FRATERNAL BENEFICIARY SOCIETIES 66 1
insurance is obtained by good luck or a species of a game of chance." The church cannot be held responsible for the action of a particular synod ; yet those high in the councils of the church can render a great service by disowning such arrant non- sense and enlightening their benighted brethren who are capable of passing such asinine resolutions.
The fraternal beneficiary system, then, like most institutions, embodies both elements of strengh and of weakness. Its weak- nesses are found chiefly in unsound financiering, the inimical possibilities of conviviality, undue multiplication of orders and the competition among them, encroachment upon family life by calling for large sacrifices in time and money, and in the utter lack of uniformity and the incompleteness of the statutes gov- erning the orders. It is strong in its great relief work, its fra- ternal solicitude for members, its rules of equality, its unselfish and self-sacrificing acts of personal devotion, and in its teaching of right ideals, habits of thought and action. The first part of the duality constituting the system fraternity deserves unstinted praise; the second part benefit must be subjected to a process of metamorphosis (excepting, of course, individual societies) before it can meet the unqualified approval of thought- ful men. The fraternal beneficiary system of the United States deserves, as a whole, to be well thought of.
B. H. MEYER.
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.
