Chapter 12

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

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

"So we, imitating the kind of example of the generous government, and measuring our acts by the example of the blessed Master, have erected a light-house here for the protection of humanity from its ills. Now it shines on us as mortals hastening to a final consummation of things; again it throws its beams out across the illimitable sea of hope, where sooner or later we all may ride, and by the light here given we may steer our bark into a haven of final rest. Today we are on the tempestuous ocean of life. We who feel that we are on the deck, let us throw the life-line and the life-preservers to him who is about to sink. Let us make this order even a greater light-house than our fathers ever dreamed of. It can be done, because it is so ordained. What God in his good providence orders can be, will be accomplished. With thankful hearts we have passed over more than three quarters of a century of existence as an organization. We are speeding onward to the century mark, and whether we remain to see its wonderful processes or not, humanity will be here demanding just what we have done in the past. Let us lay the work strong today and transmit it in higher forms, so that the end of the century of our existence as an order shall see better life, better hope and higher aspirations. Let the Subordinates, Patriarchs, Rebekahs and Chevaliers all form a cordon around the altar of our beloved order, where the fires shall never be extinguished while friendship, love and truth endures, and faith, hope and charity are necessities.

"Grand as has been the record of Odd-Fellowship from 1819 to the present, it is but the sunbeams from the birth of the day that will develop grandly into a magnificence that shall combine all the charms of the morning, the glare of the noontide, and the blaze of a sunset splendor in an endless panorama of glory and grandeur. And if, with such a picture before our eyes, painted by a faith founded upon the achievements of eighty years, and our intimate knowledge of the vast practical benevolence that begins at the cradle and ends only at the gate of heaven, the Odd-Fellow is not dazzled by the sublimity of Odd-Fellowship and awed into a reverence for its work and character, there is a lamentable defect in his appreciation of the beautiful, and an utter failure to read the joys and dignity and influence of a properly developed and appreciative Odd-Fellow. Let it never be forgotten that there is nothing groveling in Odd-Fellowship. Mutual relief, it is true, is a leading office in our affiliation, but Odd-Fellowship seeks to elevate the character of man, make him what God intended him to be; and while such a helpful influence is extended to each one of us who have chosen to come within its holy power, may we endeavor to lift ourselves up to the high standard of the order of which we are a part, faithfully discharging our duties to ourselves and to the world; shedding its benign influence and hallowed inspiration alike in the palace with its draped windows and velvet laden floors and in the cottage nestling among the flowers of the humble dooryard; glowing with the same peerless luster in halls of learning and in workshop and factory; kissing with the same tender, holy touch the rough hand that guides the implement of industry, and the soft hand that guides the pen; making character the test of merit and the heart the bond of friendship, and recognizing the equality and holy influence of noble womanhood. Odd-Fellowship is the unerring, resplendent guiding star to that grand development of human nature to which hope looks forward with such ardent joy, when one law shall bind all nations, tongues and kindred, and that law will be the law of universal brotherhood."

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