Chapter 5

There are wives and mothers, who stand with lacerated hearts at the open grave and see the light of their life extinguished beneath the cruel clods, and yet, they bear up bravely, resting their bent forms and supporting their tottering feet on the staff of hope and trust which the Bible affords. Take that solace from them, and you may soon have occasion to bury the wife next to her husband, and the mother next to her child. There are husbands who, when sitting lonely, dependent, in the circle of their motherless, weeping children, find the good old Book the only comforter; take it from them and you drive them to the madhouse or to suicide. There are maidens grieving, pining, their hearts broken, their lives blighted, their career irretrievably blasted; take the solace from them which this book breathes into their withered hearts, the solace that suffering innocence will be recompensed, that a God of justice rules, take that solace from them and you have taken all that makes life bearable. There are millions of people pining in bondage, toiling in obscurity, suffering physically and mentally for no crime of their own, sick and hungry, friendless and hopeless; take the book from them that teaches them the lesson of patient endurance, and you may write the word Finis, and close the records of civilization forevermore. It is the one book that has a balm for every wound, a comfort for every tear, a ray of light for every darkness.

Its language all people can understand, its spirit all minds can grasp, its moral laws all people can obey, its truths appeal not only to the lowly and simple, but also to the highest intellect, they win the spontaneous approval, not only of the pious, but also of the most skeptical. At a literary gathering at the house of the Baron von Holbach, where the most celebrated atheists of the age used to assemble, the gentlemen present were one day commenting on the absurd and foolish things with which the Bible abounds. The French encyclopedist, Diderat, a materialist himself, startled his friends by his little speech: "But it is wonderful, gentlemen, it is wonderful. I know of no man who can speak or write with such ability. I do not believe that any of you could compose such narratives, or could have laid down such sublime moral laws, so simple, yet so elevating, exerting so wide an influence for good, and awakening such deep and such reverential feelings, as does the Bible." Diderat spoke the truth. Place the most celebrated systems of philosophies or the most famous code of ethics, into the hands of the masses, and see whether the subtleties of their learning, the elegance of their diction will touch their hearts as deeply as does the Bible. All the genius and learning of the ancient world, all the penetration of the profoundest philosophers, have never been able to produce a book that was as widely read, as voluminously commented on, as dearly loved, as this book, neither have all the law-givers of all the lands, and of all ages, been able to produce a code of law and ethics that was universally and as implicitly followed as that of the law-giver, Moses.

The Bible is an emblem of Odd-Fellowship, because it is the Odd-Fellows' text-book. Here we get our doctrines for faith and our rules for practice in all the relations of life. As Odd-Fellows, we believe the Bible is the word of God, because in their enmity humanity has never been able to destroy it or rob it of its power; nor have any who reject it given us a book to take its place. The intellect and culture of our day can not improve the teachings of Christ, nor set before us a nobler ideal life. As Odd-Fellows, we believe in this beautiful emblem, because our hearts attest its truth. We need not be told that the landscape is beautiful, or that the song of birds is sweet. When we see the one and hear the other, we know it. As the eye discerns the beautiful, and the ear discerns sweet sounds, so the heart of man discerns the divineness of the Bible teachings and sets its seal to their truth. As Odd-Fellows, we believe in the scriptures, because the experiences of all true believers, of whatever name, or age, or country, prove it to be the "bread of life" and the "water of life" to a needy and suffering world. Age by age the evidence of experience is accumulating, and growing stronger, and for a soul to distrust the revelations made unto it, and the divine leading of the human race, is as though the eye should disbelieve in the sun shining at mid-day. We recognize the Bible as a precious boon to man, the gift of the Great Father above. It is a "light to our feet and a lamp to our path." It is a compass whose never-failing needle directs us safely across the desert sands of life, and through the dark labyrinths of an evil world, and its precious promises gives us comfort while we bear the burdens and endure the sorrows, pain and anguish incident to human life.

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

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

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

Remember that no good the humblest of us has wrought ever dies. There is one long, unerring memory in the universe, out of which nothing dies. A chill autumn wind, blowing over a sterile plain, bore within its arms a little seed, torn with ruthless force from its matrix on a lofty tree, and dropped the seed upon the sand to perish. A bright winged beetle, weary with flight and languid with the chilly air, rested for a moment on the arid plain. The little seed dropped Aeolus served to satisfy the hunger of the beetle, which presently winged its flight to the margin of a swift running stream that had sprung from the mountain side, and cleaving a bed through rocks of granite, went gaily laughing upon its cheery way down to the ever rolling sea. Sipping a drop of the crystal flood, the beetle crawled within a protecting ledge, and, folding its wings, lay down to pleasant dreams. The Ice King passed along and touched the insect in its sleep. Its mission was fulfilled; but the conflict of the seasons continued until the white destroyer melted in the breath of balmy spring. And then a sunbeam sped to the chink wherein the body of the insect lay, and searching for the little seed entombed, but not destroyed, invited it to "join the Jubilee of returning life and hope." Under the soft wooing of the peopled ray, the little seed began to swell with joy, tiny rootlets were developed within the body of the protecting beetle, a minute stem shot out of its gaping mouth, and lo! a mighty tree had been carried from the desert, saved from the frosts of winter, nurtured and started upon its mission of life and usefulness by an humble insect that had perished with the flowers. The agent had passed away, but, building better than he knew, the wide-spreading tree remained by the margin of the life-giving stream, a shelter and a rest to the weary traveler upon life's great highway through many fretful centuries.

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

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

While Odd-Fellowship does not claim to be a religious institution, yet so closely is it allied to Christianity that we deem it proper to discuss these questions. I quote from Dr. Lyman Abbott's lecture on "Christianity and Orientalism," as follows: "Religion as a thought has four questions to answer: First, What is God? Second, What is man? Third, What is the relation between God and man? Fourth, What is the life which man is to live when he understands and enters into that relation? There is no other question; there is nothing left. What is God? What is man? And how are men to live when they have entered into that relationship? Now, Christianity has its answer to each one of those four questions. God--one true, righteous, loving, helpful Father of the whole human race. God--love. And love, what is that? Such a life as Jesus Christ lived on the earth. What is man? Man is in the image of God. If he is not, if he fails in that, he fails being a man. He is in the image of God, and not until he has come to be in the image, of God will he be a man. What is a statue? I can see a nose, a mouth, appearing out of the marble block. No, it is not a statue, it is a half-done statue. Wait until the sculptor is through, then you will see the statue. Not till God is done will you see a man, and you never saw one except as you saw him in Jesus of Nazareth. And what is the relation between this God and this man? It is the relationship of the most intimate fellowship that the human soul can conceive; one life dwelling in the other life, and filling the other life full of His own fullness. You can not get any closer relationship to God than that. When this fullness has been realized, when you and I have the fullness of God in us, when God has finished, the man life will result. Just such a life as Christ lived, with all the splendor of self-sacrifice, with all the glory of service, with all the magnificent heroism, with all the enduring patience."

BROTHER UNDERWOOD'S DREAM.

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

Turning to the right, we moved on, only to pass to more gorgeous and beautiful apartments, where the streets were golden. Here I observed another multitude, but it was one body. "This," said the angel, "is the gathering of the various priests and pastors, rectors and rabbis, and the ministers and the elders who are trying to unite on some common ground upon which their congregations (which we had passed) might stand, where there would be but 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism.'" Gal., iv, 5. For, said the angel, until then, they go not up with their churches and creeds to higher seats above, for "neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision." Gal., v, 6.

Proceeding on our way we approached a magnificent archway, over the lintels of which was inscribed, "The Christian's Home in Glory." The grandeur of this new apartment exceeded all the rest, a description of which lies beyond the power of words, "For eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." I Cor., ii, 9. This I found to be the abode of the apostles, martyrs and Christians of all ages. Here was Paul and Peter, and the prophets, the thief on the cross and Bunyan, Lazarus and Baxter, Stephen and Father Abraham, Martha and Mary and the widow who gave her two mites. Pausing, I beheld, with banners above, an innumerable number "marching on," with Lincoln and Lovejoy, Lyman, Beecher and John Brown in the advance, and on the banners was inscribed, "These are they which came out of great tribulation." Rev., viii, 14. The angel said: "That is the multitude of poor slaves from the cotton fields of earth, doing homage to their deliverers." "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat." Rev., vii, 16. Here I also found Watts and Wesley singing, while Bliss (who had but lately been translated from earth to heaven by way of Ashtabula bridge), catching the inspiration, was setting the songs of Heaven to the music of earth. Gazing on the many thrones and crowns, there were some of peculiar brightness. I looked on one, and what was the inscription? Was it, I was a Methodist? No. I was immersed? No. I was a Jew? No. But rather this: "Because I delivered the poor that cried and fatherless, and him that had none to help him, the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing with joy." Job, xxix, 12, 14. And this was the crown of Job. And there was another just beyond, and I read the inscription. Was it, I was a Presbyterian? No. I prayed by quantity? No. I was a Universalist? No. But "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world." James, i, 27. And while the memory and name of Peabody, the philanthropist, is and shall be honored and loved for ages to come in two hemispheres, his crown of glory in heaven is second to none. But there was still another. It was worn by one of queenly beauty, and she sat upon her throne; the splendor of her robe and the brilliancy of her apparel dimmed my vision. I read her inscription, set, as it was, in Heaven's choicest diamonds. Was it, I was an Episcopalian? No. I was baptized? No. I was a Catholic? No. But thus: "I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me." Matt., xxv, 35, 36. And before her throne stood thousands who had come up from the battle fields of the Crimea, and the widows and orphans, the lame and the halt, the blind and the deaf from the streets and alleys of London, and as they shouted their hallelujahs before her, they carried banners on which were emblazoned these words: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Matt., xxv, 40. And the crown of Florence Nightingale glistens brightly in Heaven. Passing on, and observing a large number of vacant thrones and crowns, I naturally asked, for whom are these? The angel replied: "For the Christians of earth; the managers of the 'homes' for the friendless, the widows and the orphans, and those who, regardless of their respective church creeds and doctrines, like their Master when he was on earth, go about doing good." The angel vanished, and I awoke.

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

THE IMPERIAL VIRTUE

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

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

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