Chapter 8

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