{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_13816/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_13816","id":"gutenberg_13816","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13816","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Conduct of life","Independent Order of Odd Fellows"],"text":"THE JERICHO ROAD\n\nby\n\nW. BION ADKINS\n\nAuthor of \"Twelve Steps Toward Heaven,\" \"The Anonymous Letter,\" etc.\n\n1901\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLike the rivers, forever running yet never passed, like the winds\nforever going yet never gone, so is Odd-Fellowship.\n\n\n\nDEDICATION\n\nWORTHY AND GENTLE BROTHERS\n\nI DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK TO THEE, SINCERELY HOPING THAT IT WILL\nAFFORD YOU MUCH PLEASURE AND BE THE MEANS OF INCITING YOU TO GREATER\nEFFORT IN BEHALF OF OUR BELOVED ORDER.  MAY THY YEARS BE MANY AND THEIR\nSEASONS ALL GOLDEN AUTUMNS, RICH IN PURPLE CLUSTERS AND GARNERED\nDELIGHTS.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\"I have lived much that I have not written, but I have written nothing\nthat I have not lived, and the story of this book is but a plaintive\nrefrain wrung from the over-burdened song of my life; while the tides\nof feeling, winding down the lines, had their sources in as many broken\nupheavals of my own heart.\"  A book, like an implement, must be judged\nby its adaptation to its special design, however unfit for any other\nend.  This volume is designed to help Odd-Fellows in their search for\nthe good things in life.  There is need of something to break the spell\nof indifference that oftentimes binds us, and to open glimpses of\nbetter, sweeter, grander possibilities.  Hence this volume, which is a\nplea for that great fortune of man--his own nature.  Bulwer says:\n\"Strive while improving your one talent to enrich your whole capital as\na man.\" The present work is designed to aid in securing the result thus\nrecommended.  We send it forth, trusting that it will find its way into\nthe hands of every Odd-Fellow and every Odd-Fellow's friend and\nneighbor, and that those who read it will gather from its pages lessons\nwhich shall enable them to pluck thorns from their pathway and scatter\nflowers instead.\n\nW. BION ADKINS.\n\nOctober 1, 1899.\n\n\n\n\n  TODAY'S DEMAND\n\n  God give us men.  A time like this demands\n  Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands;\n  Men whom the lust of office does not kill;\n  Men who possess opinions and a will;\n  Men who have honor;\n  Men who will not lie,\n  Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog\n  In public duly and in private thinking.\n  For, while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,\n  Their large professions and their little deeds,\n  Mingle in selfish strife, lo!  Freedom weeps,\n  Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps.\n  God give us men!\n\n  --Selected.\n\n\n\n  TOMORROW'S FULFILLMENT\n\n  *   *   In the long years liker must they grow;\n  The man be more of woman, she of man;\n  He gain in sweetness and in moral height,\n  Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;\n  She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care--\n  Till at the last she set herself to man,\n  Like perfect music unto noble words;\n  And so these twain, upon the skirts of time,\n  Sit side by side, full summed in all their powers,\n  Self-reverent each and reverencing each.\n  Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm;\n  Then springs the crowning race of human kind.\n\n  --Alfred Tennyson.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nObjects and Purposes of Odd-Fellowship\n\nThe Higher Life\n\nPithy Points\n\nThe Bible in Odd-Fellowship\n\nBrother Underwood's Dream\n\nThe Imperial Virtue\n\nQuiet Hour Thoughts\n\nLove Supreme\n\nGems of Beauty\n\nHusband and Father\n\nOdd-Fellowship and the Future\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n\nOn April 26, 1819, Thomas Wildey, the English carriage-spring maker,\ntogether with John Welch, John Duncan, John Cheatham and Richard\nRushworth, instituted the first lodge of Odd-Fellows at the Seven Stars\nTavern in Baltimore, and it was given the name of Washington Lodge No.\n1.  From this feeble beginning has grown the immense organization of\ntoday.  The Odd-Fellows claim a venerable antiquity for their order,\nthe most common account of its origin ascribing it to the Jewish legend\nunder Titus, who, it is said, received from that Emperor the first\nchapter, written on a golden tablet.  The earliest mention made of the\nlodge is in 1745, when one was organized in England.  There were at\nthat time several lodges independent of each other, but in a few years\nthey formed a union.  Toward the end of the century many of them were\nbroken up by state prosecutions, on suspicion that their purposes were\nseditious.  The name was changed from the Patriotic Order to that of\nthe Union Order of Odd-Fellows.  In Manchester, England, in 1813, some\nof the lodges seceded from the order, and formed the Independent Order\nof Odd-Fellows.\n\nThe order's first appearance in America was in 1819.  The purposes of\nthe order were so changed by the founders here, that it is said to be\nalmost purely an American organization.  It was based on the Manchester\nUnity, which was really the parent institution.  In 1842, this country\nsevered its connection with that of England.\n\nLodges connected with either those of England or America are\nestablished in all parts of the world.  The real estate held by the\norganization exceeds in value $20,000,000, and there is scarcely a town\nin the country that has not its Odd-Fellows Building.  The total\nrevenue of the order is nearly $10,000,000 per annum.  Yearly relief\namounts to nearly $4,000,000 a year.\n\n\n\n\n  THE JERICHO ROAD\n\n  \"A traveler passed down the Jericho road,\n  He carried of cash a pretty fair load\n  (The savings of many a toilsome day),\n  On his Jericho home a mortgage to pay.\n\n  \"At a turn of the road, in a lonely place,\n  Two villainous men met him face to face.\n  'Hands up!' they cried, and they beat him sore,\n  Then off to the desert his money they bore.\n\n  \"Soon a priest came by who had a fold;\n  He sheared his sheep of silver and gold.\n  He saw the man lie bruised and bare,\n  But he passed on by to his place of prayer.\n\n  \"Then a Levite, temple bound, drew nigh;\n  He saw the man, but let him lie,\n  And clad in silk, and filled with pride,\n  He passed him by on the other side.\n\n  \"Next on the way a Samaritan came\n  (To priest and Levite a hated name);\n  The wounded man he would not pass,\n  He tenderly placed him on his ass.\n\n  \"He took him to an inn hard by;\n  He dressed his wounds and bathed his eye;\n  He paid the landlord his full score;\n  If more was needed would pay him more.\n\n  \"Ah! many travel the Jericho way,\n  And many are robbed and beaten each day;\n  And many there be on the way in need,\n  Whom Priest or Levite never heed;\n  And who to fate would yield, alas!\n  If some Samaritan did not pass.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE OBJECTS AND PURPOSES OF ODD-FELLOWSHIP\n\nWe are taught that \"God hath made of one blood all nations of men to\ndwell on the face of the earth,\" and when we say mutual relief and\nassistance is a leading office in our affiliation, and that\nOdd-Fellowship is systematically endeavoring to improve and elevate the\ncharacter of man, to imbue him with a proper conception of his\ncapabilities for good, to enlighten his mind, to enlarge the sphere of\nhis affections and to redeem him from the thralldom of ignorance and\nprejudice, and teach him to recognize the fatherhood of God and the\nbrotherhood of men, we have epitomized the objects, purposes and basic\nprinciples of our order.  Odd-Fellowship is broad and comprehensive.\nIt is founded upon that eternal principle which teaches that all the\nworld is one family and all mankind are brothers.  Unheralded and\nunsung, it was born and went forth, a breath of love, a sweet song that\nhas filled thousands of hearts with joy and gladness.  To the rich and\nthe poor, the old and the young, at all times, comes the rich, sweet\nmelody of this song of humanity to comfort and to cheer.  For eighty\nyears the light of Odd-Fellowship has burned before the world, a beacon\nto the lost, a comfort to the wanderer and a protection to the\nthoughtless.  Eighty years of work for humanity's sake; eighty years\ndevoted to teaching men to love mankind; eighty years of earnest labor,\nconsecrated by friendship, cemented with love and beautified by truth.\nIn ancient times men sought glory and renown in gladiatorial combat,\nthough the victor's laurel was wet with human blood.  In modern times\nmen seek the plaudits of the world by achievements for human good, and\nby striving to elevate and ennoble men.  Looking back through nineteen\ncenturies we behold a cross, and on it the crucified Christ, with\nnail-pierced hands, and wounded, bleeding side, but whose heart was so\nfull of love and pity that even in His dying agonies He had compassion\nupon His persecutors, and cried out, \"Father, forgive them, for they\nknow not what they do.\"\n\nThat event was the dividing line between the ancient and the modern\nera; between the rule of \"brute force\" and the \"mild dominion of love\nand charity.\"  The mission of Odd-Fellowship, like that of the lowly\nNazarene, is to replace the rule of might with the gentle influence of\nlove, and to teach a universal fraternity in the family of man.  To\nmeet and satisfy and better keep alive the nobler elements of man's\nnature.  Many orders have been instituted, but none can challenge\ngreater admiration from men, or deserve more blessings from heaven,\nthan the Independent Order of Odd-Fellows.  Looking back along the\npathway of the century behind us we behold the wrecks of many orders.\nThe morning of their life was beautiful and full of glorious promise,\nbut the evening came and they had perished.  Rich costumes, impressive\nceremonies, beautiful degrees and magnificent effects, all lie buried\nand forgotten.  It was not because their founders lacked energy or\nenthusiasm, not because their members were less susceptible to the\nbeauty and poetry of tradition and ceremony, but because success and\nperpetuity come not from human effort, but are the outgrowth of a\nlife-giving principle.  The sculptor fashions from the marble a form of\nsurpassing loveliness, its lines are those of grace and beauty.  We\nstand before it charmed, whispering our admiration, but the impression\non the heart is only passing.  The poet sings of home, of mother and of\nlove; the meter may be faulty and the words may charm not, but the\nsentiment is true and touches our hearts.  The experience it recites is\ncommon to humanity, and wherever its sweet tones are heard it softens\nmen's natures and makes them better, truer and nobler.  Who among us\nwould be willing to exchange the influence of the immortal song \"Home\nSweet Home,\" or be willing to forget the Christian's \"Nearer My God to\nThee,\" for all the inanimate beauty of art?  One charms the eye, the\nother touches and calls to life the best and sweetest emotions of the\nhuman heart.  So it is with fraternal societies.  Flashing swords,\nglittering helmets, jeweled regalias and beautiful degrees may touch\nthe vanity and excite the admiration, but to win the heart we must\nsatisfy its longings, feed its hopes and lift it above the narrowness\nand selfishness of its daily experience.  Odd-Fellowship strives to\ntouch the heart and better feelings, rather than feed the vanity of man\nor arouse his admiration for gorgeous displays.  Its work is an\nexemplification of the living, practical Christianity of today.  In\nalmost every state in this fair land of ours can be found Odd-Fellows'\nhomes, within whose walls the orphan is no longer motherless.  For each\nand every little one within these homes, one million Odd-Fellows feel a\nfather's love and pledge a parent's care.\n\nAdd to all this great work the little deeds of love, the little acts of\nkindness that make life beautiful; add kind words of cheer and friendly\nhelp and tender consolation, and add again the benefit of union, the\nstrength that comes from hearts united in God's work among mankind, and\nyou have caught a glimpse of the life-giving principle that has made\nOdd-Fellowship one of the grandest fraternal and beneficiary\ninstitutions the world has ever known.  The work it has done can not be\nfully estimated until the record is read in the bright light of\neternity.  In that glad day the tears that have been wiped away will\nbecome jewels in somebody's crown, and the sobs that have been hushed\nwill be heard again in hosannas of welcome.\n\nOnward! is the ringing, pregnant watchword of the world.  The vast,\ncomplicated, ponderous machinery of life is kept in motion by tireless\nand irresistible forces.  The multiform and magnificent affairs of men\nand of nations are all impelled forward with an energy and a velocity\nas wonderful as glorious to behold.\n\nNot retrogressive, but progressive--not enervating, but energizing--not\nephemeral, but substantial--not from bad to worse, but from the\nimperfect to the consummate, are the characteristics by which are so\nprominently distinguished the tidal waves of the world's progress today.\n\nActivity and achievement came with creation, and constitute an\ninflexible, irrepealable law of the universe.  In stir and push we have\nlight and life, but in idleness, and superstitious clinging to\nfossilized ideas and bygones, we have demoralization, decay and death.\n\nFortunately for the world, and agreeably with infinite design, man\nplods his way in harmony with the law alluded to.  Not all men, but the\ngreat masses of them, wherever \"The true light shineth,\" especially\nwhen accompanied by rays and helps from one of the noblest and grandest\nof confraternities our world has known, \"The Independent Order of\nOdd-Fellows.\"  When the huge planet which we call our world had been\ntossed into being from the furnace fires of Omnipotence, and the\nmaternal lullaby began to gather force on hill top and in valley, the\ndiscovery was naturally enough made that association and co-operation\nwere preferable to isolation and unrelieved dependence; and from that\nhour forward, this principle has been interwoven into the very\nframework of human society.  The purpose has been the elevation and\nimprovement of mankind.  For, though the first product was pronounced\n\"good,\" it quickly degenerated; and there came an emphasized demand for\nreform.\n\n\nEARLY ORGANIZATIONS.\n\nHuman isolation is an unnatural condition.  It antagonizes the highest\nand best interests of the world.  Its influence is never beneficent,\nbut always and necessarily harmful.  If the truest well being of the\nuniverse, and the supremest glory of Jehovah could have been attained\nby conditions of solitude, it is not impossible that the good\nAll-Father would have given to every man a continent, and so have made\nhim monarch of all he surveyed.\n\nPhysically regarded, there is no limit to Omnipotent power.  A\ncontinent, and even a world, was therefore within the pale of divine\npossibilities.  Jehovah, however, is not only great, but he is the\nGreatness of Goodness.  High and holy ends were to be accomplished, and\nhappy purposes to be secured, by means of human instrumentalities, and\nbe jointly shared by Creator and creature.\n\nAmong the earliest of Deific utterances, therefore, we have this: \"It\nis not good that man should be alone.\"  I concede that, primarily, the\ncompanionship of woman is here intended.  But the declaration is not\nonly good in this, but equally so in other regards.  A lifetime of\nsolitude with no incentives to action--nothing to draw out, exercise\nand expand the latent powers of the soul--no interchange of thought--no\nclashing of opinion--no towering resolves to stimulate--no difficulties\nto surmount!  What imagination so fertile that it could picture a more\nhateful or intolerable Hades than would be such a condition of affairs?\n\nHence, in the early days of the world's history we discern the\nprinciple of association and co-operation, with plans and systems\nembodying its practical application.  Organizations came into being,\nobedient to the summons of necessity.  How well the various\norganizations have wrought along the pathway of centuries, and how\ngreat or small may have been the measure of their success, I am not\nhere to discuss, much less to determine.  Each has done its work in its\nown way, and pockets responsibility for results.  Common courtesy and\ncandor suggest that each has been largely animated by highest and\nworthiest of motives.\n\n\nODD-FELLOWSHIP,\n\nReared upon the broad catholic principle of brotherhood, extending its\nhelpful hand from nation to nation, and from continent to continent,\nlinking its votaries together with the golden triple chain of\nFriendship, Love and Truth, can afford to be friendly with each, and\nhave a kindly word for all societies that reach down after and raise up\na fallen brother, and if possible make him wiser, better and happier.\nShould a like courtesy be extended to this order, while it would\ncertainly constitute a new departure, it would prove none the less\ngratifying.  But, from certain sources, the order has been the\nrecipient of a peculiar kind of consideration, so long that \"the memory\nof man scarce runneth to the contrary.\"  Inflamed appeals and bristling\ndenunciations have gone out against it, \"while great, swelling\nwords\"--swollen with hatred, bigotry, prejudice and superstition--have\nassailed it relentlessly and almost uninterruptedly.  Mainly, these\nassaults have been met with the terse and pointed invocation, \"Father,\nforgive them; they know not what they do.\"\n\nThat this great and potent brotherhood may not, in all its parts and\njurisdictions, have so deported itself, and so carried forward its\nwork, as to be justly free from unfavorable criticism and merited\ncensure, is probably true.  As with organizations, there is sometimes\ntoo much haste displayed in gathering, and too little discrimination\nexercised in selecting, the materials that are brought as component\nparts of the great superstructure of Odd-Fellowship.  Too much daubing\nwith untempered mortar--too great a desire for the exhibition of\nnumerical force, and the multiplication of lodges--too much regard for\nthe outward trappings and paraphernalia, and too little regard for the\ninternal qualities of those seeking membership in the fraternity.  Such\ndeplorable departures, as well from the primary as the ultimate objects\nhad in view, are not fairly attributable to anything that may be\nreasonably considered as an outgrowth of the order, but come despite\nits constant teachings and warnings.  Bad work they of course make, and\nso at times and to a limited extent bring the fraternity under the ban\nof popular displeasure, but shall the world predicate unfavorable\njudgment upon a few and unfair tests?  If so, and the principle\nlogically becomes general, pray who shall be appointed administrator of\nthe effects of other social and moral organizations, and even of the\nchurch itself?  For in these regards all offend, if offense it be.\nWhen the principles of Odd-Fellowship are carefully studied it is\napparent to every candid mind that it is founded upon that eternal\nprinciple which recognizes man as a constituent of one universal\nbrotherhood, and teaches him that as he came from the hand of a common\nparent, he is in duty bound to cherish and protect his fellow-man.\nViewed in this light, Odd-Fellowship becomes one of the noblest\ninstitutions organized by man in the world.  If the beauty and grandeur\nof universal brotherhood could be impressed upon the minds of all the\npeople, how very different from the past would the future history of\nthe world read.  What a delightful place this old stone-ribbed earth\nwould be if men would look upon each other as brothers, members of one\ncommon family; enjoying the many comforts of one home; trusting to the\nguidance and protection of one Father--God.  We are more nearly related\nthan we think.  Running through all humanity there is a link of\nrelationship and a bond of sympathy that can not be exterminated.  The\nprinciple of brotherly love is so great and broad that all mankind\ncould unite in offices of human benefaction.  Brother.  Oh, how sacred\nand how sweet when spoken by a true heart!  Whether it be in the home\ncircle, lodge-room, or in some distant land, it sends the same soothing\nthrill of joy to the heart.  Let us pause just a moment to think of the\ntime and place when we first learned to call each other brother.  Ah!\nMethinks no Odd-Fellow will ever forget his first lesson.  He will\nalways remember how quickly he was changed from the haughty disposition\nmanifested by that one of old, who, when he prayed, went to the public\nsquare, or climbed to the house top, and thanked God that he was not\nlike other men, to the humble attitude of that one who stood afar off\nand bowed his face in the dust, crying aloud, \"O Lord!  Be merciful\nunto me a sinner.\"  How very much like this ancient boaster are\nthousands of the human family today.  Sitting in high places,\nsurrounded by wealth and power, they see nothing beyond the narrow\ncircle in which they move.  They are deaf to the low, sad wail of\nsorrow that comes from some breaking heart.  Seated by their own\ncomfortable fireside they give no thought to the lonely widow standing\noutside in the cold.  It distresses them not that the keen, wintry\nblast sends its icy chill to the already broken heart.  No thought, no\nfeeling, for this poor creature that must now fight the fierce battles\nincident to human life, all alone.  How sadly these tender duties to\nsuffering humanity are neglected when left to the cold charity of the\nworld.\n\nOdd-Fellowship seeks to lessen sorrow and suffering.  It supplies\ntemporal wants; gives encouragement; aids and comforts those who are in\ndistress.  In sickness we watch by their bedside and administer to\ntheir wants.  If death calls, Odd-Fellowship forsakes not its follower,\nbut hovers near, listening attentively to the last words and parting\ninstruction of the dying one.  Brothers and friends, let me admonish\nyou to do all the good you can while in health and strength, for at\nmost life is short and we know not how soon the Angel of Death will\nunfold his broad, shadowy wings over our path and call us to give an\naccount of our stewardship; then all that will remain of us on earth\nwill be the good or evil we have done.\n\nOdd-Fellowship is full of sacred teachings and sublime warnings.  It\nteaches us that we are in a world full of temptations, sin and sorrow.\nWe see the emblems of decay all around us.  The strong man of today may\nstand forth, nerved for toil, with all the bloom of health mantling\ncheek and brow, seemingly as strong and vigorous as the mighty oak, and\nyet tomorrow he will fade as the autumn leaf.  Then he realizes how\nfoolish it is to be vain; thinks of the instability of wealth and\npower, and the certain decay of all earthly greatness.  Odd-Fellowship\nteaches us that charity springs from the heart, is not puffed up, seeks\nnot its own.  It makes us strong, and encourages us to push on through\nlife, even though we are beset on every side with toil, danger and\nstrife.  Brothers, let nothing cause you to turn back or away from the\nprinciples of our noble order.  Cling closer and closer each day to\nhonesty and truth, and bear in mind that be the road ever so rough and\nuntraveled, narrow and dark, if you follow truth you will find light at\nthe end of the journey.\n\n\nTHE SECRESY OBJECTION.\n\nMore common, perhaps, than any other filed against it has been the\nobjection that Odd-Fellowship does its work secretly, this objection\nbeing not unfrequently urged by persons of candor and honest impulses.\n\"If,\" it is demanded, \"the aims and purposes of the order be legitimate\nand praiseworthy, why shroud them in mystery rather than give them the\nbroad sunlight of publicity.\"\n\nThe objection is not new, nor is it urged with any increase of its\noriginal force, whatever may be the fact in the matter of vehemence.\nAnswer might be made: The order does not choose to ascend to the house\ntops for the purpose of heralding its affairs to the world.  But that\nanswer would not be satisfactory, nor is any likely to be that may be\npresented, now or hereafter.  It is nevertheless true that there are\ncertain matters pertaining to the order and its works with which the\noutside world has no sort of concern, even as with those very peculiar\nsecret societies, the individual, the family, the church and the state.\nIf other organizations prefer to resort to the newspapers, the pulpit,\nthe rostrum and other information conduits for the purpose of\nadvertising their wares, their greatness and their goodness, and the\nvast amount of humanitarian work they are doing and purposing, such is\ntheir unquestioned privilege.\n\nBut if the preference of Odd-Fellowship be for quieter and less\nobtrusive methods, pray who shall fairly contest its right of choice?\n\nAnd then it should be remembered that there are matters in which the\nright hand is prohibited the privilege of interfering with the\nprerogatives of the left, and the left with those of the right.  Nor\nshould the fact be forgotten that there is Divine example, if not\nprecept, for the established \"modus operandi\" of the order.  Upon a\ncertain occasion the Great Teacher had performed a very humble service\nfor one of his disciples who was sadly at loss for the why and the\nwherefore, and the answer, received to his inquiry was: \"What I do thou\nknowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.\"\n\nAnd in the grand hereafter, when the films of ignorance and the\nwarpings of prejudice and superstition shall have melted away under the\nbright sunlight of Eternal Day, it is not impossible that our vexed,\ninquisitive, worrying opponents may be permitted to look back over the\npathway this order has traversed, glance at the work that has been\nwrought and peradventure discover how unreasonable, as well as\nfruitless, has been the warfare they have been pleased to wage with\nsuch persistent fury.  A long time to wait, maybe, but then good things\ndo not come rapidly nor all at once.  Meanwhile, to encourage them in\ntheir waiting, their watching and their worrying, let them take this\nlesson from the same Great Teacher: \"The wind bloweth where it listeth,\nand thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh\nor whither it goeth.\"  Ah, no! it will not do, because you can not see\nand comprehend all of everything, inside as well as outside, to\nconclude that it must necessarily be bad.  Adopt that theory, and you\nnot only fly in the face of reason, but bump your head against almost\neverything in nature, in art and in science.\n\nSecrets! yes; they are within us and without us, above us and beneath\nus and all about us, and \"what are you going to do about it?\"  Well\nmight Israel's old and gifted poet king write: \"We are fearfully and\nwonderfully made,\" soul and body, the mortal and the immortal, the\nmaterial and the immaterial, strangely and mysteriously conjoined!\nGod's secret, this!  Will you denounce Him and withdraw allegiance from\nHim, for the reason that He fails to make clear to you a clear and\nsatisfying revelation?  The same old singer said thousands of years\nago, \"The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth\nHis handiwork.\"  And those heavens, with that firmament, are charged\nand surcharged with mightiest and profoundest secrets.  We seize the\ntelescope and \"plunge into the vast profound overhead, intent upon\nmastering the secrets of the revolving spheres.\"\n\nWe travel from star to star, from system to system, until we reach yon\nlonely star that appears to be performing the Guardian's task, upon the\nverge of unmeasured and immeasurable space.  We may descry and describe\nthe form and outlines of those heavenly bodies, detect their movements\nand approximately determine their distances and dimensions.  But what\nmore?  Little that is satisfying.  When they had a beginning, what\npurposes they subserve in the sublime system of God's stupendous\nuniverse, and when they shall have a consummation, we may not certainly\nknow.  Secrets, these, and such \"Secret things belong unto God.\"  We\nwould like to know these secrets, but must wait; for there, \"roll those\nmighty worlds that gem the distant sky,\" as distantly and dismally as\nwhen Chaldean and Egyptian astronomers and astrologers viewed their\nmovements three thousand years ago, rifled meanwhile of but few of\ntheir well kept secrets.  He that pencils the lily and paints the rose\nand gives to every blade of grass its own bright drop of dew, has been\npleased to say: \"Hitherto shalt thou come and no further.\"  And there\nis great unwisdom in setting up factious opposition to the fiat of\nOmnipotence.  Possess your souls in patience, O friends! wait, as we\nmust wait, before knowing all, or even knowing much.  If you can not be\nOdd-Fellows, you can at least be _men_, with an effort.\n\n\nWHAT IS ODD-FELLOWSHIP?\n\n\"But, sir,\" you demand, \"can you tell us something more about\nOdd-Fellowship, its purposes and its Work?\"  I can, a little.  Come\nwith me, then, and we will look into the lodge.  Ah!  In the most\nconspicuous place there stands an altar--upon it the open Bible, the\nworld's great word of Life and Light.  Upon the principles enunciated\nby that Book, largely rests the great superstructure of Odd-Fellowship.\nThe Bible is to the order what the sun is to the material universe--its\nilluminator and vivifier, even as it also is the, guide to faith and\npractice.  A man may neglect his closet, his church, his Bible, but\nwhen he enters the lodge he is bound to listen to the voice of his\nMaker, as it thunders from His word; and while the lodge does by no\nmeans lay claim to the possession of religious attributes, yet has it\nbeen the means, by the constant use of the Bible, of turning many from\nthe ways of wrong-doing and sin, into paths of pleasantness and peace;\nand by a unique system of symbolism and a comprehensive and practical\napplication of its sublime truths, the faith of the believer has been\nstrengthened, enlarged and rendered usefully active.\n\nOdd-Fellowship's plan of benefaction addresses itself to the physical\nas well as the moral nature, and, reaching out from its immediate\nsubjects, permeates by natural affinity every sphere in which active\nsympathy may be invoked.  Its mission and its results are not only\nactive and substantial, but often so effective by its consequential or\nindirect influence as to penetrate entire communities.  In this\nconnection I will say Odd-Fellowship is not a religious organization.\nOur work pertains particularly to this life, educating the heart of man\nto practical beneficence, alleviating the sufferings of humanity and\nelevating the character of man.  Odd-Fellowship was not organized for\nthe purpose of ridding the world of all its sorrows, but to ameliorate\nand to soften the suffering to which the human family is heir.  It is\nan association of men who have united themselves for the purpose of\nsmoothing the ragged edge of want, and extending to those who are bound\ndown by the iron bands of misfortune a helping hand.  Odd-Fellowship\nholds no affinity with the classifications or distinctions of society,\nbut dispenses charity to all alike.  It does not array itself against\nthe church, nor presume to arrogate its functions, or to supervise its\nteachings.  Its lodges are not the council rooms of enmity to\nreligious, civil, moral or social organizations.  Far otherwise; all\nits oracles and instructions in relation to these grave subjects find\ntheir warrant and authority in the divine law, under the inspiration of\nwhich it proclaims the Golden Rule as the sublimest illustration of the\nlaw of love.  Odd-Fellowship keeps a close watch over its subjects, and\nconstantly impresses upon their minds the fact that their hearts must\nnot foster evil, the progenitor of crime, or hatred and vice, whose\nevil consequences must continue to afflict mankind until the coming of\nthat time to which hope looks forward with ardent joy, when one law\nshall bind all nations, tongues and kindred of the earth, and that law\nwill be the law of \"_Universal Brotherhood_.\"  Odd-Fellowship also\nteaches us that we are never to judge a man by his outward appearance.\nA man's form may be clothed with rags, his hands may be rough and hard,\nhis cheeks may be browned by the rays of summer's sun; yet underneath\nall this there may be an honest heart.  If so, we take him by the hand\nand call him brother.  Odd-Fellowship teaches equality; we must meet\nupon one common level.  The brother who lives in the rough log cabin\nenjoys the same right and privileges as the monarch on his throne.  We\nlive, we move and have our being, and are indebted for all things to\nthe One Great Ruler of the Universe--God.  All persons are desirous of\nbeing happy, and happiness is sought for in various ways.\nOdd-Fellowship teaches that man is responsible for his own misery.  I\nbelieve that no mere misfortune can ever call for exceeding bitter\nsorrow.  As long as man preserves himself from contamination of that\nwhich is evil and foul, he can not reach any very low depth of woe.  By\nhis own act, by his own voluntary desertion of the true aim of life,\nand by that alone, is it possible that a man should drink his cup of\nmisery to the dregs.  The want of happiness, so prevalent, is thus the\nnatural consequence of the inherent blindness of men.  By it they are\nled to pursue eagerly the phantom of _wealth_, _rank_, power, etc.,\nwhite neglecting that which alone can satisfy the wants of the soul.\nIf men could really know what is their chief good, we should no longer\nhear on every hand prayers offered up for those idle accoutrements of\nlife, which may indeed be enjoyed, but often bring only\ndissatisfaction, and can be dispensed with without inconvenience to\nmankind.\n\nMany persons say Odd-Fellowship is contrary to the teachings of the\nBible.  The way such people read their Bible is just like the way that\nthe old monks thought hedgehogs ate grapes.  They rolled themselves\nover and over where the grapes lay on the ground.  What fruit stuck to\ntheir spines they carried off and ate.  So your hedgehoggy readers roll\nthemselves over and over their Bibles and declare that whatever sticks\nto their spines is Scripture and that nothing else is.  But you can\nonly get the skins of the texts that way.  If you want their juice you\nmust press them in cluster.  Now the clustered texts about the human\nheart insist as a body, not on any inherent corruption in all hearts,\nbut on the terrific distinction between the bad and the good ones.  \"A\ngood man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that\nwhich is good, and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth\nforth that which is evil.\"\n\n\"They on the rock are they which, in an honest and good heart, having\nheard the word, kept it.\"\n\n\"Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of\nthine heart.  The wicked have bent their bow that they may privily\nshoot at him that is upright in heart.\"  For all of us, the question is\nnot at all to ascertain how much or how little corruption there is in\nhuman nature, but to ascertain whether, out of all the mass of that\nnature, we are the sheep or the goat breed; whether we are people of\nupright heart being shot at, or people of crooked heart doing the\nshooting.\n\nAnd of all the texts bearing on the subject, this, which is a quite\nsimple and practical order, is the one you have chiefly to hold in\nmind: \"Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues\nof life.\"\n\nThe will of God respecting us is, that we shall live by each others\nhappiness and life; not by each others misery or death.\n\nMen help each other by their joy, not by their sorrow.  There is but\none way in which man can ever help God--that is, by letting God help\nhim.\n\nA little boy, who had often heard his father pray for the poor, that\nthey might be clothed and fed, interrupted him one day by saying,\n\"Father, if you will give me the key to your corn crib and wheat bin, I\nwill answer some of your prayers.\"\n\nAh! my friends, always keep in mind this truth, \"One hour of justice is\nworth seventy years of prayer.\"\n\nCall not this, then, a Godless institution, rioting in selfishness and\ninfidelity, as it has been denominated by certain super-excellent\nChristians, who appear to have fully persuaded themselves that no good\ncan possibly come from such a Nazareth.  For, with the constant and\nunvarying light of the Holy Bible, that illuminated lexicon of the\nsweet Beyond, and of the approaches thereto--that trusty talisman of\nall hopeful hearts--that competent counselor of the wisest and the\nbest--that inspirer of joy and satisfaction born of no other book--that\nprecious presager of immortal life beyond the river--that divine guide\nto faith and practice, can by no means fail in the ultimate working out\nof its sublime purposes.\n\nIn the ranks of Odd-Fellowship there are many of the truest, noblest,\nsharpest and most holy men in the civilized world.  None of these have\nbeen able to make that \"Godless and selfish\" discovery.  This brilliant\nachievement is reserved for those favored mortals that never saw the\ninside of an Odd-Fellow's lodge, and are entirely ignorant of its\ncharacter and practical workings.  The order has increased largely in\nwealth, power and influence.  Large cities and towns, which formerly\npaid little or no attention to us, now eagerly welcome us to their\nhospitalities.\n\nJudges and governors vie with each other in doing us honor, and well\nmay we be proud of the position the order has attained.  Just think of\nit a moment: when you clasp hands with an Odd-Fellow here in your own\nhome, you are really clasping hands with one million men who have\nobligated themselves to stay with you through every trial and\nmisfortune.  Wonder no longer, then, at the growth and stability of\nthis great fraternity, or that its votaries cling to it with such\nunshaken and unswerving fidelity.  Ah! it is no light matter, no small\nprivilege, to be admitted to membership in such an organization--so\nfreeing one's self from the surgings of self-seeking and selfish\nconsiderations--free from the trammels of prevailing prejudice and\npassion--free from the false educational influences that warp the mind\nand drive charity from the heart.\n\nOur order's emblem is the three links,\n\nFRIENDSHIP, LOVE AND TRUTH.\n\nFriendship, love, truth--golden links these, that not only bind\ntogether their obligated votaries, but that recognize and embrace,\nbecause of worthiness and plighted faith, that behind the back as well\nas face to face, have a defensive, kindly word and a brother's generous\ndeed; that, amid the upheavals of communities and the crumbling of\nnations, systems and governments, swerve not from their course, and are\ncorralled by no arbitrary bounds, and that, whatever the dialect, the\nnationality or the religion of men, read upon humanity's brow the\ninscription written by the finger of infinite love--a man and a\nbrother, a woman and a sister.\n\nA faithful and true friend is a living treasure, estimable in\npossession and deeply to be lamented when gone.  Nothing is more common\nthan to talk of a friend; nothing more difficult than to find one;\nnothing more rare than to improve by one as we ought.\n\nThe only reward of virtue is virtue.  The only way to have a friend is\nto be one.  Such is friendship.  Next in our golden chain is Love.\nLove is the stepping stone to heaven.  This principle teaches man his\ncapabilities for good, enlightens his mind, enlarges the sphere of his\naffections and leads him to that true fraternal relation which was\ndesigned by the Great Author of his existence.  Love teaches us to be\nself-sacrificing.  For a bright instance of this we point you to Moses,\nthe great law-giver of the Jews.  He turned his back on the splendors\nof Pharaoh's court and chose rather to share the wretchedness of his\nlowly people than serve as a king for their oppressors, finally dying\nin sight of that inheritance, which, though denied to him, was given to\nhis ungrateful countrymen.  How very bright on the pages of history\nshine such acts of love and sacrifice.  This principle belongs to no\none organization, party or sect.  It can be made to bud and bloom as\nwell under the fierce rays of the torrid zone, midst the icebergs of\nGreenland, or the everlasting snows of Caucasus.  It always carries the\nsame smile, whether in the cabin or in the palace.  Following in its\nfootsteps there is such a halo of glory, such a gentle influence, that\nit gathers within its sacred realm antagonistic natures, controls the\nelements of discord, stills the storm, soothes the spirit of passion,\nand directs in harmony all of man's efforts to fraternize the world.\nIn this strangely selfish and uncertain world none are so affluent or\nfavorably circumstanced as not at some time and in some way to become\ndependent.  Oh! there are emphasized essentialities that are not\nembraced among the commodities of the market, and in order to the\nrealization of which money possesses no purchasing power.  To relieve\nthe pungent pinchings of penury with raiment, food and shelter, and so\nsend the sunshine of gladness to the poor and needy, is\nsomething--indeed is much.  But, ah! the delicate and intricate\nmechanism of mind is out of gear, a secret sorrow swells and sways the\nheart, and unitedly they cry: \"Who will show us any good?  Who remove\nthis rankling sorrow?  What good Samaritan competent to the task of\naffording relief to this dazed brain?\"  Oh! it is here that the trained\nvotaries of the triple brotherhood bring to bear their wondrous power.\nIf it be true \"that one touch of nature makes the whole world kin,\" it\nis equally true that the ties of brotherhood here would wield their\nmost potent influence, and of the true Odd-Fellow well may it be said,\n\"He hath a tear for pity, and a hand open as day for melting charity.\"\n\nTRUTH! crown jewel of the radiant sisterhood of queenly graces!  She\ncan not be crushed to earth.  The eternal years of God being hers, she,\nno more than her author, can go down.  Error may fling widely open his\narsenal gates of defilement and deceit, and seek so earnestly and\ntirelessly the usurpation of her throne; but there she sits, as firmly\nand gracefully as when the morning stars sang together and the sons of\nGod shouted for joy.  Such is truth, the rarest of all human virtues.\n\nThe man who is so conscious of the rectitude of his intentions, as to\nbe willing to open his bosom to the inspection of the world, is in\npossession of the strongest pillars of a decided character.  The course\nof such a man will be firm and steady, because he has nothing to fear\nfrom the world and is sure of the approbation of heaven.  While he who\nis conscious of secret and dark designs, which, if known, would blast\nhim, is perpetually shrinking and dodging from public observation, and\nis afraid of all around, and, much more, of all above him.  Such a man\nmay indeed pursue his iniquitous plans steadily; he may waste himself\nto a skeleton in the guilty pursuit, but it is impossible that he can\npursue them with the same health-inspiring confidence and exulting\nalacrity with him who feels at every step that he is in pursuit of\nhonest ends by honest means.  The clear, unclouded brow, the open\ncountenance, the brilliant eye, which can look an honest man\nsteadfastly, yet courteously, in the face, the healthfully beating\nheart and the firm, elastic step, belong to him whose bosom is free\nfrom guile, and who knows that all his motives and purposes are pure\nand right.  Why should such a man falter in his course?  He may be\nslandered, he may be deserted by the world, but he has that within him\nwhich will keep him erect, and enable him to move onward in his course,\nwith his eyes fixed on heaven, which he knows will not desert him.\n\nOdd-Fellowship teaches its members to be men of honor.  When I say\nhonest, I use it in its larger sense of discharging all your duties,\nboth public and private, both open and secret, with the most\nscrupulous, heaven-attesting integrity; in that sense, farther, which\ndrives from the bosom all little, dark, crooked, sordid, debasing\nconsiderations of self, and substitutes in their place a bolder,\nloftier and nobler spirit, one that will dispose you to consider\nyourselves as born not so much for yourselves as for your country and\nyour fellow-creatures, and which will lead you to act on every occasion\nsincerely, justly, generously and magnanimously.  There is a morality\non a larger scale, perfectly consistent with a just attention to your\nown affairs, which it would be folly to neglect; a generous expansion,\na proud elevation and conscious greatness of character, which is the\nbest preparation for a decided course in every situation into which you\ncan be thrown; and it is to this high and noble tone of character that\nI would have you to aspire.  I would not have you to resemble those\nweak and meagre streamlets, which lose their direction at every petty\nimpediment that presents itself, and stop and turn back, and creep\naround, and search out every channel through which they may wind their\nfeeble and sickly course.  Nor yet would I have you resemble the\nheadlong torrent that carries havoc in its mad career; but I would have\nyou like the ocean, that noblest emblem of majestic decision, which in\nthe calmest hour still heaves its resistless might of waters to the\nshore, filling the heavens day and night with the echoes of its sublime\ndeclaration of independence, and tossing and sporting on its bed with\nan imperial consciousness of strength that laughs at opposition.  It is\nthis depth and weight and power and purity of character that I would\nhave you resemble; and I would have you, like the waters of the ocean,\nto become the purer by your own action.  Men are sometimes ruined\nbecause they aim not at virtue, but only at the reputation which it\nbrings.  Odd-Fellowship teaches its members to be brave, honest and\ndiligent.  If we have these attributes, victory must surely crown our\nefforts.  How often in the history of our country have men of humble\nbirth come forth in time of danger, and, nobly risking all, even to\ndeath, or disgrace worse than death itself, stood between their country\nand defeat, and built for themselves a glorious name.  Nor, alas! is\nthe opposite case to this unknown.  Some of America's proudest sons\nhave, by their own acts, sunk themselves into the inner-most depths of\ninfamy and vice.\n\n  \"Virtue alone is true nobility.\n  Oh, give me inborn worth! dare to be just,\n  Firm to your word and faithful to your trust.\"\n\nKnowledge is a mighty rock in a weary land, and to you, brothers, 'tis\npermitted to smite this rock, and from it gushes fountains of living\nwaters, which form rivers of wisdom, flowing to the uttermost parts of\nthe earth, carrying the proper idea of life to the souls of men.  The\nriver of science flows in a deep, straight course, searching out the\nhidden mysteries, and demonstrating facts, while Truth builds her\ndefenses on its shores, and Love rears her fair palaces and calmly\nenjoys the result of labor and research.  History, with its broad\nstream bringing knowledge down through the vanished centuries,\nrevealing many a lost art, which avails us much in these later days.\nMysteries which magicians have left behind them--secrets for ages\nundusted--that we may read the records of the past.\n\nExperience builds citadels upon these heights.  Flowing parallel to\nhistory is the great, turbid stream of politics.  Its crimson billows\ncast wrecks upon the strand, and the moaning waves strangely blend the\ntones of grand martial music with the discords of despair and\ndisappointment, for it is a treacherous tide.  Along its winding shores\nwar builds her forts, and there are fields of carnage and blood, and\ndark fortresses of envy, from which fly the poisoned shafts of malice,\nfalsehood and revenge, and there are many graves in which lie ambition,\nglory and renown, with all their brilliant dreams.  Opposite to this\nfrom the rock of knowledge gush the sweet fountains of poetry and\nmusic, singing on their way through fair, secluded dells, where there\nare moss-covered rocks, clinging vines, fragrant flowers and ferns and\nsinging birds.  In their shining waves of light are mirrored the azure\nsky, golden sunshine and fleecy clouds, while youth, beauty, laughter\nand joy stray along the verdant shores, keeping time to the music of\nthe merry spray and weaving garlands to crown their radiant brows.\n\nNot far from the rock of true knowledge flows a deep stream, calm,\nclear and beautiful.  Majestically it sweeps through stately forests,\nextended plains and lofty mountains; and the fair cities of honesty,\ntemperance and truth are built upon its shores.  This wonderful stream\nis fed by the ever-living fountains of honor, morality, justice, mercy\nand divine love.  The music of its waves sends forth hymns of true\npatriotism, love of country and of home; and the sweet songs of faith\nand immortality float upward like strong, white wings, bearing the soul\naway on pure melody above this world of longing and of hope, until it\nrises to meet the world of glory and fulfillment.  Upon these shores\nfaith, hope, charity and security have reared their white temples,\nwhich shall ever represent a living institution, bearing on its banner\nas a motto these beautiful words:\n\nFRIENDSHIP, LOVE AND TRUTH.\n\nThe stream which I have just described is the great river of\nOdd-Fellowship, and flows into the vast ocean of eternal peace, and\nsuch is the momentum and indestructibility of Odd-Fellowship, that,\nlike a great river fed from inexhaustible sources, men may come and men\nmay go, but it goes on forever and forever.\n\nBrothers, these are the streams flowing from the smitten rock whose\nfountains you unseal.\n\nStanding at the mouth of the Columbia River, one can hear the ocean\nwaves moaning, surging, thundering forevermore.  You can not stay the\nrushing tides that come and go, ebb and flow, until time shall be no\nmore; and there the great river of the west, the mighty Columbia,\npouring her floods into that vast, boundless sea, so shall\nOdd-Fellowship pour her deep, exhaustless stream into futurity, and all\nthe combined forces of opposition, ignorance and fear shall have no\npower to stay the onward rushing, overwhelming flood.  Wafted back to\nus from the unexplored shore across that sea--softly whispering through\nthe rose marine spirit of the mist--intuitive knowledge reveals the\nthrone of the Grand Lodge above, from which flows the pure river of\nlife, on whose shores grow the trees of knowledge and of life immortal,\nwhich bear no fruit of sin, but whose leaves are for the healing of\npoor, suffering humanity.  Brothers, build such a character as will\ncause Christ and the angels to rejoice when they behold it.  Then, when\nlife's work is done, when the blessed Master calls, you will not look\nmournfully into the past, but will look eagerly into the mighty future\njust opening before you.\n\nAnd as your life goes out amidst the rustling of an angel's wings--like\na summer sea asleep upon a sandy shore--you will not regret that you\npracticed the principles laid down by our noble order,\n\nFRIENDSHIP, LOVE AND TRUTH.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HIGHER LIFE\n\nManhood, fully developed and symmetrically formed, through the various\nstages of the world's history, has been the great conservative element\nof society, and has been in high request.  Some ages, however, have\nseemed to make a larger demand for this element than others, and this\nage of ours is one which yields to none of its predecessors in its call\nfor manliness of character--for men of the right stamp.  The perils of\nthe times are imminent, and the demand for a high grade of intelligence\nand great strength of moral principle never was stronger.  New\ndevelopments of human genius and activity, are constantly arising, and\nnew dangers to the dearest interests of society are calling for\nvigilance.  This is neither a stagnant nor a tame and quiet age.  It is\nan age of activity, of enterprise, of speculation, of adventure, of\nphilosophizing and of both real and pseudo reforms.  The age eminently\ndemands vigorous and mature manhood.  Therefore, study, think,\ninvestigate, learn.  Remember, however, that it is not knowledge stored\nup as intellectual fat which is of value, but that which is turned into\nintellectual muscle.  Out of dull and selfish seclusion go forth.\nRegulate with care your basal endowments.  Prove thy strength, and\nrender it sure.  Deliver thy conceptions from narrowness, thy charity\nfrom scrimpness, thy purposes from smallness.  Deny thyself and take up\nthy cross.  Do and dare, love and suffer.  So shalt thou build a\ncharacter that will abide all the tests which future years or ages may\nbring.\n\nBear constantly in mind that you are endlessly improvable.  \"It is for\nGod and for Omnipotency to do mighty things in a moment; but\ndegreeingly to grow to greatness is the course that He hath left for\nman.\"  To the conscious human self there belong possibilities of such\nmoment that no one can well study them without being either thrillingly\nimpressed or made to experience unusual emotions.  The conclusion is,\ntherefore, unavoidable, that every soul can become great.  By processes\nof culture to which it is able to subject itself, it can perpetually\nincrease in wisdom, in strength, and in nobleness.\n\nThe soul's chief capabilities may, for the sake of elucidation, be\nrepresented as so many different rooms within itself, each of which can\nbe made to have a spaciousness equaled by no material amplitude ever\nyet ascertained, and each of which, so long as it is kept in the\nprocess of growth, is and will be susceptible of fresh furnishing.\nThese apartments of the minor man are too wonderful to admit being\ndepicted either by a writer's pen or by a painter's brush.  Their most\ndistinguishing characteristics can, at best, only be indicated.  Who\ncan tell how much knowledge can find place in them, or what volumes of\nfeeling they can contain?  Who can declare the magnitude of the\ngrandest traits that, in them, can have freedom to thrive and bear\nfruit?  Who can estimate the length and breadth, the height and depth\nof the loftiest inspirations or the noblest joys that, in them, can be\nexperienced?  To give a full expression to the utmost intelligence,\npotency, amiability, purity, meritoriousness and majesty that can\nreside in the capability--rooms of a human soul--would be equivalent to\npicturing the imaginable or to portraying the infinite, and to do\neither the one or the other is impossible.  One may be sadly\nindifferent to the value of his soul's foremost capabilities, may\ninadequately exercise them, and may secure to them merely a dwarf-like\ncompass; but there is never a time when they can not be made to\ntranscend the limits of development to which they have attained.  Their\npossessor can educate them forever.  He can unceasingly add to their\nroominess and resource.  In all time to come he can cause them to\ncontinue to exceed breadth after breadth.  Oh, who can conceive how\ngreat his mental being is able to become?  Who can comprehend how\nelevated a life it is possible for him to live?  Who can be liable to\noverrate the vastness of the destiny for which he was created?\n\nIn the language of Hughes, \"Our case is like that of a traveler on the\nAlps, who should fancy that the top of the next hill must end his\njourney because it terminates his prospect, but he no sooner arrives at\nit, than he sees new ground and other hills beyond it, and continues to\ntravel on as before.\"  The thought of the soul's improvability is well\nadapted to quicken torpid virtue and to revive drooping aspirations.\nIt tends to scatter the gloom resulting from disappointed endeavors.\nLet it but have a star-like clearness in the mind, and there will\nspring from it an ever-new interest in life and being.\n\nWe know that the paths of usefulness and affection must sometimes be\nstrewn with smitten leaves and faded bloom, and that the heart must\nsometimes be chilled by harsh changes, even as the face of nature is\nchilled by rude winds.  We know that we are doomed to find thorns in\nroses, and to suffer from \"thorns in the flesh.\"  We know that there\nare for us hours when the sunshine without must be darkened by shadows\nwithin; when we must be pierced by trials; when we must be humbled by\nafflictions.  Yet, so we but duly know our mental possibilities, how\nmuch there is to animate us and to make us hopeful.  Well may we go our\nway, with a high ambition and with good cheer.  Well may we prize, as a\nstage of action, this old stone-ribbed earth, whereon we can behold the\nbeauty of emerald meadows and of blossoming plants, and can hear the\nsongs of russet-bosomed robins and the prattle of children, the voice\nof the vernal breeze, and the sound of the summer rain.  Oh, who that\never muses on the soul's heirship to the divine, can wish he had never\nbeen born?  I am grateful for my existence.  I rejoice that I have\nplace amid the bright-robed mysteries which surround me.  I glory in\nthe shifting scenery of the seasons.  No flaw do I find in the sun, the\nmoon, or the stars.  No prayer have I to make that the grass which\ngrows at my feet may be fairer than it is, or that the mornings and\nevenings may be more attractive.  Let me know as I may, and feel as I\nshould, the truth that I am endlessly improvable, and I am assured that\nthe soul of the universe will somehow sweeten every bitter allotment\nthat falls to me, will \"charm my pained steps over the burning marl\"\nwhich belongs to the course of probationary experience, and will assist\nme joyfully to approximate the greatness of His own infinite and\ntranquil character.  It is bliss to feel that the soul is an\never-enduring entity.  Unlike the clouds and the snow-heaps, the fluids\nand the liquids, the rocks and the metals--unlike all the generations\nof living organisms--it neither wastes away nor loses its\ndistinctiveness.  Nay, it outlasts every transmuting process, and, as a\nself-identifying self, is endlessly living.\n\nIf we reach the high plane of a perfect manhood, we must climb.  \"Come\nup hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter.\"--Rev.,\niv, 1.  In this mystical Revelation we behold the seer, John, dreaming\nat the base of the celestial hill, and in his dream he hears a voice\ncommanding him to rise to the summit of the eternities, where,\nstanding, he shall behold all things that must be.  This vision has an\ninfinite significance, in that no small part of the felicity associated\nwith the| idea of eternity is the thought that, with ample mind, we\nshall perfectly understand the mighty plan and enterprise of God, and\nknow with perfect knowledge that which is dark and obscure now.  But\nnot only has this truth to us an infinite significance; it has also a\ntemporal one, in that it tells us that there is an immediate\nrelationship between elevation of life, between high thinking, living\nand doing, and the power to command the future.  \"Come up hither, and I\nwill show thee things which must be hereafter.\"  That is, let us stand\nhigh and we see far and wide, let us stand high and we see deep.\nElevation grants perspective and yields the possession of those years\nnot only that are, but that are not.  Now, so understood, these words\nhave much inspiration, comfort and solace for all of us, for a very\nlarge part of man's life is future.  Indeed, the great regulative force\nof every human spirit is not so much the present and the past--present\nopportunity and past experience--as future ideality.  The architectonic\nprinciple of life is not the momentum that sweeps down to us from the\nyears that have been, but the ideal that lies deep in the years that\nare yet to be.  This is the mysterious, occult power that moulds, forms\nand fashions our stature, and that is determining the greatness or the\nlittleness of our destiny.  And not only is the future architectonic,\nit is also an inspiration and refuge for our anxieties, defeats and\ninadequacy, his incompetency, how little he has achieved, realizes his\ninconsequence and insignificance, and he looks forward and sees triumph\nin tomorrow; he beholds the summit of the hill, and says, \"There I\nshall stand victorious some future day.\"  Today incomplete, tomorrow\ncomplete; today imperfect, tomorrow perfect; today bound, tomorrow\nemancipated; today humiliated, tomorrow crowned.  Hence, the future is\nman's refuge, hope and strength.  And in a yet more profound sense does\nthe future exert a wonderful power over our lives, in that it holds for\nus the inheritance undefiled and incorruptible, the patrimony of\neternity.  And who can measure the influence of this belief over human\ncharacter?  Blot it out, and what inspiration have we to struggle on?\nIf we are to perish as the beast of the field, wither like the grass,\nand vanish like the transient cloud, man has no grand, sublime\nimpulsion in this life.  But let him believe that he is the child of\nGod, that there is an immortal soul, not only in him, but an eternal\nsphere awaiting him--let him believe that here he is but in the bud,\nthat these seventy years are but the seed time, and that infinite eons\nlie before him for fruition and efflorescence, and you magnify his\nspirit, enlarge his hope, and inspire him with a zeal to conquer and\nachieve.\n\nBut now there is a popular philosophy that tells us that man can only\nknow two points of time: that point of time through which he has\ngone--the past, and that point of time in which he is now living--the\npresent.  He may know experience and he may grasp opportunity, but he\ncan know nothing of futurity.  The future is a riddle, an unexplored\ncontinent, a _terra incognita_ into which no human eyes have ever pried\nor ever may pry, sealed as it is by the counsel of God against the\ncurious vision of His children.  And to some extent I think we all must\nadmit that this popular notion holds true.  There are those to whom the\nfuture must be a blank, who peer into it and behold nothing there.\n\nI have noticed that no great poem, no great religion, no great creation\nof any kind, was ever written or conceived by people who lived in the\nvalleys, cramped by the hills.  The hills narrow one's horizon, make\none insular, provincial, limited.  And what is true of literature and\nart is true also of life.  The man of low ideals never vaticinates; the\nman who is living down in the lower ranges of existence never\nprophesies.  The man with a low brow has always a limited perspective;\nso, also, the man with a low heart or a low conscience.  The sordid man\ncan never measure the consequences of his wealth.  He may know that\ntomorrow he will be as rich as he is today, or richer, but he can not\nprognosticate what his riches will mean to him tomorrow--whether he\nwill find in them more or less felicity, whether they will be a\nblessing or a burden.  Neither has the base man, the immoral man, any\nclear vision of futurity.  He lives in doubts and fears, and is begirt\nwith clouds and confusion.  He half fears that there is a law of God,\nand half doubts it; half believes in retribution, and half doubts it;\nhalf believes in moral cause and effect, and half doubts it.  He sees,\nwith no certain sight, the inevitable penalty awaiting his wrong-doing,\nelse he would not and dare not sin.  No man would sin, could he read\nthe future; no man would defy the Infinite, did he unerringly know that\nGod is a just God, and that He shall visit inevitable retribution upon\nhim who trangresses His holy law.  The wicked man, like the sordid man\nliving in the low lands, never vaticinates, and can not, not by reason\nof any want of talent or conscience, but by reason of want of altitude\nof vision.  But St. John does not tell us here that all men shall know\nall things that must be; that all men have a sense of futurity.  What\nhe does say is that there is an intimate and indissoluble relationship\nbetween elevation and futurity; that only the man who stands upon the\naltitudes can command the future; for only there, when he is at his\nbest, and when he is living on the summit of his soul, does he behold\nthe true and perfect action of the forces and the laws of the Eternal.\nIt is not \"Stay down there and I will show thee things which must be\nhereafter,\" but \"Come up hither\"--live, aspire, ascend into the\naltitudes of mind; ascend into the altitudes of feeling; ascend into\nthe altitudes of conscience; live where God means you to live, and\nthen--\"I will show thee things which must be hereafter.\"\n\nAnd now, if you will consult your own experience or meditate on\nhistory, if you will scan the great things thought and the great things\ndone, and the great things wrought and the great things won by man, you\nwill see that they have been always wrought and won and done and\nthought upon the heights.  The Muses live upon Parnassus, the Deities\nupon Olympus.  Jehovah has his abiding place on Zion.  David says, \"I\nlook unto the hills, whence cometh my help.\"  Not unto the meadows, or\nthe streams, or by the forests, or the cities, or the seas, but \"unto\nthe hills, whence cometh my help.\"  He looks high, and his high vision\ngrants him spiritual perspective.  And Jesus speaks his great sermon,\nnot by the Jordan, but on the mount.  He is transfigured on a mount,\ncrucified on a mount, and ascends to the right hand of His Father from\na mount.  Everywhere the heights play a great part in the history of\nhuman thought, feeling and faith.  All great truth comes down; it does\nnot rise up.  All great religion comes down; it does not rise up.  It\nis not the wilderness, nor the low lands, nor the level places, but\nMount Carmel, Mount Horeb, Mount Zion, the Mount of the Beatitudes and\nthe Mount of Transfiguration that are focal points of righteousness and\nfaith.  And when you look at and reflect upon men--the great men, the\nmen who have moulded the world, who have made the massive contributions\nto humanity, who have dealt the Titan strokes that have redeemed the\nrace from its servitudes and bestialities, who, like Atlas, have upheld\nand lifted up the world; who, like Prometheus, have brought to man\nprecious gifts from Zeus, and so delivered him from the tyranny and\ndominion of his ignorance, superstitions, fears and passions--you will\nalways find that they are men who have lived upon the lofty summits of\nthe Spirit, and therefore have been seers of the future and have seen\n\"those things which must be hereafter.\"\n\nEvery high-minded man has always lived in the future.  Take the\nsovereign prophet of the ancient faith.  The world about him is dark\nand desolate; Israel's powers are at the ebb; the great faith that she\nhas inherited is degraded, sensualized, formalized, buried under a\ndebris of priestcraft, infidelity, idolatry and corruption; and yet\nthis prophet stands upon the hills and dreams--dreams against the\npresent, dreams through all the darkness environing him--and sees the\nday when the faith of Israel shall be the faith of the world; when the\nlaw of Israel shall dominate the conscience of the world; when the\nSavior of Israel shall be the Savior of the world, and when the Jehovah\nof Israel shall be the Jehovah of the world.  Standing high, his soul\nsoaring, thinking lofty thoughts, he beholds Israel in glorious\nperspective as the nation that shall lead man from bondage to liberty,\nfrom darkness to light.  Or think again of the life, the history, the\nhope of Jesus, and behold in Him a perfect illustration of this truth;\nthis truth that there is an intimate relationship between high living\nand high thinking, high doing, high willing and the vision of the\nfuture.  What right had Christ to hope at all?  What right had He to\nthink of a Kingdom of God that was going steadily to conquer and take\npossession of this earth?  What right had He to think that His Gospel\nwould come to be the regnant gospel over the minds of men?  What right\nhad He to think that His own beautiful spirit would prevail over the\nperverse and rebellious will of society?  What right had he to think\nthat the world would ever come to accept His marvelous beatitudes as\ntruth?  What right had He to believe that the cross would ever be a\nuniversal symbol of salvation?  Judged from the near point of view, by\nimmediate results, by the facts that were right before His eyes,\nhistory records no more conspicuous and terrible failure than the life\nof Jesus.  A Savior, and yet disbelieved in by the people; a Savior,\nand yet scorned by the multitude; a Savior, and yet called a \"wine\nbibber\" and a \"glutton;\" a Savior, and yet humiliated and degraded; a\nSavior, and yet dying ignominiously upon the cross.  Where is there any\nample redemption, any glorious assertion of the mind, in these sad,\ngloomy, hopeless facts?  And yet He said, \"I, if I be lifted up, shall\ndraw all men unto Me.\"  How did He dare make such a prophecy as that?\nHow did He dare arrogate to himself such a dominion as that?  Why,\nsimply because, living in the altitudes, he had vision of things that\nmust be.  He knew that He had righteousness in His heart, and that\nrighteousness must at last be established.  He knew that His spirit was\na spirit of peace and good will towards men, and that peace and good\nwill towards men must ultimately prevail.  He lived on the heights, and\nHe saw those things that were to be.  And now, what is true of these\ngreat men may be true of every one of us, according to the loftiness of\nour living.  Every one of us may command the future--may, in a measure,\nprophesy and weigh the consequences, and calculate the issues of our\nown life; and every one of us can live a far larger, fuller and richer\nlife, in the years that are to be than we can live in the past or in\nthe time that is now.\n\nAnd first, let me say to you that the man that lives upon the altitudes\nof his spirit beholds with sure vision the issuance of his life in\ntriumph.  We speak of life habitually as being a complicated and\nintricate thing, and no doubt it is, upon its lower ranges.  A man is\nprosperous today, sweeping, with sails full set, before the breeze, his\nbark leaping gladly, mounting buoyantly upon the waves; but no man can\ntell what the morrow will bring forth to him.  Prosperity is not a\nmatter of certitude, security or permanency.  An ill wind comes, and\nthe vessel is swept to disaster; on the shoals or rocks, rushing to\ndestruction against some Scylla or swallowed up by some Charybdis.  And\nwhat is true of prosperity is true of power.  Today a man is the idol\nof the people, flattered, honored, extolled and crowned by them.  They\ngather round him and intoxicate him with their plaudits.  He is the man\nof the people, the great man of his day, but who can tell how long this\nwill rule enthroned?  An unfortunate speech, an error of conduct, a\nmoment of indecision, a failure to appeal to the demagogic instincts of\nthe race, and he is ruthlessly bereaved of his honor and his glory\ngone.  The idols of yesterday are the broken statues of today; the\nheroes of yesterday are the \"have-beens\" of today.  So capricious, so\nephemeral, so mutable, so mercurial, so impermanent are the whims of\nhumanity, and so unstable its idolatries and adorations.\n\nAnd as the mighty fall, so the obscure rises.  Names that were unknown\nten years ago are blazoned almost on the skies.  The insignificant come\nup and take the scepter in their hand.  The poor man of a little while\nago is the rich merchant or the successful lawyer of today.  This is\nhis hour, this the moment of his power.  Strange, is it not?  There\nseems to be no method, no system in those lower planes of life.  The\nrich become poor and the poor rich, the strong weak and the weak\nstrong; the ruler becomes the ruled and the ruled the ruler; the master\nbecomes the servant and the servant the master.  No order, no system,\nno method anywhere in mundane things, and therefore no power of vision\nand vaticination.\n\nBut now in the higher things there is none of this impermanence and\ninstability.  Everything is in order here.  When man is living in the\nfulness of his nature, when he is living on the heaven-kissing\npinnacles of his spirit, when his whole being is harmonious with the\ngreat and glorious laws of God, his future is assured; it is bound to\nbe a great and beautiful success.  No possibility of failure upon the\nheights; every possibility of failure upon the level; every possibility\nof disaster down there, but upon the peaks there can be no disaster, no\nmistake, no accident, no dethronement; there must be inevitable and\nunconditional achievement.  Of course, I do not mean popular\nachievement--achievement as men usually count achievement, or success\nas men ordinarily rate success.  So measured, every great man's life\nhas been a dismal failure.  Paul's life was not a popular success, nor\nwas Isaiah's, nor was Augustine's, nor was Savanarola's, nor was\nSocrates', nor was Christ's life a popular success.  Measured by\nterrestrial standards, measured by the low ideals of humanity, these\nlives were all ignominious failures, every one of them; but measured by\nthe Divine standard, by the mind and will of God, they are triumphant\nvictories.\n\nAnd now I say that every man whose point of view is high, who is\nstanding upon the very highest reaches of his own being, seeking\nsincerely to be true to all that is heroic and great in his\nheaven-endowed nature, that man is bound to be, by the decree of the\nEternal, an ultimately successful man.  He is bound, just so surely as\nGod's sun is bound to come tomorrow, he is bound to be crowned, not\nonly with a celestial but with a terrestrial success--success as God\nmeasures success.  He may feel pain; he may feel the slings and arrows\nof outrageous fortune; he may experience neglect; he may contend\nagainst a host of untoward circumstances; he may groan under the\npressure and weight of many woes; he may weep bitter, burning, scalding\ntears of sorrow and grief, but still he must triumph, for God is just\nand will crown with a perfect equity His faithful children.\n\nAnd so, my friends, the central truth that I deliver to you is this,\nthat life, life upon the summit of the soul, is the supreme,\nresplendent luminary.  Not argument, not philosophy, not the elaborate,\nlogical processes of the intellect, not the Bible, not the church, but\nlife; this is the great infallible interpreter.  Live and ye shall see.\n\"Do my will,\" says Christ, \"and ye shall know.\"  Stand high and firm on\nthe summit of your soul and ye shall see the things that must be\nhereafter--a victorious righteousness, a triumphant life, and the\nredeemed hosts swathed and folded in the light of Him who is\neverlasting, omnipotent and all-loving.\n\n\n\n\nPITHY POINTS\n\nBrethren, be merciful in your judgment of others.\n\nEvery temptation promptly resisted strengthens the will.\n\nThere is a sad want of thoughtful mercy among us all.\n\nEvery step we take on the ladder upwards helps to a higher.\n\nIf we are true Odd-Fellows we will put away all bitterness and malice.\n\nBrothers, remember the moral harvest comes to all perfection; not one\ngrain is lost.\n\nAs Odd-Fellows there are loads we can help others to carry, and thus\nlearn sympathy.\n\nThe test of truthfulness is true dealing with ourselves when we do\nwrong and true dealing with the brethren when they fall.\n\nIt is a serious reflection that even our secret thoughts influence\nthose around us.\n\nThe Brotherhood has a Father watching over it, \"who is the same\nyesterday, today and forever.\"\n\nMan alone is responsible for the eternal condition of his soul.  We\nmake our own heaven or hell, not by the final act of life, but by life\nitself.\n\nTruth supplies us with the only true and perfect standard by which to\ntest the value of things, and so corrects the one-sided, materialistic\nstandard of business.\n\nIf an Odd-Fellow begins right I can not tell how many tears he may wipe\naway, how many burdens he may lift, how many orphans he may comfort,\nhow many outcasts he may reclaim.\n\nLove edifies; that is, it builds up perfectly the whole man, secures an\nentire and harmonious and proportionate development of his nature.  It\ndoes so by casting out the selfishness in man which always leads to a\ndiseased and one-sided growth of his nature.\n\nNo two souls are endowed in an exactly similar way.  And for the\ndifference of endowment there is a reason in the Divine mind, for each\nsoul in its generation has its appointed work to do, and is endowed\nwith suitable grace for its performance.\n\nWe are not Odd-Fellows in the true sense unless we put away all\nbitterness, malice and selfishness.  Common sense of mankind is quite\nright when it says a man's religion is not worth much if it does not\nmake him good.  Have goodness first--out of goodness good works will\ncome.\n\nEvery good work requires every good principle.  A man with very\nprominent and striking characteristics will always be a perfect man.  A\nperfect man has such harmonies that he scarcely has a characteristic.\nTo be fruitful in every good work you must have in your heart the germs\nand seeds, the springs and sources of all Christian virtue.\n\nWe are all greater dupes to our weakness than to the skill of others;\nand the successes gained over us by the designing are usually nothing\nmore than the prey taken from those very snares we have laid ourselves.\nOne man falls by his ambition, another by his perfidy, a third by his\navarice, and a fourth by his lust; what are these but so many nets,\nwatched indeed by the fowler, but woven by the victim?\n\nSorrow is not an accident--occurring now and then--it is the very woof\nwhich is woven into the warp of life, and he who has not discerned the\ndivine sacredness of sorrow, and the profound meaning which is\nconcealed in pain, has yet to learn what life is.  The cross manifested\nas the necessity of the highest life alone interprets it.\n\nEquity--An eternal rule of right, implanted in the heart.  What it asks\nfor itself it is willing to grant to others.  It not only forbids us to\ndo wrong to the meanest of God's creatures, but it teaches us to\nobserve the golden rule, \"All things whatsoever ye would that men\nshould do unto you, do you even so to them.\"  There is no greater\ninjunction--no better rule to practice.\n\nDon't rely on friends--don't rely on the name of your ancestors.\nThousands have spent the prime of life in the vain hope of help from\nthose whom they called friends, and many thousands have starved because\nthey have rich fathers.  Rely upon the good name which is made by your\nown exertions, and know that better than the best friend you can have\nis unquestionable determination, united with decision of character.\n\nHow little is known of what is in the bosom of those around us!  We\nmight explain many a coldness could we look into the heart concealed\nfrom us; we should often pity where we hate, love when we curl the lip\nwith scorn and indignation.  To judge without reserve of any human\naction is a culpable temerity, of all our sins the most unfeeling and\nfrequent.\n\nHow a common sorrow or calamity spans the widest social differences and\nwelds all, the rich and poor, in one common bond of sympathy, which,\nbegetting charity and all her train, softens the hardest heart and\nbanishes the sturdiest feeling of superiority!  Over the lifeless body\nof the departed, enemies and friend can weep together, and, burying\nstrife and differences with their common loss, feel a kinship which\nunites them, and which all humanity shares.\n\nDon't be exacting.--An exacting temper is one against which to guard\nboth one's heart and the nature of those who are under our control and\ninfluence.  To give and to allow, to suffer and to bear, are the graces\nmore to the purpose of a noble life than cold, exacting selfishness,\nwhich must have, let who will go without, which will not yield, let who\nwill break.  It is a disastrous quality wherewith to go through the\nworld; for it receives as much pain as it inflicts, and creates the\ndiscomfort it deprecates.\n\nVerily, good works constitute a refreshing stream in this world,\nwherever they are found flowing.  It is a pity that they are too often\nlike oriental torrents, \"waters that fail\" in times of greatest need.\nWhen we meet the stream actually flowing and refreshing the land, we\ntrace it upward, in order to discover the fountain whence it springs.\nThreading our way upward, guided by the river, we have found at length\nthe placid lake from which the river runs.  Behind all genuine good\nworks and above them, love will, sooner or later, certainly be found.\nIt is never good alone; uniformly, in fact, and necessarily in the\nnature of things, we find the two constituents existing as a complex\nwhole, \"love and good works,\" the fountain and the flowing stream.\n\nNever give up old friends for new ones.  Make new ones if you like, and\nwhen you have learned that you can trust them, love them if you will,\nbut remember the old ones still.  Do not forget they have been merry\nwith you in time of pleasure, and when sorrow came to you they sorrowed\nalso.  No matter if they have gone down in social scale and you up; no\nmatter if poverty and misfortune have come to them while prosperity\ncame to you; are they any less true for that?  Are not their hearts as\nwarm and tender if they do beat beneath homespun instead of velvet?\nYes, kind reader, they are as true, loving and tender; don't forget old\nfriends.\n\nYoung men!  Let the nobleness of your mind impel you to its\nimprovement; you are too strong to be defeated, save by yourselves.\nRefuse to live merely to sleep and eat.  Brutes can do this; but you\nare men.  Act the part of men.  Prepare yourselves to endure toil.\nResolve to rise--you have but to resolve.  Nothing can hinder your\nsuccess if you determine to succeed.  Do not waste your time by wishing\nand dreaming, but go earnestly to work.  Let nothing discourage you.\nIf you have no books, borrow them; if you have no teachers, teach\nyourself; if your early education has been neglected, by the greater\ndiligence repair the defect.  Let not a craven heart or a love of ease\nrob you of the inestimable benefit of self-culture.\n\nHave the courage to face a difficulty, lest it kick you harder than you\nbargained for.  Difficulties, like thieves, often disappear at a\nglance.  Have the courage to leave a convivial party at the proper hour\nfor doing so, however great the sacrifice; and to stay away from one\nupon the slightest grounds for objection, however great the temptation\nto go.  Have the courage to do without that which you do not need,\nhowever much you may admire it.  Have the courage to speak your mind\nwhen it is necessary that you should do so, and hold your tongue when\nit is better you should be silent.  Have the courage to speak to a poor\nfriend in a seedy coat, even in the street, and when a rich one is\nnigh.  The effort is less than many people take it to be, and the act\nis worthy of a king.  Have the courage to admit that you have been in\nthe wrong, and you will remove the fact in the mind of others, putting\na desirable impression in the place of an unfavorable one.  Have the\ncourage to adhere to the first resolution when you can not change it\nfor a better, and abandon it at the eleventh hour upon conviction.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BIBLE IN ODD-FELLOWSHIP\n\nThe Bible is a book for the understanding; but much more it is a book\nfor the spirit and for the heart.  Many other kinds of learning are\nfound in the Bible.  It is a manual of Eastern antiquities, a handbook\nof political experiences, a collection of moral wisdom as applied to\npersonal conduct, a mine of poetry, a choice field for the study of\nlanguages.  The Bible is the book of God, and therefore it is the book\nof the future, the book of hope.  It pierces the veil between this and\nanother life, pointing us on to the realms of light.  In sorrow, in\nsin, and in death we may, if we will, find in the Holy Bible patience,\nconsolation and hope.  The Bible opens the widest, freest outlook for\nthe mind into the eternal, enlarging a man's range of spiritual sight,\nand enabling him to judge of all things in both worlds in their true\nproportion.  The Bible gets into life because it first came out of\nlife.  It was born of life at its best.  Its writers were the tallest\nwhite angels literature has known.  No other literature has five names\nequal to these: Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul and John.  These men and the\nothers wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.  The messages of the\nBible are the loftiest in the range of human thought.  There have been\nmany magnificent periods like the age of Elizabeth, the time of the\nRenaissance and the age of Victoria, but no other single century has\never done anything equal to the production of the New Testament in the\nfirst century.  The Bible has a sound psychology.  It seeks to\ninfluence the whole man.  It pours white light into the intellect.  It\ngrapples with the great themes upon which thinkers stretch their minds.\nJohn Fiske's three subjects are all familiar themes to the readers of\nthe Bible.  Its style is incomparable in grandeur and variety.  It\napproaches the intellect with every form of literary style.  It is the\nsupreme intellectual force in the life of the common people.  It has\nbeen teacher and school for the millions.  The Puritans, for example,\nused it as a poem, story book, history, law and philosophy.  Out of it\nNew England was born.  It has been the chief representative of the\nEnglish language at its best.  Anglo-Saxon life and learning are\nsaturated with it.  The literature of England and America is full of\nthe Bible.  Shakespeare and Tennyson are specimens.  Each of these\nauthors quote from nearly every book in the Bible, and each of them\nrefers to the Bible not less than five hundred times.  Herbert Spencer\nadmits that it is the greatest educator.  It is winning its place in\nschool and college.  No education is complete without a knowledge of\nthis literature.  It is the privilege of Odd-Fellowship to enthrone the\nBible in the lodge-room, and in the home.  It teaches the intellectual\nlife from above and lifts it to the Bible's own level.\n\nDean Stanley was visiting the great scholar, Ewald, in Dresden, and in\nthe course of the conversation, Ewald snatched up a copy of the New\nTestament and said, in his impulsive and enthusiastic way, \"In this\nlittle book is contained all the wisdom of the world.\"  There is a\nsense in which this statement is not extravagant.  The book contains\nthe highest and fullest revelation of truth the world has known.  The\ngreatest themes man's mind can ponder are here presented.  The most\nprofound problems with which the human intellect has ever grappled are\nhere discussed.  We maintain that a mastery of the contents of this\nbook will in itself provide an intellectual discipline no other book\ncan give.  Refinement of character, refinement of thought, refinement\nof speech, all of the essential characteristics of the intellectual as\nwell as of the spiritual life, have been found in our own church from\nthe beginning, among those whose only advantages have been a personal\nreligious experience and the consequent love and continuous study of\nGod's word as well as among those who have had all the advantages of\nthe schools.  No man need be afraid of exhausting the truth in the\nBible.  No man can ever flatter himself that he has got beyond it.\nWhatever his intellectual attainments may be, the Bible will still have\nfurther message for him.\n\nThere was a very suggestive spectacle on the streets of London one day,\njust after Elizabeth had become England's Queen.  As she was riding by\nthe little conduit at the upper end of Cheapside an old man came out of\nit, carrying a scythe and bearing a pair of wings.  He represented\nFather Time coming out of his dark cave to greet the young Queen.  He\nled by the hand a young girl clad in flowing robes of white silk, and\nshe was his daughter, Truth.  Truth held in her hands an English Bible,\non which was written \"Verbum Veritatis,\" and which she presented to the\nQueen.  It was a pageant prepared for the occasion but suggestive for\nthis occasion as well.  Truth is the daughter of Time.  Our backs may\nbe bent and our hair may be gray before we can lead Bible truth forth\nby the hand.  We may be old before we know much; our intellectual life\nmay be matured in fullest measure and we still can know more; we must\ngrow a pair of wings before we know it all--even if we do then.\n\nThe Bible is the conquering book.  It has already dominated English\nliterature, so that almost the whole of its text from Genesis to\nRevelation might, if all the copies of the Bible were suddenly lost\nfrom the world, be restored in piecemeal fragments gathered out of the\nbooks in which the Book has been quoted, Then, besides, there are the\nBible thoughts that have indirectly, we might almost say insidiously,\npermeated the literature of Europe and America.  More than that, the\nBible has been industriously for years securing its own translation\ninto hundreds of tongues and dialects of the globe.  The Koran does not\ntake pains to translate itself, and, indeed, refuses to be translated;\nbut in contradistinction with such apathy of false faiths, the Bible\ncourts transcription into foreign tongues, loses nothing in the\nprocess, but thereby gains for itself the homage of multitudes who, on\nreading it for the first time, cry, \"This is the book we long have\nsought, that finds us out in the deepest recesses of our being and\nsatisfies the profoundest cravings of our souls.\"  The Bible is the\ncomforting book.  There is no volume like it for consolation.  It is\nthe only sure and steady staff for pilgrim spirits to lean upon, and\nthe only book that is quoted at the bedside of the sick.  It is a book\nto wear next the heart in life, and upon which to pillow the head in\ndeath.  No other so-called \"scriptures\" of the world say the things\nthat the Bible says, or supply the hopes that its promises afford.  The\nBible is not simply a book; it is The Book.  It is the best book of any\nkind that we have.  We can not do without it, either here or hereafter.\nThere are many books in the world, but there is only one book.  The\nBible is unique.  It is in a class by itself.  It seeks to control\neverything, but it co-ordinates itself with nothing.  It sets forth\nimitable examples of character, but it is not itself imitable.  No one\nhas ever written or ever will write a second Bible.  The very phrase\nwhich every one uses, \"The Bible,\" signifies the uniqueness of this\nbook.  It is a whole library in itself, and yet it is more than a\nsimple collection of books.  There is a homogeneity and consistency to\nthe whole which lead us to speak of scripture as being a single story,\nnot many revelations.  The Bible is the exhaustless book.  It may\nsometimes prove exhausting to its light-minded readers, but it never\nexhausts itself.  \"It is the wonder of the Bible,\" observes Dr. Joseph\nParker, who has preached more than twenty-five volumes of sermons upon\nscriptural subjects, \"that you never get through it.  You get through\nall other books, but you never get through the Bible.\"  On the basis of\na rationalistic criticism, this quality of exhaustlessness is really\ninexplicable.  And when we come to realize that, after all has been\nsaid as to scrolls and tablets and styluses and human factors and\ncopyists, God wrote the Bible, we understand why it is that scripture\nis so rich in treasures of wisdom.  We see that we can not exhaust the\nBible because we can not exhaust God.  The Bible wields an influence\nthat can not be estimated.  The spoken word is powerful, the printed\nword surpasses it.  The one is temporal, the other is eternal; the one\nis circumscribed, the other is unlimited.  The spoken sermon of today\nis forgotten tomorrow; the written word of thousands of years ago still\nsways the masses of today.\n\nThe whole civilized world bows down with reverence before the book of\nall books, the Bible.  The Roman sword, the Grecian palette and chisel,\nhave indeed rendered noble service to the cause of civilization, yet\neven their proudest claims dwindle into insignificance when compared\nwith the benefits which the Bible has wrought.  It has penetrated into\nrealms where the names of Greece and Rome have never resounded.  It has\nillumined empires and ennobled peoples, which Roman war and Grecian art\nhad left dark and barbarous.  Where one man is charmed by the Odyssey,\ntens and hundreds of thousands are delighted by the Pentateuch; where\none man is enthused by the Philippics of Demosthenes, millions are\nenthused by the orations of Isaiah; where one man is inspired by the\nvalor of Horatious, tens of millions are inspired by the bravery of\nDavid; where one man's life is ennobled by the art in the Parthenon,\nscores of millions of lives are ennobled by the art in the sanctuary:\nwhere one man's life is guided by the moral maxims of Marcus Aurelius,\nhundreds of millions find their law of right and their rule for action\nin the Bible.  It is read in more than two hundred and fifty languages,\nby four hundred millions of people living in every clime and zone of\nthe globe.  It constitutes the only literature, the only code of law\nand ethics, of many peoples and tribes.  For thousands of years it has\ngone hand in hand with civilization, has led the way towards the moral\nand intellectual development of human kind, and despite the hatred of\nits enemies and the still more dangerous misinterpretations of its\nfriends, its moral law still maintains its firm hold upon the hearts\nand minds of the people, its power is still supreme for kindling a love\nof right and duty, of justice and morality, within the hearts of the\noverwhelming masses.  Were it possible to annihilate the Bible, and\nwith it all the influence it has exercised, the pillars upon which\ncivilization rests would be knocked from under it, and, as if with one\nthrust of the fatal knife, we would deal the death blow to our\nmorality, to our domestic happiness, to our commercial integrity, to\nour peaceful relationships, to our educational and chart-table\ninstitutions.\n\nThere are wives and mothers, who stand with lacerated hearts at the\nopen grave and see the light of their life extinguished beneath the\ncruel clods, and yet, they bear up bravely, resting their bent forms\nand supporting their tottering feet on the staff of hope and trust\nwhich the Bible affords.  Take that solace from them, and you may soon\nhave occasion to bury the wife next to her husband, and the mother next\nto her child.  There are husbands who, when sitting lonely, dependent,\nin the circle of their motherless, weeping children, find the good old\nBook the only comforter; take it from them and you drive them to the\nmadhouse or to suicide.  There are maidens grieving, pining, their\nhearts broken, their lives blighted, their career irretrievably\nblasted; take the solace from them which this book breathes into their\nwithered hearts, the solace that suffering innocence will be\nrecompensed, that a God of justice rules, take that solace from them\nand you have taken all that makes life bearable.  There are millions of\npeople pining in bondage, toiling in obscurity, suffering physically\nand mentally for no crime of their own, sick and hungry, friendless and\nhopeless; take the book from them that teaches them the lesson of\npatient endurance, and you may write the word Finis, and close the\nrecords of civilization forevermore.  It is the one book that has a\nbalm for every wound, a comfort for every tear, a ray of light for\nevery darkness.\n\nIts language all people can understand, its spirit all minds can grasp,\nits moral laws all people can obey, its truths appeal not only to the\nlowly and simple, but also to the highest intellect, they win the\nspontaneous approval, not only of the pious, but also of the most\nskeptical.  At a literary gathering at the house of the Baron von\nHolbach, where the most celebrated atheists of the age used to\nassemble, the gentlemen present were one day commenting on the absurd\nand foolish things with which the Bible abounds.  The French\nencyclopedist, Diderat, a materialist himself, startled his friends by\nhis little speech: \"But it is wonderful, gentlemen, it is wonderful.  I\nknow of no man who can speak or write with such ability.  I do not\nbelieve that any of you could compose such narratives, or could have\nlaid down such sublime moral laws, so simple, yet so elevating,\nexerting so wide an influence for good, and awakening such deep and\nsuch reverential feelings, as does the Bible.\"  Diderat spoke the\ntruth.  Place the most celebrated systems of philosophies or the most\nfamous code of ethics, into the hands of the masses, and see whether\nthe subtleties of their learning, the elegance of their diction will\ntouch their hearts as deeply as does the Bible.  All the genius and\nlearning of the ancient world, all the penetration of the profoundest\nphilosophers, have never been able to produce a book that was as widely\nread, as voluminously commented on, as dearly loved, as this book,\nneither have all the law-givers of all the lands, and of all ages, been\nable to produce a code of law and ethics that was universally and as\nimplicitly followed as that of the law-giver, Moses.\n\nThe Bible is an emblem of Odd-Fellowship, because it is the\nOdd-Fellows' text-book.  Here we get our doctrines for faith and our\nrules for practice in all the relations of life.  As Odd-Fellows, we\nbelieve the Bible is the word of God, because in their enmity humanity\nhas never been able to destroy it or rob it of its power; nor have any\nwho reject it given us a book to take its place.  The intellect and\nculture of our day can not improve the teachings of Christ, nor set\nbefore us a nobler ideal life.  As Odd-Fellows, we believe in this\nbeautiful emblem, because our hearts attest its truth.  We need not be\ntold that the landscape is beautiful, or that the song of birds is\nsweet.  When we see the one and hear the other, we know it.  As the eye\ndiscerns the beautiful, and the ear discerns sweet sounds, so the heart\nof man discerns the divineness of the Bible teachings and sets its seal\nto their truth.  As Odd-Fellows, we believe in the scriptures, because\nthe experiences of all true believers, of whatever name, or age, or\ncountry, prove it to be the \"bread of life\" and the \"water of life\" to\na needy and suffering world.  Age by age the evidence of experience is\naccumulating, and growing stronger, and for a soul to distrust the\nrevelations made unto it, and the divine leading of the human race, is\nas though the eye should disbelieve in the sun shining at mid-day.  We\nrecognize the Bible as a precious boon to man, the gift of the Great\nFather above.  It is a \"light to our feet and a lamp to our path.\"  It\nis a compass whose never-failing needle directs us safely across the\ndesert sands of life, and through the dark labyrinths of an evil world,\nand its precious promises gives us comfort while we bear the burdens\nand endure the sorrows, pain and anguish incident to human life.\n\nSince our organization is founded on the Bible, we should, as\nOdd-Fellows, become more conversant with it.  Many evils creep into our\nlodges that could be avoided if we used the Bible more in our talks for\nthe good of the order.  Intemperance is an evil that does us much harm.\nWhat does the Bible say in regard to it?  Proverbs, xx, 1, says: \"Wine\nis a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby\nis not wise.\"  Proverbs, xxi, 17: \"He that loveth pleasure shall be a\npoor man; he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich.\"  Ah me! what\ndead courage, what piles of bleached bones that was once the\nconcentration of all that was great and lofty and true.  What\naspirations, ambitions, enterprise and resolutions--what genius,\nintegrity and all that belongs to true manhood--have been swept from\nthe tablets of time into oblivion by King Alcohol and his horrid half\nbrothers, the gambling hell and the brothel.\n\nA few years ago a noted wild-beast tamer gave a performance with his\npets in one of the leading theatres.  He put his lions, tigers,\nleopards and hyenas through their part of the entertainment, awing the\naudience by his awful nerve and his control over them.  As a closing\nact to the performance, he was to introduce an enormous\nboa-constrictor, thirty feet long.  He had bought it when it was only\ntwo days old, and for twenty years he handled it daily, so that it was\nconsidered perfectly harmless and completely under his control.  He had\nseen it grow from a tiny reptile, which he often carried in his bosom,\ninto a fearful monster.  The curtain rose upon an Indian woodland\nscene.  The wild, weird strains of an oriental band steal through the\ntrees.  A rustling noise is heard, and a huge serpent is seen winding\nits way through the undergrowth.  It stops.  Its head is erect.  Its\nbright eyes sparkle.  Its whole body seems animated.  A man emerges\nfrom the heavy foliage.  Their eyes meet.  The serpent quails before\nthe man--man is victor.  The serpent is under control of a master.\nUnder his guidance and direction it performs a series of fearful feats.\nAt a signal from the man it slowly approaches him and begins to coil\nits heavy folds around him.  Higher and higher do they rise, until man\nand serpent seem blended into one.  Its hideous head is reared above\nthe mass.  The man gives a little scream, and the audience unite in a\nthunderous burst of applause, but it freezes upon their lips.  The\ntrainer's scream was a wail of death agony.  Those cold, slimy folds\nhad embraced him for the last time.  They crushed the life out of him,\nand the horror-stricken audience heard bone after bone crack as those\npowerful folds tightened upon him.  Man's playful thing had become his\nmaster.  His slave for twenty years had now enslaved him.\n\nThe following is a will left by a drunkard of Oswego, New York State:\n\"I leave to society a ruined character and a wretched example.  I leave\nto my parents as much sorrow as they can, in their feeble state, bear.\nI leave to my brothers and sisters as much shame and mortification as I\ncould bring on them.  I leave to my wife, a broken heart--a life of\nshame.  I leave to each of my children, poverty, ignorance, a low\ncharacter, and the remembrance that their father filled a drunkard's\ngrave.\"  It behooves us as Odd-Fellows to ponder well the lessons\ntaught by our order.  Unless the principles that are laid down are\nfully carried out, we can never be Odd-Fellows in spirit and in truth.\nToday is our opportunity; act now.  Have you ever seen those marble\nstatues fashioned into a fountain, with the clear water flowing out\nfrom the marble lips or the hand, on and on forever?  The marble stands\nthere, passive, cold, making no effort to arrest the gliding water.  So\nit is that time flows through the hands of men, swift, never pausing\nuntil it has run itself out, and the man seems petrified into a marble\nsleep, not feeling what it is that is passing away forever.  And the\ndestiny of nine men out of ten accomplishes itself before they realize\nit slipping away from them, aimless, useless, until it is too late.\n\"Be such a man, live such a life, that if every man were such as you,\nand every life a life like yours, this earth would be God's Paradise.\"\n\nRemember that no good the humblest of us has wrought ever dies.  There\nis one long, unerring memory in the universe, out of which nothing\ndies.  A chill autumn wind, blowing over a sterile plain, bore within\nits arms a little seed, torn with ruthless force from its matrix on a\nlofty tree, and dropped the seed upon the sand to perish.  A bright\nwinged beetle, weary with flight and languid with the chilly air,\nrested for a moment on the arid plain.  The little seed dropped Aeolus\nserved to satisfy the hunger of the beetle, which presently winged its\nflight to the margin of a swift running stream that had sprung from the\nmountain side, and cleaving a bed through rocks of granite, went gaily\nlaughing upon its cheery way down to the ever rolling sea.  Sipping a\ndrop of the crystal flood, the beetle crawled within a protecting\nledge, and, folding its wings, lay down to pleasant dreams.  The Ice\nKing passed along and touched the insect in its sleep.  Its mission was\nfulfilled; but the conflict of the seasons continued until the white\ndestroyer melted in the breath of balmy spring.  And then a sunbeam\nsped to the chink wherein the body of the insect lay, and searching for\nthe little seed entombed, but not destroyed, invited it to \"join the\nJubilee of returning life and hope.\"  Under the soft wooing of the\npeopled ray, the little seed began to swell with joy, tiny rootlets\nwere developed within the body of the protecting beetle, a minute stem\nshot out of its gaping mouth, and lo! a mighty tree had been carried\nfrom the desert, saved from the frosts of winter, nurtured and started\nupon its mission of life and usefulness by an humble insect that had\nperished with the flowers.  The agent had passed away, but, building\nbetter than he knew, the wide-spreading tree remained by the margin of\nthe life-giving stream, a shelter and a rest to the weary traveler upon\nlife's great highway through many fretful centuries.\n\nA child abandoned by its mother to perish in an Egyptian marsh may\nbecome the instrument to deliver a nation from bondage, and an\nunostentatious man, unknown to fortune and to fame, may become the\nagent of a mighty work destined to benefit the human race as long as it\nmay last upon the earth.  George Eliot says, \"Our deeds are like\nchildren that are born to us; they live and act apart from our own\nwill.  Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never; they have an\nindestructible life, both in and out of our consciousness.\"\n\nNo man has come to true greatness who has not felt in some degree that\nhis life belongs to his race, and that what God gives him he gives him\nfor mankind.  The different degrees of consciousness are really what\nmake the different degrees of greatness in men.\n\nWhile Odd-Fellowship does not claim to be a religious institution, yet\nso closely is it allied to Christianity that we deem it proper to\ndiscuss these questions.  I quote from Dr. Lyman Abbott's lecture on\n\"Christianity and Orientalism,\" as follows: \"Religion as a thought has\nfour questions to answer: First, What is God?  Second, What is man?\nThird, What is the relation between God and man?  Fourth, What is the\nlife which man is to live when he understands and enters into that\nrelation?  There is no other question; there is nothing left.  What is\nGod?  What is man?  And how are men to live when they have entered into\nthat relationship?  Now, Christianity has its answer to each one of\nthose four questions.  God--one true, righteous, loving, helpful Father\nof the whole human race.  God--love.  And love, what is that?  Such a\nlife as Jesus Christ lived on the earth.  What is man?  Man is in the\nimage of God.  If he is not, if he fails in that, he fails being a man.\nHe is in the image of God, and not until he has come to be in the\nimage, of God will he be a man.  What is a statue?  I can see a nose, a\nmouth, appearing out of the marble block.  No, it is not a statue, it\nis a half-done statue.  Wait until the sculptor is through, then you\nwill see the statue.  Not till God is done will you see a man, and you\nnever saw one except as you saw him in Jesus of Nazareth.  And what is\nthe relation between this God and this man?  It is the relationship of\nthe most intimate fellowship that the human soul can conceive; one life\ndwelling in the other life, and filling the other life full of His own\nfullness.  You can not get any closer relationship to God than that.\nWhen this fullness has been realized, when you and I have the fullness\nof God in us, when God has finished, the man life will result.  Just\nsuch a life as Christ lived, with all the splendor of self-sacrifice,\nwith all the glory of service, with all the magnificent heroism, with\nall the enduring patience.\"\n\n\n\n\nBROTHER UNDERWOOD'S DREAM.\n\nBeing invited some time since to deliver an address before a benevolent\ninstitution, and being pressed amid the daily business cares which\nsurrounded, I was fearful I should not be able to command sufficient\ntime for preparation of the task.  Returning home, I retired to my bed,\nmy thoughts still keeping themselves in active motion in their endeavor\nto \"think out\" what I should say.  In this state of mind I fell asleep,\nand soon was in dreamland.  I dreamed that death had taken place, and\nas I approached the gates of the unseen world, I was met by an angel,\nwho kindly tendered his services in escorting me through the realms of\nHeaven.  Being a stranger there, I gladly and gracefully accepted his\nkind invitation.  Proceeding along the pearly streets, enraptured with\nthe beauties which surrounded me, I saw a multitude of people, the\nnumber of whom figures fail to compute; but I noticed there were\ndividing lines, and they were gathered in companies.  Observing a\nbeautiful body of water in the distance, and a gathering of one company\nby its banks, I inquired of my escort who they were.  He replied they\nwere Baptists, and said \"they always keep near the water's edge.\"  Just\nbeyond was another company, which my faithful attendant informed me was\na Presbyterian band, and that their infant baptism views still clinging\nto them was one of the causes of their \"corralling\" together.  Just\nthen we heard loud and prolonged shouting and singing of the hymn\n\"Shall we gather at the river,\" and, pointing to the spot from whence\nit came, near a beautiful stream not far off, the angel said: \"Those\nare the Methodists.  They never cease shouting, and so loud are they at\ntimes that they annoy the Episcopalians, whom you see on the opposite\nside of the stream, in their discussion of the doctrine of apostolic\nsuccession.\"  Seeing still other gatherings farther on, I was anxious\nto go thither and mingle with them; but my guide remonstrated, saying:\n\"You can see from this standpoint the representatives of all churches.\nThere, said he, are the Catholics and the Jews, the Universalists and\nthe Congregationalists, the Unitarians and the Moravians, all with\ntheir varied 'creeds,' and if you go that way you will be surrounded by\nthem, each trying to prove that you got to Heaven through their\npeculiar doctrine or faith.\"\n\nTurning to the right, we moved on, only to pass to more gorgeous and\nbeautiful apartments, where the streets were golden.  Here I observed\nanother multitude, but it was one body.  \"This,\" said the angel, \"is\nthe gathering of the various priests and pastors, rectors and rabbis,\nand the ministers and the elders who are trying to unite on some common\nground upon which their congregations (which we had passed) might\nstand, where there would be but 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism.'\"\nGal., iv, 5.  For, said the angel, until then, they go not up with\ntheir churches and creeds to higher seats above, for \"neither\ncircumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision.\" Gal., v, 6.\n\nProceeding on our way we approached a magnificent archway, over the\nlintels of which was inscribed, \"The Christian's Home in Glory.\"  The\ngrandeur of this new apartment exceeded all the rest, a description of\nwhich lies beyond the power of words, \"For eye hath not seen, nor the\near heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which\nGod hath prepared for them that love him.\" I Cor., ii, 9.  This I found\nto be the abode of the apostles, martyrs and Christians of all ages.\nHere was Paul and Peter, and the prophets, the thief on the cross and\nBunyan, Lazarus and Baxter, Stephen and Father Abraham, Martha and Mary\nand the widow who gave her two mites.  Pausing, I beheld, with banners\nabove, an innumerable number \"marching on,\" with Lincoln and Lovejoy,\nLyman, Beecher and John Brown in the advance, and on the banners was\ninscribed, \"These are they which came out of great tribulation.\" Rev.,\nviii, 14.  The angel said: \"That is the multitude of poor slaves from\nthe cotton fields of earth, doing homage to their deliverers.\"  \"They\nshall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun\nlight on them, nor any heat.\" Rev., vii, 16.  Here I also found Watts\nand Wesley singing, while Bliss (who had but lately been translated\nfrom earth to heaven by way of Ashtabula bridge), catching the\ninspiration, was setting the songs of Heaven to the music of earth.\nGazing on the many thrones and crowns, there were some of peculiar\nbrightness.  I looked on one, and what was the inscription?  Was it, I\nwas a Methodist?  No.  I was immersed?  No.  I was a Jew?  No.  But\nrather this: \"Because I delivered the poor that cried and fatherless,\nand him that had none to help him, the blessing of him that was ready\nto perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing with\njoy.\" Job, xxix, 12, 14.  And this was the crown of Job.  And there was\nanother just beyond, and I read the inscription.  Was it, I was a\nPresbyterian?  No.  I prayed by quantity?  No.  I was a Universalist?\nNo.  But \"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is\nthis, to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction and to\nkeep himself unspotted from the world.\" James, i, 27.  And while the\nmemory and name of Peabody, the philanthropist, is and shall be honored\nand loved for ages to come in two hemispheres, his crown of glory in\nheaven is second to none.  But there was still another.  It was worn by\none of queenly beauty, and she sat upon her throne; the splendor of her\nrobe and the brilliancy of her apparel dimmed my vision.  I read her\ninscription, set, as it was, in Heaven's choicest diamonds.  Was it, I\nwas an Episcopalian?  No.  I was baptized?  No.  I was a Catholic?  No.\nBut thus: \"I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and\nye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye\nclothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came\nunto me.\" Matt., xxv, 35, 36.  And before her throne stood thousands\nwho had come up from the battle fields of the Crimea, and the widows\nand orphans, the lame and the halt, the blind and the deaf from the\nstreets and alleys of London, and as they shouted their hallelujahs\nbefore her, they carried banners on which were emblazoned these words:\n\"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my\nbrethren, ye have done it unto me.\" Matt., xxv, 40.  And the crown of\nFlorence Nightingale glistens brightly in Heaven.  Passing on, and\nobserving a large number of vacant thrones and crowns, I naturally\nasked, for whom are these?  The angel replied: \"For the Christians of\nearth; the managers of the 'homes' for the friendless, the widows and\nthe orphans, and those who, regardless of their respective church\ncreeds and doctrines, like their Master when he was on earth, go about\ndoing good.\"  The angel vanished, and I awoke.\n\nMORAL.--Brethren, in our tenacity for church creeds, let us not fail in\nthe practice of a little daily Christianity.  \"Finally, brethren, if\nthere be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.\"\nGal., iv, 8.\n\n\n\n\nTHE IMPERIAL VIRTUE\n\n  Though sophists may argue, or philosophers prate,\n  The evils of lying they can not mitigate.\n  Our God's law is truth!  Who then dares justify\n  A falsehood?  Remember, a lie is a lie!\n  Let this he our motto, in old age or youth:\n  \"All lying is sinful, so, stick to the truth!\"\n\n\"Truth we accept as a cardinal virtue, and require its practice on the\npart of all the votaries of Odd-Fellowship while traveling the rugged\njourney of life in search of reward and rest.\"  Truth is above all\nthings else, and every Odd-Fellow knows full well that his obligation\nbinds him to speak the truth.  Remember a lie is never justifiable.  It\ndoes the person more harm than that he seeks to avoid by telling a\nfalsehood would do.  \"What is truth?\"  This question of Pilate is in\nthe air today.  It is repeated on every side and in every department of\nintellectual pursuit.  It always pays to tell the truth under all\ncircumstances.  Abraham came near bringing a whole nation into trouble\nin lying about his wife.  Be it said to the honor of President Grant,\nthat once a visitor called at the White House wishing to see him.  The\ndoor-keeper told the servant to tell the visitor the president was not\nin.  General Grant, who was very busy, heard what was said.  He called\nout, \"Say no such thing.  I don't lie myself, and won't allow anyone to\nlie for me.\"  Tell the truth always.  \"I said in my haste all men are\nliars.\" Psalms, cxvi, 2.\n\nIt was a very sweeping assertion that the Psalmist made, and one that\nincriminates us all.  He probably did not mean that all men were liars\nin the sense that everybody always spoke untruthfully, but that the\ngreat majority of people would, under certain stress of circumstances,\nequivocate to suit the conditions of the occasion.  If that was what he\nmeant, he uttered a sage truth when he said very hastily one day: \"All\nmen are liars.\"  Though a hasty utterance, facts seem to prove its\ntruthfulness.  The greatest mischief-maker in the world today is the\nliar.  I honestly believe that lying causes more real anguish and\nsuffering than any other evil.  It would be effort wasted to spend much\ntime in proof of this assertion of David's, so we will attempt to\nclassify briefly, that each of us may know where he belongs.  First,\nthere is the deliberate lie.  This species needs no particular\ndefinition.  All are acquainted with it, all have met it, some have\nuttered it.  You all know it when you see it; it is barefaced and\nshameless; it reeks with the mire of falsity and is foul with the slime\nof the pit infernal.  This lie contains not an atom of truth, is\ntinctured not with a grain of fact, but is a full-blooded,\nthoroughbred, out and out lie.  Then we have the campaign lie.  A\nlarge, open-faced fellow, loud-voiced and blatant; bold, daring and\nsweeping; it claims everything, asserts everything, denies anything.\n\nDuring the campaign this lie is a factor.  Men buy papers to read it,\nand go miles to hear it.  The campaign lie is the greatest worker in\nthe canvass for votes.  He pats the workman on the back and promises to\nfill his pail with sirloin steak and fresh salmon, when, if the other\nman is elected, he will have to carry liver and codfish.  He grasps the\nmerchant strongly by the hand and promises him larger sales and better\nprofits in case his party gets into power; he enters the magnate's\noffice and promises him increased dividends and no strikes; he promises\neverything till after election, when he has no more promises to make.\n\nThere is the polite lie, too.  A very gentle affair this.  A very\nproper lie, clothed with the attire of an elegant etiquette and of\ngraceful form.  It is never harsh and never rude, but smooth as oil, as\ngentle as a zephyr.  The number of polite lies that are told every day\nare legion.  It would be useless to attempt to classify them, worse\nthan useless to try to enumerate them.  They are of all sizes, colors,\ndescriptions and shapes.  They have much in common, but differ widely\nin particular.  No locality is destitute of this venerable and classic\nfalsehood.  The ancients used it, the moderns still cling to it; the\npoor find it handy, the rich could not keep house without it; it\nabounds in every clime and thrives in every latitude.  The polite\nhostess says to the departing guest: \"We have been delighted by your\nvisit; do us the favor to come again,\" when she sincerely hopes that\nmost any catastrophe may overtake her rather than another visit from\nthis same personage.  There are the every-day expressions, 'Not at\nhome,' which the housemaid is instructed to give the caller; and a\nscore of other social lies which in truth deceive nobody, nine times\nout of ten.  Society would lose little and gain much if the polite lie\ncould be banished, and every man say what he thought and speak as he\nfelt.\n\nAnother lie I will notice is the business lie.  The business lie is a\nvery matter of fact lie.  It sounds well.  There are some genuine\nbankrupt sales, of course; there are a few bona fide smoke, fire and\nwater mark-downs undoubtedly, but there are more advertised in a week\nthan there are failures and fires in a year.  Good, staple merchandise\nwill usually bring its value, and he who advertises an unheard of\nbargain has generally set a trap for the unwary.  One class of goods in\nthe window marked a certain price, an inferior class on the bargain\ncounter at the same figure.  You bargain for a piece of furniture at a\nsurprisingly low figure; when it is delivered you have every reason to\nsuppose that it is like what you bought in appearance alone.  A roll of\ncloth marked \"all wool,\" it is half cotton, and the rest shoddy.  The\nbusiness lie, though found so often, is never the friend of merchant or\npurchaser.  It is the foe of all honest transactions.  Office,\nsalesroom and storehouse would be better without it; proprietor, clerk\nand purchaser would thrive better if rid of it.\n\nThe lie of gossip.  If by some power, human or divine, the gossiping\ntongue could be silenced and the tattling mouth effectually closed,\nhalf of the evil of this world would already be stopped, and the other\nwould commence to languish for want of patronage.  The lie of gossip is\nthe blackest of them all.  The blackest of all the black horde, the\nvery worst of the whole evil troop; insinuating, sly and crafty, it\ncreeps around with a serpent's stealth, and carries beneath its tongue\nthe deadly poison of ten thousand adders.  The venom can be extracted\nfrom the cobra's fangs, but no power on earth can tame the tongue of an\nunprincipled gossip.  Some lies you can kill, but the lie of gossip is\nimperishable.  You may clip its wings, but its flight is unhindered;\nyou may cut off its head, but two will grow out in its place; you may\ncrush it to earth beneath the heel of denial.  Let it alone and\npossibly the dirty, contemptible, infamous thing will die; touch it not\nand it may droop and languish; do not chase it and it may grow weak for\nwant of exercise.\n\nOh, my dear reader, above all things, don't have your life a lie, your\ncareer a falsehood.  Be no hypocrite, live no lie, and the God of all\ntruth will see something in you to admire if you live truthfully and\nhonestly before all men.  Truth is a sure pledge not impaired, a shield\nnever pierced, a flower that never dieth, a state that feareth no\nfortune, and a port that yields no danger.  We can not build a manly\ncharacter unless we are in possession of the imperial virtue, truth.\nAh! truth is the diamond for which the candid mind ever seeks.  It is\nthe sanction of every appeal that is made for the good and the right.\nIt may be crushed to earth, it may be long in achieving victory, but it\nis omnipotent and must triumph at last.  Christ brought truth into the\nworld.  Truth, then, is a personal, experimental and practical thing.\nIt is a thing of the heart, and not mere outward forms; a living\nprinciple in the soul, influencing the mind, employing the affections,\nguiding the will, and directing as well as enlightening the conscience.\nIt is a supreme, not a subordinate matter, demanding and obtaining the\nthrone of the soul-giving law to the whole character, and requiring the\nwhole man and all his conduct to be in subordination.  Truth blends\nwith every occupation.  It is noble and lofty, not abject, servile and\ngroveling; it communes with God, with holiness, with Heaven, with\neternity and infinity.  Truth is a happy, and not a melancholy thing,\ngiving a peace that passeth understanding, and a joy that is\nunspeakable and full of glory.  And it is durable, not a transient\nthing, passing with us through life, lying down with us on the pillow\nof death, rising with us at the last day, and dwelling in our souls in\nHeaven as the very element of eternal life.  Such is truth, the\nsublimest thing in our world, sent down to be our comforter and\nministering angel on earth.\n\nIt is plainly God's intention, as in nature and in history, that our\nhuman life should grow better and more joyous as it advances, and that\nthe best shall not be at the first, but shall wait until we are ready\nfor it.  The highest and largest blessings can come to men only when\nthe men are fitted to hold and to use them.  If you are going to give a\nman a purse or a diamond you can thrust it into his hand in his youth,\nor on the street, even when he is asleep; but if you would give to him\na great truth or virtue, if you would make him a noble character, you\nmust wait upon the man's growth, and be content if after many years you\nsee only a flash of what you would give him appearing.  Step by step,\nthrough all the gradations, we travel, and if faithful to truth, Christ\nwill make in us a perfect manhood, and of us a perfect society.  His\ngift is so great, vital and complex, that He can not bestow it all in\nthe beginning.  He would make our life an increasingly joyous life, and\ngive us the best of its wine at the last of its feast.  Christ would\nhave us always increasingly hopeful and joyous, and never of sad\ncountenance.  All our faculties were designed to minister to our joy.\nAll the great world of life below is a happy world.  The children of\nthe air and the water are all baptized into joy.  Even the solitary\ncreatures that carry their narrow houses with them have their joys,\nwhich are well known to their intimate acquaintances.  So in the world\nof adult man we find the joy of life disproportionate to condition and\nfaculty.  In the faces of the men we meet on the streets we see many\nscars and dark lines of storm and care; only seldom do the faces we\nmeet there wear the rainbow.  Men are without joy because they have\nviolated the laws of nature, they have subordinated their manly powers,\nreason and conscience to their animal instincts; they have lived by\nwrong theories and wrong methods, and for unmanly ends, and thus have\nexhausted the joy of life's banquet.\n\nA man can have deep and continuous joy only if his life is continuously\nrational and progressively manly.  He must put away childish things and\nlive for truth and right, for love and immortal virtue.  If our hearts\nsadden as our years increase and our thoughts widen, it is because\nthere has been a defect in our vision and a sophistry in the logic of\nour conduct.  If the growing corn comes only to the blade and to the\near, and not to the full golden corn in the ear, we may be sure it is\nbecause there has been something wrong in our gardening.  Christ comes\ninto our wasting life to give us a new, a higher and a better joy; to\ngive us new truth, new faith, new arguments, new motives, new impulses\nand new joys.  Christ gives us the Heavenly Father, and thus lifts us\ninto the dignity and beatitude of a divine nature, relationship and\ndestiny.  Man is a child of the skies, and can not find rest complete\nand joy abiding in anything less or lower.  Bearing now the image of\nthe earthly, we must go on to bear the image of the heavenly.  To have\nour manly joy ever increasing we must keep the heavenly in sight and\ntake our way from it.\n\nChrist brings us into the living alliance with forces and personalities\nthat are spiritual, and thus makes us strong to resist all animal\ntemptations and those impulses toward greed and wrong which, if\nindulged, drain our life of its manly felicities.  He would have us\nlift our manly cups to God, and make their rims to touch the heavens.\nChrist would have us to live for other's welfare and to know the joy of\nduty and of sacrifice.  It is the man who is living for wife, and\nchild, and neighbor, who has flung himself with all his might into the\ncarrying forward of some great cause that blesses his fellow-men, who\nknows the true and increasing joy of the manly life.  The happiest\nwoman in the world is the mother who is living for her child.  It is in\nworking out the salvation of other people that we find the true joy of\nour own.  It is this joy that carries the martyr through his fiery\ntasks with a song and a shout.  To be able at the end of our days to\nlook up to God and say, \"I have finished the work thou gavest me to\ndo,\" is to have the best wine at the last of our feast.  We must have\njoy; it is indispensable.  It makes us healthy and strong and enables\nus to be of some use in the world.  It is so necessary to our best\nbecoming and doing that we must put away everything that increases it.\nWe must have the joy of truth and virtue, of duty and sacrifice, of\nhope and love, which is the joy of the eternal life.  Christ thus holds\nout to us a joy that lasts, and one that satisfies forever.\n\nJesus was no cynic, no ascetic, and no fanatic.  He loved the great\noutward world, and was the friend of all men.  He was hated only by the\nPharisees, if to these He spoke sharply, His words to the children were\nsweet as a mother's, and in His words about the birds and the flowers\nyou hear the tones of a lover.  He loved the lakes of sweet Galilee,\nher hills, her fields and her olive groves; and among them often took\nHis disciples apart to rest awhile.  Adopt Christ's views of God; of\nthe future; Christianize your opinions, your character and your\nconduct, and you will have manly joy even in the midst of sorrow.\nChrist lived much in communion with God.  He lived much out of doors,\nin the fields and among trees, the birds and the flowers.\n\nWe must come back to nature.  Happy the man who owns a piece of ground\nin the country and lives on it betimes, where he can hear the robins\nsinging their hymns and the winds chanting their litanies; where he can\nsee the sun rise and feel the hush of the hills; where the spirit that\nis in the beautiful world can touch and bless him as it did the blessed\nChrist.\n\nBrothers, I wish you great joy.  Live in the constant sense of the\nHeavenly Father's loving presence, and of nature's veracity and\nfriendly intention.  Distrust all doctrines, all opinions and all ways\nof living that destroy manly joyousness.  Never lose sight of the fact\nthat a noble life is a truthful life.  Truth is a trust.  He who has\ndiscovered any portion of useful truth has something in trust for\nmankind.  God is the author of truth, and when man seeks this imperial\nvirtue and acquires it, he is in possession of great power.\n\nThis brings us to the final practical thought.  This power must be\nappropriated.  The cable car that is unattached to the cable will make\nno progress and stand still forever, even though the engines in the\npower house glow with heat, and the cable, gliding along in the center\nof the track not two feet away, is laden down with power.  The cable\ncar must close its grappling iron and grip the cable before progress\ncan be made.  It must come in contact with the power.  An electric lamp\nwill swing dark and unlighted while all the other lamps about it send\nforth enlightening rays, and all the dynamos in the world may be\nrevolving in the engine house, sending a surging current within a few\ninches of the isolated lamp, and all in vain unless it come in contact\nwith the power.  You must turn the switch and let the current flow in,\nand then the lamp will itself shine and will illumine its surroundings\nlike the rest.  So, in like manner, if we are to make progress in this\nlife, we must lay hold of the cable.  We must come in contact with the\nDivine.  If we do not, the power of God is of no avail to us.  If we\nwould be lights in the world, we must come in contact with the Divine\nspirit, we must unbar the doors to our hearts and let the current of\ndivine power and love flow into our lives and illumine them.\n\nThe great design of Odd-Fellowship is to improve the morals and manners\nof men, to promote their interest, well being and happiness.  Great\nprudence is demanded in our daily life and conversation.  We should be\nactuated by a realizing sense of our position, and by example, action\nand generous thought, recommend our cause to the consideration of\nothers.  We should persevere for the attainment of every commendable\nvirtue, to raise the mind from the degrading haunts of intemperance and\nfolly; we should be distinguished for usefulness to society and the\ncommunity at large.  A good Odd-Fellow must necessarily be an upright\nand useful member of the community.  The precepts inculcated are\ncalculated to stimulate to the faithful performance of every moral and\nrelative duty; and an individual who holds a standing with us, and is\ncareless and negligent of these things, is a reproach to the\nOrder--they wear the livery, and bow before the same shrine, but in the\nheart and practice they belie their profession.  Profanity,\nintemperance and every species of immorality are rigidly\ndiscountenanced.  We have pledged ourselves to aid in diffusing the\nprinciples of brotherly love throughout the world.  We have assumed the\noffice of guarding the holy flame which burns on the altar of\nbenevolence, and we are bound to cherish its principles.  That brother\nis recreant to every honorable feeling who can trifle with the solemn\npledge he has taken.\n\nA duty we owe to the community is to cultivate the principle of virtue,\nto lend holy serenity to the mind, and shed around a halo of light and\nglory to direct the steps of others in virtue, to happiness and\ngreatness.  The man who treads only in virtue's ways, when every act is\nhonest, acquires the confidence and friendship of others, thus\nbenefiting others, and thus benefiting the community, which, also, the\ncenter of another circle, continues this influence to those that\nsurround it, purifying the thought, emboldening the idea and elevating\nthe man.  How grand is the position Odd-Fellowship now occupies--a\nworld of honesty in a world of deceit, with a character strictly\nvirtuous and solely dependent upon its members for the perpetuity of\nthat character.\n\nIt depends upon the brethren to be virtuous, upright, honest and\nbenevolent, thus sustaining in its purity the noble reputation it now\nenjoys, which will continue a bright and shining star in the\nconstellation until time shall be no more, when it will be perpetuated\nin the glorious light of eternity.  Amid the wrecks of institutions and\npowerful interests that were a short time since thought to be\nimpregnable against all assaults, the Independent Order of Odd-Fellows\nstill maintains its vantage ground, and bears its banners proudly up.\nWith its doors thrown so widely open to applicants for admission,\ncomposed as it is of nearly every shade of thought or educational\ninfluence, whether of sect or party, with all the infirmities incident\nto human nature, modifying by their weakness its true purposes, or\nretarding its advancement, its unity and moral force, its stability and\nprogress are truly wonderful.  Its bond of cohesion, so frail and yet\nso potent, is seemingly inexplicable.  It is the recognition of the\nprinciples of brotherhood and fraternity, and the practice of their\nresultant virtues.  To appreciate and practice is to attain strength.\nWe are weak and frail.  Odd-Fellowship is strong, and its principles\nare as eternal as the stars.  The history of the past is little but a\nrecord of the domination of physical force.  The law of might was the\nlaw of right.  Violence and strife, outrages and wrong, have been for\nages the common heritage of the race.  Man has been the sport and\nvictim of human passions, and notwithstanding the culture and the\nprogress of the race, the earth yet resounds with the tread of armed\ncombatants.  Weary, sad-eyed toilers groan under the burden of war,\ncountless millions are squandered upon the maintenance of\nnon-producing, destructive hosts.\n\nWidows and orphans, nay, the very angels in heaven, if they are\npermitted to look down upon us from their bright abodes in bliss, must\nmourn over the sad result of man's semi-barbarism, and his worship of\nthe world's materialism.  Long ere this mind should have been the\ncontrolling force in all nations claiming to be civilized.  Pure\nintellect and its struggles, its aspirations for light and truth,\nshould have relegated to the regions of barbarism and darkness mere\nanimal contests.  Not only so, but intellectual supremacy should have\nbeen in its turn subordinated, or crowned by true spiritual life.  \"God\nis a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and\nin truth.\"  Man would occupy a higher and happier position than he at\npresent fills if he had earnestly co-operated with good agencies for\nthe unfolding and development of his better nature.\n\nThe special mission of Odd-Fellowship is to incite and stimulate the\ndormant moral energies to action, to rouse the lethargic, encourage the\ntimid, and to strengthen the aspirations for a nobler and a better\nlife.  Reaching out its helpful hand to the needy and distressed upon\nthe one hand, and with the other battling with selfishness, intolerance\nand vice--with all that dwarfs man's moral nature--it appeals to\nsomething within us, to be earnest advocates of its principles, by\nmaking them a living faith and illustrating its beneficent purposes.\nIf we make one man purer and better, and that man one's own self, we\nhave done something toward the betterment of the world.  The voices of\nthe past and of the present all speak to us today.  Men and brethren,\nlet us hearken unto them, and putting our trust in God, let us march\nonward, side by side together, until the standards of our order are\nplanted upon the highest summit of achievement, and as their glorious\nfolds are illuminated by the Sun of Righteousness, may the simple yet\nthe sublime legend emblazoned thereon be seen and acknowledged by the\nnations, as with uplifted eyes and reverent hearts they read, \"God is\nour Father, and we are all brothers.\"\n\n\n\n\nQUIET HOUR THOUGHTS.\n\nGenuine love and sympathy are what wins the hearts of our fellows.\n\nA Christian ought always to wake up in the morning in a good humor.\n\nRemember that sorrow and pain soften the heart and sweeten the temper.\n\nThe young man who sees no beauty in a flower will make a mean husband.\n\nIf you love young people's work you will prove it by laboring and\nsacrificing for it.\n\nBegin active work in your society at once, and do not fail to see that\neach one has something to do.\n\nThe fact that God gives any consideration to mere mites of humanity\nscattered about the surface of this little world of ours is conclusive\nproof of His infinity.\n\nWhat a blessing it is that we can not always do what we wish to do, or\nhave everything our own way.\n\nMany words are no more an indication of depth of feeling and heart than\nare boiling bubbles in a frying pan.\n\nThere are some people who would scorn to keep bad company, but who\nthink the worst kind of thoughts by the hour.\n\nDo not wait for somebody else to put your society on the roll of honor.\nIf you want a thing well done, do it yourself.\n\nIf the very hairs of our head are numbered, then why should we not\nconsult the Father in regard to all our temporal affairs?\n\nHow the heart of God must yearn for the record of lives devoted to\nhumanity.  He asks no higher service of man than this.\n\nThe truly great man is that one who is satisfied if he is doing to the\nutmost limit of his capacity the thing which he has at hand.\n\nGod would never make the mistake of helping any young man or young\nwoman who did not make every possible effort to help himself.\n\nDo not make the mistake of thinking you are the biggest man in your\nsociety.  Bigger men than you have died and have not been missed after\nforty-eight hours.\n\nThe girl who is caught by gold-headed canes, carried by heads with no\nbrains on the inside and only pasted hair on the outside, has a\npitiable future before her.\n\nNo pain, no privation, no sacrifice endured for Christ is a loss, but\nis rather a gain.  Christ will not forget those who suffered for Him\nwhen He comes to make up His jewels.\n\nSunday manners are just like Sunday clothes; everybody can tell that\nyou put them on for the occasion only, and know that you are not used\nto wearing them through the week.\n\nThe devil led the Prodigal Son away from a good home into the gay\nsociety of the world, and amused him with the pleasures of sin till he\ngot him down, then he fed him on husks.  That is the way he works.\n\nA good many church members do not like to have it known how much they\ngive for missions.  They remind us of the man who said, when asked\nabout the amount he gave, \"What I give is nothing to nobody.\"\n\nThe reason why some people do not want the preacher to preach on\npersonal sins, is because they are afraid he might say something\nagainst them.\n\nWhen we see a man going to get water at his neighbor's well, we\nnaturally suppose his own is dry.  So when we see a Christian seeking\nthe pleasures of the world, we suppose he no longer finds pleasure in\nreligion.\n\nTo know which way a stream of water is flowing, you must not look at\nthe little eddy, but at the main current, and to know which way a life\nis tending, you must not look at a single act, but at the whole trend\nof the life.\n\nSatan likes to discourage people, to hinder them in the performance of\ntheir Christian duties, but remember that Christ has said, \"My grace is\nsufficient for you.\"  Go steadily forward in the line of duty and\nsuccess will crown your efforts.\n\nThe light of a candle can not be seen very far in the light of a\nnoon-day sun, but at night it may be seen for a long distance and may\nbe a guiding star to some poor wanderer.  And so, God sometimes darkens\nour way that we may shine.\n\nThe man who prays for the conversion of the heathen, and then spends a\ngreat deal more for tobacco than he gives to missions, is certainly not\nvery consistent in his praying and giving.\n\nThomas Hood once wrote to his wife: \"I never was anything, dearest,\ntill I knew you; and I have been a better, happier, and more prosperous\nman ever since.  Lay by that truth in lavender, sweetest, and remind me\nof it when I fail.\"\n\n\"I believe one reason why such numerous instances of erudition occur\namong the lower ranks is, that with the same powers of mind the poor\nstudent is limited to a narrower circle for indulging his passion for\nbooks, and must necessarily make himself master of the few he possesses\nbefore he can acquire more.\"--_Walter Scott_.\n\nChristians should not forget that God uses human agency in the work of\nsalvation.  The only reason that there are not more saved, is because\nthe people of God do not put themselves at his disposal for the work.\nThe Lord wants all to be saved, but they will not be saved until the\npeople of God are willing to let the Lord use them to bring the lost\nunto Himself.\n\nDeceit and falsehood, whatever conveniences they may for a time promise\nor produce, are, in the sum of life, obstacles to happiness.  Those who\nprofit by the cheat distrust the deceiver; and the act by which\nkindness was sought puts an end to confidence.\n\nThe judges of the election can not tell the difference, when they are\ncounting the votes, between the one cast by the minister of the gospel\nand the one cast by the saloon-keeper, when it has been cast for the\nsame party.  Vote for principle rather than for party.\n\n\"Let every man,\" said Sydney Smith, \"be occupied in the highest\nemployment of which his nature is capable, and die with the\nconsciousness that he has done his best.\"  If the highest employment is\nnot to be found in our avocations, let us seek it in our leisure.\n\nBeware of anger of the tongue; control the tongue.  Beware of anger of\nthe mind; control the mind.  Practice virtue with thy tongue and with\nthy mind.  By reflection, by restraint and control, a wise man can make\nhimself an island which no floods can overwhelm.  He who conquers\nhimself is greater than he who in battle conquers a thousand men.  He\nwho is tolerant with the intolerant, mild with the fault-finders, and\nfree from passion with the passionate, him I call indeed a wise man.\n\nBrothers, keep posted in what your lodge is doing; knowing who is sick;\ninquire if there is not some widow in need of help; some poor orphan\nthat should be clothed and provided with a home and sent to school.\nRemember that the widow was your brother's wife, and the children your\nbrother's.  Be a brother to the widow, and a kind uncle to your\nbrother's children.  There is plenty of work for you, and you agreed to\ndo it.  Cheer up the care-worn traveler on his pilgrimage--help the\nweak and weary, the lonely and sad ones.  Time is passing by, and we\nhave none too much of it in which to do our work.  Remember that if we\nexpect to complete our labor, now is the time; soon all will be over\nwith us, and then all that we shall leave behind, by which to be\nremembered, will be the good or evil we have done.  If we have done\ngood it will be emblazoned on many hearts, and our names will be spoken\nof with reverence and love; but if we have done evil, our names will be\nblotted out of the memory of the good and true, and we despised.\n\n  \"How is't the sons of men are sad,\n    Oppressed with grief and care?\n  How is't that some of this world's goods,\n    Have such a scanty share?\n  Why should the orphan's piercing cry,\n    Assail so oft our ear,\n  And thousands find the world to be\n    All desolate and drear?\n\n  \"We do not solve the mystery\n    Of woes, the lot of man,\n  But in the lodge we all unite\n    To do the good we can.\n  'Tis there we learn the pleasing task\n    To soothe the troubled breast,\n  To educate the orphan child,\n    And succor the distressed.\n\n  \"Our motto--Friendship, Love and Truth--\n    These e'er shall be our guide,\n  Our aim shall be, of misery\n    To stop the running tide.\"\n\n  We ask not what's a brother's faith,\n    What country gave him birth;\n  But open the door to every creed\n    And nation of the earth.\n\n  Hail, Charity!  Odd-Fellows all\n    Bow down before thy shrine;\n  They raise no altar, make no vow,\n    That is not wholly thine.\n\n\n\n\nLOVE SUPREME.\n\nLove is the key to the human heart.  If we want to have power with God\nand man, we must cultivate love.  It is love that burns truth into the\nhearts of people.  A man may be a good lawyer without love.  There may\nbe a good surgeon without love.  A man may be a good merchant without\nlove.  But a man can not be a good Odd-Fellow or Christian without\nlove.  I would rather have my heart full of love than be even a\nprophet.  If a man is full of love, Paul says, \"he is greater than a\nprophet.\"  A wife would rather live in a cabin with the love of her\nhusband, than to live in a palace without it.  If I love a man I will\nnot cheat him or slander him or envy him.  I pity people who are\nconstantly looking out for slights.  It is better to look on the bright\nside rather than the dark side of life.  Love will lead us to look on\nthe bright side.  Some persons are always magnifying the faults of\nothers.  They use a magnifying glass in this business.  If you want\npower with persons, speak as well as you can of them.  Self-control is\na great thing.  This comes and stays through love.  How many dwarfs\nthere are in God's church now.  They have not grown one inch\nspiritually in twenty years.  If our hearts are full of love, we are\nbound to grow.  Many other graces pass away, but love is eternal.  The\nmost selfish man is the most miserable man.  A man may be miserly with\nhis money, but no man can be miserly with love.  Love creates love.\nThe more we love, the more we will be loved.  Love must show itself.\nLove demonstrates its presence by action.  Our lives, after all, are\nmere echoes.  I speak harsh to a man, and he will speak harsh to me.\nIf a man has bad neighbors it his own fault.  If a woman has bad\nservants it is her own fault.  If we make others happy we will be happy\nourselves.  If you are not happy, go and buy all the poor people near\nyou a turkey for Christmas.  \"He that noticeth others shall be noticed\nalso himself.\"  If you want to get your own soul above its own\ntroubles, go and do good to some unhappy soul.  If we do this work, I\nbelieve we will have to do it in this world.  There will be no tears to\nwipe away, or sorrows to assuage, or afflictions to remedy in the other\nworld.  This work is for this world.  It is a blessed work.  It is the\nbest investment a man can make.  It pays an hundred fold.  Labors of\nlove demonstrate better than the church membership that we are in the\nMaster's service.  This is the Master's business.  Though my way\nthrough life has often been through graveyards and through glooms, I\nhave loved and I have been loved, and I know that life is worth living.\nLove is the fulfilling of the law; the end of the gospel commandment;\nthe bond of perfectness.  Without it, whatever be our attainments,\nprofessions or sacrifices, we are nothing.  Love obliterates the\ndifferences in education, wealth, station, religion, politics and\nnationality.  It is a promoter of peace and harmony; it cultivates the\nsocial graces; it makes friends of strangers and brothers of\nacquaintances; it softens the asperities of life; it worships at the\nshrine of piety, and recognizes the omnipotence of God and the\nimmortality of man.  It is religious not sectarian, patriotic but not\npartisan.  It glows by the fireside, radiant with perpetual joy.  It\nglorifies God in worship and in song.  It blesses humanity in genial\nmirth and human sympathies.  It is a perennial fountain at which the\nold may drink and grow strong.  It is a daily benediction to its\ndevotees, and, like \"a thing of beauty, is a joy forever.\"  It stands\nlike the statue of liberty, a beacon light to the tempest-tossed and\nwayfaring mariner and brother, pointing him the way to the haven of\nrefuge, to the right living and right doing.\n\nOh love, thou mightiest gift of God; thou white-winged trust in Him who\ndoeth all things well; thou one light over His darkest providences,\nlingering to cheer when all else has passed away, thy whisper upon the\ndull ear of night.  But alas! this world was made to break hearts in,\nwhile love was sent from heaven to heal them.  The precious balm,\nthough, is so scarce that many must die for want of it.  Oh, the\nmight-have-been!  What human soul has not sung that dirge?  Verily, the\nwinds come, howling it by like an invisible band of mourners from the\ngrave of all things.  Alas! is anything in this life real, or are we\nindeed shadows, and this world altogether a shadowy land, while the\nblackened skies above give us only glimpses of a far-off better home,\nbetter friends and better love?  Alas!  Heaven's loudest complaint to\nmortals is ever for lack of love.  Even He who sitteth upon the throne\nof thrones knoweth what it is to stretch out His arms in utter\ndesertion of no one to love Him, no one to seek Him, and no one to fear\nHim--\"no, not one.\"  Then as we may best show our love to Him by loving\none another, is it not well that we commence loving those around us at\nonce?  Ah! yes, and like the ambitious vine, do thou reach out all thy\ntendril thoughts to what is nearest, the while aspiring to the oak or\nthe pine of the loftier trust, even the faith of Abraham that was\naccounted unto him for righteousness.  Would I had some new phrase for\nlove, some new figure for hope!  How lonely and weary must that life be\nwithout love, how tasteless all its joys, and how vacant every scene.\nIf we have the spirit of love we will live for others.  Auguste Comte\ninscribed on the first page of his work, \"Politique Positive,\" wherein\nhe depicted in systematic form, life that had been forming itself\nthroughout human history, these words: \"Order and progress--live for\nothers.\"  The force of this thought is, in accord with Odd-Fellowship,\nwhich teaches love of our kind, love of right, zeal for the good.\n\nMan's happiness consists in living as a social being, living for self\nin order to more truly live for others.  This is summed up in the word\nhumanity.  But affection, as the true motor force of life, must have a\nfoundation, must stir us not only to the right things, but to the right\nmeans; in other words, action must be guided by knowledge.  Improvement\nmust be the aim of social life, as it is the incentive to individual\neffort.  It is not enough to desire the good, or to know how to achieve\nit, we must labor for it.  Associated effort gives the opportunity for\ngaining grander results than centuries of divided activity.  The\nconception of humanity has grown nobler.  The good of the vast human\nwhole is now acknowledged as the end of all social union.  Humanity\nembodies love; the object of our activity; the source of what we have;\nthe ruler of the life under whose span we work, and suffer and enjoy.\n\nAll religions, all social systems worthy of the name, have sought to\nregulate human nature and perfect the organization of society by\nproclaiming as their principles the cultivation of some grand social\nsentiments.  Philosophers, moralists, preachers have united in saying:\n\"Base your life upon a noble feeling, if you are to live aright; base\nthe state upon a generous devotion of its members to some great ideal,\nif it is to prosper and be strong.\"  All have agreed that the\ndifference of life could only be harmonized by placing action under the\nstimulus of high unselfish passion.  Odd-Fellowship has grown strong\nunder this governing law.  The banner it bears aloft proclaims\nsentiments that are attractive to all the nations of the earth.  We are\nstrong in as far as we truly interpret, for the good of humanity, this\nelevated aim, this devotion to fraternal ends.\n\nCompte defines religion as consisting of three parts--a belief, a\nworship, and a rule of life--of which all three are equal, and each as\nnecessary as any other.  As is truly said, \"Society can not be touched\nwithout knowledge; and the knowledge of social organization of humanity\nis a vast and perplexing science.  The race, like every one of us, is\ndependent on the laws of life, and the study of life is a mighty field\nto master.\"  Enthusiasm of humanity would be but shallow did it not\nimpel us to efforts to learn how to serve--demanding the best of\nconduct, brain and heart.  The power of Odd-Fellowship lies in its\nfraternity.  It goes forward with irresistible magnetism when its\nfraternal principles are truly interpreted.  It furnishes to men a\nstrong union, where general intelligence, by attrition, is increased;\nit provides a high moral standard; its objective action is such as\ntouches the common heart of humanity; and by its grand co-operative\nsystem it gives the finest means of securing those advantages that tend\nto the securement of material comfort and mental and spiritual peace\nand happiness.\n\nDrummond says: \"Love is the greatest thing in the world.\"  Read what\nPaul says about it in I Cor., xiii: \"Though I speak with the tongues of\nmen and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or\na tinkling cymbal.  And though I have the gift of prophecy, and\nunderstand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all\nfaith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am\nnothing.  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though\nI give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me\nnothing.  Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love\nvaunteth not itself, is not puffed up: Doth not behave itself unseemly;\nSeeketh not her own.  Is not easily provoked.  Thinketh no evil;\nrejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all\nthings, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.\nLove never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail;\nwhether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge,\nit shall vanish away.  For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.\nBut when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part\nshall be done away.  When I was a child, I spake as a child; but when I\nbecame a man, I put away childish things.  For now we see through a\nglass, darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part; but then\nshall I know even as also I am known.  And now abideth faith, hope,\nlove, these three, but the greatest of these is love.\"\n\nThe more I study Odd-Fellowship, the more I become convinced that I\nhave just crossed the threshold, and that new truths and sublime\nlessons await me, of which I never dreamed.  Brothers, there is hidden\ntreasure in our order for which we must dig.  It must be brought to the\nsurface.  We must know more of the beauties of this great organization\nof ours.  \"The greatest thing,\" says some one, \"a man can do for his\nHeavenly Father is to be kind to some of His other children.\"  \"I\nwonder why it is that we are not all kinder than we are?  How much the\nworld needs it.  How easily it is done.  How instantaneously it acts.\nHow infallibly it is remembered.  How super-abundantly it pays itself\nback--for there is no debtor in the world so honorable, so superbly\nhonorable, as love.  Love is success.  Love is happiness.  Love is\nlife.\"  \"Where love is, God is.  He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in\nGod.  God is love.  Therefore love.\"  \"Without distinction, without\ncalculation, without procrastination, love.  Lavish it upon the poor,\nwhere it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it\nmost; most of all upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and for\nwhom perhaps we each do least of all.  There is a difference between\ntrying to please and giving pleasure.  Give pleasure.  Lose no chance\nof giving pleasure.  For that is the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of\na truly loving spirit.  I shall pass through this world but once.  Any\ngood things that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human\nbeing, let me do it now.  Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I\nshall not pass this way again.  We can be Odd-Fellows only while we act\nlike honest men.\"\n\nEvery Odd-Fellow ought to be a \"gentleman.\"  Do you know the meaning of\nthe word \"gentleman\"?  \"It means a gentleman--a man who does things\ngently, with love.  And that is the whole art and mystery of it.  The\ngentleman can not in the nature of things do an ungentle, an\nungentlemanly thing.\"  \"Love doth not behave itself unseemly.\"  Life is\nfull of opportunities for learning love.  Every man and woman every day\nhas a thousand of them.  There is an eternal lesson for us all, \"how\nbetter we can love.\"  What makes a good artist, a good sculptor, a good\nmusician?  Practice.  What makes a man a good man, a man of love?\nPractice.  Nothing else.  If a man does not exercise his arm he\ndevelops no biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, he\nacquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigor of\nmoral fibre, nor beauty of spiritual growth.  Love is not a thing of\nenthusiastic emotion.  It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression\nof the whole round Christian character--the Christ-like nature in its\nfullest development.  And the constituents of this great character are\nonly to be built up by ceaseless practice.  To love abundantly is to\nlive abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever.  We want to\nlive forever for the same reason that we want to live tomorrow.  Why do\nyou want to live tomorrow?  It is because there is some one who loves\nyou, and whom you want to see tomorrow, and be with, and love back.\nThere is no other reason why we should live on than that we love and\nare beloved.  It is when a man has no one to love him that he commits\nsuicide.  The reason why, in the nature of things, love should be the\nsupreme thing--because it is going to last; because in the nature of\nthings it is an eternal life.  It is a thing that we are living now,\nnot that we get when we die; that we shall have a poor chance of\ngetting when we die unless we are living now.\n\nNo worse fate can befall a man in this world than to live and grow old\nalone, unloving and unloved.  At any cost cultivate a loving nature.\nThen you will find as you look back upon your life that the moments\nwhen you have really lived are the moments when you have done things in\na spirit of love.  As memory scans the past, above and beyond all the\ntransitory pleasures of life, there leap forward those supreme hours\nwhen you have been enabled to do unnoticed kindnesses to those around\nabout you, things too trifling to speak about, but which you feel have\nentered into your eternal life.  I have seen almost all the beautiful\nthings God has made; I have enjoyed almost every pleasure that He has\nplanned for man; and yet as I look back I see standing out above all\nthe life that has gone, four or five short experiences when the love of\nGod reflected itself in some poor imitation, some small act of love of\nmine, and these seem to be the things which alone of all one's life\nabide.  Everything else in all our lives is transitory.  Every other\ngood is visionary.  But the acts of love which no man knows about, or\ncan ever know about--they fail not.\n\nOdd-Fellowship ought to grow.  The kinship of the human race--how\nbeautiful a thought!  Without mutual aid the race would perish.  Think\nof it.  Throughout life you are dependent upon your fellow-man.  Who\ncan live without a friend?  When you have no money and no home, where,\nbrothers, will you find food and shelter?  When low with fever, the\ntongue parched, the brain wandering, who will give you water, bathe\nyour throbbing temples, and watch over you lest you die?  See the old\nman.  The frosts of seventy winters have whitened his head; his eye is\ndim; his limbs tremble; reason and memory fail; he is an infant again.\nHe goes down to the valley of the shadow of death.  Who shall lead him\nand comfort his weary soul?  Who lay his body gently and reverently in\nthe grave, and sod it over with green grass?  So with us all.  A man\nalone in the world, without a human being who cares whether he live or\ndie!  Not a hand to touch, nor a voice to hear, nor a smile to receive!\nHuman affections forever sealed to him; no fireside; no home with\nfather, mother, brothers, sisters; no little children, no son to be\nproud of; no daughters to caress; no \"good night;\" no \"good morning.\"\nWho could bear it?  The sun could not warm such a man.  The brightest\ndays and the greenest fields could not give him pleasure.  Better chain\nhim on a rock in mid-ocean and leave him to the vultures, than thus rob\nhim of his kinship with the human race.\n\nThis world is beautiful, and it is full of priceless sympathies.  All\ncreation is glorious with melody.  The morning stars, saith the Bible,\nsang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy when it was\nmade.  The universe of stars, and suns, and planets and globes, swing\nharmoniously through space.  Not a sparrow falleth to the ground\nwithout our Father's notice; not a soul yearns, or sorrows, or\nrejoices, but He knoweth it.  He hath made of one blood all nations of\nmen to dwell together on the face of the earth.  We are bound to each\nother by indissoluble ties.  It is a law of nature that we must all\nwork for each other.  Though ten thousand miles apart; though oceans\nroll between us and continents divide us, we labor not for ourselves\nalone.  You plow the furrow in California and sow the wheat for your\nbrother in Louisiana, while he plants the cane and cotton for you.  The\ngood Siberian is this day roaming over snows and ice, hunting the otter\nand gathering furs, that you may be warm.  Men are diving in the\nPersian gulf for pearls to grace your wives and daughters.  The\nsilkworm of India and China may have spun the threads of your dress,\nthe Frenchman may have woven it; the hardy mariner braved the seas to\nbring it here.  Truly, we are brothers.  A common Father brought us all\ninto this world, and to a common Father we all go.  Let us, then, help\none another, in money (if need be), in education, in sympathy.\n\nThere is one feature of the order we desire to emphasize, and that is\nits full sympathy with those that labor and toil.  No reference would\ndo justice to the order that did not emphasize this fact.  It is its\npride and glory.  It is from this class its membership is chiefly\ndrawn.  It was with this class it originated, the first lodge in the\nUnited States having been organized by half a dozen humble mechanics;\nThomas Wildey, their leader, was a blacksmith.  You see it had no\naristocratic origin, and its broad and catholic sympathy, its\npopularity with this class is explained.  They know its value, and have\nseen its active charity and experienced its beneficence.  A man who has\nno sympathy with the humble and the lowly, a man of mean and narrow\nheart, will find no congenial dwelling place in our lodges.  The true\nOdd-Fellow is a man of heart; his hand is open to every worthy appeal\nof the needy, and he is honest and upright in his life.  It enforces no\nreligious or political tests; in these every member is free; but it\ndoes teach and urge its members to be grateful to their Creator and\nloyal to their country.  In conclusion, let me urge upon the living,\nfidelity to the teachings of Odd-Fellowship.  If these are respected it\nwill make you better citizens, better husbands, better fathers, better\nmen.  It is a cultivation of the heart and the better feelings, and\nexpands our humanity.  If you are poor, it will come to you, or your\nfamily, sometimes as a benefaction.  If you are rich, you can afford to\ngive, and with a good Odd-Fellow that is more blessed than to receive.\n\nI want to say here what I have often said in the lodge-room.  I love\nOdd-Fellowship, above all, for the heart there is in it.  For its\ndisplay on the street and its pageantry I care but little.  I shrink\nfrom it rather than follow it.  But its benevolence, its active\ncharity, and its mission of good will, I admire.  When death's\nunwelcome presence rests within our portals, and obedient to his call a\nloved one has gone hence, we should give the mortal remains of the\ndeparted brother a decent sepulture; fondly cherish the remembrance of\nhis virtues, and bury his frailties \"beneath the clods which rest upon\nhis bosom.\"  We should then direct our thoughts and cares to the\ndesolate home, where the widow, clad in the robes of grief, her heart\ncords broken and bleeding, is weeping over earth's only idol, now lost\nto earth forever.  Then, too, should we extend the helping hand to the\nfatherless children, and endeavor to so direct their steps that their\npaths may be paths of usefulness and honor.  These are the imperative\nduties.  But our ministrations of charity and benevolence should by no\nmeans be confined exclusively within the pale of the order.  This\ncrowded world, with its eager millions, maddened with ambition's\nunquenchable fires, trampling under foot and well-nigh smothering each\nother in the great rush of competitive strife, is full of poor\nunfortunates, daily appealing for generous sympathy and assistance.\n\nThough not members, it may be, of our peculiar family, yet the poorest,\nthe humblest, the most wretched, is a human being--\"the master-piece of\nHis handiwork\"--and, as such, demands our aid and comfort as far as\npracticable.  Life has been compared to a river.  Aye, and beneath its\nmurky waters lurk countless reefs and shoals.  Many a beautiful bark,\nsailing, seemingly, under the very star of hope, dashes upon them, and\nis lost.  All along its shores are scattered the wrecks of stranded\nvessels, once laden with joyous hopes and brilliant prospects.\nOdd-Fellowship renders the passage of this river safe by a bridge of\nmystic form,\n\n  \"On one side is friendship planted--\n    Truth upon the other shore;\n  Love, the arch that spans the current,\n    Bears each brother safely o'er.\"\n\nIt should be the most pleasing duty of Odd-Fellows to point our\nfellow-travelers to this beautiful and stately arch; to lead\nthitherward their weary steps.  Such would be assistance more permanent\nthan can be rendered by silver or gold.  The time is certain to come\nwhen every young man is thrown back upon himself--must leave the\ntranquil security of the parental home, and seek a refuge among\nstrangers.  When beyond the reach of family influence--beyond the reach\nof that tender providence which so carefully guarded him from vice, and\nsoothed his griefs and sympathized with all his youthful aspirations\nand pleasures--when this influence ceases to surround him, what will\ncontinue its ministry of love?  What will be to him father, mother,\nbrother, sister--home?  Will society?  No!  Society to its deepest core\nis selfish, corrupt, unnatural and unloving?  Society will not, and can\nnot.  He is in the great world--allurements and temptations are rife\naround him--he is sick and in distress, and must suffer alone, with no\none to console him with a word of comfort, sympathy, or love; he has no\nattention but such as money will purchase--he dies, and the cold eyes\nof strangers only look upon the grave, if, indeed, a grave he has.\nThis is a life picture, and it is at this point the beauty and utility\nof Odd-Fellowship is seen, for the order is a vast family circle,\nspread throughout the community; always powerful and efficient to\npreserve those who are brought within the sphere of its influence.  He\nwho is a member of this fraternity may go where his father's counsel\nand his mother's care can not reach him, but he can not go beyond the\nreach of that larger family to which he belongs!  Silently and\ninvisibly, yet with unslumbering assiduity, Odd-Fellowship watches over\nhim, and by its wise counsels, its tender sympathies and rational\nrestraints, saves him from the ways of vice.\n\nMythic story tells us that the ancient gods invisibly and secretly\nfollowed their favorites in all their wanderings, and when exposed to\ndanger, or threatened with destruction, would unveil themselves in\ntheir awful beauty and power, and stand forth to preserve them from\nharm or to avenge their wrongs.  Odd-Fellowship realizes this myth of\nthe pagan gods; she surrounds all her children with her preserving\npresence, and reveals herself always in the hour of peril, sickness or\ndistress.  Nowhere in our country can a true Odd-Fellow feel himself\nalone, friendless or forsaken.  The invisible, but helpful arms of our\norder surround him wherever he may be.  And should he be overtaken by\nillness or misfortune, be he in any part of the country, and never so\npoor, he will, if he makes his wants known, receive as a right the\nnecessary assistance, and friends to watch over him with fraternal\nsolicitude.  And should he fall a victim to disease, the brothers of\ncharity will be there to close his eyes, and with solemn, yet hopeful,\nheaven-born rites, consign his body to the repose of the silent tomb.\nOdd-Fellowship is an embodiment of family love and affection, and is\nthe only substitute for home influence, and the only green spot in the\ndreary waste of life which binds these brothers to the tender practice\nof every virtue--guides in prosperity and health, and as a ministering\nangel bends over them with tenderest pity in their chamber of\nsuffering.  True, there are sorrows which it can not reach--there are\ngriefs which it can not remove; notwithstanding, it still pursues its\nway, imparts its healthful influence, and accomplishes its beautiful\nand holy ministry of benevolence and charity.  If it can not heal the\nwounds of misfortune, it administers the balm of sympathy, friendship\nand love.  My dear reader, learn to give encouragement to those around\nyou.\n\nEverybody feels the need of encouragement, from the humblest artisan to\nthe king on his throne.  We hear of the choice spirits who have been\nthe world's idols, how they came up through terrible trials alone and\nalmost unaided, setting aside obstacles that would have crushed others,\nand fighting their way to the very pinnacle of fame.  Aye! but great as\nthey were, they needed and received encouragement.  In some part of\ntheir poor home they saw the smile that spoke the hearty appreciation\nof the genius, though, perhaps, the lips said nothing.  Even West left\non record, \"my mother's smile made me a painter.\"  The encouragement of\na little child will send the blood more warmly to the heart, and even\nthe appreciation of a poor dumb brute is worth its gaining.  Give\nencouragement.  Everybody needs it--men, women and even children.  Oh!\nhow many a dear little heart has been chilled into ice when the coarse\nlaugh has greeted its rude hieroglyphics in the first attempt to\nportray its ideal.  The child sees warm visions of sunlight and beauty\nin those uncouth angles.  Whole minds of thought lie concealed under\nthose strange shapes.  To the young mind's eye they are wonders, and\nthe tiny fingers have built monuments that deserve not to be thrown\ndown so rudely, when a smile that costs nothing would have left them\nstanding to be finished into finer shape and more classical proportions\nin the years that are to come.  You do a positive injury to the dullest\nchild when you reward his little efforts with contempt.  It is a wrong\nthat can never be repaired, for the disheartment that strikes the happy\nspirit, flushed with the consciousness of having achieved something new\nand great, comes up in after time with the very same vividness at every\ntrivial disappointment.  Give encouragement.  You men of business, who\nknow so well what a good, hearty \"go ahead,\" coupled with a frank,\nmerry face, will do in your own case--give encouragement to the young\nbeginner, who starts nervously at the bottom of the race, and who,\nthough he may put a bold outside on, quakes at the center of his being\nwith the dread that among so many competitors he shall always be left\nin the rear.  Hold out your hand to him as if you thought the world was\nreally large enough for two, and bid him God-speed.  Tell him to come\nto you if he feels the need of a friend to advise with him.  Don't\nemulate your sign in overshadowing him.  Out upon these mean, cringing\nsouls who would grudge God's sunlight if it shone upon a piece of\nmerchandise as good as their own.  They are poor, barren wretches, who\nplow furrows only in their own cheeks, and plant wrinkles on their\nbrows.  Above all things, if you have any tenderness or compassion,\nencourage your pastor, your physician, and your editor.  Suppose, once\nin a while, they do, in expressing their own honest views, say\nsomething that conflicts a little with your own starved or plethoric\nnotions.  Suppose they do dare to tell you the truth sometimes in a way\nthat makes you cringe, and you say to yourself, \"he has no business to\nbe personal,\" when the poor man never thought that his homely coats\nwould fit; don't grow cold, and cast sheep's eyes, and nudge somebody's\nelbow in a corner, and whisper all around, and say complacently, \"Yes,\nBrother A. is a good man--but--\"\n\nThose \"buts\" and \"ifs\" ought to be christened intellectual revolvers,\nfor they kill more reputations than any other two words in the English\nlanguage.  We have known instances where pastors and editors and others\nhave felt weary of living, from having to encounter the spirit of\ndiscouragement among their brethren; and oh! how many wives, husbands\nand children, are dying deaths daily from this same prolific source of\nsuffering.  Give encouragement, then, wherever and whenever you can,\nand you will find that you have not lived in vain.  If God blesses\nthose who offer but a cup of cold water in charity, how much more will\nHe regard the kind heart that has refreshed a weary spirit fainting by\nthe way.  Death quickens recollections painfully.  The grave can not\nhide the white faces of those who sleep.  The coffin and the green\nmound are cruel magnets.  They draw us farther than we would go.  They\nforce us to remember.  A man never sees so far into human life as when\nhe looks over a wife's or mother's grave.  His eyes get wondrous clear\nthen, and he sees as never before what it is to love and to be loved;\nwhat it is to injure the feelings of the loved.\n\nLet us deal gently with those around us.  Remember every day a flower\nis plucked from some sunny home; a breach made in some happy circle; a\njewel stolen from some treasury of love; each day from summer fields of\nlife some harvester disappears--yea, every hour some sentinel falls\nfrom his post and is thrown from the ramparts of time into the surging\nwaters of eternity.  Even as I write, the funeral of one who died\nyesterday winds like a winter shadow along some silent street.  Daily,\nwhen we rise from the bivouac to stand at our posts, we miss some\nbrother soldier whose cheering cry in the sieges and struggles of the\npast has been as fire from heaven upon our hearts.  Each day some pearl\ndrops from the jeweled thread of friendship--some harp to which we have\nlistened has been hushed forever.  Love, however, annihilates death\neven; blots away all record of time and creates the world it lives in;\nconjures back arms to embrace, lips to kiss, and eyes to smile,\nwhispers its own praises and breathes its own names of endearment.\nThus, love maketh the light to our dreams and planteth hope in the\nmidst of our sorrow.  In darkness and in danger, too, love cometh to us\never, ever, now warning, now chiding, now blessing, and always safely\nguarding.  Love lightens labor, shortens distance and quickens time.\nLove teaches us to forgive, helps us to forget and whitens the memory\nof all things.  Love paints every hope, brightens every scene and\nmaketh beautiful whatsoever it shines on.  Love is wisdom.  Love is\nhigh.  Love is holy.  Love is God.  Love gloweth in the hearts of the\nangels, wreathes the smiles on their brows and melts the kisses on\ntheir lips.  Love is the light of the beautiful beyond.\n\n\n\n\nGEMS OF BEAUTY\n\nMore hopeful than all wisdom is one draught of human pity that will not\nforsake us.\n\nLaughing is one of the products of civilization.  In the uncivilized\ntribes laughter is entirely unknown.\n\nLet him who neglects to raise the fallen fear lest, when he falls, no\none will stretch out his hand to lift him up.\n\nTime is a species of wealth which it is impossible for us to hoard, but\nwhich we may spend to good advantage.\n\nCharacter is the eternal temple that each one begins to rear, yet death\ncan only complete it.  The finer the architecture, the more fit for the\nindwelling of angels.\n\nIt is only by labor that thought can be made healthy, and only by\nthought that labor can be made happy; and the two can not be separated\nwith impunity.--_John Ruskin_.\n\nDon't moralize to a man who is on his back.  Help him up, set him\nfirmly on his feet, and then give him advice and means.\n\nThere is a pleasure in contemplating good; there is a greater pleasure\nin receiving good; but the greatest pleasure of all is in doing good,\nwhich comprehends the rest.\n\nMorality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning--an endeavor\nto navigate a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have to run, but\nwithout observation of the heavenly bodies.\n\nMost people keep too strong a hold of their personality to be able to\nforget themselves in their subject; they carry an unacknowledged\nself-consciousness along with them.  If to be single-minded is to have\nan undivided interest in things, they are not single-minded.\n\nReal affection is independent.  A woman may passionately love a man who\ndoes not care for her, and men have gone mad for the sake of women who\nwere indifferent to them.  That affection which survives coldness or\neven contempt on the part of the subject is a stronger proof of its\nstrength than jealousy, however well founded.\n\nTo have a respect for ourselves guides our morals, and to have a\ndeference for others governs our manners.\n\nIf you want to be miserable, think about yourself, about what you want,\nwhat you like, what respect people pay you, and what people think of\nyou.\n\nOne great impediment to the rapid dissemination of new truths is that a\nknowledge of them would convict many sage professors of having long\npromulgated error.\n\nThe leaves that give out the sweetest fragrance are those that are the\nmost cruelly crushed; so the hearts of those who have suffered most can\nfeel for others' woes.\n\nEach of us can so believe in humanity in general as to contribute to\nthat pressure which constantly levers up the race; can surround\nourselves with an atmosphere optimistic rather than the\ncontrary.--_Selected_.\n\nHe who has more knowledge than good works is like a tree with many\nbranches and few roots, which the first wind throws on its face; while\nhe who does more than he says is like a tree with strong roots and few\nbranches, which all the winds can not uproot.--_Talmud_.\n\nIf we waited until it was perfectly convenient, half of the good\nactions of life would never be accomplished, and very few of its\nsuccesses.\n\nA helping word to one in trouble is often like a switch on a railroad\ntrack, but one inch between wreck and smooth rolling prosperity.\n\nPrayer is the key of day and lock of the night; and we should every day\nbegin and end, bid ourselves good morrow and good night, with prayer.\n\nIn order to love mankind, expect but little from them; in order to view\ntheir faults without bitterness, pardon them.  The wisest men have\nalways been the most indulgent.\n\nThere are souls which fall from heaven like flowers, but ere the pure\nand fresh buds can open they are trodden in the dust of the earth, and\nlie soiled and crushed under the foul tread of some brutal hoof.\n\nMany of the men we calmly set down as failures may have been doing as\nmuch as those who have made ten times as much noise in the world.  A\ngreat deal of the best work in the world is anonymous, if we do not\nconfine the term to writing.\n\nTo a man of brave sentiments midnight is as bright as noonday, for the\nillumination is within.\n\nThat man who lives in vain lives worse than vain.  He who lives to no\npurpose lives to a bad purpose.--_Nevins_.\n\nLabor is the law of the world, and he who lives by other men's means is\nof less value to the world than the buzzing, busy insect.\n\nDeep is the sea, and deep is hell, but pride runneth deeper; it is\ncoiled as a poisonous worm about the foundation of the soul.--_Tupper_.\n\nThe integrity of the heart, when it is strengthened by reason, is the\nprincipal source of justice and wit; an honest man thinks nearly always\njustly.\n\nBe firm, but be not too hasty to decide; weigh well before you act,\nbut, having weighed, act promptly, and abide the result.  This is the\ntest of judgment.\n\nWit loses its respect with the good when seen in company with malice;\nand to smile at the jest which plants a thorn in another's breast is to\nbecome a principal in the mischief.\n\nSuccess never did, never will come to that young man who knows\neverything--in his own opinion.\n\nIn love, as in everything else, truth is the strongest of all things,\nand frankness is but another name for truth.\n\nFrequent disappointment teaches us to mistrust our own inclination, and\nshrink even from vows our hearts may prompt.\n\nFor children there is no leave-taking, for they acknowledge no past,\nonly the present, that to them is full of the future.\n\nTo love, in order to be loved in return, is man, but to love for the\npure sake of loving, is almost the characteristic of an angel.\n\nFond as a man is of sight-seeing, life is the great show for every\nman--the show always wonderful and new to the thoughtful.\n\nThe sweetest book in all the world, if properly read, is the Bible.\nIts leaves are as fragrant as a bed of violets in full bloom.\n\nPity gilds mortality with rays of immortal light, and through faith\nenables its possessor to triumph over sin, sorrow, tribulation and\ndeath.\n\nIf we can not live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to\ndeserve happiness.--_Fichte_.\n\nLittle by little fortunes are accumulated; little by little knowledge\nis gained; little by little character and reputation are achieved.\n\nDon't rely for success upon empty praise.  The swimmer upon the stream\nof life must be able to keep afloat without the aid of bladders.\n\nIndustry--In seeking a situation, remember that the right kind of men\nare always in demand, and that industry and capacity rarely go\nempty-handed.\n\nFrankness is the child of honesty and courage.  Say just what you mean\nto do on every occasion, and take it for granted that you mean to do\nwhat is right.\n\nTo be always intending to lead a new life, but never to find time to\nset about it, is as if a man should put off eating from one day to\nanother till he is starved.\n\nA man loved by a beautiful and virtuous woman carries a talisman that\nrenders him invulnerable; every one feels that such a one's life has a\nhigher value than that of others.\n\nThe great beauty of charity is privacy; there is a sweet force, even in\nan anonymous penny.\n\nEvery heart has its secret sorrows, and oftentimes we call a man cold\nwhen he was only sad.\n\nA promise should be given with caution, and kept with care; it should\nbe made with the heart and kept with the head.\n\n\"The mind of a young creature,\" says Berkely, \"can not remain empty; if\nyou do not put into it that which is good, it will be sure to use even\nthat which is bad.\"\n\nWe all see at sunset the beautiful colors streaming all over the\nwestern sky, but no eyes can behold the hand that overturns the urns\nwhence these streams are poured.\n\nWe often live under a cloud, and it is well for us that we should do\nso.  Uninterrupted sunshine would parch our hearts.  We want shade and\nrain to cool and refresh them.\n\nPoverty is very terrible to you, and kills the soul in you sometimes;\nbut it is the north wind that lashed men into vikings; it is the soft,\nluscious south wind that lulls to lotus dreams.\n\nThere is nothing so valuable, and yet so cheap, as civility; you can\nalmost buy land with it.\n\nIt has been justly said nothing in man is so Godlike as doing good to\nour fellows.--_Selected_.\n\nContentment swells a mite into a talent, and makes even the poor richer\nthan the Indies.--_Addison_.\n\nNever was a sincere word utterly lost, never a magnanimity fell to the\nground; there is some heart always to greet and accept it unexpectedly.\n\nThere are people who often talk of the humbleness of their origin, when\nthey are really ashamed of it, though vain of the talent which enabled\nthem to emerge from it.\n\nA witty old deacon put it thus: \"Now, brethren, let us get up a supper\nand eat ourselves rich.  Buy your food, then give it to the church;\nthen go and buy it back again; then eat it up, and your church debt is\npaid.\"\n\nSelf-sacrifice is the essential mark of the Christian, and the absence\nof it is sufficient at once to condemn the man who calls himself by\nthat name and yet has it not, and to declare that he has no right to\nit.--_Bolton_.\n\nThere are many comfortable people in the world, but to call any man\nperfectly happy is an insult.\n\nWomen often make light of ruin.  Give them but the beloved objects, and\npoverty is but a trifling sorrow to bear.--_Thackeray_,\n\nIndependence is a name for what no man possesses; nothing in the\nanimate or inanimate world is more dependent than man.\n\nWealth is to be used only as an instrument of action, not as the\nrepresentative of civil honors and moral excellence.--_Jane Porter_.\n\nThere is nothing purer, nothing warmer than our first friendship, our\nfirst love, our first striving after truth, our first feeling for\nnature.--_Jean Paul Richter_.\n\nShakespeare is as much out of the category of eminent authors as he is\nout of the crowd.  He is inconceivably wise; the others\nconceivably.--_Representative Men_.\n\nA smooth sea never made a skillful mariner.  Neither do uninterrupted\nprosperity and success qualify a man for usefulness and happiness.  The\nstorms of adversity, like the storms of the ocean, arouse the faculties\nand excite the invention, prudence, skill and fortitude of the voyager.\n\nIt is not work that hurts men.  It is the corrosion of uncertainty; it\nis the anticipation of trouble; it is living in a state of painful\napprehension.  Therefore we should endeavor to rise out of the\natmosphere of gloomy forebodings.  The man who is lifted above fear and\nits whole brood of mischief can go through twice as much trouble as a\nman who is subject to its influence.\n\nHe that looks out upon life from a sour or severe disposition, with\nhard and stringent notions, is ill prepared to meet the experiences of\nthe world; but he who has the sweetness of hope, he who has an\nimagination lit up with cheerfulness, he who has the sense of humor\nwhich softens all things--he who has this atmosphere of the mind--has\nmade himself superior to accident.  As the angel described by Milton,\nwho was smitten by the sword, and whose wounds healed as soon as the\nsword was withdrawn, so ought man to be; and when he receives a spear\nthrust in life, no sooner should the spear be withdrawn than his flesh\nought to \"close and be itself again.\"\n\nA married man falling into misfortune is more apt to retrieve his\nsituation in the world than a single one, chiefly because his spirits\nare soothed and retrieved by domestic endearments, and his self-respect\nkept alive by finding that, although all abroad is darkness and\nhumiliation, yet there is a little world of love at home over which he\nis monarch.\n\n\n\n\nHUSBAND AND FATHER\n\nMiss Frances Power Cobb is right, and she is wrong, when she says: \"It\nis a woman, and only a woman--a woman all by herself, if she likes, and\nwithout any man to help her--who can turn a house into a home.\"  She is\nunquestionably right in her judgment, that it is a woman who can, if\nshe will, turn a house into a home, but she is much in the wrong in her\nassertion that it is a woman all by herself, without any man to help\nher, who can effect such a beneficial transformation.  Woman possesses\nmagical powers in the way of building up a home; but home naturally\nimplies the presence and protection of man--and it is man himself, if\nhe likes, and without any woman to help him, who can give that home a\nsemblance of that place where, as some people believe, the wicked\nsuffer after they have \"shuffled off this mortal coil.\"  The husband\ncan never make the home, but he can succeed most admirably, if so he\nchoose, to unmake it, to banish its happiness and comfort, to exile\nfrom it its ministering angels of peace and content, to shatter woman's\nsweet and blessed work to its very foundation.  Let the wife\nconcentrate, all day long, all her care and ingenuity and love upon\nbuilding up her little paradise at home, let her hands be ever so busy\nin strewing fresh flowers around the domestic hearth, let her heart be\never so happy throughout the day in the discharge of her domestic\nduties, let her countenance be ever so beaming in her sweet\nanticipation of the happy smile of appreciation, of the kind word of\nsympathy and encouragement, which shall be her reward when her husband\nreturns; and then see this star in her domestic firmament enter,\nsulking and surly, blind to all that her busy hands have so lovingly\nprepared, grim and gruff to her and the little ones, who have been\nfitted up in their neatest and cleanest, in which to welcome their\nfather's return, and then see whether you can agree with Miss Cobb's\nassertion \"that it is a woman, and only a woman--a woman all by\nherself, if she likes, and without any man to help her--who can turn a\nhouse into a home.\"  See how her heart sinks, how her voice, full of\nmirth and glee and music before his coming, dies in her throat, how the\nlittle ones, full of merriment all day long, tremblingly hide in the\ncorner, or withdraw from the room; see how the intrusion of this grim\nspectre of malcontent shuts the door upon domestic peace and happiness,\nand withers every pious resolve to make home the dearest, sweetest,\nmost contented and most sacred spot on earth, and then calculate how\nlong, under such disheartening surroundings, woman will be able all by\nherself, and without any man to help her, to prevent her house from\nbecoming anything and everything except a home.\n\nWhile studying language, I observed that most of my mistakes in grammar\noccurred in the feminine gender, and thinking over the cause of it, it\ndawned upon me that, belonging to the masculine sex, I was in the habit\nof thinking in that gender, and that my teachers were men, and that my\ntext-books and grammars had been written by men, and that the masculine\ngender predominated so strongly in the exercises, that it was but\nnatural for me to make the greatest number of mistakes in the gender to\nwhich the least attention had been given.  When dealing with the social\nand domestic question, the unbiased among us can not but observe a\nsimilar failing.  Many a serious mistake has been made by man when\nspeaking or writing concerning women, because our speakers and writers\nand preachers and teachers belonged from the very beginning of\ncivilization, almost exclusively to the masculine sex, a sex which has\nnever tired in exalting itself at the expense of the weaker sex, in\nemphasizing woman's inferiority to man, in asserting its rights, and in\ncomplaining about its wrongs, and as woman did not write or speak for\nherself, we have heard but little of her side of the story, know next\nto nothing of her just rights and of her grievous wrongs, seldom dream\nthat she, too, has rights that must be respected, and suffers wrongs\nthat must be corrected.\n\nThe universities, colleges and all great institutions of learning of\nthis and other lands refused, until quite recently, to recognize woman\nas a human being possessing a mind in need of training, and therefore\nexcluded her from their privileges, and the order of Odd-Fellows\npartook of the same spirit and excluded the better half of the human\nrace from its lodge-rooms.  Man had ever been a selfish, conceited,\ncowardly tyrant from the day in which our father Adam disgraced his sex\nby taking without question the forbidden fruit; and, after eating it,\ncrying with selfish, pusillanimous cowardice: \"The woman thou gavest to\nbe with me gave me of the tree and I did eat,\" and he has always sought\nto make and keep woman an inferior, dependent, submissive slave.  To\nthis end he has striven to keep her in ignorance, exclude her from all\nthe avenues of knowledge, and then, because she did not possess the\nknowledge that he had forbidden her, proclaimed throughout the world\nthat she was mentally inferior to man, and in consequence unfit to be\nadmitted to the various institutions and associations in which men\nsought to improve their minds.\n\nThe object of Odd-Fellowship is to improve and elevate the character of\nman, to enlighten his mind and enlarge the sphere of his affections,\nand of course woman, as being mentally weak and naturally inferior to\nman, was excluded from its sacred precincts.  Now, however, things are\nchanged; nearly all educational institutions worthy of mention admit\nwomen, and the Rebekah of today, emulating the Rebekah of old, will be\nhand in hand with her brothers in all good works.  She will accompany\nhim on his errands of mercy, watch beside the bedside of anguish,\nforegoing pleasure to follow in the path of duty.\n\nI would have every man know--who has a wife--that \"mutual benefit from\nharmonious partnership work\" is an axiom in as full a sense as \"in\nunion there is strength.\"\n\nThere are two sides to every question, and in this article I shall deal\nwith the woman's side.  I want to present especially the wife's side of\nthe question to every Odd-Fellow, hoping that it will be of lasting\nbenefit in many ways.  I know full well that only one accustomed to\ndeal with high and holy things, one whose glance is ever at sacred\nthings, one who, as it were, administers the treasures of the kingdom\nof God, can fittingly touch this subject.  It would be easy for me to\nbe a cheap wit, to rake up the old scandal of Mother Eve, to even\ndeclaim with windy volubility that a woman betrayed the capital, that a\nwoman lost Mark Anthony the world and left old Troy in ashes.  But far\nbe it from me!  Rather would I assume a loftier mood; rather would I\nstrike a loftier note, and, with blind Homer, beg for an unwearied\ntongue to chant the praise of woman.  It is true Eve lost us Eden, but\nin that garden of monotonous delight, had we been born there, we would\nnever have truly known what woman is.  O, Felix Culpa!  O, happy fault!\nthat has shown the world the mines of rich affection of woman's heart,\nthat else would never have been discovered.  O, happy fault, that has\nshown the world a wealth of woman's nature, her capability for love,\nthe radiance of her tenderness, her infinite pity, her unswerving\ndevotion, the solace of her presence in sickness and sorrow, the depth\nand sweetness of her mercy.\n\nA river of pure delight flowed through paradise, but blind Adam never\nsaw it, never dreamed of it until the flaming sword cut him off\nforever; but he has since drank of it, and so has every man who has\never tasted the sacramental wine of woman's true affection.  The seamy\nside of life has been laid bare to me.  Its sorrows and its anguishes\nhave I often witnessed, but into that pool of Bethesida of the world's\nanguish, with healing do I see ever come an angel, a pitying woman.\nThe influence of wife and mother is ever near me; their faces are the\nmost lovely; their hearts the most tender of all in this world--my\nmother and my wife.  And for their sake, and for the sake of all the\nmothers, wives, sisters and daughters, whom I daily meet doing good, I\nlong and I earnestly yearn for the eloquence and grace to half express\nthe thoughts that rise within me of what the world owes woman.\n\nTo me every good woman is the fair fulfillment of dreamed delight.  She\nis the first at the cross and the last at the grave.  All that is\nhighest and best in the world is nurtured and fed by the milk of her\nnobility.  The Christ of all greatness and hope was born of a woman.\nThe noble women of the world!  O, would that the days of chivalry were\nnot past, that I might unsheath a lance in their name, for their glory!\nBut in our more prosaic days, what can I do but let the will suffice\nfor the deed, and say to the woman, \"God bless you.\"  I propose to let\nher speak for herself today.  I propose to accept her invitation to\naccompany her through the various spheres of her domestic life, and see\nwhether she alone is responsible for that vice and crime and misfortune\nwhich moralists and superintendents of penal and charity institutes\ntrace back to neglects at home; whether it is always the wife and\nmother that is responsible for unhappiness in marriage and for the\nincrease of divorces; whether the husbands and fathers are always the\nsaints and martyrs, or whether they are not very, very often the root\nof the whole evil themselves.\n\nWe retrace our steps and begin with our observations of the husband and\nfather a few months prior to that solemn day, on which he plighted his\nvows of protection and faithfulness, on which he took into his care and\ntrust a woman's life and happiness, on which he sacredly promised, in\nthe name of God, and in the presence of witnesses, to love her, to\nhonor and cherish her, to provide for her, to be faithful to her in all\nhis obligations as husband, in youth and in old age, in sunshine and in\ndarkness, in prosperity and in adversity.  We make first his\nacquaintance in the happy days of his courtship.  He is burning with\nlove.  He is the facsimile of Shakespeare's lover, \"sighing like a\nfurnace.\"  Her praises are on his lips always.  He avows himself her\nslave and worships her as a goddess.  It is in her company alone that\nhe can find happiness.  Whether at home or in society, he is always at\nher side.  Life is dreary where she is not.  He wonders how he could\nhave lived so long, or how he could continue existence, without her.\nHow regular and how punctual he is in his calls, and how he scowls at\nthe clock for running away with time so fast!  Not a wish does she\nexpress, no matter how unreasonable and extravagant, but he eagerly\ngratifies it.  How numerous his little attentions and his kind\nremembrances!  How thoughtful of her birthday, and how lavish in floral\ntributes and costly presents!  How numerous and how lengthy his letters\nwhen separated!  How sweet their moonlight walks and talks!  How bright\nher future, which he maps out!  How many the pledges which he breathes\nforth between his ardent kisses; never a harsh word shall break on her\near, never a wish of hers shall be ungratified, never a trouble shall\nmar her happiness; such a love as his has never been before, and will\nnever be again; he only lives for her happiness; his affection will\nnever cool, he will be a lover all his life; their whole wedded life\nwill be one never-waning honeymoon.\n\nIn the drama the plot usually ends with marriage.  At the instant when\nit is reached, when all obstacles are removed, the curtain falls, and\nthe young people have no further existence for us.  But in the\npractical world the play goes on.  The curtain rises again, the same\npersonages reappear, only they frequently play different parts, and\nwhat was before a comedy or a melo-drama often changes into a tragedy.\nSad and tearful scenes are often enacted by them.  The misery and pain\nare no longer inflicted by their former enemy, but by their own hands.\nHe, who prior to marriage overcame almost insurmountable obstacles to\nmake his lady fair his happy wife, now moves heaven and earth to make\nthat wife as miserable as possible.\n\nA number of years have passed since last we observed the lover.  He is\nhusband and father now, but what a change these few years have wrought\nin him!  Forgotten are the lover's vows.  She that once his goddess\nwas, is now his slave.  The fulsome flatterer of former times has\ndegenerated into a chronic fault-finder.  With the change of her name\nhas begun his change of treatment of her.  Cast aside are the many\ncourtesies and expressions of endearment that marked his conduct to her\nprior to marriage, and which were the thousand golden threads that day\nby day throughout their courtship wove their hearts closely into one.\nNo bouquets and no costly gifts any more.  The anniversary of her birth\nand of their wedding day passes by unnoticed by him.  His former\nefforts to entertain her, to make himself agreeable to her, have\naltogether ceased.  Rarer, and ever rarer, become his parting and his\ncoming kiss, his \"good-bye, dear,\" and his \"good evening, darling.\"\nFewer and fewer become his words of praise.  Irksome becomes the task\nof staying at home.  He, who once upon a time found life dreary where\nshe was not, who vowed that in her company alone he found happiness,\nwho could not await the evening that would bring him to her, who\ndeclared that his affection would never cool, and their whole wedded\nlife would be one continuous honeymoon, now finds her company tedious,\nher home unattractive.  He looks upon his home as his boarding and\nlodging-house, upon his wife as the kitchen scullion, or as the nurse\nof his children, for which services he generally allows her so many\ndollars a week.  At the breakfast table his face is buried in the\nmorning paper.  He rises without interchanging a word with wife and\nchild.  Absent from home all day long, he is absent still, even when\nhome in the evening.  No sooner has he swallowed his meal, when he\nburies himself in the newspaper for the rest of the evening, or dozes\non the sofa till bedtime, or he has an important business engagement\ndown town, or some meeting to attend, or an important engagement brings\nother husbands to his house, where they transact any amount of business\nin the exchange of diamonds for hearts, and clubs for spades.\n\nAll day long she has been toiling hard in her home, toiling with hand\nand brain.  She has been preacher and teacher, physician and druggist,\nprovider and manager, cook and laundress.  The children had to be\nattended to, purchases had to be made, the meals had to be provided,\nthe servants to be looked after, the house to be gotten in order; there\nwas mending and sewing and baking and cleaning and scrubbing and\nscouring, which had to be done; there were the children's lessons, and\npracticings that had to be looked after; there were the children's\nailments that had to be cured, and there were the hundred other things\nthe husband never dreams of, and which tax a woman's nerves and\nstrength as much, and often more, than his occupation taxes him.  But\nnot a word of appreciation, not a look of sympathy and encouragement\nfrom him, who never tired to sing her praises before they were married,\nwho vowed that never a harsh word should remotely break on her ear,\nnever a trouble should mar her happiness.  On the contrary, he has no\nend of faults to find, and she is doomed to listen to the same old\nharangue on economy and saving.  She has been saving and stinting until\nshe can save and stint no more.  She has patched and mended and turned\nand altered until she could patch and mend and alter no more, and still\nthe same complaints; the table costs too much, the dry goods store\nbills are too long, the seamstress comes into the house too often, the\nphysician is consulted too much, and of such as these many more.  Not a\nword does he say about the expensive cigars he smokes, the wines he\ndrinks; about his frequent visits to the sample-room, and about the\nliberality with which he treats his friends there; about the sumptuous\ndinners he takes at noon in the down-town restaurant, while wife and\nchildren content themselves at home with a frugal lunch; about the\nmoney he loses at the card table, or in his bets on the games and races\nand politics.  And of the children he takes but little notice.  He has\nnot seen them all day long, and he is too tired to be bothered with\nthem in the evening.  He must have his rest and quiet.  The mother\nworried with them all day long, she may worry with them in the evening,\ntoo.  It is enough for him to supply her with the means wherewith to\ncare for their wants, further obligations he has none; these are a\nmother's duties, but not a father's.\n\nThey tell a story of a learned preacher who had isolated himself from\nhis children on account of his dislike to their noise.  One day, while\ntaking a walk, he was attracted by the beauty and wonderful\nintelligence of a little boy.  Inquiring of the nurse whose child it\nwas, she answered, much astonished: \"Your own, reverend sir, your own.\"\nJudging from the attention that some fathers bestow on their children,\nI am inclined to believe that this learned preacher has many an\nimitator among his sex, for whom not even the inexcusable excuse of\nabsorption in studies can be set up.  I have read of a business man,\nwho one day thanked God that a commercial crisis had thrown him into\nbankruptcy.  He said it afforded him an opportunity to stay at home for\nawhile, and get acquainted with his own family, and that for the first\ntime he learned to know the true worth of his wife, and that he found\nhis children the sweetest and dearest creatures that ever lived, and\nnot for all the business of the world would he again deprive himself of\ntheir sweet association.  Prior to his misfortune, or rather good\nfortune, his business had so absorbed him that he had altogether\nforgotten that there were sacred claims at home that demanded his\ninterest and his service.\n\nNot all our orphaned children are in our orphan asylums, or under the\nsupervision of \"The Orphans' Guardians.\"  There are more of them at\nhome with their fathers and mothers, and especially among our\nwell-to-do families.  There are children growing up who scarcely know\nanything else of their father except that he is referred to during the\nday by their mother when they are bad, as that dread personage who\nwould inflict a severe chastisement on them when he returns, or whose\npresence silences their fun and makes their own absence agreeable.  He\nmakes no effort to entertain them, takes no interest in their\npleasures, in their progress at school.  He is simply their punisher,\nbut not their friend, and it is not at all surprising to see children\ngrowing up with a conception of their father such as that little boy\nhad, who, when told by a minister of heaven, and of the meeting of the\ndeparted there, asked: \"And will father be there?\"  On being told that\n\"of course he would be there,\" he at once replied, \"Then I don't want\nto go.\"  Occasionally wife and husband spend an evening out, or they\nentertain company at home, and oh, what a transformation she observes\nin him.  In other people's homes, or when other people are present, his\nstock of material for conversation is unlimited.  Then and there he is\nfull of fun, bright and cheerful; when alone with his wife he has\nscarcely a word to say; he moves about the house with the lofty\nindifference of a lord, and with a heartless disregard of every member\nof the household.  At home he is cold and cross and boorish, in other\nwomen's parlors he is polite and considerate and engaging.  He has a\nsmile and a compliment for other women, none for his wife.  If they\nattend an evening reception, he brings his wife there, and he takes her\nhome; during the interval she has little, if any, of his company.  She\nmay be shy, she may be a stranger, she may not be much accustomed to\nsociety life, she may feel herself out of place in the gay assemblage,\nshe may be unentertained or bored or annoyed, it matters not to him as\nlong as he is having a good time with the boys, or is encircled by the\nladies fair, who unanimously think him the most gallant of men,\nunrivaled in his wit and wisdom and conversational powers, and who\nsecretly sigh if but their husbands were like him.\n\nTo such an extent is this wife-neglect carried on that a lady not long\nago made a wager that, in nine cases out of ten, she would distinguish\nbetween married and unmarried couples.  She won the wager.  When asked\nto explain her method of discrimination, she said: \"When you see a\ngentleman and a lady walking in silence side by side, it is a married\ncouple; when their conversation is continuous and animated, and\nsmile-and-laugh-provoking, they are single.  When a gentleman sits next\nto a lady in the theatre, and never keeps his opera glass away from the\nboxes and galleries and stage, he is her husband; when his eyes rest\nmore on her than on the stage, it is her lover.  When a lady, who sits\nat the side of a gentleman, drops her glove, and she stoops to hunt it,\nit is a married couple; if he stoops quickly to pick it up it is an\nunmarried couple.  When a lady plays, and a gentleman stands near her,\nand does not turn for her the pages of the music book, it is her\nhusband; when you see his fingers in eager readiness to turn the leaf,\nit is not her husband.\"\n\nThere is in every true woman a spark of divinity, which glows in her\nheart, and blazes into a most luminous light when a husband's love and\nrespect and sympathy and appreciation and encouragement fan that spark\ninto activity.  But woe to the home where cruel hands quench that\nflame.  The sun is the heater and illuminator of our whole solar\nsystem.  The vast supplies which it sends forth daily must be\ncompensated, or else it would soon expend itself, and our world would\ngo to ruin.  Nature, therefore, hurls millions of meteors every second\ninto the sun's fiery furnace to keep up the supply of heat and light.\nThe wife is the sun of the household.  Her womanly attributes give the\nlight and warmth and happiness of the home to all who cluster around\nher.  But a wife's love and self-sacrifice for her home are not\ninfinite.  They soon exhaust themselves, where love is unreturned,\nwhere a husband is a tyrant, where self-sacrifice is unappreciated,\nwhere faithful and prudent industry is accepted as a labor of duty, and\nnot as a labor of love, where she is simply regarded as his\nhousekeeper, and not as his devoted helpmate, where his presence alone\nis sufficient to cast gloom and fear over the entire household.  Woman\nwas made to bless mankind, but also to be blessed in return; to make\nsociety better for forming a part thereof, but also to receive some\nrecognition for her work.\n\nEndurance is woman's prerogative.  Suffering is her heirloom.\nDisasters, which would crush the spirit of man, often turn her heart to\nsteel, and she performs deeds grand and heroic.  Disheartened by\ncontinuous neglect, she will make heroic efforts to throw her influence\nall the more affectionately over her home.  Wounded deeper and ever\ndeeper, she will toil on, hiding from the world the pangs of wounded\naffection, \"as the wounded dove will clasp its wings to its side and\ncover and conceal the arrow that is preying on its vitals.\"  But the\nshafts of continuous neglect will pierce her heart at last--a husband's\ncontinuous neglect extinguish, at last, the sacred flame upon the\ndomestic hearth.  She, too, finds home irksome.  She, too, learns to\nfind more pleasure abroad than in her home.  She, too, thinks light of\nliberties and indiscretions.  The grown children learn to emulate their\nparents' example, and seek their pleasures also abroad.  The little\nchildren are left to servants to finish the corruption begun by\nparents.  And so the home, the very spot designed by God to become the\nchief school of human virtue, the seminary of social affections, the\nkeystone of the whole fabric of society, the germ-cell of civilization,\nbecomes a hotbed of corruption, and almost as often on account of a\nhusband's neglect and sins, as on account of a wife's ignorance or\nfrailties or failings.  Our stock of advice to wives and mothers seems\ninexhaustible.  Almost every one of the stronger sex has his fling at\nwoman, and his remedy to offer, which, if immediately followed, will at\nonce eradicate unhappiness in marriage, decrease the number of\ndivorces, and lessen vice and crime in society.\n\nMight not a little advice be also profitable to man?  Is there not room\nfor improvement in the stronger sex as well as in the weaker?  Reform\nin the one sex will be of little benefit unless there is reform in the\nother sex as well.  Our husbands and our fathers, too, need reforming,\nand that reform must begin very early in their lives, before yet they\nenter into marriage, before yet they enter upon the days of their\ncourtship.  Our young men need curbing.  Youthful precocity must be\nchecked.  \"_Cito maturum cito putridum_\" says the Latin, \"soon ripe,\nsoon rotten.\"  We allow our young men, some of them exceedingly young,\ntoo many liberties.  We allow them to sow too many wild oats.  If their\nintention is some day to take unto their care and keeping a woman's\nlife and happiness, to pluck from out a comfortable and contented home,\nand from the embrace of devoted parents, a pure and happy and trusting\nyoung woman, who has never felt the wrench and shock of life's storms,\nnor the cold shoulder of neglect, nor the gnawing tooth of want, then\nlet them see to it in time that they may bring to her a heart as pure\nand mind as uncorrupted, and character as unpolluted as they expect\nfrom her.\n\nThe law of heredity, of transmission of ancestral poison, is as\noperative in the male sex as in the female.  A pure and healthy\noffspring must be preceded by a pure and healthy parentage.  A\nrottening tree never produces luscious fruit.  \"Like begets like.\"  An\nenfeebled father means not only feebleness in the next generation, but\nalso perpetuated misery and vice and crime.  Marriage is sacred and\nnecessary and obligatory, but not all marriages are so.  There are some\nmarriages from which woman should recoil as much as she would from\ndeath itself.  Rather that death would woo her than a man--if I may be\npermitted to honor him with that name--whose constitution is\nundermined, whose strength is sapped, and whose marrow and blood are\npoisoned.  Rather an old maid than a profligate's nurse.  Rather a life\nof single blessedness than the housekeeper of a wreck of a husband.\nRather single and happy and stainless and conscience-free than a mother\nof an unfortunate offspring, that have the sins of their father visited\nupon them, and that shall one day curse their parents for having given\nexistence to them.  Another remedy for unhappy marriages will be found\nin the cessation, of the anxiety on the part of so many parents _to get\ntheir daughters married off_.  It is but natural that this constant\nanxiety should make the daughter feel that she would like to lessen her\nparents' dread, and cease being a trouble to them, especially when\nthere are younger sisters crowding fast upon her, and so she says\n\"Yes,\" even when the word almost chokes in her throat, even though she\nknows in her heart that he is not her ideal, nor the man that will make\nher happy.  It is not true that any husband, who can support a wife, is\nbetter than no husband.  Marriage means more to a sensible woman than\nan alliance with a husband for the sake of being clothed and fed and\nhoused.  She has a heart and soul and mind that have their wants, and\nif they be starved, unhappy marriage, if nothing worse, is the result.\n\nMothers and fathers!  Have you watched over your daughter from the day\nof her birth; have you guarded her from infancy to girlhood, and from\ngirlhood to womanhood; have you suffered for her sake; have you\nsurrendered comforts and sacrificed pleasures for her sake; have you\ntoiled and stinted and saved for her sake; have you afforded her the\nbest education and all the pleasures and opportunities that your means\nwill allow, and all to wish yourselves rid of her; to think that any\nhusband, who can support your daughter--sometimes not even so much is\nexpected from him--no matter how old, how uncultured, how unsuitable to\nher tastes and wants, is better than no husband?  A father's personal\nattention to the training of his children will in time reduce\nmaterially unhappy marriages, and greatly lessen the miseries and vices\nof society.  He owes his children more than support and chastisement.\nSociety holds him responsible for their character.  The duties of\ntraining devolve upon the father as much as on the mother.  A father's\nwider experience and worldly wisdom prove valuable contributions to the\nmother's simpler knowledge in the raising of their children.  A\nfather's continuous absence, or neglects, or severity, or unkindness,\nor heartlessness, has made more reprobates and scamps and criminals in\nthis world than all the failings of women combined.  Think less of your\ndignity and more of your duty.  Rather that your child should love you\nthan fear you.  You can maintain your authority and dignity by love and\ngentleness as well as by frowns and threats and chastisements.  You may\nwalk and talk and study and play with them, and yet have their full\nrespect.  The great and warlike Agesilaus did not think it beneath him\nto entertain his children during his leisure hours, to join them in all\ntheir merry sports, and permit himself to crawl on his fours with his\nlittle child upon his back.  If you would raise good children let your\nexample at home be accordingly.  As you will teach them so they will\nact.  If you are a devil they will scarcely be angels.  Children are\nkeen observers.  An old proverb says that a father is a looking-glass\nby which children dress themselves.  See to it, fathers, that the glass\nbe clean, so that your children's morals may be pure.\n\nA little more memory on the part of the husband will prove a powerful\nremedy for the eradication of unhappy marriages and for the lessening\nof divorces.  She is the same woman after marriage that she was during\nthe days of your courtship, and a good deal better.  Why so forgetful\nof all the sacred vows and solemn pledges which you plighted then?  Why\nso constant then and so inconstant now?  Why so affable and faithful\nand loving and attentive then, and why so inattentive and bitter and\nsullen and neglectful now?  Why such a profuseness then in your\ncourtesies and smiles and flowers and gifts and kisses, and why such a\nlack of them now?  Is it because of wrinkles?  Is it because of her\nfaded beauty?  She has lost it in your service.  She has come honestly\nby her wrinkles.  She got them in the sick-bed, in the kitchen, in the\nnursery, by the bed of your sick children, by the grave of your child,\nby painful night-watches and overtaxing day toils, by your harsh words,\nand by your heartless treatment.  This is all she has in return for her\nbeauty and youth and cheerful mind and happy disposition, which she\nlaid at your feet when you asked her to join her destiny with yours.  A\nlittle courtesy, a kind attention, a bouquet of flowers, a small token,\na word of appreciation and of encouragement is not much to you, but it\nis a world to your wife.  Your smile is all the reward she craves.  Her\nheart thirsts for it, and when given, its effect upon her soul is as\nthe refreshing dew upon the withered grass.  It is a mistake to believe\nthat she can draw in her married life on your love-deposits during\ncourtship.  If love is to prosper, the supply must be ever fresh.  The\nlove of the past will never satisfy the need of the present.  Love\nconstantly and carefully cultivated will increase its blessings as\nfruit trees double their bearing under the hand of the gardener.  It\nwill be killed, as will the fruit tree, if the gardener's hand grows\nneglectful and noxious influences are permitted to impede its growth.\nLet your wife be your helpmate and not your housekeeper.  She shares\nyour sorrows, your defeats, let her also share your thoughts and plans.\nUnbosom your thoughts to her.  Lay open to her your heart and soul.\nTrust her with your confidence, she trusts you with hers.  The men who\nsucceed are those who make confidants of their wives.  The marriages\nthat are happy are those where husbands and wives have no thoughts\napart.  The children that are well raised are those that have had the\nexample of loving and confiding parents before them.  Proud of your\nconfidence, she will labor to deserve it.  She will study to please\nyou.  In your prosperity she will be your delight; your stay and\ncomfort in your adversity.  She will return your confidence and\naffection in full measure.  Gloom will vanish from the hearth, and\nhappiness will hold dominion within the home.  \"Her children will rise\nup before her and call her happy; and her husband will sing aloud her\npraises.\"\n\nMarriage is, perhaps, the only game of chance ever invented at which it\nis possible for both players to lose.  Too often, after many\nsugar-coated words, and several premeditated misdeals on both sides,\none draws a blank and the other a booby.  After patiently angling in\nthe matrimonial pool, one draws a sunfish and the other a minnow.  One\nexpects to capture a demigod, who hits the earth only in high places,\nbut when she has thoroughly analyzed him, she finds nothing genuine,\nonly a wilted chrysanthemum and a pair of patent leather shoes, while\nhe in return expected to wed a wingless angel who would make his Edenic\nbower one long drawn out sigh of aesthetic bliss.  The result is very\noften that he is tied to a slattern, who slouches around the house with\nher hair in tins, a dime novel in her hand, with a temper like aqua\nfortis and a voice like a cat fight--a voice that would make a cub wolf\nclimb a tree; a fashionable butterfly, whose heart is in her finery and\nher feathers; who neglects her home to train with a lot of intellectual\nbirds; whose glory is small talk; who saves her sweetest smiles for\nsociety and her ill temper for her family altar.  If I were tied to\nsuch a female as that, do you know what I would do?  You don't, eh?\nWell, neither do I.  There was a time, we are told, when to be a Roman\nwas to be greater than to be a king; yet there came a time when to be a\nRoman was to be a vassal or a slave.  Change is the order of the\nuniverse, and nothing stands.  We must go forward, or we must go\nbackward.  We must press on to grander heights, to greater glory, or\nsee the laurels already won turned to ashes upon our brow.  We may\nsometimes slip; shadows may obscure our paths; the boulders may bruise\nour feet; there may be months of mourning and days of agony; but\nhowever dark the night, hope, a poising eagle, will ever burn above the\nunrisen tomorrow.  Trials we may have, and tribulations sore, but I say\nunto you, O, brothers mine, that while God reigns and the human family\nendures, this nation, born of our father's blood, and sanctified by our\nmother's tears, shall not pass away, and under heaven, for this great\nboon, this great blessing, we'll be indebted to the women of\nAmerica--God bless them.  Finally, brethren, be serious while I impart\nthis concluding lesson: \"She--was--a--good--wife--to--me.  A good wife,\nGod bless her!\"  The words were spoken in trembling accents over a\ncoffin-lid.  The woman asleep there had borne the heat and burden of\nlife's long day, and no one had ever heard her murmur; her hand was\nquick to reach out in helping grasp to those who fell by the wayside,\nand her feet were swift on errands of mercy; the heart of her husband\nhad trusted in her; he had left her to long hours of solitude, while he\namused himself in scenes in which she had no part.  When boon\ncompanions deserted him, when fickle affection selfishly departed, when\npleasure palled, he went home and found her waiting for him.\n\n  \"Come from your long, long roving,\n    On life's sea so bleak and rough;\n  Come to me tender and loving,\n    And I shall be blest enough.\"\n\nThat hath been her long song, always on her lips or in her heart.\nChildren had been born to them.  She had reared them almost alone--they\nwere gone!  Her hand had led them to the uttermost edge of the morning\nthat has no noon.  Then she had comforted him, and sent him out strong\nand whole-hearted while she stayed at home and--cried.  What can a\nwoman do but cry and trust?  Well, she is at rest now.  But she could\nnot die until he had promised to \"bear up,\" not fret, but to remember\nhow happy they had been.  They?  Yes, it was even so.\n\nIt was an equal partnership, after all.\n\"She--was--a--good--wife--to--me.\"  Oh, man! man!  Why not have told\nher so when her ears were not dulled by death?  Why wait to say these\nwords over a coffin wherein lies a wasted, weary, gray-haired woman,\nwhose eyes have so long held that pathetic story of loss and suffering\nand patient yearning, which so many women's eyes reveal to those who\nweep?  Why not have made the wilderness in her heart blossom like the\nrose with the prodigality of your love?  Now you would give worlds,\nwere they yours to give, to see the tears of joy your words would have\nonce caused, bejeweling the closed windows of her soul.  It is too late.\n\n  \"We have careful thoughts for the stranger,\n    And smiles for the sometime guest,\n        But oft for own,\n        The bitter tone,\n    Though we love our own the best.\"\n\n\n\n\nODD-FELLOWSHIP AND THE FUTURE\n\nThere is infinite and perennial fascination in the contemplation of the\nfuture.  The past is a fixed province, the finished result of an\never-moving present.  The future is the province of the poet, the\nprophet and the seer.  The past is adamant, the future is plastic clay.\nThe past is with God alone; the future is with God and man.  We toil\nfor it; dream of it; look to it; and all seek so to\n\n    * * * \"Forecast the years,\n  As find in loss a gain to match,\n  Or reach a hand through time to catch\n    The far-off interest of tears.\"\n\nLet us consider the future as a field and Odd-Fellowship as a force.\nThe future is a field, billowing with the ripening harvest of golden\npossibilities.  It is as wide as the world, for the world is the field.\nIt comprises every zone and clime; every nation and tribe; every island\nof the seas.  Wherever we find one of our fellow-men in darkness and in\nchains, there is our field.  It is as long as from now to the coming of\nChrist.  A moment's survey of the field will convince us that the\ngreatest conquests are yet to be made.  There is battle ahead, great\ninterests to be gained, great incentives to heroic effort.  The times\ncall for men--broad-browed, clear-eyed, strong-hearted, swift-footed\nmen.  Odd-Fellows, not behind you but before you, not in the past but\nin the future, lies the widest and richest field of Odd-Fellowship's\npossibility.  Turn your faces, not toward the waning light of\nyesterday, but toward the growing radiance of a better morning.  The\nforce is commensurate with the field.  The cry of every true Odd-Fellow\nought to be the cry that leaped from the heart of Isaiah when his lips\nwere touched with the coal from off the altar: \"Here am I, Lord, send\nme.\"  Our order is no longer a puny and helpless infant, but a lusty\ngiant, panoplied in the armor of truth and clad in the strength of\nperpetual youth.  We have riches untold.  We have institutions for the\ncare of the old, and the orphan, the equal of any of which the world\ncan boast.  We have a grasp on the sympathy and confidence of the\nmasses which is immeasurable.  We stand for principles that are the\nincarnation of God's infinite thought and throbbing love.  We are\nequipped for conquest.  What answer shall the force make to the cry\nfrom the field?  As loyal Odd-Fellows, let us take our answer from the\nGreat Commander.  What answer did He make to a dying world?  What did\nhe come to do?  He came to lift fallen humanity.  He came to bind up\nthe wounds of those who were bruised and bleeding.  He came to speak\nwords of cheer and sympathy to hearts bowed in sorrow.  He came to\nbreak the chains of bondage and restore mankind to its former beauty\nand greatness.  Our mission is identical with His.  Our work is\nidentical with His work.  We are His representatives.  Our highest\ndestiny is the working out of His purposes.  The world with all its\nboasted progress has not advanced beyond the need of a Savior.  It is\nthe same at heart now as it was when the blessed feet of Christ trod\nits hills and valleys.  Men change, but man changes not.  The same\nproblems are confronting us as confronted them.  It may be trite, but\nit is tremendously true, that our primary and ever-present duty is to\nseek and save the lost.  We are to win them to faith in high and noble\nends, and having won them to faith in our mission is not enough.  They\nare to be instructed, cultured, enlarged, inspired, ennobled, until man\nlooking in the face of man shall see the face of Christ shining\nthrough.  He is to be the accepted Lord and law-giver in every realm of\nhuman thought and activity.  He is to rule in the family.  He is to\nrule in business.  He is to rule until the demon of hate, malice and\ninjustice has been throttled.  He must rule in the affairs of state.\nHe must rule in society, until the watchers at the gate shall announce\nto Him who sitteth upon the throne: \"Thy kingdom has come and thy will\nis done in earth as it is in heaven.\"  Christ is the solution of man's\nmost difficult problems.  He came to save men.  How did He go about the\ntask?  He gave himself.  We can accomplish our task only as in burning\nearnestness we give ourselves.  What depth of humiliation, what\nself-devotion, what unmeasured sacrifices, what unspeakable suffering,\nwhat unfathomable anguish, what toil and anxiety, what love and pity,\nwhat loneliness and sorrow, are crowded into those three words, \"He\ngave himself.\"\n\nIf we as an order would give ourselves to the principles taught by our\ninstitution, we could win the world in the next half century.  If we\nare to be truest to the future, we must stand by the side of the Great\nTeacher and proclaim a complete and perfect truth.  Our platform should\nbe neither broader nor narrower than His.  If there is one truth in\nrevelation that we can not give its proper setting and due emphasis,\nthen we are not the keepers of God's truth.  To my thinking, there are\nno organizations formed by man that can appeal more confidently to the\nWord of God for confirmation than the Odd-Fellows.  We appeal to sane\nreason and common sense.  No organization can hold up a higher ideal of\nindividual freedom and worth.  But there is a danger that we become\nnarrow, that we violate the maxims of sane reason and common sense,\nthat we lose the balance between individual prerogative and the claims\nof a united brotherhood.  We can not accomplish the aims of our order\nby onesidedness.  We are to become \"all things to all men.\"  We are not\nto be prisms breaking up the rays of light and declaring that this or\nthat color is the most important.  We as Odd-Fellows are to be lenses,\nconverging the rays and bringing them to a focus upon the hearts of men\nas the white light of God's eternal truth.\n\nThis is a practical age, and if we are to win we must demonstrate the\nsuperiority of our faith and practice over that of other claimants, not\nonly in terms of the Written Word, but also in terms of manhood.\nOdd-Fellowship is standing upon the golden dawn of a new morning.  It\nis to be a day of battle and conquest.  It is truth blazoned upon the\npage of history, that if we as Odd-Fellows are true to our standard, to\nour possibilities and to our Maker, he will lay the suffering of a\nthrobbing world in our arms that we may lay it at the feet of Him who\ndied to redeem it.  Let us cherish high hopes, noble aims, and lofty\nideals.  Never since the world was peopled has mankind stood in such\nanxious expectancy, awaiting the outcome of the immediate future, as in\nthese closing years of the nineteenth century.  Men are wistfully\ntrying to peer through the portals of the year nineteen\nhundred--marveling, as the effects and forces of applied science is\nunfolded to our comprehension, and discovery moves on, each invention\nleading in another, in stately procession; we, all the while rapt in\nwonder, are straining in hope and fear to catch the coming word, and to\ncomprehend its import.  Never was speculation so rife, never was the\nfield of human observation so unobstructed and expanded, nor the\nascertainment and sifting of facts so facile.  Never were opinions more\ndiverse, nor was it ever so obviously important to detect and assert\nthe philosophical principle, in recognition and obedience to which the\nlaws of human government may be preserved and kept in view, and the\nretrocession of mankind prevented.  At no stage of history was it more\nimportant to call to mind the great principle that government is a\nmeans, and not an end, and is instituted to maintain those general\nliberties which are essential for human happiness and progress.  At\nthis time, Odd-Fellowship looks toward the future with longing eyes,\nand its followers lift high their banner, on which is inscribed that\nbeautiful motto, \"Friendship, Love and Truth.\"\n\nAfter all, what lives in this world?  Is it thought pulsations alone or\ndeeds done?  If thought alone, then the lowest thought coordinated in\nthe brain of man would live.  Something must be combined with thought\nin order to have a lasting effect.  There must be thought and deeds and\nsentiment.  Sentiment must go to the very existence of the race.  On\nthese forces may be built up structures that live and breathe a\nbenediction on all mankind.  I ask you to cast your eye over the world\nand note the permanency of such institutions as have come down to us,\nand are alive, and such as we say will live.  I venture your first\nquestion will be: \"What is the foundation on which they rest?  Why,\nthrough the slow, revolving years have these institutions lived and\nthrived and grown?  Have they lived on greed, or a desire for pelf or\npower, or out of human desire for adulation and praise?  Or have they\nlived because of man's needs, and out of human wants?\"  If we probe to\nthe bottom we will find this the corner-stone of all laudable\nambitions, because man needs man, and needs help into a higher plane of\nusefulness and activities.\n\nWe find institutions coming down to us from a date which the memory of\nman runs not to the contrary; indeed, some so old that the musty\nvolumes of the long ago reveal not their origin.  But simply the need\nof man for man would not entirely account for the duration of society\nin its ancient form.   There must be still other underlying principles.\nThere must be love and the acknowledgment of the brotherhood of man all\nalong the way of life, or the family would go to ruin, society would\ndissolve, citizenship would not exist, states and principalities,\nkingdoms and powers would exist only as an idea in the brain.  There\nwould be no command to be our brother's keeper, no plighted vow that\n\"The Lord be between thee and me, and between my seed and thy seed\nforever.\"  Man would, as an individual, stand absolutely alone, like an\natom dropped from the abyssmal depths onto this earth of ours.  The\nlittle wild flower struggles through leafy mold, endures the\ntempestuous blast of winter, that when spring comes it may bloom to\ngladden the earth and scatter sweet incense all around.  But without\nthe cementing influence that runs like a thread all through society,\nman would not, could not, cast a sweet odor even on his own life, and\ndying would leave no benediction on the lives of others.  And here the\ncommand comes, \"Gather into thy quiver the lives and aspirations of\nothers, that fitted to thy bow they may go forth scattering blessings\nby your help and by your kindly influence.\"  So all great achievements\nhave been based on great fundamental principles, and each principle has\nfor its object the betterment of the conditions of mankind.\n\nTruth is said to be eternal.  It was just as true at the dawn of\ncreation that the square described on the hypotenuse of a right-angle\ntriangle is equal to the square described on the other two sides, as it\nwas when Pythagoras enunciated the theorem.  \"Thou shall not kill,\" is\na law written by the Divine hand amid tempest and fire, but it stands.\n\"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,\" rings from the portals of\nheaven through the gates of humanity and its command will not go\nunheeded.  They are all great fundamental truths.  Do you observe that\nthey live?  Give heed also to the fact that they stand for a better\ncondition among men, for more helpfulness and higher elevations.\nTruths enunciated, whether old or new, that live, only have one\ntendency, viz., to raise man to better conditions.  Since the dawn of\ncreation there has been a constant tendency to arise from a lower to a\nhigher estate.  Self-preservation, self-helps, self-culture have been\nthe trend of thought and action.  And this has not been altogether an\neffort in the individual for his own personal advancement, but for the\nadvancement of the race.  Men have undergone sacrifices, humbled and\nalmost debased themselves, that the succeeding generation might live on\na higher plane, physically, morally and spiritually, than they\nthemselves enjoyed.  I do not know of any act of humanity that calls\nforth louder praise than to so act and speak and do as that humanity\nshall not only catch the inspiration, but shall make material progress\non a better understanding of surrounding conditions.  Odd-Fellowship,\nin its essence, is no new institution.  Its principles, practices and\nprecepts have existed from the beginning of the race.\n\nWhen Abraham stood with the churlish Lot on the line dividing the\nplains and highlands and said, \"I pray thee let there be no contention\nbetween thee and me, if thou goest to the right hand I will go to the\nleft, or, if thou goest to the left hand I will go to the right,\" he\nbreathed the pure essence of unselfish devotion to the founder of a\nrace.  The acts of kindness shown by the traveler as the caravan plods\nits tortuous way across the sands of the desert; the mission of the\nwise men from the east in search of a Redeemer, all show forth that\ntrait that you and I, my brother, try to emphasize while vowing\ndevotion to the triple links.  I said a moment ago that Odd-Fellowship,\nin its essence, was no new institution, and so it is not.  As we know\nit in reality we have simply crystalized its workings.  Instead of\nhumanity, by its individual exertion, seeking to perform the task, we,\nas an organized band, have taken up the subject.  What was paramount\nwith individuals has become a living force with the multitude.  What\nwas before an invitation to duty has now become a command.\n\nIn seeking after friendship we do not court the beasts of the fields\nand the fowls of the air as the hermit does, but we seek man; not man,\nbut men; not this little society or faction, but embrace all mankind in\nthe issue.  If we seek for love it is not love for pelf or power, but\nlove for man and God.  In truth we do not depend on the right conduct\nof individuals, but accept truth as it is written in nature's open\nbook, emblazoned on the sky of hope that bends over us, and speaks in\nall the higher attributes of life.  Time was when the inclination of\nmen was to withdraw into clans.  Ishmael stood in the desert by himself\nwith his hand against every man.  His true descendant, the Arabian\nsheik, draws his mantle about him, and surrounded by his little band\nwithdraws within his own circle, and woe betide him who attempts to\nbreak through.  But in this came no advancement, no progress.  The\nIshmaelite of old is the same today.  Wherever progress and advancement\nhas shown itself it is found that true regard for all mankind has been\nthe cardinal doctrine.  \"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.\"\nSoon a broad catholicity of ideas seizes the multitude and man no more\nlives for himself than he lives for others.  He who lives closest to\nthe true heart of humanity lives nearest to God.  Show me a man who\nlives for himself alone, and you will present almost a social outcast.\nSociety tolerates him no more.  In all the plans and calculations of\nlife he is not numbered.\n\nFor two thousand years the command has come stronger and stronger for a\ncloser unity on social lines and fraternal regard.  Not to segregate\nbut to crystalize and raise the status.  The conditions of our social\nlife are such that we can not live entirely to ourselves.  The monk may\nwithdraw himself from the gaze of the world, the anchorite may seek a\nhiding place in caves and dens, but they ignore entirely the demands of\nsociety upon them.  If I were the only person in the world there would\nbe no social problem.  I would commune with myself and God and nature\nabout me, without reference to my surroundings.  There would be no\nsocial environment; no one to please, no one to whom I am indebted by\nnature or acquired obligation, and so I would remain.  But we do not\nfind the conditions to so exist.  We must look squarely in the face the\nfacts as they are.  On all sides we are surrounded by a multitude who\nrightly make demands of us and which we can not ignore.  If I were\nalone, I would do as the patriarchs of old did, erect a little altar of\nstone, rude and unsightly, and bow myself down before it and commune\nwith Deity.  But here we find that different types of men have\ndifferent religious views, and different spiritual aspirations, and so\nchurches must be erected; and while all tend to the same end, each\nhopes to reach it by a different route.  I must respect all these\nviews.  Only one can be my view, but my social surroundings are such\nthat all have rights which I am bound to yield some obedience to.\n\nAgain, if I were alone there would be no need of law, because both good\nand bad would be represented in my personality.  There could be no\nmurder, no crime, no punishment; but with all the manifold people with\ndifferent tendencies, there must be law, or the social fabric would go\nto pieces by the strong trampling on the weak.  Hence I must stand with\nreference to the law on the right side or the wrong side, and all\nhumanity regardful of each other's rights must line up on one side or\nthe other.  In addition to our churchly ties and duties, we have family\nduties, and there begins the first of duty, first of government, first\nof obligations as citizens.  And so I say we live in relation to those\nwho surround us, and we can not live unmindful of them.  We are touched\nby humanity everywhere, and walk elbow to elbow down the vale of life,\nsupporting or destroying, and whether our pilgrimage be long or short\nwe can not destroy the facts as they exist.\n\nIt must be seen with only a hasty glance that with the varying\nconditions of men, with their different mental dispositions, moral\nideas and social status, that a crying demand comes all the time for\nsome organization where men can unite on a common level--some place\nwhere a divergence of political or moral views do not bar an entrance,\nwhere the family ties remain sacred, and more sacred because of the\norganization.  It seems that men groped about for just such an\norganization, and men's wants are necessities, and social and civil\nstatus might be brought to a common level with all who might be brought\ninto the assembly.  It is believed by Odd-Fellows that our organization\nfurnishes just this want.  All the life that a man wants outside of his\nspiritual life has its food here, and society and family and man's\nrelations to man have been helped by it.  I state it without fear of\ncontradiction, that no order has been more potent for good than ours.\nIt has been the hand-maiden of civilization wherever it has established\nitself; it has smoothed out the asperities of life for many, many\nindividuals; it has defended character, protected life and limb, and\nstood as champion of all good between man and man and between God and\nman.\n\nEvery agency by which men are advanced, socially and morally, is an\nagency that guides government and state and individual up to a higher\nplane of development.  Odd-Fellowship and Christianity go hand in hand.\nThere is not a tenet of the order in any department that is repugnant\nto the highest development of Christianity.  Indeed, it could not be\nso, for any lesson that is drawn from the three pillars of our order,\nFaith Hope and Charity, is a lesson pointing to the better life here\nand hereafter.\n\nIn the eighty years, last past, who can estimate the benign influence\nof the lives and actions of men, yea, on their eternal destinies, of\nthe oft-repeated utterances pointing to the Fatherhood of God and the\nbrotherhood of man--a sermon that has been painted on the bow of God's\neternal promise since Paul stood on the Mars Hill and preached this\neverlasting, unchangeable doctrine to the heathen world.  When I think\nthat since 1830 there has been expended for the relief of the members\nof this order and their families millions of dollars, in all right\nundertakings, and know that many hearts have ceased to ache, many cold\nfeet covered, many a tear dried up, many a naked person clothed and\nmany a hungry mouth fed, it rejoices my heart.  I know also that such\nlove could not spring from the hearts that were kindled by no spark of\nthe Divine, but the lesson comes to you and to me, my brother and my\nsister, that he who opens not only the granary of earthly substance,\nbut opens also the portals of the heart, and lets the Divine spark\nkindle into a blaze, will be thrice blessed in that day when the jewels\nof the eternity are made up.  I do not desire to convey the impression\nthat all our civilization is the outgrowth of Odd-Fellowship.  We are\ntoo much inclined on such occasions as these to become mutual\nadmiration societies and think that all the good things that we enjoy\ncould not have been possible if our particular order had not existed.\nI do not wish to convey that impression.  I only desire it to be\nunderstood that this order has been helpful in all right undertakings,\nand constantly endeavors to espouse the right and discard the wrong.\nIt does not take the place of the church or the Sunday school or the\nprayer-meeting.  It does not invade the pulpit, but only stands as an\nauxiliary to all these institutions that touch the better side of our\nnatures.  It inveighs against no religion or creed, and has no\nreligious belief other than that we are brothers; nor does it encroach\nupon the domain of the politician.  If Odd-Fellowship had more in it\nthan the social and restraining influence one meets and is subjected to\nin the lodge-room, it would be sufficient inducement to organize and\nperpetuate lodges.  No true Odd-Fellow crosses the threshold of his\nlodge-room but he feels he is treading on more sacred ground than the\nbusy marts of trade, or in the office or counting house; he feels that\nhe is coming home where dwells the purest principles of\nhumanity--friendship, love and truth.\n\nBut there is more in the workings of this order than the social.  Its\nobject is to touch humanity in all its phases.  To rejoice with those\nthat rejoice, and weep with those that weep.  It sustains the living\nwith friendship; causes man to stand firm in his integrity by the truth\nit teaches, and embrace the whole world with charity.  The three links\nof friendship, love and truth mark the fuller and better development of\nthis life, reaches beyond the grave, reaches beyond the vision, extends\ninto the portals of the other and the better life.  We may profess\nfriendship, but that is an empty profession; our membership in a lodge\nis fruitless and our meetings produce no good results unless we have\ncharity.  It is but a small part that we should perform our mystic\nrights, typifying friendship, love and truth, but that we should so\nlive them and act them that the touch of a member is the touch of a\nbrother whose words sweeten the asperities of life and whose last\noffering is a tribute at the grave.  We may be rudely brought back to\nthe world with its pomp and show, its pageantry and vanity, by an\nemblem of mortality presented to us, but should we not ever have the\nspectre of mortality before our eyes?  In the mad rush through life we\nforget the kinship of man to man.  We are too often forgetful that the\nhand of a brother is reaching upward for succor.  We forget that we are\nmortal, and the heart grows cold; our sympathies extend only to those\naround and nearest to us, forgetful that all mankind is our brother,\nand that he is especially our brother and friend who has mercy.  But in\nthis mad rush in life we are suddenly and almost rudely brought back to\na full realization of our mortality, our helplessness, our emptiness,\nour nothingness, when we stand at the grave of our departed brother and\nreflect that here lies one who was born and had ambitions and died as\nwe must die.  His ambitions and hopes all went in the grave with him.\nThe little grassy mound and the little marble slab is all that remains\nvisible to tell us that he was our brother.  Life would hardly be worth\nliving; its struggles would be disastrous, its triumphs vain, empty\nbubbles, if the clods that fall upon the coffin and the sprig of\nevergreen tell the whole story of an Odd-Fellow.  No, the very fact\nthat we bury our departed brother teaches us that the grave is not the\nend of all.  Though our brother dies he shall live in our hearts, in\nthe flowers that we cast, in the precious memories that forever cluster\naround the links, the heart and the hand, the altar and the hour glass.\nWhen the supreme moment comes and the brother gathers his arrows into\nhis quiver and fades from sight into the grave, we know that he has\npassed the portal into the land of the eternal, but the quiver and the\narrows will ever stand as the badge of friendship.  The heart may cease\nto beat, and the hand fall listless in death, yet the heart and hand\nwill ever be emblems of love, and denote that when the hand of an\nOdd-Fellow is extended his heart goes with it.\n\nThe good Odd-Fellow has constantly before his mind the book of books.\nHis first sight into a lodge-room catches sight of that divine missive\nto man.  It is his solace in life, and its precepts his consolation in\ndeath.  It ever stands to him as an exhaustless fountain of truth.  On\nthese three cardinal principles he lives and dies, and in the constancy\nof that life we venerate his memory and do him kindly offices.  It is\nthe nature of a man to be communistic.  It is only the anchorite that\nwithdraws himself from the societies of man and communes with himself\nand his God.  All right-thinking men desire and enjoy the society of\ntheir kind and kindred spirits.  You had as well lock the sane man in\nthe felon's cell as to doom him to live without the society of his\nfellows.  The family is the first and best society.  Perhaps the church\nis next, which is only the human family on a larger scale, fitting and\npreparing the members for a community in that house not made by hands.\nNext to my church I prize the secret organization to which I belong,\nwhere the cardinal principles of our holy Christianity are taught.  The\ndeathless friendship of David and Jonathan teaches me that though I may\nlive in the king's palace, be clothed in purple and fine linen every\nday, be in the line of regal succession, yet I do not live to myself.\n\nI would herald broadcast that tenet of our order, \"that we do for\nothers as we would have others do for us, and that if I find my brother\nin distress, I must bind up his wounds, lift him from the quagmire of\ndespond and set him on his feet.\"  If any lesson stands out boldly\nbefore the mind of the Odd-Fellow it is truth.  He finds it on his\nbanner wherever he goes.  Friendship is ephemeral.  It lasts only\nthrough life.  It may die, it will die.  The grave ends it all.  The\nsilent messenger that comes to king and peasant alike, and causes the\nscepter of the monarch to be laid by the crook of the shepherd, ends\nour friendship.  Love comes from God.  God is love.  It touches us at\nevery point of our lives.  From the cradle to the grave, every moment\nof our lives we are the objects of love to some one, and we love in\nturn.  But human love must end.  After life's fitful dream, the cares\nand vanities, the vexations and pleasures of life have no terror or\nconcern for us, the love that thrilled our whole being will return to\nthe source from whence it came.  But truth will never die.  It is the\n\"imperial virtue.\"  The heart may fail; it will fail, and the hand fall\nlistless by the side.  The arrow will fall after being shot into the\nair and never return, and the bow will be broken; the altar will be\nthrown down; the sand, grain by grain, run through the hour-glass, and\nthe glass be shattered; the eye grow dim; the world roll up as a scroll\nand pass away; the hills may crumble and the pyramids melt with fervent\nheat; all the friendships will die and the love return to the Father\nthat begat it, but truth will stand.  It is indeed the imperial and the\nimperishable virtue.  There, above the chaos and the confusion of time,\nit will stand to warn men from the wrong, and beckon them to do right.\n\nDespite the glamor of the world that secret societies propagate a\nsecresy of men's actions at the expense of truth and justice, it can\nnot obtain in a lodge of this order.  No man ever took upon himself the\nvows and studied the underlying motives, and practiced the lessons of\nthe order, but he becomes a better citizen.  If he has become a good\nhusband and father, he becomes better in his domestic relations.  If he\nhas been charitable before, he becomes more so now.  Men's weaknesses\nhe looks upon as human frailties, until time and sense teach him that\nfrailties have degenerated into positive perversity of character and\nbaseness of heart.  He will condemn falsehood and hypocrisy wherever\nfound.\n\nThe object of religious organizations is to make men better and fit\nthem for the life immortal.  The object of government and its laws is\nto make and protect good citizens and repress vice.  The object of this\nsecret organization is to bind men more firmly together for mutual\nprotection, for help and sustenance, to look after their families, and\nto be in a broad sense our brother's keeper.  I would not be understood\nas placing a secret organization in place of the church, or in the\nplace of a political government.  By no means.  Each has its own proper\nand particular sphere of action.  No one in its actions and endeavors\nis inimical to the actions of the others.  Each rests on its own\npeculiar foundation, but all dovetail together, and all make a\nharmonious whole.  The man who is a good Christian is better by being a\ngood Odd-Fellow.  If both a good Christian and a good Odd-Fellow, he\ncomes nearer being the typical citizen.  If man reveres the law of this\norder, he will have more devotion to his church, his home, his flag and\nhis country.  I have no fault to find with those who do not believe in\nuniting with a secret organization, but I do object to any man\ninveighing against the objects and purposes, the ends and aims, of our\norder when he knows nothing about it.  I do not expect every man to\nbelong to my church, for men in their constitution and mental make-up\ncan not see alike theologically.  But I do accord to every member of\nevery church the hope of getting to heaven if he lives up to the\nteachings of this particular sect.  I believe in justification by faith\nand good works, but I have no use for a man who decries this doctrine\nwhen he never exercised a particle of faith nor did a good deed in his\nlife.  And so I would say to any one who thinks he stands on some lofty\npinnacle and scents danger to the family tie, or church, or state, or\nsociety, because of the existence of secret orders, that he thinks and\ntalks of something he knows nothing about.  If I should desire to draw\ncomparisons, I could say truthfully that during the last year this\norder gave more in charity and benefits to its members in Illinois than\nany religious denomination in the state.  Look around your own\ncommunity and see if it be not so.  Think of the widow with\ntear-stained cheek, from whose door the wolf has been kept, because the\ncharitable hand of our order was upon her.  Count the orphan children\nof members of our order who have had shoes put on their feet, clothes\nput on their backs and food in their mouths.  Enumerate the sufferers\non beds of anguish, racked with pain and scorched with fever, who have\nhad the nightly vigil of Odd-Fellows to smooth their pillows, dampen\ntheir parched lips and moisten their feverish brows.  Watch the funeral\npageant with its long train of mourners, brothers, dropping the\nevergreen in the grave, and doing the last sad offices, and then croak\nno more that secret societies are baneful to our civilization.  He who\nthus sustains and soothes and encourages will be reckoned as twice\nblessed in that day when the secrets of all hearts are disclosed, and\nmen are rewarded according to the deeds done in the body.\n\n\"[*]Some years ago I stood out on the great plains this side of Denver.\nTo the north, the south and the east was one vast stretch of plains,\nthe eye interrupted only by the horizon.  I turned and looked to the\nwest, and clearly outlined in the distance was the chain of the Rocky\nMountains--the backbone of the continent.  There I saw Long's Peak,\nPike's Peak, and the Spanish Peaks, as mighty sentinels--watch\ntowers--that had served as landmarks to many a weary traveler on the\nSanta Fe trail.  They stood as the manifestation of the might of an\nOmnipotent Power.  So I turn to the record made by this order in the\nlast eighty years, and find colossal sums of money--not hoarded, but\ncollected to relieve humanity, to educate the orphan, to bury the dead\nand to befriend the widow.  I see arising, as if by magic, asylums for\nour needy.  I see a great host, one million strong, advancing, shoulder\nto shoulder, elbow touching elbow, all bent on deeds of mercy and acts\nof love.  Are not these also mighty sentinels erected amid this\nsurging, striving throng of humanity to serve to guide man in the road\nto a higher and better life?  These peaks of the Rockies may crumble\nand pass away, but a force for good once set in motion never loses its\nforce.  It is eternal.  To beautify, to strengthen, to adorn and to\nexpand our order and more fully present its magnificence to the world,\nwe have the department of Patriarchs Militant.  It depicts as gallant a\nband as ever marched to the sound of martial music or deployed for\nbattle.  As the knights under Richard Couer de Leon or Peter the Hermit\nmarched forth to rescue the Holy Sepulcher from the hand of the infidel\nand guard its sacred entablatures, so will our chevaliers as bravely\nguard our ritual, our mystic rights, our honor, the honor of our\nmothers wives and sisters, as a sacred trust.\n\n\"And so our order moves forward to greater conquests.  In the past it\nhas worked marvels for humanity.  May we not, for the future, predict\nbetter and more highly wrought out achievements?  Humanity has been\ntaken as it is and in the progress of refinement has been raised to a\nhigher standard.  It is the hand-maiden of civilization that works\nunder even yoke for the best sides of humanity.  While it does not\ndisplace or attempt to displace the church, it aids.  It has\nfriendship, love and truth as the three human graces, and clings to\nfaith, hope and charity as the Christian virtues.  It is now like the\ncity that is set upon the hill.  It can not be hid.  Out upon a rocky\npoint of the ocean's shore at Minot's ledge is a great light-house,\nerected by the fostering care of the government to protect the mariners\non the high seas.  Its great light swings around, now flashing on the\nland and now sending its rays far out across the billowy ocean.  It is\na grateful act of a great government.  Many a bewildered seaman has\ncaught its rays and sheared the prow of his ship further out to sea to\navoid the dangerous shoals.\n\n\"So we, imitating the kind of example of the generous government, and\nmeasuring our acts by the example of the blessed Master, have erected a\nlight-house here for the protection of humanity from its ills.  Now it\nshines on us as mortals hastening to a final consummation of things;\nagain it throws its beams out across the illimitable sea of hope, where\nsooner or later we all may ride, and by the light here given we may\nsteer our bark into a haven of final rest.  Today we are on the\ntempestuous ocean of life.  We who feel that we are on the deck, let us\nthrow the life-line and the life-preservers to him who is about to\nsink.  Let us make this order even a greater light-house than our\nfathers ever dreamed of.  It can be done, because it is so ordained.\nWhat God in his good providence orders can be, will be accomplished.\nWith thankful hearts we have passed over more than three quarters of a\ncentury of existence as an organization.  We are speeding onward to the\ncentury mark, and whether we remain to see its wonderful processes or\nnot, humanity will be here demanding just what we have done in the\npast.  Let us lay the work strong today and transmit it in higher\nforms, so that the end of the century of our existence as an order\nshall see better life, better hope and higher aspirations.  Let the\nSubordinates, Patriarchs, Rebekahs and Chevaliers all form a cordon\naround the altar of our beloved order, where the fires shall never be\nextinguished while friendship, love and truth endures, and faith, hope\nand charity are necessities.\n\n\"Grand as has been the record of Odd-Fellowship from 1819 to the\npresent, it is but the sunbeams from the birth of the day that will\ndevelop grandly into a magnificence that shall combine all the charms\nof the morning, the glare of the noontide, and the blaze of a sunset\nsplendor in an endless panorama of glory and grandeur.  And if, with\nsuch a picture before our eyes, painted by a faith founded upon the\nachievements of eighty years, and our intimate knowledge of the vast\npractical benevolence that begins at the cradle and ends only at the\ngate of heaven, the Odd-Fellow is not dazzled by the sublimity of\nOdd-Fellowship and awed into a reverence for its work and character,\nthere is a lamentable defect in his appreciation of the beautiful, and\nan utter failure to read the joys and dignity and influence of a\nproperly developed and appreciative Odd-Fellow.  Let it never be\nforgotten that there is nothing groveling in Odd-Fellowship.  Mutual\nrelief, it is true, is a leading office in our affiliation, but\nOdd-Fellowship seeks to elevate the character of man, make him what God\nintended him to be; and while such a helpful influence is extended to\neach one of us who have chosen to come within its holy power, may we\nendeavor to lift ourselves up to the high standard of the order of\nwhich we are a part, faithfully discharging our duties to ourselves and\nto the world; shedding its benign influence and hallowed inspiration\nalike in the palace with its draped windows and velvet laden floors and\nin the cottage nestling among the flowers of the humble dooryard;\nglowing with the same peerless luster in halls of learning and in\nworkshop and factory; kissing with the same tender, holy touch the\nrough hand that guides the implement of industry, and the soft hand\nthat guides the pen; making character the test of merit and the heart\nthe bond of friendship, and recognizing the equality and holy influence\nof noble womanhood.  Odd-Fellowship is the unerring, resplendent\nguiding star to that grand development of human nature to which hope\nlooks forward with such ardent joy, when one law shall bind all\nnations, tongues and kindred, and that law will be the law of universal\nbrotherhood.\"\n\n\n[*]Extract from address delivered by Hon. E. G. Hogate.","title":"The Jericho Road","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":46943}