Chapter IV: Part 4

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

Compte defines religion as consisting of three parts--a belief, a worship, and a rule of life--of which all three are equal, and each as necessary as any other. As is truly said, "Society can not be touched without knowledge; and the knowledge of social organization of humanity is a vast and perplexing science. The race, like every one of us, is dependent on the laws of life, and the study of life is a mighty field to master." Enthusiasm of humanity would be but shallow did it not impel us to efforts to learn how to serve--demanding the best of conduct, brain and heart. The power of Odd-Fellowship lies in its fraternity. It goes forward with irresistible magnetism when its fraternal principles are truly interpreted. It furnishes to men a strong union, where general intelligence, by attrition, is increased; it provides a high moral standard; its objective action is such as touches the common heart of humanity; and by its grand co-operative system it gives the finest means of securing those advantages that tend to the securement of material comfort and mental and spiritual peace and happiness.

Drummond says: "Love is the greatest thing in the world." Read what Paul says about it in I Cor., xiii: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up: Doth not behave itself unseemly; Seeketh not her own. Is not easily provoked. Thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love."

The more I study Odd-Fellowship, the more I become convinced that I have just crossed the threshold, and that new truths and sublime lessons await me, of which I never dreamed. Brothers, there is hidden treasure in our order for which we must dig. It must be brought to the surface. We must know more of the beauties of this great organization of ours. "The greatest thing," says some one, "a man can do for his Heavenly Father is to be kind to some of His other children." "I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder than we are? How much the world needs it. How easily it is done. How instantaneously it acts. How infallibly it is remembered. How super-abundantly it pays itself back--for there is no debtor in the world so honorable, so superbly honorable, as love. Love is success. Love is happiness. Love is life." "Where love is, God is. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God. God is love. Therefore love." "Without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most of all upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps we each do least of all. There is a difference between trying to please and giving pleasure. Give pleasure. Lose no chance of giving pleasure. For that is the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a truly loving spirit. I shall pass through this world but once. Any good things that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. We can be Odd-Fellows only while we act like honest men."

Every Odd-Fellow ought to be a "gentleman." Do you know the meaning of the word "gentleman"? "It means a gentleman--a man who does things gently, with love. And that is the whole art and mystery of it. The gentleman can not in the nature of things do an ungentle, an ungentlemanly thing." "Love doth not behave itself unseemly." Life is full of opportunities for learning love. Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. There is an eternal lesson for us all, "how better we can love." What makes a good artist, a good sculptor, a good musician? Practice. What makes a man a good man, a man of love? Practice. Nothing else. If a man does not exercise his arm he develops no biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigor of moral fibre, nor beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character--the Christ-like nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of this great character are only to be built up by ceaseless practice. To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever. We want to live forever for the same reason that we want to live tomorrow. Why do you want to live tomorrow? It is because there is some one who loves you, and whom you want to see tomorrow, and be with, and love back. There is no other reason why we should live on than that we love and are beloved. It is when a man has no one to love him that he commits suicide. The reason why, in the nature of things, love should be the supreme thing--because it is going to last; because in the nature of things it is an eternal life. It is a thing that we are living now, not that we get when we die; that we shall have a poor chance of getting when we die unless we are living now.

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

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

This world is beautiful, and it is full of priceless sympathies. All creation is glorious with melody. The morning stars, saith the Bible, sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy when it was made. The universe of stars, and suns, and planets and globes, swing harmoniously through space. Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Father's notice; not a soul yearns, or sorrows, or rejoices, but He knoweth it. He hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell together on the face of the earth. We are bound to each other by indissoluble ties. It is a law of nature that we must all work for each other. Though ten thousand miles apart; though oceans roll between us and continents divide us, we labor not for ourselves alone. You plow the furrow in California and sow the wheat for your brother in Louisiana, while he plants the cane and cotton for you. The good Siberian is this day roaming over snows and ice, hunting the otter and gathering furs, that you may be warm. Men are diving in the Persian gulf for pearls to grace your wives and daughters. The silkworm of India and China may have spun the threads of your dress, the Frenchman may have woven it; the hardy mariner braved the seas to bring it here. Truly, we are brothers. A common Father brought us all into this world, and to a common Father we all go. Let us, then, help one another, in money (if need be), in education, in sympathy.

There is one feature of the order we desire to emphasize, and that is its full sympathy with those that labor and toil. No reference would do justice to the order that did not emphasize this fact. It is its pride and glory. It is from this class its membership is chiefly drawn. It was with this class it originated, the first lodge in the United States having been organized by half a dozen humble mechanics; Thomas Wildey, their leader, was a blacksmith. You see it had no aristocratic origin, and its broad and catholic sympathy, its popularity with this class is explained. They know its value, and have seen its active charity and experienced its beneficence. A man who has no sympathy with the humble and the lowly, a man of mean and narrow heart, will find no congenial dwelling place in our lodges. The true Odd-Fellow is a man of heart; his hand is open to every worthy appeal of the needy, and he is honest and upright in his life. It enforces no religious or political tests; in these every member is free; but it does teach and urge its members to be grateful to their Creator and loyal to their country. In conclusion, let me urge upon the living, fidelity to the teachings of Odd-Fellowship. If these are respected it will make you better citizens, better husbands, better fathers, better men. It is a cultivation of the heart and the better feelings, and expands our humanity. If you are poor, it will come to you, or your family, sometimes as a benefaction. If you are rich, you can afford to give, and with a good Odd-Fellow that is more blessed than to receive.

I want to say here what I have often said in the lodge-room. I love Odd-Fellowship, above all, for the heart there is in it. For its display on the street and its pageantry I care but little. I shrink from it rather than follow it. But its benevolence, its active charity, and its mission of good will, I admire. When death's unwelcome presence rests within our portals, and obedient to his call a loved one has gone hence, we should give the mortal remains of the departed brother a decent sepulture; fondly cherish the remembrance of his virtues, and bury his frailties "beneath the clods which rest upon his bosom." We should then direct our thoughts and cares to the desolate home, where the widow, clad in the robes of grief, her heart cords broken and bleeding, is weeping over earth's only idol, now lost to earth forever. Then, too, should we extend the helping hand to the fatherless children, and endeavor to so direct their steps that their paths may be paths of usefulness and honor. These are the imperative duties. But our ministrations of charity and benevolence should by no means be confined exclusively within the pale of the order. This crowded world, with its eager millions, maddened with ambition's unquenchable fires, trampling under foot and well-nigh smothering each other in the great rush of competitive strife, is full of poor unfortunates, daily appealing for generous sympathy and assistance.

Though not members, it may be, of our peculiar family, yet the poorest, the humblest, the most wretched, is a human being--"the master-piece of His handiwork"--and, as such, demands our aid and comfort as far as practicable. Life has been compared to a river. Aye, and beneath its murky waters lurk countless reefs and shoals. Many a beautiful bark, sailing, seemingly, under the very star of hope, dashes upon them, and is lost. All along its shores are scattered the wrecks of stranded vessels, once laden with joyous hopes and brilliant prospects. Odd-Fellowship renders the passage of this river safe by a bridge of mystic form,

"On one side is friendship planted--
Truth upon the other shore;
Love, the arch that spans the current,
Bears each brother safely o'er."

It should be the most pleasing duty of Odd-Fellows to point our fellow-travelers to this beautiful and stately arch; to lead thitherward their weary steps. Such would be assistance more permanent than can be rendered by silver or gold. The time is certain to come when every young man is thrown back upon himself--must leave the tranquil security of the parental home, and seek a refuge among strangers. When beyond the reach of family influence--beyond the reach of that tender providence which so carefully guarded him from vice, and soothed his griefs and sympathized with all his youthful aspirations and pleasures--when this influence ceases to surround him, what will continue its ministry of love? What will be to him father, mother, brother, sister--home? Will society? No! Society to its deepest core is selfish, corrupt, unnatural and unloving? Society will not, and can not. He is in the great world--allurements and temptations are rife around him--he is sick and in distress, and must suffer alone, with no one to console him with a word of comfort, sympathy, or love; he has no attention but such as money will purchase--he dies, and the cold eyes of strangers only look upon the grave, if, indeed, a grave he has. This is a life picture, and it is at this point the beauty and utility of Odd-Fellowship is seen, for the order is a vast family circle, spread throughout the community; always powerful and efficient to preserve those who are brought within the sphere of its influence. He who is a member of this fraternity may go where his father's counsel and his mother's care can not reach him, but he can not go beyond the reach of that larger family to which he belongs! Silently and invisibly, yet with unslumbering assiduity, Odd-Fellowship watches over him, and by its wise counsels, its tender sympathies and rational restraints, saves him from the ways of vice.

Mythic story tells us that the ancient gods invisibly and secretly followed their favorites in all their wanderings, and when exposed to danger, or threatened with destruction, would unveil themselves in their awful beauty and power, and stand forth to preserve them from harm or to avenge their wrongs. Odd-Fellowship realizes this myth of the pagan gods; she surrounds all her children with her preserving presence, and reveals herself always in the hour of peril, sickness or distress. Nowhere in our country can a true Odd-Fellow feel himself alone, friendless or forsaken. The invisible, but helpful arms of our order surround him wherever he may be. And should he be overtaken by illness or misfortune, be he in any part of the country, and never so poor, he will, if he makes his wants known, receive as a right the necessary assistance, and friends to watch over him with fraternal solicitude. And should he fall a victim to disease, the brothers of charity will be there to close his eyes, and with solemn, yet hopeful, heaven-born rites, consign his body to the repose of the silent tomb. Odd-Fellowship is an embodiment of family love and affection, and is the only substitute for home influence, and the only green spot in the dreary waste of life which binds these brothers to the tender practice of every virtue--guides in prosperity and health, and as a ministering angel bends over them with tenderest pity in their chamber of suffering. True, there are sorrows which it can not reach--there are griefs which it can not remove; notwithstanding, it still pursues its way, imparts its healthful influence, and accomplishes its beautiful and holy ministry of benevolence and charity. If it can not heal the wounds of misfortune, it administers the balm of sympathy, friendship and love. My dear reader, learn to give encouragement to those around you.

Everybody feels the need of encouragement, from the humblest artisan to the king on his throne. We hear of the choice spirits who have been the world's idols, how they came up through terrible trials alone and almost unaided, setting aside obstacles that would have crushed others, and fighting their way to the very pinnacle of fame. Aye! but great as they were, they needed and received encouragement. In some part of their poor home they saw the smile that spoke the hearty appreciation of the genius, though, perhaps, the lips said nothing. Even West left on record, "my mother's smile made me a painter." The encouragement of a little child will send the blood more warmly to the heart, and even the appreciation of a poor dumb brute is worth its gaining. Give encouragement. Everybody needs it--men, women and even children. Oh! how many a dear little heart has been chilled into ice when the coarse laugh has greeted its rude hieroglyphics in the first attempt to portray its ideal. The child sees warm visions of sunlight and beauty in those uncouth angles. Whole minds of thought lie concealed under those strange shapes. To the young mind's eye they are wonders, and the tiny fingers have built monuments that deserve not to be thrown down so rudely, when a smile that costs nothing would have left them standing to be finished into finer shape and more classical proportions in the years that are to come. You do a positive injury to the dullest child when you reward his little efforts with contempt. It is a wrong that can never be repaired, for the disheartment that strikes the happy spirit, flushed with the consciousness of having achieved something new and great, comes up in after time with the very same vividness at every trivial disappointment. Give encouragement. You men of business, who know so well what a good, hearty "go ahead," coupled with a frank, merry face, will do in your own case--give encouragement to the young beginner, who starts nervously at the bottom of the race, and who, though he may put a bold outside on, quakes at the center of his being with the dread that among so many competitors he shall always be left in the rear. Hold out your hand to him as if you thought the world was really large enough for two, and bid him God-speed. Tell him to come to you if he feels the need of a friend to advise with him. Don't emulate your sign in overshadowing him. Out upon these mean, cringing souls who would grudge God's sunlight if it shone upon a piece of merchandise as good as their own. They are poor, barren wretches, who plow furrows only in their own cheeks, and plant wrinkles on their brows. Above all things, if you have any tenderness or compassion, encourage your pastor, your physician, and your editor. Suppose, once in a while, they do, in expressing their own honest views, say something that conflicts a little with your own starved or plethoric notions. Suppose they do dare to tell you the truth sometimes in a way that makes you cringe, and you say to yourself, "he has no business to be personal," when the poor man never thought that his homely coats would fit; don't grow cold, and cast sheep's eyes, and nudge somebody's elbow in a corner, and whisper all around, and say complacently, "Yes, Brother A. is a good man--but--"

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

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

GEMS OF BEAUTY

More hopeful than all wisdom is one draught of human pity that will not forsake us.

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

Let him who neglects to raise the fallen fear lest, when he falls, no one will stretch out his hand to lift him up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One great impediment to the rapid dissemination of new truths is that a knowledge of them would convict many sage professors of having long promulgated error.

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

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

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

If we waited until it was perfectly convenient, half of the good actions of life would never be accomplished, and very few of its successes.

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

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

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

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

Many of the men we calmly set down as failures may have been doing as much as those who have made ten times as much noise in the world. A great deal of the best work in the world is anonymous, if we do not confine the term to writing.

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

That man who lives in vain lives worse than vain. He who lives to no purpose lives to a bad purpose.--_Nevins_.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Industry--In seeking a situation, remember that the right kind of men are always in demand, and that industry and capacity rarely go empty-handed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are people who often talk of the humbleness of their origin, when they are really ashamed of it, though vain of the talent which enabled them to emerge from it.

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

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

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

Women often make light of ruin. Give them but the beloved objects, and poverty is but a trifling sorrow to bear.--_Thackeray_,

Independence is a name for what no man possesses; nothing in the animate or inanimate world is more dependent than man.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HUSBAND AND FATHER

Miss Frances Power Cobb is right, and she is wrong, when she says: "It is a woman, and only a woman--a woman all by herself, if she likes, and without any man to help her--who can turn a house into a home." She is unquestionably right in her judgment, that it is a woman who can, if she will, turn a house into a home, but she is much in the wrong in her assertion that it is a woman all by herself, without any man to help her, who can effect such a beneficial transformation. Woman possesses magical powers in the way of building up a home; but home naturally implies the presence and protection of man--and it is man himself, if he likes, and without any woman to help him, who can give that home a semblance of that place where, as some people believe, the wicked suffer after they have "shuffled off this mortal coil." The husband can never make the home, but he can succeed most admirably, if so he choose, to unmake it, to banish its happiness and comfort, to exile from it its ministering angels of peace and content, to shatter woman's sweet and blessed work to its very foundation. Let the wife concentrate, all day long, all her care and ingenuity and love upon building up her little paradise at home, let her hands be ever so busy in strewing fresh flowers around the domestic hearth, let her heart be ever so happy throughout the day in the discharge of her domestic duties, let her countenance be ever so beaming in her sweet anticipation of the happy smile of appreciation, of the kind word of sympathy and encouragement, which shall be her reward when her husband returns; and then see this star in her domestic firmament enter, sulking and surly, blind to all that her busy hands have so lovingly prepared, grim and gruff to her and the little ones, who have been fitted up in their neatest and cleanest, in which to welcome their father's return, and then see whether you can agree with Miss Cobb's assertion "that it is a woman, and only a woman--a woman all by herself, if she likes, and without any man to help her--who can turn a house into a home." See how her heart sinks, how her voice, full of mirth and glee and music before his coming, dies in her throat, how the little ones, full of merriment all day long, tremblingly hide in the corner, or withdraw from the room; see how the intrusion of this grim spectre of malcontent shuts the door upon domestic peace and happiness, and withers every pious resolve to make home the dearest, sweetest, most contented and most sacred spot on earth, and then calculate how long, under such disheartening surroundings, woman will be able all by herself, and without any man to help her, to prevent her house from becoming anything and everything except a home.

While studying language, I observed that most of my mistakes in grammar occurred in the feminine gender, and thinking over the cause of it, it dawned upon me that, belonging to the masculine sex, I was in the habit of thinking in that gender, and that my teachers were men, and that my text-books and grammars had been written by men, and that the masculine gender predominated so strongly in the exercises, that it was but natural for me to make the greatest number of mistakes in the gender to which the least attention had been given. When dealing with the social and domestic question, the unbiased among us can not but observe a similar failing. Many a serious mistake has been made by man when speaking or writing concerning women, because our speakers and writers and preachers and teachers belonged from the very beginning of civilization, almost exclusively to the masculine sex, a sex which has never tired in exalting itself at the expense of the weaker sex, in emphasizing woman's inferiority to man, in asserting its rights, and in complaining about its wrongs, and as woman did not write or speak for herself, we have heard but little of her side of the story, know next to nothing of her just rights and of her grievous wrongs, seldom dream that she, too, has rights that must be respected, and suffers wrongs that must be corrected.

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

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

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

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

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

To me every good woman is the fair fulfillment of dreamed delight. She is the first at the cross and the last at the grave. All that is highest and best in the world is nurtured and fed by the milk of her nobility. The Christ of all greatness and hope was born of a woman. The noble women of the world! O, would that the days of chivalry were not past, that I might unsheath a lance in their name, for their glory! But in our more prosaic days, what can I do but let the will suffice for the deed, and say to the woman, "God bless you." I propose to let her speak for herself today. I propose to accept her invitation to accompany her through the various spheres of her domestic life, and see whether she alone is responsible for that vice and crime and misfortune which moralists and superintendents of penal and charity institutes trace back to neglects at home; whether it is always the wife and mother that is responsible for unhappiness in marriage and for the increase of divorces; whether the husbands and fathers are always the saints and martyrs, or whether they are not very, very often the root of the whole evil themselves.

We retrace our steps and begin with our observations of the husband and father a few months prior to that solemn day, on which he plighted his vows of protection and faithfulness, on which he took into his care and trust a woman's life and happiness, on which he sacredly promised, in the name of God, and in the presence of witnesses, to love her, to honor and cherish her, to provide for her, to be faithful to her in all his obligations as husband, in youth and in old age, in sunshine and in darkness, in prosperity and in adversity. We make first his acquaintance in the happy days of his courtship. He is burning with love. He is the facsimile of Shakespeare's lover, "sighing like a furnace." Her praises are on his lips always. He avows himself her slave and worships her as a goddess. It is in her company alone that he can find happiness. Whether at home or in society, he is always at her side. Life is dreary where she is not. He wonders how he could have lived so long, or how he could continue existence, without her. How regular and how punctual he is in his calls, and how he scowls at the clock for running away with time so fast! Not a wish does she express, no matter how unreasonable and extravagant, but he eagerly gratifies it. How numerous his little attentions and his kind remembrances! How thoughtful of her birthday, and how lavish in floral tributes and costly presents! How numerous and how lengthy his letters when separated! How sweet their moonlight walks and talks! How bright her future, which he maps out! How many the pledges which he breathes forth between his ardent kisses; never a harsh word shall break on her ear, never a wish of hers shall be ungratified, never a trouble shall mar her happiness; such a love as his has never been before, and will never be again; he only lives for her happiness; his affection will never cool, he will be a lover all his life; their whole wedded life will be one never-waning honeymoon.

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