Excerpt from Christian Brotherhoods In any competent definition of its meaning Brotherhood is a Christian product; fraternities having this spirit are either of direct Christian origin or have rooted themselves in soil which has been mellowed by Christian teaching. In no part of the world untouched by the faith of Christ has humanitarian and altruistic work been accomplished like that represented in the annals of Christian Brotherhood. "To subdue Self" said M. de Tocqueville, "is the secret of strength." Christianity not only teaches this truth, but it empowers the soul with altruistic passions which can not be satisfied without rendering offices of holy love. The aim of this book is to give in outline an account of men's societies produced by Christian influence, whatever their denominational relations, and with reference to their avowed purposes and results rather than to the distinction of lay or clerical. This undertaking seems to be paralleled in no existing work. The Roman orders are considered in comprehensive treatises such as those of Helyot and Heimbucher, but these volumes are somewhat out of date, and they hardly do justice to the modern conception which classifies institutions by use of the pragmatic criterion of activities and results. Secret societies and secular guilds have been quite fully considered by various authors, but their origin through Christian inspiration has been generally misstated or overlooked. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.