THE JERICHO ROAD

by

W. BION ADKINS

Author of "Twelve Steps Toward Heaven, " "The Anonymous Letter, " etc. 

1901

Like the rivers, forever running yet never passed, like the windsforever going yet never gone, so is Odd-Fellowship. 

DEDICATION

WORTHY AND GENTLE BROTHERS

I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK TO THEE, SINCERELY HOPING THAT IT WILLAFFORD YOU MUCH PLEASURE AND BE THE MEANS OF INCITING YOU TO GREATEREFFORT IN BEHALF OF OUR BELOVED ORDER. MAY THY YEARS BE MANY AND THEIRSEASONS ALL GOLDEN AUTUMNS, RICH IN PURPLE CLUSTERS AND GARNEREDDELIGHTS. 

PREFACE

"I have lived much that I have not written, but I have written nothingthat I have not lived, and the story of this book is but a plaintiverefrain wrung from the over-burdened song of my life; while the tidesof feeling, winding down the lines, had their sources in as many brokenupheavals of my own heart. " A book, like an implement, must be judgedby its adaptation to its special design, however unfit for any otherend. This volume is designed to help Odd-Fellows in their search forthe good things in life. There is need of something to break the spellof indifference that oftentimes binds us, and to open glimpses ofbetter, sweeter, grander possibilities. Hence this volume, which is aplea for that great fortune of man--his own nature. Bulwer says:"Strive while improving your one talent to enrich your whole capital asa man. " The present work is designed to aid in securing the result thusrecommended. We send it forth, trusting that it will find its way intothe hands of every Odd-Fellow and every Odd-Fellow's friend andneighbor, and that those who read it will gather from its pages lessonswhich shall enable them to pluck thorns from their pathway and scatterflowers instead. 

W. BION ADKINS. 

October 1, 1899. 

 TODAY'S DEMAND

 God give us men. A time like this demands Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands; Men whom the lust of office does not kill; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor; Men who will not lie, Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog In public duly and in private thinking. For, while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds, Their large professions and their little deeds, Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps, Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps. God give us men!

 --Selected. 

 TOMORROW'S FULFILLMENT

 * * In the long years liker must they grow; The man be more of woman, she of man; He gain in sweetness and in moral height, Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care-- Till at the last she set herself to man, Like perfect music unto noble words; And so these twain, upon the skirts of time, Sit side by side, full summed in all their powers, Self-reverent each and reverencing each. Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm; Then springs the crowning race of human kind. 

 --Alfred Tennyson. 

CONTENTS

Objects and Purposes of Odd-Fellowship

The Higher Life

Pithy Points

The Bible in Odd-Fellowship

Brother Underwood's Dream

The Imperial Virtue

Quiet Hour Thoughts

Love Supreme

Gems of Beauty

Husband and Father

Odd-Fellowship and the Future

INTRODUCTORY

On April 26, 1819, Thomas Wildey, the English carriage-spring maker, together with John Welch, John Duncan, John Cheatham and RichardRushworth, instituted the first lodge of Odd-Fellows at the Seven StarsTavern in Baltimore, and it was given the name of Washington Lodge No. 1. From this feeble beginning has grown the immense organization oftoday. The Odd-Fellows claim a venerable antiquity for their order, the most common account of its origin ascribing it to the Jewish legendunder Titus, who, it is said, received from that Emperor the firstchapter, written on a golden tablet. The earliest mention made of thelodge is in 1745, when one was organized in England. There were atthat time several lodges independent of each other, but in a few yearsthey formed a union. Toward the end of the century many of them werebroken up by state prosecutions, on suspicion that their purposes wereseditious. The name was changed from the Patriotic Order to that ofthe Union Order of Odd-Fellows. In Manchester, England, in 1813, someof the lodges seceded from the order, and formed the Independent Orderof Odd-Fellows. 

The order's first appearance in America was in 1819. The purposes ofthe order were so changed by the founders here, that it is said to bealmost purely an American organization. It was based on the ManchesterUnity, which was really the parent institution. In 1842, this countrysevered its connection with that of England. 

Lodges connected with either those of England or America areestablished in all parts of the world. The real estate held by theorganization exceeds in value $20, 000, 000, and there is scarcely a townin the country that has not its Odd-Fellows Building. The totalrevenue of the order is nearly $10, 000, 000 per annum. Yearly reliefamounts to nearly $4, 000, 000 a year. 

 THE JERICHO ROAD

 "A traveler passed down the Jericho road, He carried of cash a pretty fair load (The savings of many a toilsome day), On his Jericho home a mortgage to pay. 

 "At a turn of the road, in a lonely place, Two villainous men met him face to face. 'Hands up!' they cried, and they beat him sore, Then off to the desert his money they bore. 

 "Soon a priest came by who had a fold; He sheared his sheep of silver and gold. He saw the man lie bruised and bare, But he passed on by to his place of prayer. 

 "Then a Levite, temple bound, drew nigh; He saw the man, but let him lie, And clad in silk, and filled with pride, He passed him by on the other side. 

 "Next on the way a Samaritan came (To priest and Levite a hated name); The wounded man he would not pass, He tenderly placed him on his ass. 

 "He took him to an inn hard by; He dressed his wounds and bathed his eye; He paid the landlord his full score; If more was needed would pay him more. 

 "Ah! many travel the Jericho way, And many are robbed and beaten each day; And many there be on the way in need, Whom Priest or Levite never heed; And who to fate would yield, alas! If some Samaritan did not pass. "

THE OBJECTS AND PURPOSES OF ODD-FELLOWSHIP

We are taught that "God hath made of one blood all nations of men todwell on the face of the earth, " and when we say mutual relief andassistance is a leading office in our affiliation, and thatOdd-Fellowship is systematically endeavoring to improve and elevate thecharacter of man, to imbue him with a proper conception of hiscapabilities for good, to enlighten his mind, to enlarge the sphere ofhis affections and to redeem him from the thralldom of ignorance andprejudice, and teach him to recognize the fatherhood of God and thebrotherhood of men, we have epitomized the objects, purposes and basicprinciples of our order. Odd-Fellowship is broad and comprehensive. It is founded upon that eternal principle which teaches that all theworld is one family and all mankind are brothers. Unheralded andunsung, it was born and went forth, a breath of love, a sweet song thathas filled thousands of hearts with joy and gladness. To the rich andthe poor, the old and the young, at all times, comes the rich, sweetmelody of this song of humanity to comfort and to cheer. For eightyyears the light of Odd-Fellowship has burned before the world, a beaconto the lost, a comfort to the wanderer and a protection to thethoughtless. Eighty years of work for humanity's sake; eighty yearsdevoted to teaching men to love mankind; eighty years of earnest labor, consecrated by friendship, cemented with love and beautified by truth. In ancient times men sought glory and renown in gladiatorial combat, though the victor's laurel was wet with human blood. In modern timesmen seek the plaudits of the world by achievements for human good, andby striving to elevate and ennoble men. Looking back through nineteencenturies we behold a cross, and on it the crucified Christ, withnail-pierced hands, and wounded, bleeding side, but whose heart was sofull of love and pity that even in His dying agonies He had compassionupon His persecutors, and cried out, "Father, forgive them, for theyknow not what they do. "

That event was the dividing line between the ancient and the modernera; between the rule of "brute force" and the "mild dominion of loveand charity. " The mission of Odd-Fellowship, like that of the lowlyNazarene, is to replace the rule of might with the gentle influence oflove, and to teach a universal fraternity in the family of man. Tomeet and satisfy and better keep alive the nobler elements of man'snature. Many orders have been instituted, but none can challengegreater admiration from men, or deserve more blessings from heaven, than the Independent Order of Odd-Fellows. Looking back along thepathway of the century behind us we behold the wrecks of many orders. The morning of their life was beautiful and full of glorious promise, but the evening came and they had perished. Rich costumes, impressiveceremonies, beautiful degrees and magnificent effects, all lie buriedand forgotten. It was not because their founders lacked energy orenthusiasm, not because their members were less susceptible to thebeauty and poetry of tradition and ceremony, but because success andperpetuity come not from human effort, but are the outgrowth of alife-giving principle. The sculptor fashions from the marble a form ofsurpassing loveliness, its lines are those of grace and beauty. Westand before it charmed, whispering our admiration, but the impressionon the heart is only passing. The poet sings of home, of mother and oflove; the meter may be faulty and the words may charm not, but thesentiment is true and touches our hearts. The experience it recites iscommon to humanity, and wherever its sweet tones are heard it softensmen's natures and makes them better, truer and nobler. Who among uswould be willing to exchange the influence of the immortal song "HomeSweet Home, " or be willing to forget the Christian's "Nearer My God toThee, " for all the inanimate beauty of art? One charms the eye, theother touches and calls to life the best and sweetest emotions of thehuman heart. So it is with fraternal societies. Flashing swords, glittering helmets, jeweled regalias and beautiful degrees may touchthe vanity and excite the admiration, but to win the heart we mustsatisfy its longings, feed its hopes and lift it above the narrownessand selfishness of its daily experience. Odd-Fellowship strives totouch the heart and better feelings, rather than feed the vanity of manor arouse his admiration for gorgeous displays. Its work is anexemplification of the living, practical Christianity of today. Inalmost every state in this fair land of ours can be found Odd-Fellows'homes, within whose walls the orphan is no longer motherless. For eachand every little one within these homes, one million Odd-Fellows feel afather's love and pledge a parent's care. 

Add to all this great work the little deeds of love, the little acts ofkindness that make life beautiful; add kind words of cheer and friendlyhelp and tender consolation, and add again the benefit of union, thestrength that comes from hearts united in God's work among mankind, andyou have caught a glimpse of the life-giving principle that has madeOdd-Fellowship one of the grandest fraternal and beneficiaryinstitutions the world has ever known. The work it has done can not befully estimated until the record is read in the bright light ofeternity. In that glad day the tears that have been wiped away willbecome jewels in somebody's crown, and the sobs that have been hushedwill be heard again in hosannas of welcome. 

Onward! is the ringing, pregnant watchword of the world. The vast, complicated, ponderous machinery of life is kept in motion by tirelessand irresistible forces. The multiform and magnificent affairs of menand of nations are all impelled forward with an energy and a velocityas wonderful as glorious to behold. 

Not retrogressive, but progressive--not enervating, but energizing--notephemeral, but substantial--not from bad to worse, but from theimperfect to the consummate, are the characteristics by which are soprominently distinguished the tidal waves of the world's progress today. 

Activity and achievement came with creation, and constitute aninflexible, irrepealable law of the universe. In stir and push we havelight and life, but in idleness, and superstitious clinging tofossilized ideas and bygones, we have demoralization, decay and death. 

Fortunately for the world, and agreeably with infinite design, manplods his way in harmony with the law alluded to. Not all men, but thegreat masses of them, wherever "The true light shineth, " especiallywhen accompanied by rays and helps from one of the noblest and grandestof confraternities our world has known, "The Independent Order ofOdd-Fellows. " When the huge planet which we call our world had beentossed into being from the furnace fires of Omnipotence, and thematernal lullaby began to gather force on hill top and in valley, thediscovery was naturally enough made that association and co-operationwere preferable to isolation and unrelieved dependence; and from thathour forward, this principle has been interwoven into the veryframework of human society. The purpose has been the elevation andimprovement of mankind. For, though the first product was pronounced"good, " it quickly degenerated; and there came an emphasized demand forreform. 

EARLY ORGANIZATIONS. 

Human isolation is an unnatural condition. It antagonizes the highestand best interests of the world. Its influence is never beneficent, but always and necessarily harmful. If the truest well being of theuniverse, and the supremest glory of Jehovah could have been attainedby conditions of solitude, it is not impossible that the goodAll-Father would have given to every man a continent, and so have madehim monarch of all he surveyed. 

Physically regarded, there is no limit to Omnipotent power. Acontinent, and even a world, was therefore within the pale of divinepossibilities. Jehovah, however, is not only great, but he is theGreatness of Goodness. High and holy ends were to be accomplished, andhappy purposes to be secured, by means of human instrumentalities, andbe jointly shared by Creator and creature. 

Among the earliest of Deific utterances, therefore, we have this: "Itis not good that man should be alone. " I concede that, primarily, thecompanionship of woman is here intended. But the declaration is notonly good in this, but equally so in other regards. A lifetime ofsolitude with no incentives to action--nothing to draw out, exerciseand expand the latent powers of the soul--no interchange of thought--noclashing of opinion--no towering resolves to stimulate--no difficultiesto surmount! What imagination so fertile that it could picture a morehateful or intolerable Hades than would be such a condition of affairs?

Hence, in the early days of the world's history we discern theprinciple of association and co-operation, with plans and systemsembodying its practical application. Organizations came into being, obedient to the summons of necessity. How well the variousorganizations have wrought along the pathway of centuries, and howgreat or small may have been the measure of their success, I am nothere to discuss, much less to determine. Each has done its work in itsown way, and pockets responsibility for results. Common courtesy andcandor suggest that each has been largely animated by highest andworthiest of motives. 

ODD-FELLOWSHIP, Reared upon the broad catholic principle of brotherhood, extending itshelpful hand from nation to nation, and from continent to continent, linking its votaries together with the golden triple chain ofFriendship, Love and Truth, can afford to be friendly with each, andhave a kindly word for all societies that reach down after and raise upa fallen brother, and if possible make him wiser, better and happier. Should a like courtesy be extended to this order, while it wouldcertainly constitute a new departure, it would prove none the lessgratifying. But, from certain sources, the order has been therecipient of a peculiar kind of consideration, so long that "the memoryof man scarce runneth to the contrary. " Inflamed appeals and bristlingdenunciations have gone out against it, "while great, swellingwords"--swollen with hatred, bigotry, prejudice and superstition--haveassailed it relentlessly and almost uninterruptedly. Mainly, theseassaults have been met with the terse and pointed invocation, "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do. "

That this great and potent brotherhood may not, in all its parts andjurisdictions, have so deported itself, and so carried forward itswork, as to be justly free from unfavorable criticism and meritedcensure, is probably true. As with organizations, there is sometimestoo much haste displayed in gathering, and too little discriminationexercised in selecting, the materials that are brought as componentparts of the great superstructure of Odd-Fellowship. Too much daubingwith untempered mortar--too great a desire for the exhibition ofnumerical force, and the multiplication of lodges--too much regard forthe outward trappings and paraphernalia, and too little regard for theinternal qualities of those seeking membership in the fraternity. Suchdeplorable departures, as well from the primary as the ultimate objectshad in view, are not fairly attributable to anything that may bereasonably considered as an outgrowth of the order, but come despiteits constant teachings and warnings. Bad work they of course make, andso at times and to a limited extent bring the fraternity under the banof popular displeasure, but shall the world predicate unfavorablejudgment upon a few and unfair tests? If so, and the principlelogically becomes general, pray who shall be appointed administrator ofthe effects of other social and moral organizations, and even of thechurch itself? For in these regards all offend, if offense it be. When the principles of Odd-Fellowship are carefully studied it isapparent to every candid mind that it is founded upon that eternalprinciple which recognizes man as a constituent of one universalbrotherhood, and teaches him that as he came from the hand of a commonparent, he is in duty bound to cherish and protect his fellow-man. Viewed in this light, Odd-Fellowship becomes one of the noblestinstitutions organized by man in the world. If the beauty and grandeurof universal brotherhood could be impressed upon the minds of all thepeople, how very different from the past would the future history ofthe world read. What a delightful place this old stone-ribbed earthwould be if men would look upon each other as brothers, members of onecommon family; enjoying the many comforts of one home; trusting to theguidance and protection of one Father--God. We are more nearly relatedthan we think. Running through all humanity there is a link ofrelationship and a bond of sympathy that can not be exterminated. Theprinciple of brotherly love is so great and broad that all mankindcould unite in offices of human benefaction. Brother. Oh, how sacredand how sweet when spoken by a true heart! Whether it be in the homecircle, lodge-room, or in some distant land, it sends the same soothingthrill of joy to the heart. Let us pause just a moment to think of thetime and place when we first learned to call each other brother. Ah!Methinks no Odd-Fellow will ever forget his first lesson. He willalways remember how quickly he was changed from the haughty dispositionmanifested by that one of old, who, when he prayed, went to the publicsquare, or climbed to the house top, and thanked God that he was notlike other men, to the humble attitude of that one who stood afar offand bowed his face in the dust, crying aloud, "O Lord! Be mercifulunto me a sinner. " How very much like this ancient boaster arethousands of the human family today. Sitting in high places, surrounded by wealth and power, they see nothing beyond the narrowcircle in which they move. They are deaf to the low, sad wail ofsorrow that comes from some breaking heart. Seated by their owncomfortable fireside they give no thought to the lonely widow standingoutside in the cold. It distresses them not that the keen, wintryblast sends its icy chill to the already broken heart. No thought, nofeeling, for this poor creature that must now fight the fierce battlesincident to human life, all alone. How sadly these tender duties tosuffering humanity are neglected when left to the cold charity of theworld. 

Odd-Fellowship seeks to lessen sorrow and suffering. It suppliestemporal wants; gives encouragement; aids and comforts those who are indistress. In sickness we watch by their bedside and administer totheir wants. If death calls, Odd-Fellowship forsakes not its follower, but hovers near, listening attentively to the last words and partinginstruction of the dying one. Brothers and friends, let me admonishyou to do all the good you can while in health and strength, for atmost life is short and we know not how soon the Angel of Death willunfold his broad, shadowy wings over our path and call us to give anaccount of our stewardship; then all that will remain of us on earthwill be the good or evil we have done. 

Odd-Fellowship is full of sacred teachings and sublime warnings. Itteaches us that we are in a world full of temptations, sin and sorrow. We see the emblems of decay all around us. The strong man of today maystand forth, nerved for toil, with all the bloom of health mantlingcheek and brow, seemingly as strong and vigorous as the mighty oak, andyet tomorrow he will fade as the autumn leaf. Then he realizes howfoolish it is to be vain; thinks of the instability of wealth andpower, and the certain decay of all earthly greatness. Odd-Fellowshipteaches us that charity springs from the heart, is not puffed up, seeksnot its own. It makes us strong, and encourages us to push on throughlife, even though we are beset on every side with toil, danger andstrife. Brothers, let nothing cause you to turn back or away from theprinciples of our noble order. Cling closer and closer each day tohonesty and truth, and bear in mind that be the road ever so rough anduntraveled, narrow and dark, if you follow truth you will find light atthe end of the journey. 

THE SECRESY OBJECTION. 

More common, perhaps, than any other filed against it has been theobjection that Odd-Fellowship does its work secretly, this objectionbeing not unfrequently urged by persons of candor and honest impulses. "If, " it is demanded, "the aims and purposes of the order be legitimateand praiseworthy, why shroud them in mystery rather than give them thebroad sunlight of publicity. "

The objection is not new, nor is it urged with any increase of itsoriginal force, whatever may be the fact in the matter of vehemence. Answer might be made: The order does not choose to ascend to the housetops for the purpose of heralding its affairs to the world. But thatanswer would not be satisfactory, nor is any likely to be that may bepresented, now or hereafter. It is nevertheless true that there arecertain matters pertaining to the order and its works with which theoutside world has no sort of concern, even as with those very peculiarsecret societies, the individual, the family, the church and the state. If other organizations prefer to resort to the newspapers, the pulpit, the rostrum and other information conduits for the purpose ofadvertising their wares, their greatness and their goodness, and thevast amount of humanitarian work they are doing and purposing, such istheir unquestioned privilege. 

But if the preference of Odd-Fellowship be for quieter and lessobtrusive methods, pray who shall fairly contest its right of choice?

And then it should be remembered that there are matters in which theright hand is prohibited the privilege of interfering with theprerogatives of the left, and the left with those of the right. Norshould the fact be forgotten that there is Divine example, if notprecept, for the established "modus operandi" of the order. Upon acertain occasion the Great Teacher had performed a very humble servicefor one of his disciples who was sadly at loss for the why and thewherefore, and the answer, received to his inquiry was: "What I do thouknowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. "

And in the grand hereafter, when the films of ignorance and thewarpings of prejudice and superstition shall have melted away under thebright sunlight of Eternal Day, it is not impossible that our vexed, inquisitive, worrying opponents may be permitted to look back over thepathway this order has traversed, glance at the work that has beenwrought and peradventure discover how unreasonable, as well asfruitless, has been the warfare they have been pleased to wage withsuch persistent fury. A long time to wait, maybe, but then good thingsdo not come rapidly nor all at once. Meanwhile, to encourage them intheir waiting, their watching and their worrying, let them take thislesson from the same Great Teacher: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it comethor whither it goeth. " Ah, no! it will not do, because you can not seeand comprehend all of everything, inside as well as outside, toconclude that it must necessarily be bad. Adopt that theory, and younot only fly in the face of reason, but bump your head against almosteverything in nature, in art and in science. 

Secrets! yes; they are within us and without us, above us and beneathus and all about us, and "what are you going to do about it?" Wellmight Israel's old and gifted poet king write: "We are fearfully andwonderfully made, " soul and body, the mortal and the immortal, thematerial and the immaterial, strangely and mysteriously conjoined!God's secret, this! Will you denounce Him and withdraw allegiance fromHim, for the reason that He fails to make clear to you a clear andsatisfying revelation? The same old singer said thousands of yearsago, "The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showethHis handiwork. " And those heavens, with that firmament, are chargedand surcharged with mightiest and profoundest secrets. We seize thetelescope and "plunge into the vast profound overhead, intent uponmastering the secrets of the revolving spheres. "

We travel from star to star, from system to system, until we reach yonlonely star that appears to be performing the Guardian's task, upon theverge of unmeasured and immeasurable space. We may descry and describethe form and outlines of those heavenly bodies, detect their movementsand approximately determine their distances and dimensions. But whatmore? Little that is satisfying. When they had a beginning, whatpurposes they subserve in the sublime system of God's stupendousuniverse, and when they shall have a consummation, we may not certainlyknow. Secrets, these, and such "Secret things belong unto God. " Wewould like to know these secrets, but must wait; for there, "roll thosemighty worlds that gem the distant sky, " as distantly and dismally aswhen Chaldean and Egyptian astronomers and astrologers viewed theirmovements three thousand years ago, rifled meanwhile of but few oftheir well kept secrets. He that pencils the lily and paints the roseand gives to every blade of grass its own bright drop of dew, has beenpleased to say: "Hitherto shalt thou come and no further. " And thereis great unwisdom in setting up factious opposition to the fiat ofOmnipotence. Possess your souls in patience, O friends! wait, as wemust wait, before knowing all, or even knowing much. If you can not beOdd-Fellows, you can at least be _men_, with an effort. 

WHAT IS ODD-FELLOWSHIP?

"But, sir, " you demand, "can you tell us something more aboutOdd-Fellowship, its purposes and its Work?" I can, a little. Comewith me, then, and we will look into the lodge. Ah! In the mostconspicuous place there stands an altar--upon it the open Bible, theworld's great word of Life and Light. Upon the principles enunciatedby that Book, largely rests the great superstructure of Odd-Fellowship. The Bible is to the order what the sun is to the material universe--itsilluminator and vivifier, even as it also is the, guide to faith andpractice. A man may neglect his closet, his church, his Bible, butwhen he enters the lodge he is bound to listen to the voice of hisMaker, as it thunders from His word; and while the lodge does by nomeans lay claim to the possession of religious attributes, yet has itbeen the means, by the constant use of the Bible, of turning many fromthe ways of wrong-doing and sin, into paths of pleasantness and peace;and by a unique system of symbolism and a comprehensive and practicalapplication of its sublime truths, the faith of the believer has beenstrengthened, enlarged and rendered usefully active. 

Odd-Fellowship's plan of benefaction addresses itself to the physicalas well as the moral nature, and, reaching out from its immediatesubjects, permeates by natural affinity every sphere in which activesympathy may be invoked. Its mission and its results are not onlyactive and substantial, but often so effective by its consequential orindirect influence as to penetrate entire communities. In thisconnection I will say Odd-Fellowship is not a religious organization. Our work pertains particularly to this life, educating the heart of manto practical beneficence, alleviating the sufferings of humanity andelevating the character of man. Odd-Fellowship was not organized forthe purpose of ridding the world of all its sorrows, but to ameliorateand to soften the suffering to which the human family is heir. It isan association of men who have united themselves for the purpose ofsmoothing the ragged edge of want, and extending to those who are bounddown by the iron bands of misfortune a helping hand. Odd-Fellowshipholds no affinity with the classifications or distinctions of society, but dispenses charity to all alike. It does not array itself againstthe church, nor presume to arrogate its functions, or to supervise itsteachings. Its lodges are not the council rooms of enmity toreligious, civil, moral or social organizations. Far otherwise; allits oracles and instructions in relation to these grave subjects findtheir warrant and authority in the divine law, under the inspiration ofwhich it proclaims the Golden Rule as the sublimest illustration of thelaw of love. Odd-Fellowship keeps a close watch over its subjects, andconstantly impresses upon their minds the fact that their hearts mustnot foster evil, the progenitor of crime, or hatred and vice, whoseevil consequences must continue to afflict mankind until the coming ofthat time to which hope looks forward with ardent joy, when one lawshall bind all nations, tongues and kindred of the earth, and that lawwill be the law of "_Universal Brotherhood_. " Odd-Fellowship alsoteaches us that we are never to judge a man by his outward appearance. A man's form may be clothed with rags, his hands may be rough and hard, his cheeks may be browned by the rays of summer's sun; yet underneathall this there may be an honest heart. If so, we take him by the handand call him brother. Odd-Fellowship teaches equality; we must meetupon one common level. The brother who lives in the rough log cabinenjoys the same right and privileges as the monarch on his throne. Welive, we move and have our being, and are indebted for all things tothe One Great Ruler of the Universe--God. All persons are desirous ofbeing happy, and happiness is sought for in various ways. Odd-Fellowship teaches that man is responsible for his own misery. Ibelieve that no mere misfortune can ever call for exceeding bittersorrow. As long as man preserves himself from contamination of thatwhich is evil and foul, he can not reach any very low depth of woe. Byhis own act, by his own voluntary desertion of the true aim of life, and by that alone, is it possible that a man should drink his cup ofmisery to the dregs. The want of happiness, so prevalent, is thus thenatural consequence of the inherent blindness of men. By it they areled to pursue eagerly the phantom of _wealth_, _rank_, power, etc. , white neglecting that which alone can satisfy the wants of the soul. If men could really know what is their chief good, we should no longerhear on every hand prayers offered up for those idle accoutrements oflife, which may indeed be enjoyed, but often bring onlydissatisfaction, and can be dispensed with without inconvenience tomankind. 

Many persons say Odd-Fellowship is contrary to the teachings of theBible. The way such people read their Bible is just like the way thatthe old monks thought hedgehogs ate grapes. They rolled themselvesover and over where the grapes lay on the ground. What fruit stuck totheir spines they carried off and ate. So your hedgehoggy readers rollthemselves over and over their Bibles and declare that whatever sticksto their spines is Scripture and that nothing else is. But you canonly get the skins of the texts that way. If you want their juice youmust press them in cluster. Now the clustered texts about the humanheart insist as a body, not on any inherent corruption in all hearts, but on the terrific distinction between the bad and the good ones. "Agood man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth thatwhich is good, and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringethforth that which is evil. "

"They on the rock are they which, in an honest and good heart, havingheard the word, kept it. "

"Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires ofthine heart. The wicked have bent their bow that they may privilyshoot at him that is upright in heart. " For all of us, the question isnot at all to ascertain how much or how little corruption there is inhuman nature, but to ascertain whether, out of all the mass of thatnature, we are the sheep or the goat breed; whether we are people ofupright heart being shot at, or people of crooked heart doing theshooting. 

And of all the texts bearing on the subject, this, which is a quitesimple and practical order, is the one you have chiefly to hold inmind: "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issuesof life. "

The will of God respecting us is, that we shall live by each othershappiness and life; not by each others misery or death. 

Men help each other by their joy, not by their sorrow. There is butone way in which man can ever help God--that is, by letting God helphim. 

A little boy, who had often heard his father pray for the poor, thatthey might be clothed and fed, interrupted him one day by saying, "Father, if you will give me the key to your corn crib and wheat bin, Iwill answer some of your prayers. "

Ah! my friends, always keep in mind this truth, "One hour of justice isworth seventy years of prayer. "

Call not this, then, a Godless institution, rioting in selfishness andinfidelity, as it has been denominated by certain super-excellentChristians, who appear to have fully persuaded themselves that no goodcan possibly come from such a Nazareth. For, with the constant andunvarying light of the Holy Bible, that illuminated lexicon of thesweet Beyond, and of the approaches thereto--that trusty talisman ofall hopeful hearts--that competent counselor of the wisest and thebest--that inspirer of joy and satisfaction born of no other book--thatprecious presager of immortal life beyond the river--that divine guideto faith and practice, can by no means fail in the ultimate working outof its sublime purposes. 

In the ranks of Odd-Fellowship there are many of the truest, noblest, sharpest and most holy men in the civilized world. None of these havebeen able to make that "Godless and selfish" discovery. This brilliantachievement is reserved for those favored mortals that never saw theinside of an Odd-Fellow's lodge, and are entirely ignorant of itscharacter and practical workings. The order has increased largely inwealth, power and influence. Large cities and towns, which formerlypaid little or no attention to us, now eagerly welcome us to theirhospitalities. 

Judges and governors vie with each other in doing us honor, and wellmay we be proud of the position the order has attained. Just think ofit a moment: when you clasp hands with an Odd-Fellow here in your ownhome, you are really clasping hands with one million men who haveobligated themselves to stay with you through every trial andmisfortune. Wonder no longer, then, at the growth and stability ofthis great fraternity, or that its votaries cling to it with suchunshaken and unswerving fidelity. Ah! it is no light matter, no smallprivilege, to be admitted to membership in such an organization--sofreeing one's self from the surgings of self-seeking and selfishconsiderations--free from the trammels of prevailing prejudice andpassion--free from the false educational influences that warp the mindand drive charity from the heart. 

Our order's emblem is the three links, FRIENDSHIP, LOVE AND TRUTH. 

Friendship, love, truth--golden links these, that not only bindtogether their obligated votaries, but that recognize and embrace, because of worthiness and plighted faith, that behind the back as wellas face to face, have a defensive, kindly word and a brother's generousdeed; that, amid the upheavals of communities and the crumbling ofnations, systems and governments, swerve not from their course, and arecorralled by no arbitrary bounds, and that, whatever the dialect, thenationality or the religion of men, read upon humanity's brow theinscription written by the finger of infinite love--a man and abrother, a woman and a sister. 

A faithful and true friend is a living treasure, estimable inpossession and deeply to be lamented when gone. Nothing is more commonthan to talk of a friend; nothing more difficult than to find one;nothing more rare than to improve by one as we ought. 

The only reward of virtue is virtue. The only way to have a friend isto be one. Such is friendship. Next in our golden chain is Love. Love is the stepping stone to heaven. This principle teaches man hiscapabilities for good, enlightens his mind, enlarges the sphere of hisaffections and leads him to that true fraternal relation which wasdesigned by the Great Author of his existence. Love teaches us to beself-sacrificing. For a bright instance of this we point you to Moses, the great law-giver of the Jews. He turned his back on the splendorsof Pharaoh's court and chose rather to share the wretchedness of hislowly people than serve as a king for their oppressors, finally dyingin sight of that inheritance, which, though denied to him, was given tohis ungrateful countrymen. How very bright on the pages of historyshine such acts of love and sacrifice. This principle belongs to noone organization, party or sect. It can be made to bud and bloom aswell under the fierce rays of the torrid zone, midst the icebergs ofGreenland, or the everlasting snows of Caucasus. It always carries thesame smile, whether in the cabin or in the palace. Following in itsfootsteps there is such a halo of glory, such a gentle influence, thatit gathers within its sacred realm antagonistic natures, controls theelements of discord, stills the storm, soothes the spirit of passion, and directs in harmony all of man's efforts to fraternize the world. In this strangely selfish and uncertain world none are so affluent orfavorably circumstanced as not at some time and in some way to becomedependent. Oh! there are emphasized essentialities that are notembraced among the commodities of the market, and in order to therealization of which money possesses no purchasing power. To relievethe pungent pinchings of penury with raiment, food and shelter, and sosend the sunshine of gladness to the poor and needy, issomething--indeed is much. But, ah! the delicate and intricatemechanism of mind is out of gear, a secret sorrow swells and sways theheart, and unitedly they cry: "Who will show us any good? Who removethis rankling sorrow? What good Samaritan competent to the task ofaffording relief to this dazed brain?" Oh! it is here that the trainedvotaries of the triple brotherhood bring to bear their wondrous power. If it be true "that one touch of nature makes the whole world kin, " itis equally true that the ties of brotherhood here would wield theirmost potent influence, and of the true Odd-Fellow well may it be said, "He hath a tear for pity, and a hand open as day for melting charity. "

TRUTH! crown jewel of the radiant sisterhood of queenly graces! Shecan not be crushed to earth. The eternal years of God being hers, she, no more than her author, can go down. Error may fling widely open hisarsenal gates of defilement and deceit, and seek so earnestly andtirelessly the usurpation of her throne; but there she sits, as firmlyand gracefully as when the morning stars sang together and the sons ofGod shouted for joy. Such is truth, the rarest of all human virtues. 

The man who is so conscious of the rectitude of his intentions, as tobe willing to open his bosom to the inspection of the world, is inpossession of the strongest pillars of a decided character. The courseof such a man will be firm and steady, because he has nothing to fearfrom the world and is sure of the approbation of heaven. While he whois conscious of secret and dark designs, which, if known, would blasthim, is perpetually shrinking and dodging from public observation, andis afraid of all around, and, much more, of all above him. Such a manmay indeed pursue his iniquitous plans steadily; he may waste himselfto a skeleton in the guilty pursuit, but it is impossible that he canpursue them with the same health-inspiring confidence and exultingalacrity with him who feels at every step that he is in pursuit ofhonest ends by honest means. The clear, unclouded brow, the opencountenance, the brilliant eye, which can look an honest mansteadfastly, yet courteously, in the face, the healthfully beatingheart and the firm, elastic step, belong to him whose bosom is freefrom guile, and who knows that all his motives and purposes are pureand right. Why should such a man falter in his course? He may beslandered, he may be deserted by the world, but he has that within himwhich will keep him erect, and enable him to move onward in his course, with his eyes fixed on heaven, which he knows will not desert him. 

Odd-Fellowship teaches its members to be men of honor. When I sayhonest, I use it in its larger sense of discharging all your duties, both public and private, both open and secret, with the mostscrupulous, heaven-attesting integrity; in that sense, farther, whichdrives from the bosom all little, dark, crooked, sordid, debasingconsiderations of self, and substitutes in their place a bolder, loftier and nobler spirit, one that will dispose you to consideryourselves as born not so much for yourselves as for your country andyour fellow-creatures, and which will lead you to act on every occasionsincerely, justly, generously and magnanimously. There is a moralityon a larger scale, perfectly consistent with a just attention to yourown affairs, which it would be folly to neglect; a generous expansion, a proud elevation and conscious greatness of character, which is thebest preparation for a decided course in every situation into which youcan be thrown; and it is to this high and noble tone of character thatI would have you to aspire. I would not have you to resemble thoseweak and meagre streamlets, which lose their direction at every pettyimpediment that presents itself, and stop and turn back, and creeparound, and search out every channel through which they may wind theirfeeble and sickly course. Nor yet would I have you resemble theheadlong torrent that carries havoc in its mad career; but I would haveyou like the ocean, that noblest emblem of majestic decision, which inthe calmest hour still heaves its resistless might of waters to theshore, filling the heavens day and night with the echoes of its sublimedeclaration of independence, and tossing and sporting on its bed withan imperial consciousness of strength that laughs at opposition. It isthis depth and weight and power and purity of character that I wouldhave you resemble; and I would have you, like the waters of the ocean, to become the purer by your own action. Men are sometimes ruinedbecause they aim not at virtue, but only at the reputation which itbrings. Odd-Fellowship teaches its members to be brave, honest anddiligent. If we have these attributes, victory must surely crown ourefforts. How often in the history of our country have men of humblebirth come forth in time of danger, and, nobly risking all, even todeath, or disgrace worse than death itself, stood between their countryand defeat, and built for themselves a glorious name. Nor, alas! isthe opposite case to this unknown. Some of America's proudest sonshave, by their own acts, sunk themselves into the inner-most depths ofinfamy and vice. 

 "Virtue alone is true nobility. Oh, give me inborn worth! dare to be just, Firm to your word and faithful to your trust. "

Knowledge is a mighty rock in a weary land, and to you, brothers, 'tispermitted to smite this rock, and from it gushes fountains of livingwaters, which form rivers of wisdom, flowing to the uttermost parts ofthe earth, carrying the proper idea of life to the souls of men. Theriver of science flows in a deep, straight course, searching out thehidden mysteries, and demonstrating facts, while Truth builds herdefenses on its shores, and Love rears her fair palaces and calmlyenjoys the result of labor and research. History, with its broadstream bringing knowledge down through the vanished centuries, revealing many a lost art, which avails us much in these later days. Mysteries which magicians have left behind them--secrets for agesundusted--that we may read the records of the past. 

Experience builds citadels upon these heights. Flowing parallel tohistory is the great, turbid stream of politics. Its crimson billowscast wrecks upon the strand, and the moaning waves strangely blend thetones of grand martial music with the discords of despair anddisappointment, for it is a treacherous tide. Along its winding shoreswar builds her forts, and there are fields of carnage and blood, anddark fortresses of envy, from which fly the poisoned shafts of malice, falsehood and revenge, and there are many graves in which lie ambition, glory and renown, with all their brilliant dreams. Opposite to thisfrom the rock of knowledge gush the sweet fountains of poetry andmusic, singing on their way through fair, secluded dells, where thereare moss-covered rocks, clinging vines, fragrant flowers and ferns andsinging birds. In their shining waves of light are mirrored the azuresky, golden sunshine and fleecy clouds, while youth, beauty, laughterand joy stray along the verdant shores, keeping time to the music ofthe merry spray and weaving garlands to crown their radiant brows. 

Not far from the rock of true knowledge flows a deep stream, calm, clear and beautiful. Majestically it sweeps through stately forests, extended plains and lofty mountains; and the fair cities of honesty, temperance and truth are built upon its shores. This wonderful streamis fed by the ever-living fountains of honor, morality, justice, mercyand divine love. The music of its waves sends forth hymns of truepatriotism, love of country and of home; and the sweet songs of faithand immortality float upward like strong, white wings, bearing the soulaway on pure melody above this world of longing and of hope, until itrises to meet the world of glory and fulfillment. Upon these shoresfaith, hope, charity and security have reared their white temples, which shall ever represent a living institution, bearing on its banneras a motto these beautiful words:

FRIENDSHIP, LOVE AND TRUTH. 

The stream which I have just described is the great river ofOdd-Fellowship, and flows into the vast ocean of eternal peace, andsuch is the momentum and indestructibility of Odd-Fellowship, that, like a great river fed from inexhaustible sources, men may come and menmay go, but it goes on forever and forever. 

Brothers, these are the streams flowing from the smitten rock whosefountains you unseal. 

Standing at the mouth of the Columbia River, one can hear the oceanwaves moaning, surging, thundering forevermore. You can not stay therushing tides that come and go, ebb and flow, until time shall be nomore; and there the great river of the west, the mighty Columbia, pouring her floods into that vast, boundless sea, so shallOdd-Fellowship pour her deep, exhaustless stream into futurity, and allthe combined forces of opposition, ignorance and fear shall have nopower to stay the onward rushing, overwhelming flood. Wafted back tous from the unexplored shore across that sea--softly whispering throughthe rose marine spirit of the mist--intuitive knowledge reveals thethrone of the Grand Lodge above, from which flows the pure river oflife, on whose shores grow the trees of knowledge and of life immortal, which bear no fruit of sin, but whose leaves are for the healing ofpoor, suffering humanity. Brothers, build such a character as willcause Christ and the angels to rejoice when they behold it. Then, whenlife's work is done, when the blessed Master calls, you will not lookmournfully into the past, but will look eagerly into the mighty futurejust opening before you. 

And as your life goes out amidst the rustling of an angel's wings--likea summer sea asleep upon a sandy shore--you will not regret that youpracticed the principles laid down by our noble order, FRIENDSHIP, LOVE AND TRUTH. 

THE HIGHER LIFE

Manhood, fully developed and symmetrically formed, through the variousstages of the world's history, has been the great conservative elementof society, and has been in high request. Some ages, however, haveseemed to make a larger demand for this element than others, and thisage of ours is one which yields to none of its predecessors in its callfor manliness of character--for men of the right stamp. The perils ofthe times are imminent, and the demand for a high grade of intelligenceand great strength of moral principle never was stronger. Newdevelopments of human genius and activity, are constantly arising, andnew dangers to the dearest interests of society are calling forvigilance. This is neither a stagnant nor a tame and quiet age. It isan age of activity, of enterprise, of speculation, of adventure, ofphilosophizing and of both real and pseudo reforms. The age eminentlydemands vigorous and mature manhood. Therefore, study, think, investigate, learn. Remember, however, that it is not knowledge storedup as intellectual fat which is of value, but that which is turned intointellectual muscle. Out of dull and selfish seclusion go forth. Regulate with care your basal endowments. Prove thy strength, andrender it sure. Deliver thy conceptions from narrowness, thy charityfrom scrimpness, thy purposes from smallness. Deny thyself and take upthy cross. Do and dare, love and suffer. So shalt thou build acharacter that will abide all the tests which future years or ages maybring. 

Bear constantly in mind that you are endlessly improvable. "It is forGod and for Omnipotency to do mighty things in a moment; butdegreeingly to grow to greatness is the course that He hath left forman. " To the conscious human self there belong possibilities of suchmoment that no one can well study them without being either thrillinglyimpressed or made to experience unusual emotions. The conclusion is, therefore, unavoidable, that every soul can become great. By processesof culture to which it is able to subject itself, it can perpetuallyincrease in wisdom, in strength, and in nobleness. 

The soul's chief capabilities may, for the sake of elucidation, berepresented as so many different rooms within itself, each of which canbe made to have a spaciousness equaled by no material amplitude everyet ascertained, and each of which, so long as it is kept in theprocess of growth, is and will be susceptible of fresh furnishing. These apartments of the minor man are too wonderful to admit beingdepicted either by a writer's pen or by a painter's brush. Their mostdistinguishing characteristics can, at best, only be indicated. Whocan tell how much knowledge can find place in them, or what volumes offeeling they can contain? Who can declare the magnitude of thegrandest traits that, in them, can have freedom to thrive and bearfruit? Who can estimate the length and breadth, the height and depthof the loftiest inspirations or the noblest joys that, in them, can beexperienced? To give a full expression to the utmost intelligence, potency, amiability, purity, meritoriousness and majesty that canreside in the capability--rooms of a human soul--would be equivalent topicturing the imaginable or to portraying the infinite, and to doeither the one or the other is impossible. One may be sadlyindifferent to the value of his soul's foremost capabilities, mayinadequately exercise them, and may secure to them merely a dwarf-likecompass; but there is never a time when they can not be made totranscend the limits of development to which they have attained. Theirpossessor can educate them forever. He can unceasingly add to theirroominess and resource. In all time to come he can cause them tocontinue to exceed breadth after breadth. Oh, who can conceive howgreat his mental being is able to become? Who can comprehend howelevated a life it is possible for him to live? Who can be liable tooverrate the vastness of the destiny for which he was created?

In the language of Hughes, "Our case is like that of a traveler on theAlps, who should fancy that the top of the next hill must end hisjourney because it terminates his prospect, but he no sooner arrives atit, than he sees new ground and other hills beyond it, and continues totravel on as before. " The thought of the soul's improvability is welladapted to quicken torpid virtue and to revive drooping aspirations. It tends to scatter the gloom resulting from disappointed endeavors. Let it but have a star-like clearness in the mind, and there willspring from it an ever-new interest in life and being. 

We know that the paths of usefulness and affection must sometimes bestrewn with smitten leaves and faded bloom, and that the heart mustsometimes be chilled by harsh changes, even as the face of nature ischilled by rude winds. We know that we are doomed to find thorns inroses, and to suffer from "thorns in the flesh. " We know that thereare for us hours when the sunshine without must be darkened by shadowswithin; when we must be pierced by trials; when we must be humbled byafflictions. Yet, so we but duly know our mental possibilities, howmuch there is to animate us and to make us hopeful. Well may we go ourway, with a high ambition and with good cheer. Well may we prize, as astage of action, this old stone-ribbed earth, whereon we can behold thebeauty of emerald meadows and of blossoming plants, and can hear thesongs of russet-bosomed robins and the prattle of children, the voiceof the vernal breeze, and the sound of the summer rain. Oh, who thatever muses on the soul's heirship to the divine, can wish he had neverbeen born? I am grateful for my existence. I rejoice that I haveplace amid the bright-robed mysteries which surround me. I glory inthe shifting scenery of the seasons. No flaw do I find in the sun, themoon, or the stars. No prayer have I to make that the grass whichgrows at my feet may be fairer than it is, or that the mornings andevenings may be more attractive. Let me know as I may, and feel as Ishould, the truth that I am endlessly improvable, and I am assured thatthe soul of the universe will somehow sweeten every bitter allotmentthat falls to me, will "charm my pained steps over the burning marl"which belongs to the course of probationary experience, and will assistme joyfully to approximate the greatness of His own infinite andtranquil character. It is bliss to feel that the soul is anever-enduring entity. Unlike the clouds and the snow-heaps, the fluidsand the liquids, the rocks and the metals--unlike all the generationsof living organisms--it neither wastes away nor loses itsdistinctiveness. Nay, it outlasts every transmuting process, and, as aself-identifying self, is endlessly living. 

If we reach the high plane of a perfect manhood, we must climb. "Comeup hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter. "--Rev. , iv, 1. In this mystical Revelation we behold the seer, John, dreamingat the base of the celestial hill, and in his dream he hears a voicecommanding him to rise to the summit of the eternities, where, standing, he shall behold all things that must be. This vision has aninfinite significance, in that no small part of the felicity associatedwith the| idea of eternity is the thought that, with ample mind, weshall perfectly understand the mighty plan and enterprise of God, andknow with perfect knowledge that which is dark and obscure now. Butnot only has this truth to us an infinite significance; it has also atemporal one, in that it tells us that there is an immediaterelationship between elevation of life, between high thinking, livingand doing, and the power to command the future. "Come up hither, and Iwill show thee things which must be hereafter. " That is, let us standhigh and we see far and wide, let us stand high and we see deep. Elevation grants perspective and yields the possession of those yearsnot only that are, but that are not. Now, so understood, these wordshave much inspiration, comfort and solace for all of us, for a verylarge part of man's life is future. Indeed, the great regulative forceof every human spirit is not so much the present and the past--presentopportunity and past experience--as future ideality. The architectonicprinciple of life is not the momentum that sweeps down to us from theyears that have been, but the ideal that lies deep in the years thatare yet to be. This is the mysterious, occult power that moulds, formsand fashions our stature, and that is determining the greatness or thelittleness of our destiny. And not only is the future architectonic, it is also an inspiration and refuge for our anxieties, defeats andinadequacy, his incompetency, how little he has achieved, realizes hisinconsequence and insignificance, and he looks forward and sees triumphin tomorrow; he beholds the summit of the hill, and says, "There Ishall stand victorious some future day. " Today incomplete, tomorrowcomplete; today imperfect, tomorrow perfect; today bound, tomorrowemancipated; today humiliated, tomorrow crowned. Hence, the future isman's refuge, hope and strength. And in a yet more profound sense doesthe future exert a wonderful power over our lives, in that it holds forus the inheritance undefiled and incorruptible, the patrimony ofeternity. And who can measure the influence of this belief over humancharacter? Blot it out, and what inspiration have we to struggle on?If we are to perish as the beast of the field, wither like the grass, and vanish like the transient cloud, man has no grand, sublimeimpulsion in this life. But let him believe that he is the child ofGod, that there is an immortal soul, not only in him, but an eternalsphere awaiting him--let him believe that here he is but in the bud, that these seventy years are but the seed time, and that infinite eonslie before him for fruition and efflorescence, and you magnify hisspirit, enlarge his hope, and inspire him with a zeal to conquer andachieve. 

But now there is a popular philosophy that tells us that man can onlyknow two points of time: that point of time through which he hasgone--the past, and that point of time in which he is now living--thepresent. He may know experience and he may grasp opportunity, but hecan know nothing of futurity. The future is a riddle, an unexploredcontinent, a _terra incognita_ into which no human eyes have ever priedor ever may pry, sealed as it is by the counsel of God against thecurious vision of His children. And to some extent I think we all mustadmit that this popular notion holds true. There are those to whom thefuture must be a blank, who peer into it and behold nothing there. 

I have noticed that no great poem, no great religion, no great creationof any kind, was ever written or conceived by people who lived in thevalleys, cramped by the hills. The hills narrow one's horizon, makeone insular, provincial, limited. And what is true of literature andart is true also of life. The man of low ideals never vaticinates; theman who is living down in the lower ranges of existence neverprophesies. The man with a low brow has always a limited perspective;so, also, the man with a low heart or a low conscience. The sordid mancan never measure the consequences of his wealth. He may know thattomorrow he will be as rich as he is today, or richer, but he can notprognosticate what his riches will mean to him tomorrow--whether hewill find in them more or less felicity, whether they will be ablessing or a burden. Neither has the base man, the immoral man, anyclear vision of futurity. He lives in doubts and fears, and is begirtwith clouds and confusion. He half fears that there is a law of God, and half doubts it; half believes in retribution, and half doubts it;half believes in moral cause and effect, and half doubts it. He sees, with no certain sight, the inevitable penalty awaiting his wrong-doing, else he would not and dare not sin. No man would sin, could he readthe future; no man would defy the Infinite, did he unerringly know thatGod is a just God, and that He shall visit inevitable retribution uponhim who trangresses His holy law. The wicked man, like the sordid manliving in the low lands, never vaticinates, and can not, not by reasonof any want of talent or conscience, but by reason of want of altitudeof vision. But St. John does not tell us here that all men shall knowall things that must be; that all men have a sense of futurity. Whathe does say is that there is an intimate and indissoluble relationshipbetween elevation and futurity; that only the man who stands upon thealtitudes can command the future; for only there, when he is at hisbest, and when he is living on the summit of his soul, does he beholdthe true and perfect action of the forces and the laws of the Eternal. It is not "Stay down there and I will show thee things which must behereafter, " but "Come up hither"--live, aspire, ascend into thealtitudes of mind; ascend into the altitudes of feeling; ascend intothe altitudes of conscience; live where God means you to live, andthen--"I will show thee things which must be hereafter. "

And now, if you will consult your own experience or meditate onhistory, if you will scan the great things thought and the great thingsdone, and the great things wrought and the great things won by man, youwill see that they have been always wrought and won and done andthought upon the heights. The Muses live upon Parnassus, the Deitiesupon Olympus. Jehovah has his abiding place on Zion. David says, "Ilook unto the hills, whence cometh my help. " Not unto the meadows, orthe streams, or by the forests, or the cities, or the seas, but "untothe hills, whence cometh my help. " He looks high, and his high visiongrants him spiritual perspective. And Jesus speaks his great sermon, not by the Jordan, but on the mount. He is transfigured on a mount, crucified on a mount, and ascends to the right hand of His Father froma mount. Everywhere the heights play a great part in the history ofhuman thought, feeling and faith. All great truth comes down; it doesnot rise up. All great religion comes down; it does not rise up. Itis not the wilderness, nor the low lands, nor the level places, butMount Carmel, Mount Horeb, Mount Zion, the Mount of the Beatitudes andthe Mount of Transfiguration that are focal points of righteousness andfaith. And when you look at and reflect upon men--the great men, themen who have moulded the world, who have made the massive contributionsto humanity, who have dealt the Titan strokes that have redeemed therace from its servitudes and bestialities, who, like Atlas, have upheldand lifted up the world; who, like Prometheus, have brought to manprecious gifts from Zeus, and so delivered him from the tyranny anddominion of his ignorance, superstitions, fears and passions--you willalways find that they are men who have lived upon the lofty summits ofthe Spirit, and therefore have been seers of the future and have seen"those things which must be hereafter. "

Every high-minded man has always lived in the future. Take thesovereign prophet of the ancient faith. The world about him is darkand desolate; Israel's powers are at the ebb; the great faith that shehas inherited is degraded, sensualized, formalized, buried under adebris of priestcraft, infidelity, idolatry and corruption; and yetthis prophet stands upon the hills and dreams--dreams against thepresent, dreams through all the darkness environing him--and sees theday when the faith of Israel shall be the faith of the world; when thelaw of Israel shall dominate the conscience of the world; when theSavior of Israel shall be the Savior of the world, and when the Jehovahof Israel shall be the Jehovah of the world. Standing high, his soulsoaring, thinking lofty thoughts, he beholds Israel in gloriousperspective as the nation that shall lead man from bondage to liberty, from darkness to light. Or think again of the life, the history, thehope of Jesus, and behold in Him a perfect illustration of this truth;this truth that there is an intimate relationship between high livingand high thinking, high doing, high willing and the vision of thefuture. What right had Christ to hope at all? What right had He tothink of a Kingdom of God that was going steadily to conquer and takepossession of this earth? What right had He to think that His Gospelwould come to be the regnant gospel over the minds of men? What righthad He to think that His own beautiful spirit would prevail over theperverse and rebellious will of society? What right had he to thinkthat the world would ever come to accept His marvelous beatitudes astruth? What right had He to believe that the cross would ever be auniversal symbol of salvation? Judged from the near point of view, byimmediate results, by the facts that were right before His eyes, history records no more conspicuous and terrible failure than the lifeof Jesus. A Savior, and yet disbelieved in by the people; a Savior, and yet scorned by the multitude; a Savior, and yet called a "winebibber" and a "glutton;" a Savior, and yet humiliated and degraded; aSavior, and yet dying ignominiously upon the cross. Where is there anyample redemption, any glorious assertion of the mind, in these sad, gloomy, hopeless facts? And yet He said, "I, if I be lifted up, shalldraw all men unto Me. " How did He dare make such a prophecy as that?How did He dare arrogate to himself such a dominion as that? Why, simply because, living in the altitudes, he had vision of things thatmust be. He knew that He had righteousness in His heart, and thatrighteousness must at last be established. He knew that His spirit wasa spirit of peace and good will towards men, and that peace and goodwill towards men must ultimately prevail. He lived on the heights, andHe saw those things that were to be. And now, what is true of thesegreat men may be true of every one of us, according to the loftiness ofour living. Every one of us may command the future--may, in a measure, prophesy and weigh the consequences, and calculate the issues of ourown life; and every one of us can live a far larger, fuller and richerlife, in the years that are to be than we can live in the past or inthe time that is now. 

And first, let me say to you that the man that lives upon the altitudesof his spirit beholds with sure vision the issuance of his life intriumph. We speak of life habitually as being a complicated andintricate thing, and no doubt it is, upon its lower ranges. A man isprosperous today, sweeping, with sails full set, before the breeze, hisbark leaping gladly, mounting buoyantly upon the waves; but no man cantell what the morrow will bring forth to him. Prosperity is not amatter of certitude, security or permanency. An ill wind comes, andthe vessel is swept to disaster; on the shoals or rocks, rushing todestruction against some Scylla or swallowed up by some Charybdis. Andwhat is true of prosperity is true of power. Today a man is the idolof the people, flattered, honored, extolled and crowned by them. Theygather round him and intoxicate him with their plaudits. He is the manof the people, the great man of his day, but who can tell how long thiswill rule enthroned? An unfortunate speech, an error of conduct, amoment of indecision, a failure to appeal to the demagogic instincts ofthe race, and he is ruthlessly bereaved of his honor and his glorygone. The idols of yesterday are the broken statues of today; theheroes of yesterday are the "have-beens" of today. So capricious, soephemeral, so mutable, so mercurial, so impermanent are the whims ofhumanity, and so unstable its idolatries and adorations. 

And as the mighty fall, so the obscure rises. Names that were unknownten years ago are blazoned almost on the skies. The insignificant comeup and take the scepter in their hand. The poor man of a little whileago is the rich merchant or the successful lawyer of today. This ishis hour, this the moment of his power. Strange, is it not? Thereseems to be no method, no system in those lower planes of life. Therich become poor and the poor rich, the strong weak and the weakstrong; the ruler becomes the ruled and the ruled the ruler; the masterbecomes the servant and the servant the master. No order, no system, no method anywhere in mundane things, and therefore no power of visionand vaticination. 

But now in the higher things there is none of this impermanence andinstability. Everything is in order here. When man is living in thefulness of his nature, when he is living on the heaven-kissingpinnacles of his spirit, when his whole being is harmonious with thegreat and glorious laws of God, his future is assured; it is bound tobe a great and beautiful success. No possibility of failure upon theheights; every possibility of failure upon the level; every possibilityof disaster down there, but upon the peaks there can be no disaster, nomistake, no accident, no dethronement; there must be inevitable andunconditional achievement. Of course, I do not mean popularachievement--achievement as men usually count achievement, or successas men ordinarily rate success. So measured, every great man's lifehas been a dismal failure. Paul's life was not a popular success, norwas Isaiah's, nor was Augustine's, nor was Savanarola's, nor wasSocrates', nor was Christ's life a popular success. Measured byterrestrial standards, measured by the low ideals of humanity, theselives were all ignominious failures, every one of them; but measured bythe Divine standard, by the mind and will of God, they are triumphantvictories. 

And now I say that every man whose point of view is high, who isstanding upon the very highest reaches of his own being, seekingsincerely to be true to all that is heroic and great in hisheaven-endowed nature, that man is bound to be, by the decree of theEternal, an ultimately successful man. He is bound, just so surely asGod's sun is bound to come tomorrow, he is bound to be crowned, notonly with a celestial but with a terrestrial success--success as Godmeasures success. He may feel pain; he may feel the slings and arrowsof outrageous fortune; he may experience neglect; he may contendagainst a host of untoward circumstances; he may groan under thepressure and weight of many woes; he may weep bitter, burning, scaldingtears of sorrow and grief, but still he must triumph, for God is justand will crown with a perfect equity His faithful children. 

And so, my friends, the central truth that I deliver to you is this, that life, life upon the summit of the soul, is the supreme, resplendent luminary. Not argument, not philosophy, not the elaborate, logical processes of the intellect, not the Bible, not the church, butlife; this is the great infallible interpreter. Live and ye shall see. "Do my will, " says Christ, "and ye shall know. " Stand high and firm onthe summit of your soul and ye shall see the things that must behereafter--a victorious righteousness, a triumphant life, and theredeemed hosts swathed and folded in the light of Him who iseverlasting, omnipotent and all-loving. 

PITHY POINTS

Brethren, be merciful in your judgment of others. 

Every temptation promptly resisted strengthens the will. 

There is a sad want of thoughtful mercy among us all. 

Every step we take on the ladder upwards helps to a higher. 

If we are true Odd-Fellows we will put away all bitterness and malice. 

Brothers, remember the moral harvest comes to all perfection; not onegrain is lost. 

As Odd-Fellows there are loads we can help others to carry, and thuslearn sympathy. 

The test of truthfulness is true dealing with ourselves when we dowrong and true dealing with the brethren when they fall. 

It is a serious reflection that even our secret thoughts influencethose around us. 

The Brotherhood has a Father watching over it, "who is the sameyesterday, today and forever. "

Man alone is responsible for the eternal condition of his soul. Wemake our own heaven or hell, not by the final act of life, but by lifeitself. 

Truth supplies us with the only true and perfect standard by which totest the value of things, and so corrects the one-sided, materialisticstandard of business. 

If an Odd-Fellow begins right I can not tell how many tears he may wipeaway, how many burdens he may lift, how many orphans he may comfort, how many outcasts he may reclaim. 

Love edifies; that is, it builds up perfectly the whole man, secures anentire and harmonious and proportionate development of his nature. Itdoes so by casting out the selfishness in man which always leads to adiseased and one-sided growth of his nature. 

No two souls are endowed in an exactly similar way. And for thedifference of endowment there is a reason in the Divine mind, for eachsoul in its generation has its appointed work to do, and is endowedwith suitable grace for its performance. 

We are not Odd-Fellows in the true sense unless we put away allbitterness, malice and selfishness. Common sense of mankind is quiteright when it says a man's religion is not worth much if it does notmake him good. Have goodness first--out of goodness good works willcome. 

Every good work requires every good principle. A man with veryprominent and striking characteristics will always be a perfect man. Aperfect man has such harmonies that he scarcely has a characteristic. To be fruitful in every good work you must have in your heart the germsand seeds, the springs and sources of all Christian virtue. 

We are all greater dupes to our weakness than to the skill of others;and the successes gained over us by the designing are usually nothingmore than the prey taken from those very snares we have laid ourselves. One man falls by his ambition, another by his perfidy, a third by hisavarice, and a fourth by his lust; what are these but so many nets, watched indeed by the fowler, but woven by the victim?

Sorrow is not an accident--occurring now and then--it is the very woofwhich is woven into the warp of life, and he who has not discerned thedivine sacredness of sorrow, and the profound meaning which isconcealed in pain, has yet to learn what life is. The cross manifestedas the necessity of the highest life alone interprets it. 

Equity--An eternal rule of right, implanted in the heart. What it asksfor itself it is willing to grant to others. It not only forbids us todo wrong to the meanest of God's creatures, but it teaches us toobserve the golden rule, "All things whatsoever ye would that menshould do unto you, do you even so to them. " There is no greaterinjunction--no better rule to practice. 

Don't rely on friends--don't rely on the name of your ancestors. Thousands have spent the prime of life in the vain hope of help fromthose whom they called friends, and many thousands have starved becausethey have rich fathers. Rely upon the good name which is made by yourown exertions, and know that better than the best friend you can haveis unquestionable determination, united with decision of character. 

How little is known of what is in the bosom of those around us! Wemight explain many a coldness could we look into the heart concealedfrom us; we should often pity where we hate, love when we curl the lipwith scorn and indignation. To judge without reserve of any humanaction is a culpable temerity, of all our sins the most unfeeling andfrequent. 

How a common sorrow or calamity spans the widest social differences andwelds all, the rich and poor, in one common bond of sympathy, which, begetting charity and all her train, softens the hardest heart andbanishes the sturdiest feeling of superiority! Over the lifeless bodyof the departed, enemies and friend can weep together, and, buryingstrife and differences with their common loss, feel a kinship whichunites them, and which all humanity shares. 

Don't be exacting. --An exacting temper is one against which to guardboth one's heart and the nature of those who are under our control andinfluence. To give and to allow, to suffer and to bear, are the gracesmore to the purpose of a noble life than cold, exacting selfishness, which must have, let who will go without, which will not yield, let whowill break. It is a disastrous quality wherewith to go through theworld; for it receives as much pain as it inflicts, and creates thediscomfort it deprecates. 

Verily, good works constitute a refreshing stream in this world, wherever they are found flowing. It is a pity that they are too oftenlike oriental torrents, "waters that fail" in times of greatest need. When we meet the stream actually flowing and refreshing the land, wetrace it upward, in order to discover the fountain whence it springs. Threading our way upward, guided by the river, we have found at lengththe placid lake from which the river runs. Behind all genuine goodworks and above them, love will, sooner or later, certainly be found. It is never good alone; uniformly, in fact, and necessarily in thenature of things, we find the two constituents existing as a complexwhole, "love and good works, " the fountain and the flowing stream. 

Never give up old friends for new ones. Make new ones if you like, andwhen you have learned that you can trust them, love them if you will, but remember the old ones still. Do not forget they have been merrywith you in time of pleasure, and when sorrow came to you they sorrowedalso. No matter if they have gone down in social scale and you up; nomatter if poverty and misfortune have come to them while prosperitycame to you; are they any less true for that? Are not their hearts aswarm and tender if they do beat beneath homespun instead of velvet?Yes, kind reader, they are as true, loving and tender; don't forget oldfriends. 

Young men! Let the nobleness of your mind impel you to itsimprovement; you are too strong to be defeated, save by yourselves. Refuse to live merely to sleep and eat. Brutes can do this; but youare men. Act the part of men. Prepare yourselves to endure toil. Resolve to rise--you have but to resolve. Nothing can hinder yoursuccess if you determine to succeed. Do not waste your time by wishingand dreaming, but go earnestly to work. Let nothing discourage you. If you have no books, borrow them; if you have no teachers, teachyourself; if your early education has been neglected, by the greaterdiligence repair the defect. Let not a craven heart or a love of easerob you of the inestimable benefit of self-culture. 

Have the courage to face a difficulty, lest it kick you harder than youbargained for. Difficulties, like thieves, often disappear at aglance. Have the courage to leave a convivial party at the proper hourfor doing so, however great the sacrifice; and to stay away from oneupon the slightest grounds for objection, however great the temptationto go. Have the courage to do without that which you do not need, however much you may admire it. Have the courage to speak your mindwhen it is necessary that you should do so, and hold your tongue whenit is better you should be silent. Have the courage to speak to a poorfriend in a seedy coat, even in the street, and when a rich one isnigh. The effort is less than many people take it to be, and the actis worthy of a king. Have the courage to admit that you have been inthe wrong, and you will remove the fact in the mind of others, puttinga desirable impression in the place of an unfavorable one. Have thecourage to adhere to the first resolution when you can not change itfor a better, and abandon it at the eleventh hour upon conviction. 

THE BIBLE IN ODD-FELLOWSHIP

The Bible is a book for the understanding; but much more it is a bookfor the spirit and for the heart. Many other kinds of learning arefound in the Bible. It is a manual of Eastern antiquities, a handbookof political experiences, a collection of moral wisdom as applied topersonal conduct, a mine of poetry, a choice field for the study oflanguages. The Bible is the book of God, and therefore it is the bookof the future, the book of hope. It pierces the veil between this andanother life, pointing us on to the realms of light. In sorrow, insin, and in death we may, if we will, find in the Holy Bible patience, consolation and hope. The Bible opens the widest, freest outlook forthe mind into the eternal, enlarging a man's range of spiritual sight, and enabling him to judge of all things in both worlds in their trueproportion. The Bible gets into life because it first came out oflife. It was born of life at its best. Its writers were the tallestwhite angels literature has known. No other literature has five namesequal to these: Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul and John. These men and theothers wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The messages of theBible are the loftiest in the range of human thought. There have beenmany magnificent periods like the age of Elizabeth, the time of theRenaissance and the age of Victoria, but no other single century hasever done anything equal to the production of the New Testament in thefirst century. The Bible has a sound psychology. It seeks toinfluence the whole man. It pours white light into the intellect. Itgrapples with the great themes upon which thinkers stretch their minds. John Fiske's three subjects are all familiar themes to the readers ofthe Bible. Its style is incomparable in grandeur and variety. Itapproaches the intellect with every form of literary style. It is thesupreme intellectual force in the life of the common people. It hasbeen teacher and school for the millions. The Puritans, for example, used it as a poem, story book, history, law and philosophy. Out of itNew England was born. It has been the chief representative of theEnglish language at its best. Anglo-Saxon life and learning aresaturated with it. The literature of England and America is full ofthe Bible. Shakespeare and Tennyson are specimens. Each of theseauthors quote from nearly every book in the Bible, and each of themrefers to the Bible not less than five hundred times. Herbert Spenceradmits that it is the greatest educator. It is winning its place inschool and college. No education is complete without a knowledge ofthis literature. It is the privilege of Odd-Fellowship to enthrone theBible in the lodge-room, and in the home. It teaches the intellectuallife from above and lifts it to the Bible's own level. 

Dean Stanley was visiting the great scholar, Ewald, in Dresden, and inthe course of the conversation, Ewald snatched up a copy of the NewTestament and said, in his impulsive and enthusiastic way, "In thislittle book is contained all the wisdom of the world. " There is asense in which this statement is not extravagant. The book containsthe highest and fullest revelation of truth the world has known. Thegreatest themes man's mind can ponder are here presented. The mostprofound problems with which the human intellect has ever grappled arehere discussed. We maintain that a mastery of the contents of thisbook will in itself provide an intellectual discipline no other bookcan give. Refinement of character, refinement of thought, refinementof speech, all of the essential characteristics of the intellectual aswell as of the spiritual life, have been found in our own church fromthe beginning, among those whose only advantages have been a personalreligious experience and the consequent love and continuous study ofGod's word as well as among those who have had all the advantages ofthe schools. No man need be afraid of exhausting the truth in theBible. No man can ever flatter himself that he has got beyond it. Whatever his intellectual attainments may be, the Bible will still havefurther message for him. 

There was a very suggestive spectacle on the streets of London one day, just after Elizabeth had become England's Queen. As she was riding bythe little conduit at the upper end of Cheapside an old man came out ofit, carrying a scythe and bearing a pair of wings. He representedFather Time coming out of his dark cave to greet the young Queen. Heled by the hand a young girl clad in flowing robes of white silk, andshe was his daughter, Truth. Truth held in her hands an English Bible, on which was written "Verbum Veritatis, " and which she presented to theQueen. It was a pageant prepared for the occasion but suggestive forthis occasion as well. Truth is the daughter of Time. Our backs maybe bent and our hair may be gray before we can lead Bible truth forthby the hand. We may be old before we know much; our intellectual lifemay be matured in fullest measure and we still can know more; we mustgrow a pair of wings before we know it all--even if we do then. 

The Bible is the conquering book. It has already dominated Englishliterature, so that almost the whole of its text from Genesis toRevelation might, if all the copies of the Bible were suddenly lostfrom the world, be restored in piecemeal fragments gathered out of thebooks in which the Book has been quoted, Then, besides, there are theBible thoughts that have indirectly, we might almost say insidiously, permeated the literature of Europe and America. More than that, theBible has been industriously for years securing its own translationinto hundreds of tongues and dialects of the globe. The Koran does nottake pains to translate itself, and, indeed, refuses to be translated;but in contradistinction with such apathy of false faiths, the Biblecourts transcription into foreign tongues, loses nothing in theprocess, but thereby gains for itself the homage of multitudes who, onreading it for the first time, cry, "This is the book we long havesought, that finds us out in the deepest recesses of our being andsatisfies the profoundest cravings of our souls. " The Bible is thecomforting book. There is no volume like it for consolation. It isthe only sure and steady staff for pilgrim spirits to lean upon, andthe only book that is quoted at the bedside of the sick. It is a bookto wear next the heart in life, and upon which to pillow the head indeath. No other so-called "scriptures" of the world say the thingsthat the Bible says, or supply the hopes that its promises afford. TheBible is not simply a book; it is The Book. It is the best book of anykind that we have. We can not do without it, either here or hereafter. There are many books in the world, but there is only one book. TheBible is unique. It is in a class by itself. It seeks to controleverything, but it co-ordinates itself with nothing. It sets forthimitable examples of character, but it is not itself imitable. No onehas ever written or ever will write a second Bible. The very phrasewhich every one uses, "The Bible, " signifies the uniqueness of thisbook. It is a whole library in itself, and yet it is more than asimple collection of books. There is a homogeneity and consistency tothe whole which lead us to speak of scripture as being a single story, not many revelations. The Bible is the exhaustless book. It maysometimes prove exhausting to its light-minded readers, but it neverexhausts itself. "It is the wonder of the Bible, " observes Dr. JosephParker, who has preached more than twenty-five volumes of sermons uponscriptural subjects, "that you never get through it. You get throughall other books, but you never get through the Bible. " On the basis ofa rationalistic criticism, this quality of exhaustlessness is reallyinexplicable. And when we come to realize that, after all has beensaid as to scrolls and tablets and styluses and human factors andcopyists, God wrote the Bible, we understand why it is that scriptureis so rich in treasures of wisdom. We see that we can not exhaust theBible because we can not exhaust God. The Bible wields an influencethat can not be estimated. The spoken word is powerful, the printedword surpasses it. The one is temporal, the other is eternal; the oneis circumscribed, the other is unlimited. The spoken sermon of todayis forgotten tomorrow; the written word of thousands of years ago stillsways the masses of today. 

The whole civilized world bows down with reverence before the book ofall books, the Bible. The Roman sword, the Grecian palette and chisel, have indeed rendered noble service to the cause of civilization, yeteven their proudest claims dwindle into insignificance when comparedwith the benefits which the Bible has wrought. It has penetrated intorealms where the names of Greece and Rome have never resounded. It hasillumined empires and ennobled peoples, which Roman war and Grecian arthad left dark and barbarous. Where one man is charmed by the Odyssey, tens and hundreds of thousands are delighted by the Pentateuch; whereone man is enthused by the Philippics of Demosthenes, millions areenthused by the orations of Isaiah; where one man is inspired by thevalor of Horatious, tens of millions are inspired by the bravery ofDavid; where one man's life is ennobled by the art in the Parthenon, scores of millions of lives are ennobled by the art in the sanctuary:where one man's life is guided by the moral maxims of Marcus Aurelius, hundreds of millions find their law of right and their rule for actionin the Bible. It is read in more than two hundred and fifty languages, by four hundred millions of people living in every clime and zone ofthe globe. It constitutes the only literature, the only code of lawand ethics, of many peoples and tribes. For thousands of years it hasgone hand in hand with civilization, has led the way towards the moraland intellectual development of human kind, and despite the hatred ofits enemies and the still more dangerous misinterpretations of itsfriends, its moral law still maintains its firm hold upon the heartsand minds of the people, its power is still supreme for kindling a loveof right and duty, of justice and morality, within the hearts of theoverwhelming masses. Were it possible to annihilate the Bible, andwith it all the influence it has exercised, the pillars upon whichcivilization rests would be knocked from under it, and, as if with onethrust of the fatal knife, we would deal the death blow to ourmorality, to our domestic happiness, to our commercial integrity, toour peaceful relationships, to our educational and chart-tableinstitutions. 

There are wives and mothers, who stand with lacerated hearts at theopen grave and see the light of their life extinguished beneath thecruel clods, and yet, they bear up bravely, resting their bent formsand supporting their tottering feet on the staff of hope and trustwhich the Bible affords. Take that solace from them, and you may soonhave occasion to bury the wife next to her husband, and the mother nextto her child. There are husbands who, when sitting lonely, dependent, in the circle of their motherless, weeping children, find the good oldBook the only comforter; take it from them and you drive them to themadhouse or to suicide. There are maidens grieving, pining, theirhearts broken, their lives blighted, their career irretrievablyblasted; take the solace from them which this book breathes into theirwithered hearts, the solace that suffering innocence will berecompensed, that a God of justice rules, take that solace from themand you have taken all that makes life bearable. There are millions ofpeople pining in bondage, toiling in obscurity, suffering physicallyand mentally for no crime of their own, sick and hungry, friendless andhopeless; take the book from them that teaches them the lesson ofpatient endurance, and you may write the word Finis, and close therecords of civilization forevermore. It is the one book that has abalm for every wound, a comfort for every tear, a ray of light forevery darkness. 

Its language all people can understand, its spirit all minds can grasp, its moral laws all people can obey, its truths appeal not only to thelowly and simple, but also to the highest intellect, they win thespontaneous approval, not only of the pious, but also of the mostskeptical. At a literary gathering at the house of the Baron vonHolbach, where the most celebrated atheists of the age used toassemble, the gentlemen present were one day commenting on the absurdand foolish things with which the Bible abounds. The Frenchencyclopedist, Diderat, a materialist himself, startled his friends byhis little speech: "But it is wonderful, gentlemen, it is wonderful. Iknow of no man who can speak or write with such ability. I do notbelieve that any of you could compose such narratives, or could havelaid down such sublime moral laws, so simple, yet so elevating, exerting so wide an influence for good, and awakening such deep andsuch reverential feelings, as does the Bible. " Diderat spoke thetruth. Place the most celebrated systems of philosophies or the mostfamous code of ethics, into the hands of the masses, and see whetherthe subtleties of their learning, the elegance of their diction willtouch their hearts as deeply as does the Bible. All the genius andlearning of the ancient world, all the penetration of the profoundestphilosophers, have never been able to produce a book that was as widelyread, as voluminously commented on, as dearly loved, as this book, neither have all the law-givers of all the lands, and of all ages, beenable to produce a code of law and ethics that was universally and asimplicitly followed as that of the law-giver, Moses. 

The Bible is an emblem of Odd-Fellowship, because it is theOdd-Fellows' text-book. Here we get our doctrines for faith and ourrules for practice in all the relations of life. As Odd-Fellows, webelieve the Bible is the word of God, because in their enmity humanityhas never been able to destroy it or rob it of its power; nor have anywho reject it given us a book to take its place. The intellect andculture of our day can not improve the teachings of Christ, nor setbefore us a nobler ideal life. As Odd-Fellows, we believe in thisbeautiful emblem, because our hearts attest its truth. We need not betold that the landscape is beautiful, or that the song of birds issweet. When we see the one and hear the other, we know it. As the eyediscerns the beautiful, and the ear discerns sweet sounds, so the heartof man discerns the divineness of the Bible teachings and sets its sealto their truth. As Odd-Fellows, we believe in the scriptures, becausethe experiences of all true believers, of whatever name, or age, orcountry, prove it to be the "bread of life" and the "water of life" toa needy and suffering world. Age by age the evidence of experience isaccumulating, and growing stronger, and for a soul to distrust therevelations made unto it, and the divine leading of the human race, isas though the eye should disbelieve in the sun shining at mid-day. Werecognize the Bible as a precious boon to man, the gift of the GreatFather above. It is a "light to our feet and a lamp to our path. " Itis a compass whose never-failing needle directs us safely across thedesert sands of life, and through the dark labyrinths of an evil world, and its precious promises gives us comfort while we bear the burdensand endure the sorrows, pain and anguish incident to human life. 

Since our organization is founded on the Bible, we should, asOdd-Fellows, become more conversant with it. Many evils creep into ourlodges that could be avoided if we used the Bible more in our talks forthe good of the order. Intemperance is an evil that does us much harm. What does the Bible say in regard to it? Proverbs, xx, 1, says: "Wineis a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived therebyis not wise. " Proverbs, xxi, 17: "He that loveth pleasure shall be apoor man; he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich. " Ah me! whatdead courage, what piles of bleached bones that was once theconcentration of all that was great and lofty and true. Whataspirations, ambitions, enterprise and resolutions--what genius, integrity and all that belongs to true manhood--have been swept fromthe tablets of time into oblivion by King Alcohol and his horrid halfbrothers, the gambling hell and the brothel. 

A few years ago a noted wild-beast tamer gave a performance with hispets in one of the leading theatres. He put his lions, tigers, leopards and hyenas through their part of the entertainment, awing theaudience by his awful nerve and his control over them. As a closingact to the performance, he was to introduce an enormousboa-constrictor, thirty feet long. He had bought it when it was onlytwo days old, and for twenty years he handled it daily, so that it wasconsidered perfectly harmless and completely under his control. He hadseen it grow from a tiny reptile, which he often carried in his bosom, into a fearful monster. The curtain rose upon an Indian woodlandscene. The wild, weird strains of an oriental band steal through thetrees. A rustling noise is heard, and a huge serpent is seen windingits way through the undergrowth. It stops. Its head is erect. Itsbright eyes sparkle. Its whole body seems animated. A man emergesfrom the heavy foliage. Their eyes meet. The serpent quails beforethe man--man is victor. The serpent is under control of a master. Under his guidance and direction it performs a series of fearful feats. At a signal from the man it slowly approaches him and begins to coilits heavy folds around him. Higher and higher do they rise, until manand serpent seem blended into one. Its hideous head is reared abovethe mass. The man gives a little scream, and the audience unite in athunderous burst of applause, but it freezes upon their lips. Thetrainer's scream was a wail of death agony. Those cold, slimy foldshad embraced him for the last time. They crushed the life out of him, and the horror-stricken audience heard bone after bone crack as thosepowerful folds tightened upon him. Man's playful thing had become hismaster. His slave for twenty years had now enslaved him. 

The following is a will left by a drunkard of Oswego, New York State:"I leave to society a ruined character and a wretched example. I leaveto my parents as much sorrow as they can, in their feeble state, bear. I leave to my brothers and sisters as much shame and mortification as Icould bring on them. I leave to my wife, a broken heart--a life ofshame. I leave to each of my children, poverty, ignorance, a lowcharacter, and the remembrance that their father filled a drunkard'sgrave. " It behooves us as Odd-Fellows to ponder well the lessonstaught by our order. Unless the principles that are laid down arefully carried out, we can never be Odd-Fellows in spirit and in truth. Today is our opportunity; act now. Have you ever seen those marblestatues fashioned into a fountain, with the clear water flowing outfrom the marble lips or the hand, on and on forever? The marble standsthere, passive, cold, making no effort to arrest the gliding water. Soit is that time flows through the hands of men, swift, never pausinguntil it has run itself out, and the man seems petrified into a marblesleep, not feeling what it is that is passing away forever. And thedestiny of nine men out of ten accomplishes itself before they realizeit slipping away from them, aimless, useless, until it is too late. "Be such a man, live such a life, that if every man were such as you, and every life a life like yours, this earth would be God's Paradise. "

Remember that no good the humblest of us has wrought ever dies. Thereis one long, unerring memory in the universe, out of which nothingdies. A chill autumn wind, blowing over a sterile plain, bore withinits arms a little seed, torn with ruthless force from its matrix on alofty tree, and dropped the seed upon the sand to perish. A brightwinged beetle, weary with flight and languid with the chilly air, rested for a moment on the arid plain. The little seed dropped Aeolusserved to satisfy the hunger of the beetle, which presently winged itsflight to the margin of a swift running stream that had sprung from themountain side, and cleaving a bed through rocks of granite, went gailylaughing upon its cheery way down to the ever rolling sea. Sipping adrop of the crystal flood, the beetle crawled within a protectingledge, and, folding its wings, lay down to pleasant dreams. The IceKing passed along and touched the insect in its sleep. Its mission wasfulfilled; but the conflict of the seasons continued until the whitedestroyer melted in the breath of balmy spring. And then a sunbeamsped to the chink wherein the body of the insect lay, and searching forthe little seed entombed, but not destroyed, invited it to "join theJubilee of returning life and hope. " Under the soft wooing of thepeopled ray, the little seed began to swell with joy, tiny rootletswere developed within the body of the protecting beetle, a minute stemshot out of its gaping mouth, and lo! a mighty tree had been carriedfrom the desert, saved from the frosts of winter, nurtured and startedupon its mission of life and usefulness by an humble insect that hadperished with the flowers. The agent had passed away, but, buildingbetter than he knew, the wide-spreading tree remained by the margin ofthe life-giving stream, a shelter and a rest to the weary traveler uponlife's great highway through many fretful centuries. 

A child abandoned by its mother to perish in an Egyptian marsh maybecome the instrument to deliver a nation from bondage, and anunostentatious man, unknown to fortune and to fame, may become theagent of a mighty work destined to benefit the human race as long as itmay last upon the earth. George Eliot says, "Our deeds are likechildren that are born to us; they live and act apart from our ownwill. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never; they have anindestructible life, both in and out of our consciousness. "

No man has come to true greatness who has not felt in some degree thathis life belongs to his race, and that what God gives him he gives himfor mankind. The different degrees of consciousness are really whatmake the different degrees of greatness in men. 

While Odd-Fellowship does not claim to be a religious institution, yetso closely is it allied to Christianity that we deem it proper todiscuss these questions. I quote from Dr. Lyman Abbott's lecture on"Christianity and Orientalism, " as follows: "Religion as a thought hasfour questions to answer: First, What is God? Second, What is man?Third, What is the relation between God and man? Fourth, What is thelife which man is to live when he understands and enters into thatrelation? There is no other question; there is nothing left. What isGod? What is man? And how are men to live when they have entered intothat relationship? Now, Christianity has its answer to each one ofthose four questions. God--one true, righteous, loving, helpful Fatherof the whole human race. God--love. And love, what is that? Such alife as Jesus Christ lived on the earth. What is man? Man is in theimage of God. If he is not, if he fails in that, he fails being a man. He is in the image of God, and not until he has come to be in theimage, of God will he be a man. What is a statue? I can see a nose, amouth, appearing out of the marble block. No, it is not a statue, itis a half-done statue. Wait until the sculptor is through, then youwill see the statue. Not till God is done will you see a man, and younever saw one except as you saw him in Jesus of Nazareth. And what isthe relation between this God and this man? It is the relationship ofthe most intimate fellowship that the human soul can conceive; one lifedwelling in the other life, and filling the other life full of His ownfullness. You can not get any closer relationship to God than that. When this fullness has been realized, when you and I have the fullnessof God in us, when God has finished, the man life will result. Justsuch a life as Christ lived, with all the splendor of self-sacrifice, with all the glory of service, with all the magnificent heroism, withall the enduring patience. "

BROTHER UNDERWOOD'S DREAM. 

Being invited some time since to deliver an address before a benevolentinstitution, and being pressed amid the daily business cares whichsurrounded, I was fearful I should not be able to command sufficienttime for preparation of the task. Returning home, I retired to my bed, my thoughts still keeping themselves in active motion in their endeavorto "think out" what I should say. In this state of mind I fell asleep, and soon was in dreamland. I dreamed that death had taken place, andas I approached the gates of the unseen world, I was met by an angel, who kindly tendered his services in escorting me through the realms ofHeaven. Being a stranger there, I gladly and gracefully accepted hiskind invitation. Proceeding along the pearly streets, enraptured withthe beauties which surrounded me, I saw a multitude of people, thenumber of whom figures fail to compute; but I noticed there weredividing lines, and they were gathered in companies. Observing abeautiful body of water in the distance, and a gathering of one companyby its banks, I inquired of my escort who they were. He replied theywere Baptists, and said "they always keep near the water's edge. " Justbeyond was another company, which my faithful attendant informed me wasa Presbyterian band, and that their infant baptism views still clingingto them was one of the causes of their "corralling" together. Justthen we heard loud and prolonged shouting and singing of the hymn"Shall we gather at the river, " and, pointing to the spot from whenceit came, near a beautiful stream not far off, the angel said: "Thoseare the Methodists. They never cease shouting, and so loud are they attimes that they annoy the Episcopalians, whom you see on the oppositeside of the stream, in their discussion of the doctrine of apostolicsuccession. " Seeing still other gatherings farther on, I was anxiousto go thither and mingle with them; but my guide remonstrated, saying:"You can see from this standpoint the representatives of all churches. There, said he, are the Catholics and the Jews, the Universalists andthe Congregationalists, the Unitarians and the Moravians, all withtheir varied 'creeds, ' and if you go that way you will be surrounded bythem, each trying to prove that you got to Heaven through theirpeculiar doctrine or faith. "

Turning to the right, we moved on, only to pass to more gorgeous andbeautiful apartments, where the streets were golden. Here I observedanother multitude, but it was one body. "This, " said the angel, "isthe gathering of the various priests and pastors, rectors and rabbis, and the ministers and the elders who are trying to unite on some commonground upon which their congregations (which we had passed) mightstand, where there would be but 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism. '"Gal. , iv, 5. For, said the angel, until then, they go not up withtheir churches and creeds to higher seats above, for "neithercircumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision. " Gal. , v, 6. 

Proceeding on our way we approached a magnificent archway, over thelintels of which was inscribed, "The Christian's Home in Glory. " Thegrandeur of this new apartment exceeded all the rest, a description ofwhich lies beyond the power of words, "For eye hath not seen, nor theear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things whichGod hath prepared for them that love him. " I Cor. , ii, 9. This I foundto be the abode of the apostles, martyrs and Christians of all ages. Here was Paul and Peter, and the prophets, the thief on the cross andBunyan, Lazarus and Baxter, Stephen and Father Abraham, Martha and Maryand the widow who gave her two mites. Pausing, I beheld, with bannersabove, an innumerable number "marching on, " with Lincoln and Lovejoy, Lyman, Beecher and John Brown in the advance, and on the banners wasinscribed, "These are they which came out of great tribulation. " Rev. , viii, 14. The angel said: "That is the multitude of poor slaves fromthe cotton fields of earth, doing homage to their deliverers. " "Theyshall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sunlight on them, nor any heat. " Rev. , vii, 16. Here I also found Wattsand Wesley singing, while Bliss (who had but lately been translatedfrom earth to heaven by way of Ashtabula bridge), catching theinspiration, was setting the songs of Heaven to the music of earth. Gazing on the many thrones and crowns, there were some of peculiarbrightness. I looked on one, and what was the inscription? Was it, Iwas a Methodist? No. I was immersed? No. I was a Jew? No. Butrather this: "Because I delivered the poor that cried and fatherless, and him that had none to help him, the blessing of him that was readyto perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing withjoy. " Job, xxix, 12, 14. And this was the crown of Job. And there wasanother just beyond, and I read the inscription. Was it, I was aPresbyterian? No. I prayed by quantity? No. I was a Universalist?No. But "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father isthis, to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction and tokeep himself unspotted from the world. " James, i, 27. And while thememory and name of Peabody, the philanthropist, is and shall be honoredand loved for ages to come in two hemispheres, his crown of glory inheaven is second to none. But there was still another. It was worn byone of queenly beauty, and she sat upon her throne; the splendor of herrobe and the brilliancy of her apparel dimmed my vision. I read herinscription, set, as it was, in Heaven's choicest diamonds. Was it, Iwas an Episcopalian? No. I was baptized? No. I was a Catholic? No. But thus: "I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, andye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and yeclothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye cameunto me. " Matt. , xxv, 35, 36. And before her throne stood thousandswho had come up from the battle fields of the Crimea, and the widowsand orphans, the lame and the halt, the blind and the deaf from thestreets and alleys of London, and as they shouted their hallelujahsbefore her, they carried banners on which were emblazoned these words:"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these mybrethren, ye have done it unto me. " Matt. , xxv, 40. And the crown ofFlorence Nightingale glistens brightly in Heaven. Passing on, andobserving a large number of vacant thrones and crowns, I naturallyasked, for whom are these? The angel replied: "For the Christians ofearth; the managers of the 'homes' for the friendless, the widows andthe orphans, and those who, regardless of their respective churchcreeds and doctrines, like their Master when he was on earth, go aboutdoing good. " The angel vanished, and I awoke. 

MORAL. --Brethren, in our tenacity for church creeds, let us not fail inthe practice of a little daily Christianity. "Finally, brethren, ifthere be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things. "Gal. , iv, 8. 

THE IMPERIAL VIRTUE

 Though sophists may argue, or philosophers prate, The evils of lying they can not mitigate. Our God's law is truth! Who then dares justify A falsehood? Remember, a lie is a lie! Let this he our motto, in old age or youth: "All lying is sinful, so, stick to the truth!"

"Truth we accept as a cardinal virtue, and require its practice on thepart of all the votaries of Odd-Fellowship while traveling the ruggedjourney of life in search of reward and rest. " Truth is above allthings else, and every Odd-Fellow knows full well that his obligationbinds him to speak the truth. Remember a lie is never justifiable. Itdoes the person more harm than that he seeks to avoid by telling afalsehood would do. "What is truth?" This question of Pilate is inthe air today. It is repeated on every side and in every department ofintellectual pursuit. It always pays to tell the truth under allcircumstances. Abraham came near bringing a whole nation into troublein lying about his wife. Be it said to the honor of President Grant, that once a visitor called at the White House wishing to see him. Thedoor-keeper told the servant to tell the visitor the president was notin. General Grant, who was very busy, heard what was said. He calledout, "Say no such thing. I don't lie myself, and won't allow anyone tolie for me. " Tell the truth always. "I said in my haste all men areliars. " Psalms, cxvi, 2. 

It was a very sweeping assertion that the Psalmist made, and one thatincriminates us all. He probably did not mean that all men were liarsin the sense that everybody always spoke untruthfully, but that thegreat majority of people would, under certain stress of circumstances, equivocate to suit the conditions of the occasion. If that was what hemeant, he uttered a sage truth when he said very hastily one day: "Allmen are liars. " Though a hasty utterance, facts seem to prove itstruthfulness. The greatest mischief-maker in the world today is theliar. I honestly believe that lying causes more real anguish andsuffering than any other evil. It would be effort wasted to spend muchtime in proof of this assertion of David's, so we will attempt toclassify briefly, that each of us may know where he belongs. First, there is the deliberate lie. This species needs no particulardefinition. All are acquainted with it, all have met it, some haveuttered it. You all know it when you see it; it is barefaced andshameless; it reeks with the mire of falsity and is foul with the slimeof the pit infernal. This lie contains not an atom of truth, istinctured not with a grain of fact, but is a full-blooded, thoroughbred, out and out lie. Then we have the campaign lie. Alarge, open-faced fellow, loud-voiced and blatant; bold, daring andsweeping; it claims everything, asserts everything, denies anything. 

During the campaign this lie is a factor. Men buy papers to read it, and go miles to hear it. The campaign lie is the greatest worker inthe canvass for votes. He pats the workman on the back and promises tofill his pail with sirloin steak and fresh salmon, when, if the otherman is elected, he will have to carry liver and codfish. He grasps themerchant strongly by the hand and promises him larger sales and betterprofits in case his party gets into power; he enters the magnate'soffice and promises him increased dividends and no strikes; he promiseseverything till after election, when he has no more promises to make. 

There is the polite lie, too. A very gentle affair this. A veryproper lie, clothed with the attire of an elegant etiquette and ofgraceful form. It is never harsh and never rude, but smooth as oil, asgentle as a zephyr. The number of polite lies that are told every dayare legion. It would be useless to attempt to classify them, worsethan useless to try to enumerate them. They are of all sizes, colors, descriptions and shapes. They have much in common, but differ widelyin particular. No locality is destitute of this venerable and classicfalsehood. The ancients used it, the moderns still cling to it; thepoor find it handy, the rich could not keep house without it; itabounds in every clime and thrives in every latitude. The politehostess says to the departing guest: "We have been delighted by yourvisit; do us the favor to come again, " when she sincerely hopes thatmost any catastrophe may overtake her rather than another visit fromthis same personage. There are the every-day expressions, 'Not athome, ' which the housemaid is instructed to give the caller; and ascore of other social lies which in truth deceive nobody, nine timesout of ten. Society would lose little and gain much if the polite liecould be banished, and every man say what he thought and speak as hefelt. 

Another lie I will notice is the business lie. The business lie is avery matter of fact lie. It sounds well. There are some genuinebankrupt sales, of course; there are a few bona fide smoke, fire andwater mark-downs undoubtedly, but there are more advertised in a weekthan there are failures and fires in a year. Good, staple merchandisewill usually bring its value, and he who advertises an unheard ofbargain has generally set a trap for the unwary. One class of goods inthe window marked a certain price, an inferior class on the bargaincounter at the same figure. You bargain for a piece of furniture at asurprisingly low figure; when it is delivered you have every reason tosuppose that it is like what you bought in appearance alone. A roll ofcloth marked "all wool, " it is half cotton, and the rest shoddy. Thebusiness lie, though found so often, is never the friend of merchant orpurchaser. It is the foe of all honest transactions. Office, salesroom and storehouse would be better without it; proprietor, clerkand purchaser would thrive better if rid of it. 

The lie of gossip. If by some power, human or divine, the gossipingtongue could be silenced and the tattling mouth effectually closed, half of the evil of this world would already be stopped, and the otherwould commence to languish for want of patronage. The lie of gossip isthe blackest of them all. The blackest of all the black horde, thevery worst of the whole evil troop; insinuating, sly and crafty, itcreeps around with a serpent's stealth, and carries beneath its tonguethe deadly poison of ten thousand adders. The venom can be extractedfrom the cobra's fangs, but no power on earth can tame the tongue of anunprincipled gossip. Some lies you can kill, but the lie of gossip isimperishable. You may clip its wings, but its flight is unhindered;you may cut off its head, but two will grow out in its place; you maycrush it to earth beneath the heel of denial. Let it alone andpossibly the dirty, contemptible, infamous thing will die; touch it notand it may droop and languish; do not chase it and it may grow weak forwant of exercise. 

Oh, my dear reader, above all things, don't have your life a lie, yourcareer a falsehood. Be no hypocrite, live no lie, and the God of alltruth will see something in you to admire if you live truthfully andhonestly before all men. Truth is a sure pledge not impaired, a shieldnever pierced, a flower that never dieth, a state that feareth nofortune, and a port that yields no danger. We can not build a manlycharacter unless we are in possession of the imperial virtue, truth. Ah! truth is the diamond for which the candid mind ever seeks. It isthe sanction of every appeal that is made for the good and the right. It may be crushed to earth, it may be long in achieving victory, but itis omnipotent and must triumph at last. Christ brought truth into theworld. Truth, then, is a personal, experimental and practical thing. It is a thing of the heart, and not mere outward forms; a livingprinciple in the soul, influencing the mind, employing the affections, guiding the will, and directing as well as enlightening the conscience. It is a supreme, not a subordinate matter, demanding and obtaining thethrone of the soul-giving law to the whole character, and requiring thewhole man and all his conduct to be in subordination. Truth blendswith every occupation. It is noble and lofty, not abject, servile andgroveling; it communes with God, with holiness, with Heaven, witheternity and infinity. Truth is a happy, and not a melancholy thing, giving a peace that passeth understanding, and a joy that isunspeakable and full of glory. And it is durable, not a transientthing, passing with us through life, lying down with us on the pillowof death, rising with us at the last day, and dwelling in our souls inHeaven as the very element of eternal life. Such is truth, thesublimest thing in our world, sent down to be our comforter andministering angel on earth. 

It is plainly God's intention, as in nature and in history, that ourhuman life should grow better and more joyous as it advances, and thatthe best shall not be at the first, but shall wait until we are readyfor it. The highest and largest blessings can come to men only whenthe men are fitted to hold and to use them. If you are going to give aman a purse or a diamond you can thrust it into his hand in his youth, or on the street, even when he is asleep; but if you would give to hima great truth or virtue, if you would make him a noble character, youmust wait upon the man's growth, and be content if after many years yousee only a flash of what you would give him appearing. Step by step, through all the gradations, we travel, and if faithful to truth, Christwill make in us a perfect manhood, and of us a perfect society. Hisgift is so great, vital and complex, that He can not bestow it all inthe beginning. He would make our life an increasingly joyous life, andgive us the best of its wine at the last of its feast. Christ wouldhave us always increasingly hopeful and joyous, and never of sadcountenance. All our faculties were designed to minister to our joy. All the great world of life below is a happy world. The children ofthe air and the water are all baptized into joy. Even the solitarycreatures that carry their narrow houses with them have their joys, which are well known to their intimate acquaintances. So in the worldof adult man we find the joy of life disproportionate to condition andfaculty. In the faces of the men we meet on the streets we see manyscars and dark lines of storm and care; only seldom do the faces wemeet there wear the rainbow. Men are without joy because they haveviolated the laws of nature, they have subordinated their manly powers, reason and conscience to their animal instincts; they have lived bywrong theories and wrong methods, and for unmanly ends, and thus haveexhausted the joy of life's banquet. 

A man can have deep and continuous joy only if his life is continuouslyrational and progressively manly. He must put away childish things andlive for truth and right, for love and immortal virtue. If our heartssadden as our years increase and our thoughts widen, it is becausethere has been a defect in our vision and a sophistry in the logic ofour conduct. If the growing corn comes only to the blade and to theear, and not to the full golden corn in the ear, we may be sure it isbecause there has been something wrong in our gardening. Christ comesinto our wasting life to give us a new, a higher and a better joy; togive us new truth, new faith, new arguments, new motives, new impulsesand new joys. Christ gives us the Heavenly Father, and thus lifts usinto the dignity and beatitude of a divine nature, relationship anddestiny. Man is a child of the skies, and can not find rest completeand joy abiding in anything less or lower. Bearing now the image ofthe earthly, we must go on to bear the image of the heavenly. To haveour manly joy ever increasing we must keep the heavenly in sight andtake our way from it. 

Christ brings us into the living alliance with forces and personalitiesthat are spiritual, and thus makes us strong to resist all animaltemptations and those impulses toward greed and wrong which, ifindulged, drain our life of its manly felicities. He would have uslift our manly cups to God, and make their rims to touch the heavens. Christ would have us to live for other's welfare and to know the joy ofduty and of sacrifice. It is the man who is living for wife, andchild, and neighbor, who has flung himself with all his might into thecarrying forward of some great cause that blesses his fellow-men, whoknows the true and increasing joy of the manly life. The happiestwoman in the world is the mother who is living for her child. It is inworking out the salvation of other people that we find the true joy ofour own. It is this joy that carries the martyr through his fierytasks with a song and a shout. To be able at the end of our days tolook up to God and say, "I have finished the work thou gavest me todo, " is to have the best wine at the last of our feast. We must havejoy; it is indispensable. It makes us healthy and strong and enablesus to be of some use in the world. It is so necessary to our bestbecoming and doing that we must put away everything that increases it. We must have the joy of truth and virtue, of duty and sacrifice, ofhope and love, which is the joy of the eternal life. Christ thus holdsout to us a joy that lasts, and one that satisfies forever. 

Jesus was no cynic, no ascetic, and no fanatic. He loved the greatoutward world, and was the friend of all men. He was hated only by thePharisees, if to these He spoke sharply, His words to the children weresweet as a mother's, and in His words about the birds and the flowersyou hear the tones of a lover. He loved the lakes of sweet Galilee, her hills, her fields and her olive groves; and among them often tookHis disciples apart to rest awhile. Adopt Christ's views of God; ofthe future; Christianize your opinions, your character and yourconduct, and you will have manly joy even in the midst of sorrow. Christ lived much in communion with God. He lived much out of doors, in the fields and among trees, the birds and the flowers. 

We must come back to nature. Happy the man who owns a piece of groundin the country and lives on it betimes, where he can hear the robinssinging their hymns and the winds chanting their litanies; where he cansee the sun rise and feel the hush of the hills; where the spirit thatis in the beautiful world can touch and bless him as it did the blessedChrist. 

Brothers, I wish you great joy. Live in the constant sense of theHeavenly Father's loving presence, and of nature's veracity andfriendly intention. Distrust all doctrines, all opinions and all waysof living that destroy manly joyousness. Never lose sight of the factthat a noble life is a truthful life. Truth is a trust. He who hasdiscovered any portion of useful truth has something in trust formankind. God is the author of truth, and when man seeks this imperialvirtue and acquires it, he is in possession of great power. 

This brings us to the final practical thought. This power must beappropriated. The cable car that is unattached to the cable will makeno progress and stand still forever, even though the engines in thepower house glow with heat, and the cable, gliding along in the centerof the track not two feet away, is laden down with power. The cablecar must close its grappling iron and grip the cable before progresscan be made. It must come in contact with the power. An electric lampwill swing dark and unlighted while all the other lamps about it sendforth enlightening rays, and all the dynamos in the world may berevolving in the engine house, sending a surging current within a fewinches of the isolated lamp, and all in vain unless it come in contactwith the power. You must turn the switch and let the current flow in, and then the lamp will itself shine and will illumine its surroundingslike the rest. So, in like manner, if we are to make progress in thislife, we must lay hold of the cable. We must come in contact with theDivine. If we do not, the power of God is of no avail to us. If wewould be lights in the world, we must come in contact with the Divinespirit, we must unbar the doors to our hearts and let the current ofdivine power and love flow into our lives and illumine them. 

The great design of Odd-Fellowship is to improve the morals and mannersof men, to promote their interest, well being and happiness. Greatprudence is demanded in our daily life and conversation. We should beactuated by a realizing sense of our position, and by example, actionand generous thought, recommend our cause to the consideration ofothers. We should persevere for the attainment of every commendablevirtue, to raise the mind from the degrading haunts of intemperance andfolly; we should be distinguished for usefulness to society and thecommunity at large. A good Odd-Fellow must necessarily be an uprightand useful member of the community. The precepts inculcated arecalculated to stimulate to the faithful performance of every moral andrelative duty; and an individual who holds a standing with us, and iscareless and negligent of these things, is a reproach to theOrder--they wear the livery, and bow before the same shrine, but in theheart and practice they belie their profession. Profanity, intemperance and every species of immorality are rigidlydiscountenanced. We have pledged ourselves to aid in diffusing theprinciples of brotherly love throughout the world. We have assumed theoffice of guarding the holy flame which burns on the altar ofbenevolence, and we are bound to cherish its principles. That brotheris recreant to every honorable feeling who can trifle with the solemnpledge he has taken. 

A duty we owe to the community is to cultivate the principle of virtue, to lend holy serenity to the mind, and shed around a halo of light andglory to direct the steps of others in virtue, to happiness andgreatness. The man who treads only in virtue's ways, when every act ishonest, acquires the confidence and friendship of others, thusbenefiting others, and thus benefiting the community, which, also, thecenter of another circle, continues this influence to those thatsurround it, purifying the thought, emboldening the idea and elevatingthe man. How grand is the position Odd-Fellowship now occupies--aworld of honesty in a world of deceit, with a character strictlyvirtuous and solely dependent upon its members for the perpetuity ofthat character. 

It depends upon the brethren to be virtuous, upright, honest andbenevolent, thus sustaining in its purity the noble reputation it nowenjoys, which will continue a bright and shining star in theconstellation until time shall be no more, when it will be perpetuatedin the glorious light of eternity. Amid the wrecks of institutions andpowerful interests that were a short time since thought to beimpregnable against all assaults, the Independent Order of Odd-Fellowsstill maintains its vantage ground, and bears its banners proudly up. With its doors thrown so widely open to applicants for admission, composed as it is of nearly every shade of thought or educationalinfluence, whether of sect or party, with all the infirmities incidentto human nature, modifying by their weakness its true purposes, orretarding its advancement, its unity and moral force, its stability andprogress are truly wonderful. Its bond of cohesion, so frail and yetso potent, is seemingly inexplicable. It is the recognition of theprinciples of brotherhood and fraternity, and the practice of theirresultant virtues. To appreciate and practice is to attain strength. We are weak and frail. Odd-Fellowship is strong, and its principlesare as eternal as the stars. The history of the past is little but arecord of the domination of physical force. The law of might was thelaw of right. Violence and strife, outrages and wrong, have been forages the common heritage of the race. Man has been the sport andvictim of human passions, and notwithstanding the culture and theprogress of the race, the earth yet resounds with the tread of armedcombatants. Weary, sad-eyed toilers groan under the burden of war, countless millions are squandered upon the maintenance ofnon-producing, destructive hosts. 

Widows and orphans, nay, the very angels in heaven, if they arepermitted to look down upon us from their bright abodes in bliss, mustmourn over the sad result of man's semi-barbarism, and his worship ofthe world's materialism. Long ere this mind should have been thecontrolling force in all nations claiming to be civilized. Pureintellect and its struggles, its aspirations for light and truth, should have relegated to the regions of barbarism and darkness mereanimal contests. Not only so, but intellectual supremacy should havebeen in its turn subordinated, or crowned by true spiritual life. "Godis a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit andin truth. " Man would occupy a higher and happier position than he atpresent fills if he had earnestly co-operated with good agencies forthe unfolding and development of his better nature. 

The special mission of Odd-Fellowship is to incite and stimulate thedormant moral energies to action, to rouse the lethargic, encourage thetimid, and to strengthen the aspirations for a nobler and a betterlife. Reaching out its helpful hand to the needy and distressed uponthe one hand, and with the other battling with selfishness, intoleranceand vice--with all that dwarfs man's moral nature--it appeals tosomething within us, to be earnest advocates of its principles, bymaking them a living faith and illustrating its beneficent purposes. If we make one man purer and better, and that man one's own self, wehave done something toward the betterment of the world. The voices ofthe past and of the present all speak to us today. Men and brethren, let us hearken unto them, and putting our trust in God, let us marchonward, side by side together, until the standards of our order areplanted upon the highest summit of achievement, and as their gloriousfolds are illuminated by the Sun of Righteousness, may the simple yetthe sublime legend emblazoned thereon be seen and acknowledged by thenations, as with uplifted eyes and reverent hearts they read, "God isour Father, and we are all brothers. "

QUIET HOUR THOUGHTS. 

Genuine love and sympathy are what wins the hearts of our fellows. 

A Christian ought always to wake up in the morning in a good humor. 

Remember that sorrow and pain soften the heart and sweeten the temper. 

The young man who sees no beauty in a flower will make a mean husband. 

If you love young people's work you will prove it by laboring andsacrificing for it. 

Begin active work in your society at once, and do not fail to see thateach one has something to do. 

The fact that God gives any consideration to mere mites of humanityscattered about the surface of this little world of ours is conclusiveproof of His infinity. 

What a blessing it is that we can not always do what we wish to do, orhave everything our own way. 

Many words are no more an indication of depth of feeling and heart thanare boiling bubbles in a frying pan. 

There are some people who would scorn to keep bad company, but whothink the worst kind of thoughts by the hour. 

Do not wait for somebody else to put your society on the roll of honor. If you want a thing well done, do it yourself. 

If the very hairs of our head are numbered, then why should we notconsult the Father in regard to all our temporal affairs?

How the heart of God must yearn for the record of lives devoted tohumanity. He asks no higher service of man than this. 

The truly great man is that one who is satisfied if he is doing to theutmost limit of his capacity the thing which he has at hand. 

God would never make the mistake of helping any young man or youngwoman who did not make every possible effort to help himself. 

Do not make the mistake of thinking you are the biggest man in yoursociety. Bigger men than you have died and have not been missed afterforty-eight hours. 

The girl who is caught by gold-headed canes, carried by heads with nobrains on the inside and only pasted hair on the outside, has apitiable future before her. 

No pain, no privation, no sacrifice endured for Christ is a loss, butis rather a gain. Christ will not forget those who suffered for Himwhen He comes to make up His jewels. 

Sunday manners are just like Sunday clothes; everybody can tell thatyou put them on for the occasion only, and know that you are not usedto wearing them through the week. 

The devil led the Prodigal Son away from a good home into the gaysociety of the world, and amused him with the pleasures of sin till hegot him down, then he fed him on husks. That is the way he works. 

A good many church members do not like to have it known how much theygive for missions. They remind us of the man who said, when askedabout the amount he gave, "What I give is nothing to nobody. "

The reason why some people do not want the preacher to preach onpersonal sins, is because they are afraid he might say somethingagainst them. 

When we see a man going to get water at his neighbor's well, wenaturally suppose his own is dry. So when we see a Christian seekingthe pleasures of the world, we suppose he no longer finds pleasure inreligion. 

To know which way a stream of water is flowing, you must not look atthe little eddy, but at the main current, and to know which way a lifeis tending, you must not look at a single act, but at the whole trendof the life. 

Satan likes to discourage people, to hinder them in the performance oftheir Christian duties, but remember that Christ has said, "My grace issufficient for you. " Go steadily forward in the line of duty andsuccess will crown your efforts. 

The light of a candle can not be seen very far in the light of anoon-day sun, but at night it may be seen for a long distance and maybe a guiding star to some poor wanderer. And so, God sometimes darkensour way that we may shine. 

The man who prays for the conversion of the heathen, and then spends agreat deal more for tobacco than he gives to missions, is certainly notvery consistent in his praying and giving. 

Thomas Hood once wrote to his wife: "I never was anything, dearest, till I knew you; and I have been a better, happier, and more prosperousman ever since. Lay by that truth in lavender, sweetest, and remind meof it when I fail. "

"I believe one reason why such numerous instances of erudition occuramong the lower ranks is, that with the same powers of mind the poorstudent is limited to a narrower circle for indulging his passion forbooks, and must necessarily make himself master of the few he possessesbefore he can acquire more. "--_Walter Scott_. 

Christians should not forget that God uses human agency in the work ofsalvation. The only reason that there are not more saved, is becausethe people of God do not put themselves at his disposal for the work. The Lord wants all to be saved, but they will not be saved until thepeople of God are willing to let the Lord use them to bring the lostunto Himself. 

Deceit and falsehood, whatever conveniences they may for a time promiseor produce, are, in the sum of life, obstacles to happiness. Those whoprofit by the cheat distrust the deceiver; and the act by whichkindness was sought puts an end to confidence. 

The judges of the election can not tell the difference, when they arecounting the votes, between the one cast by the minister of the gospeland the one cast by the saloon-keeper, when it has been cast for thesame party. Vote for principle rather than for party. 

"Let every man, " said Sydney Smith, "be occupied in the highestemployment of which his nature is capable, and die with theconsciousness that he has done his best. " If the highest employment isnot to be found in our avocations, let us seek it in our leisure. 

Beware of anger of the tongue; control the tongue. Beware of anger ofthe mind; control the mind. Practice virtue with thy tongue and withthy mind. By reflection, by restraint and control, a wise man can makehimself an island which no floods can overwhelm. He who conquershimself is greater than he who in battle conquers a thousand men. Hewho is tolerant with the intolerant, mild with the fault-finders, andfree from passion with the passionate, him I call indeed a wise man. 

Brothers, keep posted in what your lodge is doing; knowing who is sick;inquire if there is not some widow in need of help; some poor orphanthat should be clothed and provided with a home and sent to school. Remember that the widow was your brother's wife, and the children yourbrother's. Be a brother to the widow, and a kind uncle to yourbrother's children. There is plenty of work for you, and you agreed todo it. Cheer up the care-worn traveler on his pilgrimage--help theweak and weary, the lonely and sad ones. Time is passing by, and wehave none too much of it in which to do our work. Remember that if weexpect to complete our labor, now is the time; soon all will be overwith us, and then all that we shall leave behind, by which to beremembered, will be the good or evil we have done. If we have donegood it will be emblazoned on many hearts, and our names will be spokenof with reverence and love; but if we have done evil, our names will beblotted out of the memory of the good and true, and we despised. 

 "How is't the sons of men are sad, Oppressed with grief and care? How is't that some of this world's goods, Have such a scanty share? Why should the orphan's piercing cry, Assail so oft our ear, And thousands find the world to be All desolate and drear?

 "We do not solve the mystery Of woes, the lot of man, But in the lodge we all unite To do the good we can. 'Tis there we learn the pleasing task To soothe the troubled breast, To educate the orphan child, And succor the distressed. 

 "Our motto--Friendship, Love and Truth-- These e'er shall be our guide, Our aim shall be, of misery To stop the running tide. "

 We ask not what's a brother's faith, What country gave him birth; But open the door to every creed And nation of the earth. 

 Hail, Charity! Odd-Fellows all Bow down before thy shrine; They raise no altar, make no vow, That is not wholly thine. 

LOVE SUPREME. 

Love is the key to the human heart. If we want to have power with Godand man, we must cultivate love. It is love that burns truth into thehearts of people. A man may be a good lawyer without love. There maybe a good surgeon without love. A man may be a good merchant withoutlove. But a man can not be a good Odd-Fellow or Christian withoutlove. I would rather have my heart full of love than be even aprophet. If a man is full of love, Paul says, "he is greater than aprophet. " A wife would rather live in a cabin with the love of herhusband, than to live in a palace without it. If I love a man I willnot cheat him or slander him or envy him. I pity people who areconstantly looking out for slights. It is better to look on the brightside rather than the dark side of life. Love will lead us to look onthe bright side. Some persons are always magnifying the faults ofothers. They use a magnifying glass in this business. If you wantpower with persons, speak as well as you can of them. Self-control isa great thing. This comes and stays through love. How many dwarfsthere are in God's church now. They have not grown one inchspiritually in twenty years. If our hearts are full of love, we arebound to grow. Many other graces pass away, but love is eternal. Themost selfish man is the most miserable man. A man may be miserly withhis money, but no man can be miserly with love. Love creates love. The more we love, the more we will be loved. Love must show itself. Love demonstrates its presence by action. Our lives, after all, aremere echoes. I speak harsh to a man, and he will speak harsh to me. If a man has bad neighbors it his own fault. If a woman has badservants it is her own fault. If we make others happy we will be happyourselves. If you are not happy, go and buy all the poor people nearyou a turkey for Christmas. "He that noticeth others shall be noticedalso himself. " If you want to get your own soul above its owntroubles, go and do good to some unhappy soul. If we do this work, Ibelieve we will have to do it in this world. There will be no tears towipe away, or sorrows to assuage, or afflictions to remedy in the otherworld. This work is for this world. It is a blessed work. It is thebest investment a man can make. It pays an hundred fold. Labors oflove demonstrate better than the church membership that we are in theMaster's service. This is the Master's business. Though my waythrough life has often been through graveyards and through glooms, Ihave loved and I have been loved, and I know that life is worth living. Love is the fulfilling of the law; the end of the gospel commandment;the bond of perfectness. Without it, whatever be our attainments, professions or sacrifices, we are nothing. Love obliterates thedifferences in education, wealth, station, religion, politics andnationality. It is a promoter of peace and harmony; it cultivates thesocial graces; it makes friends of strangers and brothers ofacquaintances; it softens the asperities of life; it worships at theshrine of piety, and recognizes the omnipotence of God and theimmortality of man. It is religious not sectarian, patriotic but notpartisan. It glows by the fireside, radiant with perpetual joy. Itglorifies God in worship and in song. It blesses humanity in genialmirth and human sympathies. It is a perennial fountain at which theold may drink and grow strong. It is a daily benediction to itsdevotees, and, like "a thing of beauty, is a joy forever. " It standslike the statue of liberty, a beacon light to the tempest-tossed andwayfaring mariner and brother, pointing him the way to the haven ofrefuge, to the right living and right doing. 

Oh love, thou mightiest gift of God; thou white-winged trust in Him whodoeth all things well; thou one light over His darkest providences, lingering to cheer when all else has passed away, thy whisper upon thedull ear of night. But alas! this world was made to break hearts in, while love was sent from heaven to heal them. The precious balm, though, is so scarce that many must die for want of it. Oh, themight-have-been! What human soul has not sung that dirge? Verily, thewinds come, howling it by like an invisible band of mourners from thegrave of all things. Alas! is anything in this life real, or are weindeed shadows, and this world altogether a shadowy land, while theblackened skies above give us only glimpses of a far-off better home, better friends and better love? Alas! Heaven's loudest complaint tomortals is ever for lack of love. Even He who sitteth upon the throneof thrones knoweth what it is to stretch out His arms in utterdesertion of no one to love Him, no one to seek Him, and no one to fearHim--"no, not one. " Then as we may best show our love to Him by lovingone another, is it not well that we commence loving those around us atonce? Ah! yes, and like the ambitious vine, do thou reach out all thytendril thoughts to what is nearest, the while aspiring to the oak orthe pine of the loftier trust, even the faith of Abraham that wasaccounted unto him for righteousness. Would I had some new phrase forlove, some new figure for hope! How lonely and weary must that life bewithout love, how tasteless all its joys, and how vacant every scene. If we have the spirit of love we will live for others. Auguste Comteinscribed on the first page of his work, "Politique Positive, " whereinhe depicted in systematic form, life that had been forming itselfthroughout human history, these words: "Order and progress--live forothers. " The force of this thought is, in accord with Odd-Fellowship, which teaches love of our kind, love of right, zeal for the good. 

Man's happiness consists in living as a social being, living for selfin order to more truly live for others. This is summed up in the wordhumanity. But affection, as the true motor force of life, must have afoundation, must stir us not only to the right things, but to the rightmeans; in other words, action must be guided by knowledge. Improvementmust be the aim of social life, as it is the incentive to individualeffort. It is not enough to desire the good, or to know how to achieveit, we must labor for it. Associated effort gives the opportunity forgaining grander results than centuries of divided activity. Theconception of humanity has grown nobler. The good of the vast humanwhole is now acknowledged as the end of all social union. Humanityembodies love; the object of our activity; the source of what we have;the ruler of the life under whose span we work, and suffer and enjoy. 

All religions, all social systems worthy of the name, have sought toregulate human nature and perfect the organization of society byproclaiming as their principles the cultivation of some grand socialsentiments. Philosophers, moralists, preachers have united in saying:"Base your life upon a noble feeling, if you are to live aright; basethe state upon a generous devotion of its members to some great ideal, if it is to prosper and be strong. " All have agreed that thedifference of life could only be harmonized by placing action under thestimulus of high unselfish passion. Odd-Fellowship has grown strongunder this governing law. The banner it bears aloft proclaimssentiments that are attractive to all the nations of the earth. We arestrong in as far as we truly interpret, for the good of humanity, thiselevated aim, this devotion to fraternal ends. 

Compte defines religion as consisting of three parts--a belief, aworship, and a rule of life--of which all three are equal, and each asnecessary as any other. As is truly said, "Society can not be touchedwithout knowledge; and the knowledge of social organization of humanityis a vast and perplexing science. The race, like every one of us, isdependent on the laws of life, and the study of life is a mighty fieldto master. " Enthusiasm of humanity would be but shallow did it notimpel us to efforts to learn how to serve--demanding the best ofconduct, brain and heart. The power of Odd-Fellowship lies in itsfraternity. It goes forward with irresistible magnetism when itsfraternal principles are truly interpreted. It furnishes to men astrong union, where general intelligence, by attrition, is increased;it provides a high moral standard; its objective action is such astouches the common heart of humanity; and by its grand co-operativesystem it gives the finest means of securing those advantages that tendto the securement of material comfort and mental and spiritual peaceand happiness. 

Drummond says: "Love is the greatest thing in the world. " Read whatPaul says about it in I Cor. , xiii: "Though I speak with the tongues ofmen and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, ora tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, andunderstand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have allfaith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I amnothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and thoughI give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth menothing. Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; lovevaunteth not itself, is not puffed up: Doth not behave itself unseemly;Seeketh not her own. Is not easily provoked. Thinketh no evil;rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth allthings, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail;whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in partshall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child; but when Ibecame a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through aglass, darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part; but thenshall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love. "

The more I study Odd-Fellowship, the more I become convinced that Ihave just crossed the threshold, and that new truths and sublimelessons await me, of which I never dreamed. Brothers, there is hiddentreasure in our order for which we must dig. It must be brought to thesurface. We must know more of the beauties of this great organizationof ours. "The greatest thing, " says some one, "a man can do for hisHeavenly Father is to be kind to some of His other children. " "Iwonder why it is that we are not all kinder than we are? How much theworld needs it. How easily it is done. How instantaneously it acts. How infallibly it is remembered. How super-abundantly it pays itselfback--for there is no debtor in the world so honorable, so superblyhonorable, as love. Love is success. Love is happiness. Love islife. " "Where love is, God is. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth inGod. God is love. Therefore love. " "Without distinction, withoutcalculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need itmost; most of all upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and forwhom perhaps we each do least of all. There is a difference betweentrying to please and giving pleasure. Give pleasure. Lose no chanceof giving pleasure. For that is the ceaseless and anonymous triumph ofa truly loving spirit. I shall pass through this world but once. Anygood things that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any humanbeing, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for Ishall not pass this way again. We can be Odd-Fellows only while we actlike honest men. "

Every Odd-Fellow ought to be a "gentleman. " Do you know the meaning ofthe word "gentleman"? "It means a gentleman--a man who does thingsgently, with love. And that is the whole art and mystery of it. Thegentleman can not in the nature of things do an ungentle, anungentlemanly thing. " "Love doth not behave itself unseemly. " Life isfull of opportunities for learning love. Every man and woman every dayhas a thousand of them. There is an eternal lesson for us all, "howbetter we can love. " What makes a good artist, a good sculptor, a goodmusician? Practice. What makes a man a good man, a man of love?Practice. Nothing else. If a man does not exercise his arm hedevelops no biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, heacquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigor ofmoral fibre, nor beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing ofenthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expressionof the whole round Christian character--the Christ-like nature in itsfullest development. And the constituents of this great character areonly to be built up by ceaseless practice. To love abundantly is tolive abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever. We want tolive forever for the same reason that we want to live tomorrow. Why doyou want to live tomorrow? It is because there is some one who lovesyou, and whom you want to see tomorrow, and be with, and love back. There is no other reason why we should live on than that we love andare beloved. It is when a man has no one to love him that he commitssuicide. The reason why, in the nature of things, love should be thesupreme thing--because it is going to last; because in the nature ofthings it is an eternal life. It is a thing that we are living now, not that we get when we die; that we shall have a poor chance ofgetting when we die unless we are living now. 

No worse fate can befall a man in this world than to live and grow oldalone, unloving and unloved. At any cost cultivate a loving nature. Then you will find as you look back upon your life that the momentswhen you have really lived are the moments when you have done things ina spirit of love. As memory scans the past, above and beyond all thetransitory pleasures of life, there leap forward those supreme hourswhen you have been enabled to do unnoticed kindnesses to those aroundabout you, things too trifling to speak about, but which you feel haveentered into your eternal life. I have seen almost all the beautifulthings God has made; I have enjoyed almost every pleasure that He hasplanned for man; and yet as I look back I see standing out above allthe life that has gone, four or five short experiences when the love ofGod reflected itself in some poor imitation, some small act of love ofmine, and these seem to be the things which alone of all one's lifeabide. Everything else in all our lives is transitory. Every othergood is visionary. But the acts of love which no man knows about, orcan ever know about--they fail not. 

Odd-Fellowship ought to grow. The kinship of the human race--howbeautiful a thought! Without mutual aid the race would perish. Thinkof it. Throughout life you are dependent upon your fellow-man. Whocan live without a friend? When you have no money and no home, where, brothers, will you find food and shelter? When low with fever, thetongue parched, the brain wandering, who will give you water, batheyour throbbing temples, and watch over you lest you die? See the oldman. The frosts of seventy winters have whitened his head; his eye isdim; his limbs tremble; reason and memory fail; he is an infant again. He goes down to the valley of the shadow of death. Who shall lead himand comfort his weary soul? Who lay his body gently and reverently inthe grave, and sod it over with green grass? So with us all. A manalone in the world, without a human being who cares whether he live ordie! Not a hand to touch, nor a voice to hear, nor a smile to receive!Human affections forever sealed to him; no fireside; no home withfather, mother, brothers, sisters; no little children, no son to beproud of; no daughters to caress; no "good night;" no "good morning. "Who could bear it? The sun could not warm such a man. The brightestdays and the greenest fields could not give him pleasure. Better chainhim on a rock in mid-ocean and leave him to the vultures, than thus robhim of his kinship with the human race. 

This world is beautiful, and it is full of priceless sympathies. Allcreation is glorious with melody. The morning stars, saith the Bible, sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy when it wasmade. The universe of stars, and suns, and planets and globes, swingharmoniously through space. Not a sparrow falleth to the groundwithout our Father's notice; not a soul yearns, or sorrows, orrejoices, but He knoweth it. He hath made of one blood all nations ofmen to dwell together on the face of the earth. We are bound to eachother by indissoluble ties. It is a law of nature that we must allwork for each other. Though ten thousand miles apart; though oceansroll between us and continents divide us, we labor not for ourselvesalone. You plow the furrow in California and sow the wheat for yourbrother in Louisiana, while he plants the cane and cotton for you. Thegood Siberian is this day roaming over snows and ice, hunting the otterand gathering furs, that you may be warm. Men are diving in thePersian gulf for pearls to grace your wives and daughters. Thesilkworm of India and China may have spun the threads of your dress, the Frenchman may have woven it; the hardy mariner braved the seas tobring it here. Truly, we are brothers. A common Father brought us allinto this world, and to a common Father we all go. Let us, then, helpone another, in money (if need be), in education, in sympathy. 

There is one feature of the order we desire to emphasize, and that isits full sympathy with those that labor and toil. No reference woulddo justice to the order that did not emphasize this fact. It is itspride and glory. It is from this class its membership is chieflydrawn. It was with this class it originated, the first lodge in theUnited States having been organized by half a dozen humble mechanics;Thomas Wildey, their leader, was a blacksmith. You see it had noaristocratic origin, and its broad and catholic sympathy, itspopularity with this class is explained. They know its value, and haveseen its active charity and experienced its beneficence. A man who hasno sympathy with the humble and the lowly, a man of mean and narrowheart, will find no congenial dwelling place in our lodges. The trueOdd-Fellow is a man of heart; his hand is open to every worthy appealof the needy, and he is honest and upright in his life. It enforces noreligious or political tests; in these every member is free; but itdoes teach and urge its members to be grateful to their Creator andloyal to their country. In conclusion, let me urge upon the living, fidelity to the teachings of Odd-Fellowship. If these are respected itwill make you better citizens, better husbands, better fathers, bettermen. It is a cultivation of the heart and the better feelings, andexpands our humanity. If you are poor, it will come to you, or yourfamily, sometimes as a benefaction. If you are rich, you can afford togive, and with a good Odd-Fellow that is more blessed than to receive. 

I want to say here what I have often said in the lodge-room. I loveOdd-Fellowship, above all, for the heart there is in it. For itsdisplay on the street and its pageantry I care but little. I shrinkfrom it rather than follow it. But its benevolence, its activecharity, and its mission of good will, I admire. When death'sunwelcome presence rests within our portals, and obedient to his call aloved one has gone hence, we should give the mortal remains of thedeparted brother a decent sepulture; fondly cherish the remembrance ofhis virtues, and bury his frailties "beneath the clods which rest uponhis bosom. " We should then direct our thoughts and cares to thedesolate home, where the widow, clad in the robes of grief, her heartcords broken and bleeding, is weeping over earth's only idol, now lostto earth forever. Then, too, should we extend the helping hand to thefatherless children, and endeavor to so direct their steps that theirpaths may be paths of usefulness and honor. These are the imperativeduties. But our ministrations of charity and benevolence should by nomeans be confined exclusively within the pale of the order. Thiscrowded world, with its eager millions, maddened with ambition'sunquenchable fires, trampling under foot and well-nigh smothering eachother in the great rush of competitive strife, is full of poorunfortunates, daily appealing for generous sympathy and assistance. 

Though not members, it may be, of our peculiar family, yet the poorest, the humblest, the most wretched, is a human being--"the master-piece ofHis handiwork"--and, as such, demands our aid and comfort as far aspracticable. Life has been compared to a river. Aye, and beneath itsmurky waters lurk countless reefs and shoals. Many a beautiful bark, sailing, seemingly, under the very star of hope, dashes upon them, andis lost. All along its shores are scattered the wrecks of strandedvessels, once laden with joyous hopes and brilliant prospects. Odd-Fellowship renders the passage of this river safe by a bridge ofmystic form, "On one side is friendship planted-- Truth upon the other shore; Love, the arch that spans the current, Bears each brother safely o'er. "

It should be the most pleasing duty of Odd-Fellows to point ourfellow-travelers to this beautiful and stately arch; to leadthitherward their weary steps. Such would be assistance more permanentthan can be rendered by silver or gold. The time is certain to comewhen every young man is thrown back upon himself--must leave thetranquil security of the parental home, and seek a refuge amongstrangers. When beyond the reach of family influence--beyond the reachof that tender providence which so carefully guarded him from vice, andsoothed his griefs and sympathized with all his youthful aspirationsand pleasures--when this influence ceases to surround him, what willcontinue its ministry of love? What will be to him father, mother, brother, sister--home? Will society? No! Society to its deepest coreis selfish, corrupt, unnatural and unloving? Society will not, and cannot. He is in the great world--allurements and temptations are rifearound him--he is sick and in distress, and must suffer alone, with noone to console him with a word of comfort, sympathy, or love; he has noattention but such as money will purchase--he dies, and the cold eyesof strangers only look upon the grave, if, indeed, a grave he has. This is a life picture, and it is at this point the beauty and utilityof Odd-Fellowship is seen, for the order is a vast family circle, spread throughout the community; always powerful and efficient topreserve those who are brought within the sphere of its influence. Hewho is a member of this fraternity may go where his father's counseland his mother's care can not reach him, but he can not go beyond thereach of that larger family to which he belongs! Silently andinvisibly, yet with unslumbering assiduity, Odd-Fellowship watches overhim, and by its wise counsels, its tender sympathies and rationalrestraints, saves him from the ways of vice. 

Mythic story tells us that the ancient gods invisibly and secretlyfollowed their favorites in all their wanderings, and when exposed todanger, or threatened with destruction, would unveil themselves intheir awful beauty and power, and stand forth to preserve them fromharm or to avenge their wrongs. Odd-Fellowship realizes this myth ofthe pagan gods; she surrounds all her children with her preservingpresence, and reveals herself always in the hour of peril, sickness ordistress. Nowhere in our country can a true Odd-Fellow feel himselfalone, friendless or forsaken. The invisible, but helpful arms of ourorder surround him wherever he may be. And should he be overtaken byillness or misfortune, be he in any part of the country, and never sopoor, he will, if he makes his wants known, receive as a right thenecessary assistance, and friends to watch over him with fraternalsolicitude. And should he fall a victim to disease, the brothers ofcharity will be there to close his eyes, and with solemn, yet hopeful, heaven-born rites, consign his body to the repose of the silent tomb. Odd-Fellowship is an embodiment of family love and affection, and isthe only substitute for home influence, and the only green spot in thedreary waste of life which binds these brothers to the tender practiceof every virtue--guides in prosperity and health, and as a ministeringangel bends over them with tenderest pity in their chamber ofsuffering. True, there are sorrows which it can not reach--there aregriefs which it can not remove; notwithstanding, it still pursues itsway, imparts its healthful influence, and accomplishes its beautifuland holy ministry of benevolence and charity. If it can not heal thewounds of misfortune, it administers the balm of sympathy, friendshipand love. My dear reader, learn to give encouragement to those aroundyou. 

Everybody feels the need of encouragement, from the humblest artisan tothe king on his throne. We hear of the choice spirits who have beenthe world's idols, how they came up through terrible trials alone andalmost unaided, setting aside obstacles that would have crushed others, and fighting their way to the very pinnacle of fame. Aye! but great asthey were, they needed and received encouragement. In some part oftheir poor home they saw the smile that spoke the hearty appreciationof the genius, though, perhaps, the lips said nothing. Even West lefton record, "my mother's smile made me a painter. " The encouragement ofa little child will send the blood more warmly to the heart, and eventhe appreciation of a poor dumb brute is worth its gaining. Giveencouragement. Everybody needs it--men, women and even children. Oh!how many a dear little heart has been chilled into ice when the coarselaugh has greeted its rude hieroglyphics in the first attempt toportray its ideal. The child sees warm visions of sunlight and beautyin those uncouth angles. Whole minds of thought lie concealed underthose strange shapes. To the young mind's eye they are wonders, andthe tiny fingers have built monuments that deserve not to be throwndown so rudely, when a smile that costs nothing would have left themstanding to be finished into finer shape and more classical proportionsin the years that are to come. You do a positive injury to the dullestchild when you reward his little efforts with contempt. It is a wrongthat can never be repaired, for the disheartment that strikes the happyspirit, flushed with the consciousness of having achieved something newand great, comes up in after time with the very same vividness at everytrivial disappointment. Give encouragement. You men of business, whoknow so well what a good, hearty "go ahead, " coupled with a frank, merry face, will do in your own case--give encouragement to the youngbeginner, who starts nervously at the bottom of the race, and who, though he may put a bold outside on, quakes at the center of his beingwith the dread that among so many competitors he shall always be leftin the rear. Hold out your hand to him as if you thought the world wasreally large enough for two, and bid him God-speed. Tell him to cometo you if he feels the need of a friend to advise with him. Don'temulate your sign in overshadowing him. Out upon these mean, cringingsouls who would grudge God's sunlight if it shone upon a piece ofmerchandise as good as their own. They are poor, barren wretches, whoplow furrows only in their own cheeks, and plant wrinkles on theirbrows. Above all things, if you have any tenderness or compassion, encourage your pastor, your physician, and your editor. Suppose, oncein a while, they do, in expressing their own honest views, saysomething that conflicts a little with your own starved or plethoricnotions. Suppose they do dare to tell you the truth sometimes in a waythat makes you cringe, and you say to yourself, "he has no business tobe personal, " when the poor man never thought that his homely coatswould fit; don't grow cold, and cast sheep's eyes, and nudge somebody'selbow in a corner, and whisper all around, and say complacently, "Yes, Brother A. Is a good man--but--"

Those "buts" and "ifs" ought to be christened intellectual revolvers, for they kill more reputations than any other two words in the Englishlanguage. We have known instances where pastors and editors and othershave felt weary of living, from having to encounter the spirit ofdiscouragement among their brethren; and oh! how many wives, husbandsand children, are dying deaths daily from this same prolific source ofsuffering. Give encouragement, then, wherever and whenever you can, and you will find that you have not lived in vain. If God blessesthose who offer but a cup of cold water in charity, how much more willHe regard the kind heart that has refreshed a weary spirit fainting bythe way. Death quickens recollections painfully. The grave can nothide the white faces of those who sleep. The coffin and the greenmound are cruel magnets. They draw us farther than we would go. Theyforce us to remember. A man never sees so far into human life as whenhe looks over a wife's or mother's grave. His eyes get wondrous clearthen, and he sees as never before what it is to love and to be loved;what it is to injure the feelings of the loved. 

Let us deal gently with those around us. Remember every day a floweris plucked from some sunny home; a breach made in some happy circle; ajewel stolen from some treasury of love; each day from summer fields oflife some harvester disappears--yea, every hour some sentinel fallsfrom his post and is thrown from the ramparts of time into the surgingwaters of eternity. Even as I write, the funeral of one who diedyesterday winds like a winter shadow along some silent street. Daily, when we rise from the bivouac to stand at our posts, we miss somebrother soldier whose cheering cry in the sieges and struggles of thepast has been as fire from heaven upon our hearts. Each day some pearldrops from the jeweled thread of friendship--some harp to which we havelistened has been hushed forever. Love, however, annihilates deatheven; blots away all record of time and creates the world it lives in;conjures back arms to embrace, lips to kiss, and eyes to smile, whispers its own praises and breathes its own names of endearment. Thus, love maketh the light to our dreams and planteth hope in themidst of our sorrow. In darkness and in danger, too, love cometh to usever, ever, now warning, now chiding, now blessing, and always safelyguarding. Love lightens labor, shortens distance and quickens time. Love teaches us to forgive, helps us to forget and whitens the memoryof all things. Love paints every hope, brightens every scene andmaketh beautiful whatsoever it shines on. Love is wisdom. Love ishigh. Love is holy. Love is God. Love gloweth in the hearts of theangels, wreathes the smiles on their brows and melts the kisses ontheir lips. Love is the light of the beautiful beyond. 

GEMS OF BEAUTY

More hopeful than all wisdom is one draught of human pity that will notforsake us. 

Laughing is one of the products of civilization. In the uncivilizedtribes laughter is entirely unknown. 

Let him who neglects to raise the fallen fear lest, when he falls, noone will stretch out his hand to lift him up. 

Time is a species of wealth which it is impossible for us to hoard, butwhich we may spend to good advantage. 

Character is the eternal temple that each one begins to rear, yet deathcan only complete it. The finer the architecture, the more fit for theindwelling of angels. 

It is only by labor that thought can be made healthy, and only bythought that labor can be made happy; and the two can not be separatedwith impunity. --_John Ruskin_. 

Don't moralize to a man who is on his back. Help him up, set himfirmly on his feet, and then give him advice and means. 

There is a pleasure in contemplating good; there is a greater pleasurein receiving good; but the greatest pleasure of all is in doing good, which comprehends the rest. 

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning--an endeavorto navigate a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have to run, butwithout observation of the heavenly bodies. 

Most people keep too strong a hold of their personality to be able toforget themselves in their subject; they carry an unacknowledgedself-consciousness along with them. If to be single-minded is to havean undivided interest in things, they are not single-minded. 

Real affection is independent. A woman may passionately love a man whodoes not care for her, and men have gone mad for the sake of women whowere indifferent to them. That affection which survives coldness oreven contempt on the part of the subject is a stronger proof of itsstrength than jealousy, however well founded. 

To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals, and to have adeference for others governs our manners. 

If you want to be miserable, think about yourself, about what you want, what you like, what respect people pay you, and what people think ofyou. 

One great impediment to the rapid dissemination of new truths is that aknowledge of them would convict many sage professors of having longpromulgated error. 

The leaves that give out the sweetest fragrance are those that are themost cruelly crushed; so the hearts of those who have suffered most canfeel for others' woes. 

Each of us can so believe in humanity in general as to contribute tothat pressure which constantly levers up the race; can surroundourselves with an atmosphere optimistic rather than thecontrary. --_Selected_. 

He who has more knowledge than good works is like a tree with manybranches and few roots, which the first wind throws on its face; whilehe who does more than he says is like a tree with strong roots and fewbranches, which all the winds can not uproot. --_Talmud_. 

If we waited until it was perfectly convenient, half of the goodactions of life would never be accomplished, and very few of itssuccesses. 

A helping word to one in trouble is often like a switch on a railroadtrack, but one inch between wreck and smooth rolling prosperity. 

Prayer is the key of day and lock of the night; and we should every daybegin and end, bid ourselves good morrow and good night, with prayer. 

In order to love mankind, expect but little from them; in order to viewtheir faults without bitterness, pardon them. The wisest men havealways been the most indulgent. 

There are souls which fall from heaven like flowers, but ere the pureand fresh buds can open they are trodden in the dust of the earth, andlie soiled and crushed under the foul tread of some brutal hoof. 

Many of the men we calmly set down as failures may have been doing asmuch as those who have made ten times as much noise in the world. Agreat deal of the best work in the world is anonymous, if we do notconfine the term to writing. 

To a man of brave sentiments midnight is as bright as noonday, for theillumination is within. 

That man who lives in vain lives worse than vain. He who lives to nopurpose lives to a bad purpose. --_Nevins_. 

Labor is the law of the world, and he who lives by other men's means isof less value to the world than the buzzing, busy insect. 

Deep is the sea, and deep is hell, but pride runneth deeper; it iscoiled as a poisonous worm about the foundation of the soul. --_Tupper_. 

The integrity of the heart, when it is strengthened by reason, is theprincipal source of justice and wit; an honest man thinks nearly alwaysjustly. 

Be firm, but be not too hasty to decide; weigh well before you act, but, having weighed, act promptly, and abide the result. This is thetest of judgment. 

Wit loses its respect with the good when seen in company with malice;and to smile at the jest which plants a thorn in another's breast is tobecome a principal in the mischief. 

Success never did, never will come to that young man who knowseverything--in his own opinion. 

In love, as in everything else, truth is the strongest of all things, and frankness is but another name for truth. 

Frequent disappointment teaches us to mistrust our own inclination, andshrink even from vows our hearts may prompt. 

For children there is no leave-taking, for they acknowledge no past, only the present, that to them is full of the future. 

To love, in order to be loved in return, is man, but to love for thepure sake of loving, is almost the characteristic of an angel. 

Fond as a man is of sight-seeing, life is the great show for everyman--the show always wonderful and new to the thoughtful. 

The sweetest book in all the world, if properly read, is the Bible. Its leaves are as fragrant as a bed of violets in full bloom. 

Pity gilds mortality with rays of immortal light, and through faithenables its possessor to triumph over sin, sorrow, tribulation anddeath. 

If we can not live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as todeserve happiness. --_Fichte_. 

Little by little fortunes are accumulated; little by little knowledgeis gained; little by little character and reputation are achieved. 

Don't rely for success upon empty praise. The swimmer upon the streamof life must be able to keep afloat without the aid of bladders. 

Industry--In seeking a situation, remember that the right kind of menare always in demand, and that industry and capacity rarely goempty-handed. 

Frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you meanto do on every occasion, and take it for granted that you mean to dowhat is right. 

To be always intending to lead a new life, but never to find time toset about it, is as if a man should put off eating from one day toanother till he is starved. 

A man loved by a beautiful and virtuous woman carries a talisman thatrenders him invulnerable; every one feels that such a one's life has ahigher value than that of others. 

The great beauty of charity is privacy; there is a sweet force, even inan anonymous penny. 

Every heart has its secret sorrows, and oftentimes we call a man coldwhen he was only sad. 

A promise should be given with caution, and kept with care; it shouldbe made with the heart and kept with the head. 

"The mind of a young creature, " says Berkely, "can not remain empty; ifyou do not put into it that which is good, it will be sure to use eventhat which is bad. "

We all see at sunset the beautiful colors streaming all over thewestern sky, but no eyes can behold the hand that overturns the urnswhence these streams are poured. 

We often live under a cloud, and it is well for us that we should doso. Uninterrupted sunshine would parch our hearts. We want shade andrain to cool and refresh them. 

Poverty is very terrible to you, and kills the soul in you sometimes;but it is the north wind that lashed men into vikings; it is the soft, luscious south wind that lulls to lotus dreams. 

There is nothing so valuable, and yet so cheap, as civility; you canalmost buy land with it. 

It has been justly said nothing in man is so Godlike as doing good toour fellows. --_Selected_. 

Contentment swells a mite into a talent, and makes even the poor richerthan the Indies. --_Addison_. 

Never was a sincere word utterly lost, never a magnanimity fell to theground; there is some heart always to greet and accept it unexpectedly. 

There are people who often talk of the humbleness of their origin, whenthey are really ashamed of it, though vain of the talent which enabledthem to emerge from it. 

A witty old deacon put it thus: "Now, brethren, let us get up a supperand eat ourselves rich. Buy your food, then give it to the church;then go and buy it back again; then eat it up, and your church debt ispaid. "

Self-sacrifice is the essential mark of the Christian, and the absenceof it is sufficient at once to condemn the man who calls himself bythat name and yet has it not, and to declare that he has no right toit. --_Bolton_. 

There are many comfortable people in the world, but to call any manperfectly happy is an insult. 

Women often make light of ruin. Give them but the beloved objects, andpoverty is but a trifling sorrow to bear. --_Thackeray_, Independence is a name for what no man possesses; nothing in theanimate or inanimate world is more dependent than man. 

Wealth is to be used only as an instrument of action, not as therepresentative of civil honors and moral excellence. --_Jane Porter_. 

There is nothing purer, nothing warmer than our first friendship, ourfirst love, our first striving after truth, our first feeling fornature. --_Jean Paul Richter_. 

Shakespeare is as much out of the category of eminent authors as he isout of the crowd. He is inconceivably wise; the othersconceivably. --_Representative Men_. 

A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner. Neither do uninterruptedprosperity and success qualify a man for usefulness and happiness. Thestorms of adversity, like the storms of the ocean, arouse the facultiesand excite the invention, prudence, skill and fortitude of the voyager. 

It is not work that hurts men. It is the corrosion of uncertainty; itis the anticipation of trouble; it is living in a state of painfulapprehension. Therefore we should endeavor to rise out of theatmosphere of gloomy forebodings. The man who is lifted above fear andits whole brood of mischief can go through twice as much trouble as aman who is subject to its influence. 

He that looks out upon life from a sour or severe disposition, withhard and stringent notions, is ill prepared to meet the experiences ofthe world; but he who has the sweetness of hope, he who has animagination lit up with cheerfulness, he who has the sense of humorwhich softens all things--he who has this atmosphere of the mind--hasmade himself superior to accident. As the angel described by Milton, who was smitten by the sword, and whose wounds healed as soon as thesword was withdrawn, so ought man to be; and when he receives a spearthrust in life, no sooner should the spear be withdrawn than his fleshought to "close and be itself again. "

A married man falling into misfortune is more apt to retrieve hissituation in the world than a single one, chiefly because his spiritsare soothed and retrieved by domestic endearments, and his self-respectkept alive by finding that, although all abroad is darkness andhumiliation, yet there is a little world of love at home over which heis monarch. 

HUSBAND AND FATHER

Miss Frances Power Cobb is right, and she is wrong, when she says: "Itis a woman, and only a woman--a woman all by herself, if she likes, andwithout any man to help her--who can turn a house into a home. " She isunquestionably right in her judgment, that it is a woman who can, ifshe will, turn a house into a home, but she is much in the wrong in herassertion that it is a woman all by herself, without any man to helpher, who can effect such a beneficial transformation. Woman possessesmagical powers in the way of building up a home; but home naturallyimplies the presence and protection of man--and it is man himself, ifhe likes, and without any woman to help him, who can give that home asemblance of that place where, as some people believe, the wickedsuffer after they have "shuffled off this mortal coil. " The husbandcan never make the home, but he can succeed most admirably, if so hechoose, to unmake it, to banish its happiness and comfort, to exilefrom it its ministering angels of peace and content, to shatter woman'ssweet and blessed work to its very foundation. Let the wifeconcentrate, all day long, all her care and ingenuity and love uponbuilding up her little paradise at home, let her hands be ever so busyin strewing fresh flowers around the domestic hearth, let her heart beever so happy throughout the day in the discharge of her domesticduties, let her countenance be ever so beaming in her sweetanticipation of the happy smile of appreciation, of the kind word ofsympathy and encouragement, which shall be her reward when her husbandreturns; and then see this star in her domestic firmament enter, sulking and surly, blind to all that her busy hands have so lovinglyprepared, grim and gruff to her and the little ones, who have beenfitted up in their neatest and cleanest, in which to welcome theirfather's return, and then see whether you can agree with Miss Cobb'sassertion "that it is a woman, and only a woman--a woman all byherself, if she likes, and without any man to help her--who can turn ahouse into a home. " See how her heart sinks, how her voice, full ofmirth and glee and music before his coming, dies in her throat, how thelittle ones, full of merriment all day long, tremblingly hide in thecorner, or withdraw from the room; see how the intrusion of this grimspectre of malcontent shuts the door upon domestic peace and happiness, and withers every pious resolve to make home the dearest, sweetest, most contented and most sacred spot on earth, and then calculate howlong, under such disheartening surroundings, woman will be able all byherself, and without any man to help her, to prevent her house frombecoming anything and everything except a home. 

While studying language, I observed that most of my mistakes in grammaroccurred in the feminine gender, and thinking over the cause of it, itdawned upon me that, belonging to the masculine sex, I was in the habitof thinking in that gender, and that my teachers were men, and that mytext-books and grammars had been written by men, and that the masculinegender predominated so strongly in the exercises, that it was butnatural for me to make the greatest number of mistakes in the gender towhich the least attention had been given. When dealing with the socialand domestic question, the unbiased among us can not but observe asimilar failing. Many a serious mistake has been made by man whenspeaking or writing concerning women, because our speakers and writersand preachers and teachers belonged from the very beginning ofcivilization, almost exclusively to the masculine sex, a sex which hasnever tired in exalting itself at the expense of the weaker sex, inemphasizing woman's inferiority to man, in asserting its rights, and incomplaining about its wrongs, and as woman did not write or speak forherself, we have heard but little of her side of the story, know nextto nothing of her just rights and of her grievous wrongs, seldom dreamthat she, too, has rights that must be respected, and suffers wrongsthat must be corrected. 

The universities, colleges and all great institutions of learning ofthis and other lands refused, until quite recently, to recognize womanas a human being possessing a mind in need of training, and thereforeexcluded her from their privileges, and the order of Odd-Fellowspartook of the same spirit and excluded the better half of the humanrace from its lodge-rooms. Man had ever been a selfish, conceited, cowardly tyrant from the day in which our father Adam disgraced his sexby taking without question the forbidden fruit; and, after eating it, crying with selfish, pusillanimous cowardice: "The woman thou gavest tobe with me gave me of the tree and I did eat, " and he has always soughtto make and keep woman an inferior, dependent, submissive slave. Tothis end he has striven to keep her in ignorance, exclude her from allthe avenues of knowledge, and then, because she did not possess theknowledge that he had forbidden her, proclaimed throughout the worldthat she was mentally inferior to man, and in consequence unfit to beadmitted to the various institutions and associations in which mensought to improve their minds. 

The object of Odd-Fellowship is to improve and elevate the character ofman, to enlighten his mind and enlarge the sphere of his affections, and of course woman, as being mentally weak and naturally inferior toman, was excluded from its sacred precincts. Now, however, things arechanged; nearly all educational institutions worthy of mention admitwomen, and the Rebekah of today, emulating the Rebekah of old, will behand in hand with her brothers in all good works. She will accompanyhim on his errands of mercy, watch beside the bedside of anguish, foregoing pleasure to follow in the path of duty. 

I would have every man know--who has a wife--that "mutual benefit fromharmonious partnership work" is an axiom in as full a sense as "inunion there is strength. "

There are two sides to every question, and in this article I shall dealwith the woman's side. I want to present especially the wife's side ofthe question to every Odd-Fellow, hoping that it will be of lastingbenefit in many ways. I know full well that only one accustomed todeal with high and holy things, one whose glance is ever at sacredthings, one who, as it were, administers the treasures of the kingdomof God, can fittingly touch this subject. It would be easy for me tobe a cheap wit, to rake up the old scandal of Mother Eve, to evendeclaim with windy volubility that a woman betrayed the capital, that awoman lost Mark Anthony the world and left old Troy in ashes. But farbe it from me! Rather would I assume a loftier mood; rather would Istrike a loftier note, and, with blind Homer, beg for an unweariedtongue to chant the praise of woman. It is true Eve lost us Eden, butin that garden of monotonous delight, had we been born there, we wouldnever have truly known what woman is. O, Felix Culpa! O, happy fault!that has shown the world the mines of rich affection of woman's heart, that else would never have been discovered. O, happy fault, that hasshown the world a wealth of woman's nature, her capability for love, the radiance of her tenderness, her infinite pity, her unswervingdevotion, the solace of her presence in sickness and sorrow, the depthand sweetness of her mercy. 

A river of pure delight flowed through paradise, but blind Adam neversaw it, never dreamed of it until the flaming sword cut him offforever; but he has since drank of it, and so has every man who hasever tasted the sacramental wine of woman's true affection. The seamyside of life has been laid bare to me. Its sorrows and its anguisheshave I often witnessed, but into that pool of Bethesida of the world'sanguish, with healing do I see ever come an angel, a pitying woman. The influence of wife and mother is ever near me; their faces are themost lovely; their hearts the most tender of all in this world--mymother and my wife. And for their sake, and for the sake of all themothers, wives, sisters and daughters, whom I daily meet doing good, Ilong and I earnestly yearn for the eloquence and grace to half expressthe thoughts that rise within me of what the world owes woman. 

To me every good woman is the fair fulfillment of dreamed delight. Sheis the first at the cross and the last at the grave. All that ishighest and best in the world is nurtured and fed by the milk of hernobility. The Christ of all greatness and hope was born of a woman. The noble women of the world! O, would that the days of chivalry werenot past, that I might unsheath a lance in their name, for their glory!But in our more prosaic days, what can I do but let the will sufficefor the deed, and say to the woman, "God bless you. " I propose to lether speak for herself today. I propose to accept her invitation toaccompany her through the various spheres of her domestic life, and seewhether she alone is responsible for that vice and crime and misfortunewhich moralists and superintendents of penal and charity institutestrace back to neglects at home; whether it is always the wife andmother that is responsible for unhappiness in marriage and for theincrease of divorces; whether the husbands and fathers are always thesaints and martyrs, or whether they are not very, very often the rootof the whole evil themselves. 

We retrace our steps and begin with our observations of the husband andfather a few months prior to that solemn day, on which he plighted hisvows of protection and faithfulness, on which he took into his care andtrust a woman's life and happiness, on which he sacredly promised, inthe name of God, and in the presence of witnesses, to love her, tohonor and cherish her, to provide for her, to be faithful to her in allhis obligations as husband, in youth and in old age, in sunshine and indarkness, in prosperity and in adversity. We make first hisacquaintance in the happy days of his courtship. He is burning withlove. He is the facsimile of Shakespeare's lover, "sighing like afurnace. " Her praises are on his lips always. He avows himself herslave and worships her as a goddess. It is in her company alone thathe can find happiness. Whether at home or in society, he is always ather side. Life is dreary where she is not. He wonders how he couldhave lived so long, or how he could continue existence, without her. How regular and how punctual he is in his calls, and how he scowls atthe clock for running away with time so fast! Not a wish does sheexpress, no matter how unreasonable and extravagant, but he eagerlygratifies it. How numerous his little attentions and his kindremembrances! How thoughtful of her birthday, and how lavish in floraltributes and costly presents! How numerous and how lengthy his letterswhen separated! How sweet their moonlight walks and talks! How brighther future, which he maps out! How many the pledges which he breathesforth between his ardent kisses; never a harsh word shall break on herear, never a wish of hers shall be ungratified, never a trouble shallmar her happiness; such a love as his has never been before, and willnever be again; he only lives for her happiness; his affection willnever cool, he will be a lover all his life; their whole wedded lifewill be one never-waning honeymoon. 

In the drama the plot usually ends with marriage. At the instant whenit is reached, when all obstacles are removed, the curtain falls, andthe young people have no further existence for us. But in thepractical world the play goes on. The curtain rises again, the samepersonages reappear, only they frequently play different parts, andwhat was before a comedy or a melo-drama often changes into a tragedy. Sad and tearful scenes are often enacted by them. The misery and painare no longer inflicted by their former enemy, but by their own hands. He, who prior to marriage overcame almost insurmountable obstacles tomake his lady fair his happy wife, now moves heaven and earth to makethat wife as miserable as possible. 

A number of years have passed since last we observed the lover. He ishusband and father now, but what a change these few years have wroughtin him! Forgotten are the lover's vows. She that once his goddesswas, is now his slave. The fulsome flatterer of former times hasdegenerated into a chronic fault-finder. With the change of her namehas begun his change of treatment of her. Cast aside are the manycourtesies and expressions of endearment that marked his conduct to herprior to marriage, and which were the thousand golden threads that dayby day throughout their courtship wove their hearts closely into one. No bouquets and no costly gifts any more. The anniversary of her birthand of their wedding day passes by unnoticed by him. His formerefforts to entertain her, to make himself agreeable to her, havealtogether ceased. Rarer, and ever rarer, become his parting and hiscoming kiss, his "good-bye, dear, " and his "good evening, darling. "Fewer and fewer become his words of praise. Irksome becomes the taskof staying at home. He, who once upon a time found life dreary whereshe was not, who vowed that in her company alone he found happiness, who could not await the evening that would bring him to her, whodeclared that his affection would never cool, and their whole weddedlife would be one continuous honeymoon, now finds her company tedious, her home unattractive. He looks upon his home as his boarding andlodging-house, upon his wife as the kitchen scullion, or as the nurseof his children, for which services he generally allows her so manydollars a week. At the breakfast table his face is buried in themorning paper. He rises without interchanging a word with wife andchild. Absent from home all day long, he is absent still, even whenhome in the evening. No sooner has he swallowed his meal, when heburies himself in the newspaper for the rest of the evening, or dozeson the sofa till bedtime, or he has an important business engagementdown town, or some meeting to attend, or an important engagement bringsother husbands to his house, where they transact any amount of businessin the exchange of diamonds for hearts, and clubs for spades. 

All day long she has been toiling hard in her home, toiling with handand brain. She has been preacher and teacher, physician and druggist, provider and manager, cook and laundress. The children had to beattended to, purchases had to be made, the meals had to be provided, the servants to be looked after, the house to be gotten in order; therewas mending and sewing and baking and cleaning and scrubbing andscouring, which had to be done; there were the children's lessons, andpracticings that had to be looked after; there were the children'sailments that had to be cured, and there were the hundred other thingsthe husband never dreams of, and which tax a woman's nerves andstrength as much, and often more, than his occupation taxes him. Butnot a word of appreciation, not a look of sympathy and encouragementfrom him, who never tired to sing her praises before they were married, who vowed that never a harsh word should remotely break on her ear, never a trouble should mar her happiness. On the contrary, he has noend of faults to find, and she is doomed to listen to the same oldharangue on economy and saving. She has been saving and stinting untilshe can save and stint no more. She has patched and mended and turnedand altered until she could patch and mend and alter no more, and stillthe same complaints; the table costs too much, the dry goods storebills are too long, the seamstress comes into the house too often, thephysician is consulted too much, and of such as these many more. Not aword does he say about the expensive cigars he smokes, the wines hedrinks; about his frequent visits to the sample-room, and about theliberality with which he treats his friends there; about the sumptuousdinners he takes at noon in the down-town restaurant, while wife andchildren content themselves at home with a frugal lunch; about themoney he loses at the card table, or in his bets on the games and racesand politics. And of the children he takes but little notice. He hasnot seen them all day long, and he is too tired to be bothered withthem in the evening. He must have his rest and quiet. The motherworried with them all day long, she may worry with them in the evening, too. It is enough for him to supply her with the means wherewith tocare for their wants, further obligations he has none; these are amother's duties, but not a father's. 

They tell a story of a learned preacher who had isolated himself fromhis children on account of his dislike to their noise. One day, whiletaking a walk, he was attracted by the beauty and wonderfulintelligence of a little boy. Inquiring of the nurse whose child itwas, she answered, much astonished: "Your own, reverend sir, your own. "Judging from the attention that some fathers bestow on their children, I am inclined to believe that this learned preacher has many animitator among his sex, for whom not even the inexcusable excuse ofabsorption in studies can be set up. I have read of a business man, who one day thanked God that a commercial crisis had thrown him intobankruptcy. He said it afforded him an opportunity to stay at home forawhile, and get acquainted with his own family, and that for the firsttime he learned to know the true worth of his wife, and that he foundhis children the sweetest and dearest creatures that ever lived, andnot for all the business of the world would he again deprive himself oftheir sweet association. Prior to his misfortune, or rather goodfortune, his business had so absorbed him that he had altogetherforgotten that there were sacred claims at home that demanded hisinterest and his service. 

Not all our orphaned children are in our orphan asylums, or under thesupervision of "The Orphans' Guardians. " There are more of them athome with their fathers and mothers, and especially among ourwell-to-do families. There are children growing up who scarcely knowanything else of their father except that he is referred to during theday by their mother when they are bad, as that dread personage whowould inflict a severe chastisement on them when he returns, or whosepresence silences their fun and makes their own absence agreeable. Hemakes no effort to entertain them, takes no interest in theirpleasures, in their progress at school. He is simply their punisher, but not their friend, and it is not at all surprising to see childrengrowing up with a conception of their father such as that little boyhad, who, when told by a minister of heaven, and of the meeting of thedeparted there, asked: "And will father be there?" On being told that"of course he would be there, " he at once replied, "Then I don't wantto go. " Occasionally wife and husband spend an evening out, or theyentertain company at home, and oh, what a transformation she observesin him. In other people's homes, or when other people are present, hisstock of material for conversation is unlimited. Then and there he isfull of fun, bright and cheerful; when alone with his wife he hasscarcely a word to say; he moves about the house with the loftyindifference of a lord, and with a heartless disregard of every memberof the household. At home he is cold and cross and boorish, in otherwomen's parlors he is polite and considerate and engaging. He has asmile and a compliment for other women, none for his wife. If theyattend an evening reception, he brings his wife there, and he takes herhome; during the interval she has little, if any, of his company. Shemay be shy, she may be a stranger, she may not be much accustomed tosociety life, she may feel herself out of place in the gay assemblage, she may be unentertained or bored or annoyed, it matters not to him aslong as he is having a good time with the boys, or is encircled by theladies fair, who unanimously think him the most gallant of men, unrivaled in his wit and wisdom and conversational powers, and whosecretly sigh if but their husbands were like him. 

To such an extent is this wife-neglect carried on that a lady not longago made a wager that, in nine cases out of ten, she would distinguishbetween married and unmarried couples. She won the wager. When askedto explain her method of discrimination, she said: "When you see agentleman and a lady walking in silence side by side, it is a marriedcouple; when their conversation is continuous and animated, andsmile-and-laugh-provoking, they are single. When a gentleman sits nextto a lady in the theatre, and never keeps his opera glass away from theboxes and galleries and stage, he is her husband; when his eyes restmore on her than on the stage, it is her lover. When a lady, who sitsat the side of a gentleman, drops her glove, and she stoops to hunt it, it is a married couple; if he stoops quickly to pick it up it is anunmarried couple. When a lady plays, and a gentleman stands near her, and does not turn for her the pages of the music book, it is herhusband; when you see his fingers in eager readiness to turn the leaf, it is not her husband. "

There is in every true woman a spark of divinity, which glows in herheart, and blazes into a most luminous light when a husband's love andrespect and sympathy and appreciation and encouragement fan that sparkinto activity. But woe to the home where cruel hands quench thatflame. The sun is the heater and illuminator of our whole solarsystem. The vast supplies which it sends forth daily must becompensated, or else it would soon expend itself, and our world wouldgo to ruin. Nature, therefore, hurls millions of meteors every secondinto the sun's fiery furnace to keep up the supply of heat and light. The wife is the sun of the household. Her womanly attributes give thelight and warmth and happiness of the home to all who cluster aroundher. But a wife's love and self-sacrifice for her home are notinfinite. They soon exhaust themselves, where love is unreturned, where a husband is a tyrant, where self-sacrifice is unappreciated, where faithful and prudent industry is accepted as a labor of duty, andnot as a labor of love, where she is simply regarded as hishousekeeper, and not as his devoted helpmate, where his presence aloneis sufficient to cast gloom and fear over the entire household. Womanwas made to bless mankind, but also to be blessed in return; to makesociety better for forming a part thereof, but also to receive somerecognition for her work. 

Endurance is woman's prerogative. Suffering is her heirloom. Disasters, which would crush the spirit of man, often turn her heart tosteel, and she performs deeds grand and heroic. Disheartened bycontinuous neglect, she will make heroic efforts to throw her influenceall the more affectionately over her home. Wounded deeper and everdeeper, she will toil on, hiding from the world the pangs of woundedaffection, "as the wounded dove will clasp its wings to its side andcover and conceal the arrow that is preying on its vitals. " But theshafts of continuous neglect will pierce her heart at last--a husband'scontinuous neglect extinguish, at last, the sacred flame upon thedomestic hearth. She, too, finds home irksome. She, too, learns tofind more pleasure abroad than in her home. She, too, thinks light ofliberties and indiscretions. The grown children learn to emulate theirparents' example, and seek their pleasures also abroad. The littlechildren are left to servants to finish the corruption begun byparents. And so the home, the very spot designed by God to become thechief school of human virtue, the seminary of social affections, thekeystone of the whole fabric of society, the germ-cell of civilization, becomes a hotbed of corruption, and almost as often on account of ahusband's neglect and sins, as on account of a wife's ignorance orfrailties or failings. Our stock of advice to wives and mothers seemsinexhaustible. Almost every one of the stronger sex has his fling atwoman, and his remedy to offer, which, if immediately followed, will atonce eradicate unhappiness in marriage, decrease the number ofdivorces, and lessen vice and crime in society. 

Might not a little advice be also profitable to man? Is there not roomfor improvement in the stronger sex as well as in the weaker? Reformin the one sex will be of little benefit unless there is reform in theother sex as well. Our husbands and our fathers, too, need reforming, and that reform must begin very early in their lives, before yet theyenter into marriage, before yet they enter upon the days of theircourtship. Our young men need curbing. Youthful precocity must bechecked. "_Cito maturum cito putridum_" says the Latin, "soon ripe, soon rotten. " We allow our young men, some of them exceedingly young, too many liberties. We allow them to sow too many wild oats. If theirintention is some day to take unto their care and keeping a woman'slife and happiness, to pluck from out a comfortable and contented home, and from the embrace of devoted parents, a pure and happy and trustingyoung woman, who has never felt the wrench and shock of life's storms, nor the cold shoulder of neglect, nor the gnawing tooth of want, thenlet them see to it in time that they may bring to her a heart as pureand mind as uncorrupted, and character as unpolluted as they expectfrom her. 

The law of heredity, of transmission of ancestral poison, is asoperative in the male sex as in the female. A pure and healthyoffspring must be preceded by a pure and healthy parentage. Arottening tree never produces luscious fruit. "Like begets like. " Anenfeebled father means not only feebleness in the next generation, butalso perpetuated misery and vice and crime. Marriage is sacred andnecessary and obligatory, but not all marriages are so. There are somemarriages from which woman should recoil as much as she would fromdeath itself. Rather that death would woo her than a man--if I may bepermitted to honor him with that name--whose constitution isundermined, whose strength is sapped, and whose marrow and blood arepoisoned. Rather an old maid than a profligate's nurse. Rather a lifeof single blessedness than the housekeeper of a wreck of a husband. Rather single and happy and stainless and conscience-free than a motherof an unfortunate offspring, that have the sins of their father visitedupon them, and that shall one day curse their parents for having givenexistence to them. Another remedy for unhappy marriages will be foundin the cessation, of the anxiety on the part of so many parents _to gettheir daughters married off_. It is but natural that this constantanxiety should make the daughter feel that she would like to lessen herparents' dread, and cease being a trouble to them, especially whenthere are younger sisters crowding fast upon her, and so she says"Yes, " even when the word almost chokes in her throat, even though sheknows in her heart that he is not her ideal, nor the man that will makeher happy. It is not true that any husband, who can support a wife, isbetter than no husband. Marriage means more to a sensible woman thanan alliance with a husband for the sake of being clothed and fed andhoused. She has a heart and soul and mind that have their wants, andif they be starved, unhappy marriage, if nothing worse, is the result. 

Mothers and fathers! Have you watched over your daughter from the dayof her birth; have you guarded her from infancy to girlhood, and fromgirlhood to womanhood; have you suffered for her sake; have yousurrendered comforts and sacrificed pleasures for her sake; have youtoiled and stinted and saved for her sake; have you afforded her thebest education and all the pleasures and opportunities that your meanswill allow, and all to wish yourselves rid of her; to think that anyhusband, who can support your daughter--sometimes not even so much isexpected from him--no matter how old, how uncultured, how unsuitable toher tastes and wants, is better than no husband? A father's personalattention to the training of his children will in time reducematerially unhappy marriages, and greatly lessen the miseries and vicesof society. He owes his children more than support and chastisement. Society holds him responsible for their character. The duties oftraining devolve upon the father as much as on the mother. A father'swider experience and worldly wisdom prove valuable contributions to themother's simpler knowledge in the raising of their children. Afather's continuous absence, or neglects, or severity, or unkindness, or heartlessness, has made more reprobates and scamps and criminals inthis world than all the failings of women combined. Think less of yourdignity and more of your duty. Rather that your child should love youthan fear you. You can maintain your authority and dignity by love andgentleness as well as by frowns and threats and chastisements. You maywalk and talk and study and play with them, and yet have their fullrespect. The great and warlike Agesilaus did not think it beneath himto entertain his children during his leisure hours, to join them in alltheir merry sports, and permit himself to crawl on his fours with hislittle child upon his back. If you would raise good children let yourexample at home be accordingly. As you will teach them so they willact. If you are a devil they will scarcely be angels. Children arekeen observers. An old proverb says that a father is a looking-glassby which children dress themselves. See to it, fathers, that the glassbe clean, so that your children's morals may be pure. 

A little more memory on the part of the husband will prove a powerfulremedy for the eradication of unhappy marriages and for the lesseningof divorces. She is the same woman after marriage that she was duringthe days of your courtship, and a good deal better. Why so forgetfulof all the sacred vows and solemn pledges which you plighted then? Whyso constant then and so inconstant now? Why so affable and faithfuland loving and attentive then, and why so inattentive and bitter andsullen and neglectful now? Why such a profuseness then in yourcourtesies and smiles and flowers and gifts and kisses, and why such alack of them now? Is it because of wrinkles? Is it because of herfaded beauty? She has lost it in your service. She has come honestlyby her wrinkles. She got them in the sick-bed, in the kitchen, in thenursery, by the bed of your sick children, by the grave of your child, by painful night-watches and overtaxing day toils, by your harsh words, and by your heartless treatment. This is all she has in return for herbeauty and youth and cheerful mind and happy disposition, which shelaid at your feet when you asked her to join her destiny with yours. Alittle courtesy, a kind attention, a bouquet of flowers, a small token, a word of appreciation and of encouragement is not much to you, but itis a world to your wife. Your smile is all the reward she craves. Herheart thirsts for it, and when given, its effect upon her soul is asthe refreshing dew upon the withered grass. It is a mistake to believethat she can draw in her married life on your love-deposits duringcourtship. If love is to prosper, the supply must be ever fresh. Thelove of the past will never satisfy the need of the present. Loveconstantly and carefully cultivated will increase its blessings asfruit trees double their bearing under the hand of the gardener. Itwill be killed, as will the fruit tree, if the gardener's hand growsneglectful and noxious influences are permitted to impede its growth. Let your wife be your helpmate and not your housekeeper. She sharesyour sorrows, your defeats, let her also share your thoughts and plans. Unbosom your thoughts to her. Lay open to her your heart and soul. Trust her with your confidence, she trusts you with hers. The men whosucceed are those who make confidants of their wives. The marriagesthat are happy are those where husbands and wives have no thoughtsapart. The children that are well raised are those that have had theexample of loving and confiding parents before them. Proud of yourconfidence, she will labor to deserve it. She will study to pleaseyou. In your prosperity she will be your delight; your stay andcomfort in your adversity. She will return your confidence andaffection in full measure. Gloom will vanish from the hearth, andhappiness will hold dominion within the home. "Her children will riseup before her and call her happy; and her husband will sing aloud herpraises. "

Marriage is, perhaps, the only game of chance ever invented at which itis possible for both players to lose. Too often, after manysugar-coated words, and several premeditated misdeals on both sides, one draws a blank and the other a booby. After patiently angling inthe matrimonial pool, one draws a sunfish and the other a minnow. Oneexpects to capture a demigod, who hits the earth only in high places, but when she has thoroughly analyzed him, she finds nothing genuine, only a wilted chrysanthemum and a pair of patent leather shoes, whilehe in return expected to wed a wingless angel who would make his Edenicbower one long drawn out sigh of aesthetic bliss. The result is veryoften that he is tied to a slattern, who slouches around the house withher hair in tins, a dime novel in her hand, with a temper like aquafortis and a voice like a cat fight--a voice that would make a cub wolfclimb a tree; a fashionable butterfly, whose heart is in her finery andher feathers; who neglects her home to train with a lot of intellectualbirds; whose glory is small talk; who saves her sweetest smiles forsociety and her ill temper for her family altar. If I were tied tosuch a female as that, do you know what I would do? You don't, eh?Well, neither do I. There was a time, we are told, when to be a Romanwas to be greater than to be a king; yet there came a time when to be aRoman was to be a vassal or a slave. Change is the order of theuniverse, and nothing stands. We must go forward, or we must gobackward. We must press on to grander heights, to greater glory, orsee the laurels already won turned to ashes upon our brow. We maysometimes slip; shadows may obscure our paths; the boulders may bruiseour feet; there may be months of mourning and days of agony; buthowever dark the night, hope, a poising eagle, will ever burn above theunrisen tomorrow. Trials we may have, and tribulations sore, but I sayunto you, O, brothers mine, that while God reigns and the human familyendures, this nation, born of our father's blood, and sanctified by ourmother's tears, shall not pass away, and under heaven, for this greatboon, this great blessing, we'll be indebted to the women ofAmerica--God bless them. Finally, brethren, be serious while I impartthis concluding lesson: "She--was--a--good--wife--to--me. A good wife, God bless her!" The words were spoken in trembling accents over acoffin-lid. The woman asleep there had borne the heat and burden oflife's long day, and no one had ever heard her murmur; her hand wasquick to reach out in helping grasp to those who fell by the wayside, and her feet were swift on errands of mercy; the heart of her husbandhad trusted in her; he had left her to long hours of solitude, while heamused himself in scenes in which she had no part. When booncompanions deserted him, when fickle affection selfishly departed, whenpleasure palled, he went home and found her waiting for him. 

 "Come from your long, long roving, On life's sea so bleak and rough; Come to me tender and loving, And I shall be blest enough. "

That hath been her long song, always on her lips or in her heart. Children had been born to them. She had reared them almost alone--theywere gone! Her hand had led them to the uttermost edge of the morningthat has no noon. Then she had comforted him, and sent him out strongand whole-hearted while she stayed at home and--cried. What can awoman do but cry and trust? Well, she is at rest now. But she couldnot die until he had promised to "bear up, " not fret, but to rememberhow happy they had been. They? Yes, it was even so. 

It was an equal partnership, after all. "She--was--a--good--wife--to--me. " Oh, man! man! Why not have toldher so when her ears were not dulled by death? Why wait to say thesewords over a coffin wherein lies a wasted, weary, gray-haired woman, whose eyes have so long held that pathetic story of loss and sufferingand patient yearning, which so many women's eyes reveal to those whoweep? Why not have made the wilderness in her heart blossom like therose with the prodigality of your love? Now you would give worlds, were they yours to give, to see the tears of joy your words would haveonce caused, bejeweling the closed windows of her soul. It is too late. 

 "We have careful thoughts for the stranger, And smiles for the sometime guest, But oft for own, The bitter tone, Though we love our own the best. "

ODD-FELLOWSHIP AND THE FUTURE

There is infinite and perennial fascination in the contemplation of thefuture. The past is a fixed province, the finished result of anever-moving present. The future is the province of the poet, theprophet and the seer. The past is adamant, the future is plastic clay. The past is with God alone; the future is with God and man. We toilfor it; dream of it; look to it; and all seek so to

 * * * "Forecast the years, As find in loss a gain to match, Or reach a hand through time to catch The far-off interest of tears. "

Let us consider the future as a field and Odd-Fellowship as a force. The future is a field, billowing with the ripening harvest of goldenpossibilities. It is as wide as the world, for the world is the field. It comprises every zone and clime; every nation and tribe; every islandof the seas. Wherever we find one of our fellow-men in darkness and inchains, there is our field. It is as long as from now to the coming ofChrist. A moment's survey of the field will convince us that thegreatest conquests are yet to be made. There is battle ahead, greatinterests to be gained, great incentives to heroic effort. The timescall for men--broad-browed, clear-eyed, strong-hearted, swift-footedmen. Odd-Fellows, not behind you but before you, not in the past butin the future, lies the widest and richest field of Odd-Fellowship'spossibility. Turn your faces, not toward the waning light ofyesterday, but toward the growing radiance of a better morning. Theforce is commensurate with the field. The cry of every true Odd-Fellowought to be the cry that leaped from the heart of Isaiah when his lipswere touched with the coal from off the altar: "Here am I, Lord, sendme. " Our order is no longer a puny and helpless infant, but a lustygiant, panoplied in the armor of truth and clad in the strength ofperpetual youth. We have riches untold. We have institutions for thecare of the old, and the orphan, the equal of any of which the worldcan boast. We have a grasp on the sympathy and confidence of themasses which is immeasurable. We stand for principles that are theincarnation of God's infinite thought and throbbing love. We areequipped for conquest. What answer shall the force make to the cryfrom the field? As loyal Odd-Fellows, let us take our answer from theGreat Commander. What answer did He make to a dying world? What didhe come to do? He came to lift fallen humanity. He came to bind upthe wounds of those who were bruised and bleeding. He came to speakwords of cheer and sympathy to hearts bowed in sorrow. He came tobreak the chains of bondage and restore mankind to its former beautyand greatness. Our mission is identical with His. Our work isidentical with His work. We are His representatives. Our highestdestiny is the working out of His purposes. The world with all itsboasted progress has not advanced beyond the need of a Savior. It isthe same at heart now as it was when the blessed feet of Christ trodits hills and valleys. Men change, but man changes not. The sameproblems are confronting us as confronted them. It may be trite, butit is tremendously true, that our primary and ever-present duty is toseek and save the lost. We are to win them to faith in high and nobleends, and having won them to faith in our mission is not enough. Theyare to be instructed, cultured, enlarged, inspired, ennobled, until manlooking in the face of man shall see the face of Christ shiningthrough. He is to be the accepted Lord and law-giver in every realm ofhuman thought and activity. He is to rule in the family. He is torule in business. He is to rule until the demon of hate, malice andinjustice has been throttled. He must rule in the affairs of state. He must rule in society, until the watchers at the gate shall announceto Him who sitteth upon the throne: "Thy kingdom has come and thy willis done in earth as it is in heaven. " Christ is the solution of man'smost difficult problems. He came to save men. How did He go about thetask? He gave himself. We can accomplish our task only as in burningearnestness we give ourselves. What depth of humiliation, whatself-devotion, what unmeasured sacrifices, what unspeakable suffering, what unfathomable anguish, what toil and anxiety, what love and pity, what loneliness and sorrow, are crowded into those three words, "Hegave himself. "

If we as an order would give ourselves to the principles taught by ourinstitution, we could win the world in the next half century. If weare to be truest to the future, we must stand by the side of the GreatTeacher and proclaim a complete and perfect truth. Our platform shouldbe neither broader nor narrower than His. If there is one truth inrevelation that we can not give its proper setting and due emphasis, then we are not the keepers of God's truth. To my thinking, there areno organizations formed by man that can appeal more confidently to theWord of God for confirmation than the Odd-Fellows. We appeal to sanereason and common sense. No organization can hold up a higher ideal ofindividual freedom and worth. But there is a danger that we becomenarrow, that we violate the maxims of sane reason and common sense, that we lose the balance between individual prerogative and the claimsof a united brotherhood. We can not accomplish the aims of our orderby onesidedness. We are to become "all things to all men. " We are notto be prisms breaking up the rays of light and declaring that this orthat color is the most important. We as Odd-Fellows are to be lenses, converging the rays and bringing them to a focus upon the hearts of menas the white light of God's eternal truth. 

This is a practical age, and if we are to win we must demonstrate thesuperiority of our faith and practice over that of other claimants, notonly in terms of the Written Word, but also in terms of manhood. Odd-Fellowship is standing upon the golden dawn of a new morning. Itis to be a day of battle and conquest. It is truth blazoned upon thepage of history, that if we as Odd-Fellows are true to our standard, toour possibilities and to our Maker, he will lay the suffering of athrobbing world in our arms that we may lay it at the feet of Him whodied to redeem it. Let us cherish high hopes, noble aims, and loftyideals. Never since the world was peopled has mankind stood in suchanxious expectancy, awaiting the outcome of the immediate future, as inthese closing years of the nineteenth century. Men are wistfullytrying to peer through the portals of the year nineteenhundred--marveling, as the effects and forces of applied science isunfolded to our comprehension, and discovery moves on, each inventionleading in another, in stately procession; we, all the while rapt inwonder, are straining in hope and fear to catch the coming word, and tocomprehend its import. Never was speculation so rife, never was thefield of human observation so unobstructed and expanded, nor theascertainment and sifting of facts so facile. Never were opinions morediverse, nor was it ever so obviously important to detect and assertthe philosophical principle, in recognition and obedience to which thelaws of human government may be preserved and kept in view, and theretrocession of mankind prevented. At no stage of history was it moreimportant to call to mind the great principle that government is ameans, and not an end, and is instituted to maintain those generalliberties which are essential for human happiness and progress. Atthis time, Odd-Fellowship looks toward the future with longing eyes, and its followers lift high their banner, on which is inscribed thatbeautiful motto, "Friendship, Love and Truth. "

After all, what lives in this world? Is it thought pulsations alone ordeeds done? If thought alone, then the lowest thought coordinated inthe brain of man would live. Something must be combined with thoughtin order to have a lasting effect. There must be thought and deeds andsentiment. Sentiment must go to the very existence of the race. Onthese forces may be built up structures that live and breathe abenediction on all mankind. I ask you to cast your eye over the worldand note the permanency of such institutions as have come down to us, and are alive, and such as we say will live. I venture your firstquestion will be: "What is the foundation on which they rest? Why, through the slow, revolving years have these institutions lived andthrived and grown? Have they lived on greed, or a desire for pelf orpower, or out of human desire for adulation and praise? Or have theylived because of man's needs, and out of human wants?" If we probe tothe bottom we will find this the corner-stone of all laudableambitions, because man needs man, and needs help into a higher plane ofusefulness and activities. 

We find institutions coming down to us from a date which the memory ofman runs not to the contrary; indeed, some so old that the mustyvolumes of the long ago reveal not their origin. But simply the needof man for man would not entirely account for the duration of societyin its ancient form. There must be still other underlying principles. There must be love and the acknowledgment of the brotherhood of man allalong the way of life, or the family would go to ruin, society woulddissolve, citizenship would not exist, states and principalities, kingdoms and powers would exist only as an idea in the brain. Therewould be no command to be our brother's keeper, no plighted vow that"The Lord be between thee and me, and between my seed and thy seedforever. " Man would, as an individual, stand absolutely alone, like anatom dropped from the abyssmal depths onto this earth of ours. Thelittle wild flower struggles through leafy mold, endures thetempestuous blast of winter, that when spring comes it may bloom togladden the earth and scatter sweet incense all around. But withoutthe cementing influence that runs like a thread all through society, man would not, could not, cast a sweet odor even on his own life, anddying would leave no benediction on the lives of others. And here thecommand comes, "Gather into thy quiver the lives and aspirations ofothers, that fitted to thy bow they may go forth scattering blessingsby your help and by your kindly influence. " So all great achievementshave been based on great fundamental principles, and each principle hasfor its object the betterment of the conditions of mankind. 

Truth is said to be eternal. It was just as true at the dawn ofcreation that the square described on the hypotenuse of a right-angletriangle is equal to the square described on the other two sides, as itwas when Pythagoras enunciated the theorem. "Thou shall not kill, " isa law written by the Divine hand amid tempest and fire, but it stands. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, " rings from the portals ofheaven through the gates of humanity and its command will not gounheeded. They are all great fundamental truths. Do you observe thatthey live? Give heed also to the fact that they stand for a bettercondition among men, for more helpfulness and higher elevations. Truths enunciated, whether old or new, that live, only have onetendency, viz. , to raise man to better conditions. Since the dawn ofcreation there has been a constant tendency to arise from a lower to ahigher estate. Self-preservation, self-helps, self-culture have beenthe trend of thought and action. And this has not been altogether aneffort in the individual for his own personal advancement, but for theadvancement of the race. Men have undergone sacrifices, humbled andalmost debased themselves, that the succeeding generation might live ona higher plane, physically, morally and spiritually, than theythemselves enjoyed. I do not know of any act of humanity that callsforth louder praise than to so act and speak and do as that humanityshall not only catch the inspiration, but shall make material progresson a better understanding of surrounding conditions. Odd-Fellowship, in its essence, is no new institution. Its principles, practices andprecepts have existed from the beginning of the race. 

When Abraham stood with the churlish Lot on the line dividing theplains and highlands and said, "I pray thee let there be no contentionbetween thee and me, if thou goest to the right hand I will go to theleft, or, if thou goest to the left hand I will go to the right, " hebreathed the pure essence of unselfish devotion to the founder of arace. The acts of kindness shown by the traveler as the caravan plodsits tortuous way across the sands of the desert; the mission of thewise men from the east in search of a Redeemer, all show forth thattrait that you and I, my brother, try to emphasize while vowingdevotion to the triple links. I said a moment ago that Odd-Fellowship, in its essence, was no new institution, and so it is not. As we knowit in reality we have simply crystalized its workings. Instead ofhumanity, by its individual exertion, seeking to perform the task, we, as an organized band, have taken up the subject. What was paramountwith individuals has become a living force with the multitude. Whatwas before an invitation to duty has now become a command. 

In seeking after friendship we do not court the beasts of the fieldsand the fowls of the air as the hermit does, but we seek man; not man, but men; not this little society or faction, but embrace all mankind inthe issue. If we seek for love it is not love for pelf or power, butlove for man and God. In truth we do not depend on the right conductof individuals, but accept truth as it is written in nature's openbook, emblazoned on the sky of hope that bends over us, and speaks inall the higher attributes of life. Time was when the inclination ofmen was to withdraw into clans. Ishmael stood in the desert by himselfwith his hand against every man. His true descendant, the Arabiansheik, draws his mantle about him, and surrounded by his little bandwithdraws within his own circle, and woe betide him who attempts tobreak through. But in this came no advancement, no progress. TheIshmaelite of old is the same today. Wherever progress and advancementhas shown itself it is found that true regard for all mankind has beenthe cardinal doctrine. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. "Soon a broad catholicity of ideas seizes the multitude and man no morelives for himself than he lives for others. He who lives closest tothe true heart of humanity lives nearest to God. Show me a man wholives for himself alone, and you will present almost a social outcast. Society tolerates him no more. In all the plans and calculations oflife he is not numbered. 

For two thousand years the command has come stronger and stronger for acloser unity on social lines and fraternal regard. Not to segregatebut to crystalize and raise the status. The conditions of our sociallife are such that we can not live entirely to ourselves. The monk maywithdraw himself from the gaze of the world, the anchorite may seek ahiding place in caves and dens, but they ignore entirely the demands ofsociety upon them. If I were the only person in the world there wouldbe no social problem. I would commune with myself and God and natureabout me, without reference to my surroundings. There would be nosocial environment; no one to please, no one to whom I am indebted bynature or acquired obligation, and so I would remain. But we do notfind the conditions to so exist. We must look squarely in the face thefacts as they are. On all sides we are surrounded by a multitude whorightly make demands of us and which we can not ignore. If I werealone, I would do as the patriarchs of old did, erect a little altar ofstone, rude and unsightly, and bow myself down before it and communewith Deity. But here we find that different types of men havedifferent religious views, and different spiritual aspirations, and sochurches must be erected; and while all tend to the same end, eachhopes to reach it by a different route. I must respect all theseviews. Only one can be my view, but my social surroundings are suchthat all have rights which I am bound to yield some obedience to. 

Again, if I were alone there would be no need of law, because both goodand bad would be represented in my personality. There could be nomurder, no crime, no punishment; but with all the manifold people withdifferent tendencies, there must be law, or the social fabric would goto pieces by the strong trampling on the weak. Hence I must stand withreference to the law on the right side or the wrong side, and allhumanity regardful of each other's rights must line up on one side orthe other. In addition to our churchly ties and duties, we have familyduties, and there begins the first of duty, first of government, firstof obligations as citizens. And so I say we live in relation to thosewho surround us, and we can not live unmindful of them. We are touchedby humanity everywhere, and walk elbow to elbow down the vale of life, supporting or destroying, and whether our pilgrimage be long or shortwe can not destroy the facts as they exist. 

It must be seen with only a hasty glance that with the varyingconditions of men, with their different mental dispositions, moralideas and social status, that a crying demand comes all the time forsome organization where men can unite on a common level--some placewhere a divergence of political or moral views do not bar an entrance, where the family ties remain sacred, and more sacred because of theorganization. It seems that men groped about for just such anorganization, and men's wants are necessities, and social and civilstatus might be brought to a common level with all who might be broughtinto the assembly. It is believed by Odd-Fellows that our organizationfurnishes just this want. All the life that a man wants outside of hisspiritual life has its food here, and society and family and man'srelations to man have been helped by it. I state it without fear ofcontradiction, that no order has been more potent for good than ours. It has been the hand-maiden of civilization wherever it has establisheditself; it has smoothed out the asperities of life for many, manyindividuals; it has defended character, protected life and limb, andstood as champion of all good between man and man and between God andman. 

Every agency by which men are advanced, socially and morally, is anagency that guides government and state and individual up to a higherplane of development. Odd-Fellowship and Christianity go hand in hand. There is not a tenet of the order in any department that is repugnantto the highest development of Christianity. Indeed, it could not beso, for any lesson that is drawn from the three pillars of our order, Faith Hope and Charity, is a lesson pointing to the better life hereand hereafter. 

In the eighty years, last past, who can estimate the benign influenceof the lives and actions of men, yea, on their eternal destinies, ofthe oft-repeated utterances pointing to the Fatherhood of God and thebrotherhood of man--a sermon that has been painted on the bow of God'seternal promise since Paul stood on the Mars Hill and preached thiseverlasting, unchangeable doctrine to the heathen world. When I thinkthat since 1830 there has been expended for the relief of the membersof this order and their families millions of dollars, in all rightundertakings, and know that many hearts have ceased to ache, many coldfeet covered, many a tear dried up, many a naked person clothed andmany a hungry mouth fed, it rejoices my heart. I know also that suchlove could not spring from the hearts that were kindled by no spark ofthe Divine, but the lesson comes to you and to me, my brother and mysister, that he who opens not only the granary of earthly substance, but opens also the portals of the heart, and lets the Divine sparkkindle into a blaze, will be thrice blessed in that day when the jewelsof the eternity are made up. I do not desire to convey the impressionthat all our civilization is the outgrowth of Odd-Fellowship. We aretoo much inclined on such occasions as these to become mutualadmiration societies and think that all the good things that we enjoycould not have been possible if our particular order had not existed. I do not wish to convey that impression. I only desire it to beunderstood that this order has been helpful in all right undertakings, and constantly endeavors to espouse the right and discard the wrong. It does not take the place of the church or the Sunday school or theprayer-meeting. It does not invade the pulpit, but only stands as anauxiliary to all these institutions that touch the better side of ournatures. It inveighs against no religion or creed, and has noreligious belief other than that we are brothers; nor does it encroachupon the domain of the politician. If Odd-Fellowship had more in itthan the social and restraining influence one meets and is subjected toin the lodge-room, it would be sufficient inducement to organize andperpetuate lodges. No true Odd-Fellow crosses the threshold of hislodge-room but he feels he is treading on more sacred ground than thebusy marts of trade, or in the office or counting house; he feels thathe is coming home where dwells the purest principles ofhumanity--friendship, love and truth. 

But there is more in the workings of this order than the social. Itsobject is to touch humanity in all its phases. To rejoice with thosethat rejoice, and weep with those that weep. It sustains the livingwith friendship; causes man to stand firm in his integrity by the truthit teaches, and embrace the whole world with charity. The three linksof friendship, love and truth mark the fuller and better development ofthis life, reaches beyond the grave, reaches beyond the vision, extendsinto the portals of the other and the better life. We may professfriendship, but that is an empty profession; our membership in a lodgeis fruitless and our meetings produce no good results unless we havecharity. It is but a small part that we should perform our mysticrights, typifying friendship, love and truth, but that we should solive them and act them that the touch of a member is the touch of abrother whose words sweeten the asperities of life and whose lastoffering is a tribute at the grave. We may be rudely brought back tothe world with its pomp and show, its pageantry and vanity, by anemblem of mortality presented to us, but should we not ever have thespectre of mortality before our eyes? In the mad rush through life weforget the kinship of man to man. We are too often forgetful that thehand of a brother is reaching upward for succor. We forget that we aremortal, and the heart grows cold; our sympathies extend only to thosearound and nearest to us, forgetful that all mankind is our brother, and that he is especially our brother and friend who has mercy. But inthis mad rush in life we are suddenly and almost rudely brought back toa full realization of our mortality, our helplessness, our emptiness, our nothingness, when we stand at the grave of our departed brother andreflect that here lies one who was born and had ambitions and died aswe must die. His ambitions and hopes all went in the grave with him. The little grassy mound and the little marble slab is all that remainsvisible to tell us that he was our brother. Life would hardly be worthliving; its struggles would be disastrous, its triumphs vain, emptybubbles, if the clods that fall upon the coffin and the sprig ofevergreen tell the whole story of an Odd-Fellow. No, the very factthat we bury our departed brother teaches us that the grave is not theend of all. Though our brother dies he shall live in our hearts, inthe flowers that we cast, in the precious memories that forever clusteraround the links, the heart and the hand, the altar and the hour glass. When the supreme moment comes and the brother gathers his arrows intohis quiver and fades from sight into the grave, we know that he haspassed the portal into the land of the eternal, but the quiver and thearrows will ever stand as the badge of friendship. The heart may ceaseto beat, and the hand fall listless in death, yet the heart and handwill ever be emblems of love, and denote that when the hand of anOdd-Fellow is extended his heart goes with it. 

The good Odd-Fellow has constantly before his mind the book of books. His first sight into a lodge-room catches sight of that divine missiveto man. It is his solace in life, and its precepts his consolation indeath. It ever stands to him as an exhaustless fountain of truth. Onthese three cardinal principles he lives and dies, and in the constancyof that life we venerate his memory and do him kindly offices. It isthe nature of a man to be communistic. It is only the anchorite thatwithdraws himself from the societies of man and communes with himselfand his God. All right-thinking men desire and enjoy the society oftheir kind and kindred spirits. You had as well lock the sane man inthe felon's cell as to doom him to live without the society of hisfellows. The family is the first and best society. Perhaps the churchis next, which is only the human family on a larger scale, fitting andpreparing the members for a community in that house not made by hands. Next to my church I prize the secret organization to which I belong, where the cardinal principles of our holy Christianity are taught. Thedeathless friendship of David and Jonathan teaches me that though I maylive in the king's palace, be clothed in purple and fine linen everyday, be in the line of regal succession, yet I do not live to myself. 

I would herald broadcast that tenet of our order, "that we do forothers as we would have others do for us, and that if I find my brotherin distress, I must bind up his wounds, lift him from the quagmire ofdespond and set him on his feet. " If any lesson stands out boldlybefore the mind of the Odd-Fellow it is truth. He finds it on hisbanner wherever he goes. Friendship is ephemeral. It lasts onlythrough life. It may die, it will die. The grave ends it all. Thesilent messenger that comes to king and peasant alike, and causes thescepter of the monarch to be laid by the crook of the shepherd, endsour friendship. Love comes from God. God is love. It touches us atevery point of our lives. From the cradle to the grave, every momentof our lives we are the objects of love to some one, and we love inturn. But human love must end. After life's fitful dream, the caresand vanities, the vexations and pleasures of life have no terror orconcern for us, the love that thrilled our whole being will return tothe source from whence it came. But truth will never die. It is the"imperial virtue. " The heart may fail; it will fail, and the hand falllistless by the side. The arrow will fall after being shot into theair and never return, and the bow will be broken; the altar will bethrown down; the sand, grain by grain, run through the hour-glass, andthe glass be shattered; the eye grow dim; the world roll up as a scrolland pass away; the hills may crumble and the pyramids melt with ferventheat; all the friendships will die and the love return to the Fatherthat begat it, but truth will stand. It is indeed the imperial and theimperishable virtue. There, above the chaos and the confusion of time, it will stand to warn men from the wrong, and beckon them to do right. 

Despite the glamor of the world that secret societies propagate asecresy of men's actions at the expense of truth and justice, it cannot obtain in a lodge of this order. No man ever took upon himself thevows and studied the underlying motives, and practiced the lessons ofthe order, but he becomes a better citizen. If he has become a goodhusband and father, he becomes better in his domestic relations. If hehas been charitable before, he becomes more so now. Men's weaknesseshe looks upon as human frailties, until time and sense teach him thatfrailties have degenerated into positive perversity of character andbaseness of heart. He will condemn falsehood and hypocrisy whereverfound. 

The object of religious organizations is to make men better and fitthem for the life immortal. The object of government and its laws isto make and protect good citizens and repress vice. The object of thissecret organization is to bind men more firmly together for mutualprotection, for help and sustenance, to look after their families, andto be in a broad sense our brother's keeper. I would not be understoodas placing a secret organization in place of the church, or in theplace of a political government. By no means. Each has its own properand particular sphere of action. No one in its actions and endeavorsis inimical to the actions of the others. Each rests on its ownpeculiar foundation, but all dovetail together, and all make aharmonious whole. The man who is a good Christian is better by being agood Odd-Fellow. If both a good Christian and a good Odd-Fellow, hecomes nearer being the typical citizen. If man reveres the law of thisorder, he will have more devotion to his church, his home, his flag andhis country. I have no fault to find with those who do not believe inuniting with a secret organization, but I do object to any maninveighing against the objects and purposes, the ends and aims, of ourorder when he knows nothing about it. I do not expect every man tobelong to my church, for men in their constitution and mental make-upcan not see alike theologically. But I do accord to every member ofevery church the hope of getting to heaven if he lives up to theteachings of this particular sect. I believe in justification by faithand good works, but I have no use for a man who decries this doctrinewhen he never exercised a particle of faith nor did a good deed in hislife. And so I would say to any one who thinks he stands on some loftypinnacle and scents danger to the family tie, or church, or state, orsociety, because of the existence of secret orders, that he thinks andtalks of something he knows nothing about. If I should desire to drawcomparisons, I could say truthfully that during the last year thisorder gave more in charity and benefits to its members in Illinois thanany religious denomination in the state. Look around your owncommunity and see if it be not so. Think of the widow withtear-stained cheek, from whose door the wolf has been kept, because thecharitable hand of our order was upon her. Count the orphan childrenof members of our order who have had shoes put on their feet, clothesput on their backs and food in their mouths. Enumerate the suffererson beds of anguish, racked with pain and scorched with fever, who havehad the nightly vigil of Odd-Fellows to smooth their pillows, dampentheir parched lips and moisten their feverish brows. Watch the funeralpageant with its long train of mourners, brothers, dropping theevergreen in the grave, and doing the last sad offices, and then croakno more that secret societies are baneful to our civilization. He whothus sustains and soothes and encourages will be reckoned as twiceblessed in that day when the secrets of all hearts are disclosed, andmen are rewarded according to the deeds done in the body. 

"[*]Some years ago I stood out on the great plains this side of Denver. To the north, the south and the east was one vast stretch of plains, the eye interrupted only by the horizon. I turned and looked to thewest, and clearly outlined in the distance was the chain of the RockyMountains--the backbone of the continent. There I saw Long's Peak, Pike's Peak, and the Spanish Peaks, as mighty sentinels--watchtowers--that had served as landmarks to many a weary traveler on theSanta Fe trail. They stood as the manifestation of the might of anOmnipotent Power. So I turn to the record made by this order in thelast eighty years, and find colossal sums of money--not hoarded, butcollected to relieve humanity, to educate the orphan, to bury the deadand to befriend the widow. I see arising, as if by magic, asylums forour needy. I see a great host, one million strong, advancing, shoulderto shoulder, elbow touching elbow, all bent on deeds of mercy and actsof love. Are not these also mighty sentinels erected amid thissurging, striving throng of humanity to serve to guide man in the roadto a higher and better life? These peaks of the Rockies may crumbleand pass away, but a force for good once set in motion never loses itsforce. It is eternal. To beautify, to strengthen, to adorn and toexpand our order and more fully present its magnificence to the world, we have the department of Patriarchs Militant. It depicts as gallant aband as ever marched to the sound of martial music or deployed forbattle. As the knights under Richard Couer de Leon or Peter the Hermitmarched forth to rescue the Holy Sepulcher from the hand of the infideland guard its sacred entablatures, so will our chevaliers as bravelyguard our ritual, our mystic rights, our honor, the honor of ourmothers wives and sisters, as a sacred trust. 

"And so our order moves forward to greater conquests. In the past ithas worked marvels for humanity. May we not, for the future, predictbetter and more highly wrought out achievements? Humanity has beentaken as it is and in the progress of refinement has been raised to ahigher standard. It is the hand-maiden of civilization that worksunder even yoke for the best sides of humanity. While it does notdisplace or attempt to displace the church, it aids. It hasfriendship, love and truth as the three human graces, and clings tofaith, hope and charity as the Christian virtues. It is now like thecity that is set upon the hill. It can not be hid. Out upon a rockypoint of the ocean's shore at Minot's ledge is a great light-house, erected by the fostering care of the government to protect the marinerson the high seas. Its great light swings around, now flashing on theland and now sending its rays far out across the billowy ocean. It isa grateful act of a great government. Many a bewildered seaman hascaught its rays and sheared the prow of his ship further out to sea toavoid the dangerous shoals. 

"So we, imitating the kind of example of the generous government, andmeasuring our acts by the example of the blessed Master, have erected alight-house here for the protection of humanity from its ills. Now itshines on us as mortals hastening to a final consummation of things;again it throws its beams out across the illimitable sea of hope, wheresooner or later we all may ride, and by the light here given we maysteer our bark into a haven of final rest. Today we are on thetempestuous ocean of life. We who feel that we are on the deck, let usthrow the life-line and the life-preservers to him who is about tosink. Let us make this order even a greater light-house than ourfathers ever dreamed of. It can be done, because it is so ordained. What God in his good providence orders can be, will be accomplished. With thankful hearts we have passed over more than three quarters of acentury of existence as an organization. We are speeding onward to thecentury mark, and whether we remain to see its wonderful processes ornot, humanity will be here demanding just what we have done in thepast. Let us lay the work strong today and transmit it in higherforms, so that the end of the century of our existence as an ordershall see better life, better hope and higher aspirations. Let theSubordinates, Patriarchs, Rebekahs and Chevaliers all form a cordonaround the altar of our beloved order, where the fires shall never beextinguished while friendship, love and truth endures, and faith, hopeand charity are necessities. 

"Grand as has been the record of Odd-Fellowship from 1819 to thepresent, it is but the sunbeams from the birth of the day that willdevelop grandly into a magnificence that shall combine all the charmsof the morning, the glare of the noontide, and the blaze of a sunsetsplendor in an endless panorama of glory and grandeur. And if, withsuch a picture before our eyes, painted by a faith founded upon theachievements of eighty years, and our intimate knowledge of the vastpractical benevolence that begins at the cradle and ends only at thegate of heaven, the Odd-Fellow is not dazzled by the sublimity ofOdd-Fellowship and awed into a reverence for its work and character, there is a lamentable defect in his appreciation of the beautiful, andan utter failure to read the joys and dignity and influence of aproperly developed and appreciative Odd-Fellow. Let it never beforgotten that there is nothing groveling in Odd-Fellowship. Mutualrelief, it is true, is a leading office in our affiliation, butOdd-Fellowship seeks to elevate the character of man, make him what Godintended him to be; and while such a helpful influence is extended toeach one of us who have chosen to come within its holy power, may weendeavor to lift ourselves up to the high standard of the order ofwhich we are a part, faithfully discharging our duties to ourselves andto the world; shedding its benign influence and hallowed inspirationalike in the palace with its draped windows and velvet laden floors andin the cottage nestling among the flowers of the humble dooryard;glowing with the same peerless luster in halls of learning and inworkshop and factory; kissing with the same tender, holy touch therough hand that guides the implement of industry, and the soft handthat guides the pen; making character the test of merit and the heartthe bond of friendship, and recognizing the equality and holy influenceof noble womanhood. Odd-Fellowship is the unerring, resplendentguiding star to that grand development of human nature to which hopelooks forward with such ardent joy, when one law shall bind allnations, tongues and kindred, and that law will be the law of universalbrotherhood. "

[*]Extract from address delivered by Hon. E. G. Hogate.