what is open to all,
we ask, What _work_ are they doing worthy of so much organization, and
expense, and time to reclaim the fallen, to banish vice, and to save
its victim? We have heard them refusing him admission or cutting him
off, but we have not heard of any considerable aid which they have
given to public or private morality. And, further, do we not find them