Yes, kind reader, they are as true, loving and tender; don"t forget old friends.
Young men! Let the n.o.bleness of your mind impel you to its improvement; you are too strong to be defeated, save by yourselves.
Refuse to live merely to sleep and eat. Brutes can do this; but you are men. Act the part of men. Prepare yourselves to endure toil.
Resolve to rise--you have but to resolve. Nothing can hinder your success if you determine to succeed. Do not waste your time by wishing and dreaming, but go earnestly to work. Let nothing discourage you.
If you have no books, borrow them; if you have no teachers, teach yourself; if your early education has been neglected, by the greater diligence repair the defect. Let not a craven heart or a love of ease rob you of the inestimable benefit of self-culture.
Have the courage to face a difficulty, lest it kick you harder than you bargained for. Difficulties, like thieves, often disappear at a glance. Have the courage to leave a convivial party at the proper hour for doing so, however great the sacrifice; and to stay away from one upon the slightest grounds for objection, however great the temptation to go. Have the courage to do without that which you do not need, however much you may admire it. Have the courage to speak your mind when it is necessary that you should do so, and hold your tongue when it is better you should be silent. Have the courage to speak to a poor friend in a seedy coat, even in the street, and when a rich one is nigh. The effort is less than many people take it to be, and the act is worthy of a king. Have the courage to admit that you have been in the wrong, and you will remove the fact in the mind of others, putting a desirable impression in the place of an unfavorable one. Have the courage to adhere to the first resolution when you can not change it for a better, and abandon it at the eleventh hour upon conviction.
THE BIBLE IN ODD-FELLOWSHIP
The Bible is a book for the understanding; but much more it is a book for the spirit and for the heart. Many other kinds of learning are found in the Bible. It is a manual of Eastern antiquities, a handbook of political experiences, a collection of moral wisdom as applied to personal conduct, a mine of poetry, a choice field for the study of languages. The Bible is the book of G.o.d, and therefore it is the book of the future, the book of hope. It pierces the veil between this and another life, pointing us on to the realms of light. In sorrow, in sin, and in death we may, if we will, find in the Holy Bible patience, consolation and hope. The Bible opens the widest, freest outlook for the mind into the eternal, enlarging a man"s range of spiritual sight, and enabling him to judge of all things in both worlds in their true proportion. The Bible gets into life because it first came out of life. It was born of life at its best. Its writers were the tallest white angels literature has known. No other literature has five names equal to these: Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul and John. These men and the others wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The messages of the Bible are the loftiest in the range of human thought. There have been many magnificent periods like the age of Elizabeth, the time of the Renaissance and the age of Victoria, but no other single century has ever done anything equal to the production of the New Testament in the first century. The Bible has a sound psychology. It seeks to influence the whole man. It pours white light into the intellect. It grapples with the great themes upon which thinkers stretch their minds.
John Fiske"s three subjects are all familiar themes to the readers of the Bible. Its style is incomparable in grandeur and variety. It approaches the intellect with every form of literary style. It is the supreme intellectual force in the life of the common people. It has been teacher and school for the millions. The Puritans, for example, used it as a poem, story book, history, law and philosophy. Out of it New England was born. It has been the chief representative of the English language at its best. Anglo-Saxon life and learning are saturated with it. The literature of England and America is full of the Bible. Shakespeare and Tennyson are specimens. Each of these authors quote from nearly every book in the Bible, and each of them refers to the Bible not less than five hundred times. Herbert Spencer admits that it is the greatest educator. It is winning its place in school and college. No education is complete without a knowledge of this literature. It is the privilege of Odd-Fellowship to enthrone the Bible in the lodge-room, and in the home. It teaches the intellectual life from above and lifts it to the Bible"s own level.
Dean Stanley was visiting the great scholar, Ewald, in Dresden, and in the course of the conversation, Ewald s.n.a.t.c.hed up a copy of the New Testament and said, in his impulsive and enthusiastic way, "In this little book is contained all the wisdom of the world." There is a sense in which this statement is not extravagant. The book contains the highest and fullest revelation of truth the world has known. The greatest themes man"s mind can ponder are here presented. The most profound problems with which the human intellect has ever grappled are here discussed. We maintain that a mastery of the contents of this book will in itself provide an intellectual discipline no other book can give. Refinement of character, refinement of thought, refinement of speech, all of the essential characteristics of the intellectual as well as of the spiritual life, have been found in our own church from the beginning, among those whose only advantages have been a personal religious experience and the consequent love and continuous study of G.o.d"s word as well as among those who have had all the advantages of the schools. No man need be afraid of exhausting the truth in the Bible. No man can ever flatter himself that he has got beyond it.
Whatever his intellectual attainments may be, the Bible will still have further message for him.
There was a very suggestive spectacle on the streets of London one day, just after Elizabeth had become England"s Queen. As she was riding by the little conduit at the upper end of Cheapside an old man came out of it, carrying a scythe and bearing a pair of wings. He represented Father Time coming out of his dark cave to greet the young Queen. He led by the hand a young girl clad in flowing robes of white silk, and she was his daughter, Truth. Truth held in her hands an English Bible, on which was written "Verb.u.m Veritatis," and which she presented to the Queen. It was a pageant prepared for the occasion but suggestive for this occasion as well. Truth is the daughter of Time. Our backs may be bent and our hair may be gray before we can lead Bible truth forth by the hand. We may be old before we know much; our intellectual life may be matured in fullest measure and we still can know more; we must grow a pair of wings before we know it all--even if we do then.
The Bible is the conquering book. It has already dominated English literature, so that almost the whole of its text from Genesis to Revelation might, if all the copies of the Bible were suddenly lost from the world, be restored in piecemeal fragments gathered out of the books in which the Book has been quoted, Then, besides, there are the Bible thoughts that have indirectly, we might almost say insidiously, permeated the literature of Europe and America. More than that, the Bible has been industriously for years securing its own translation into hundreds of tongues and dialects of the globe. The Koran does not take pains to translate itself, and, indeed, refuses to be translated; but in contradistinction with such apathy of false faiths, the Bible courts transcription into foreign tongues, loses nothing in the process, but thereby gains for itself the homage of mult.i.tudes who, on reading it for the first time, cry, "This is the book we long have sought, that finds us out in the deepest recesses of our being and satisfies the profoundest cravings of our souls." The Bible is the comforting book. There is no volume like it for consolation. It is the only sure and steady staff for pilgrim spirits to lean upon, and the only book that is quoted at the bedside of the sick. It is a book to wear next the heart in life, and upon which to pillow the head in death. No other so-called "scriptures" of the world say the things that the Bible says, or supply the hopes that its promises afford. The Bible is not simply a book; it is The Book. It is the best book of any kind that we have. We can not do without it, either here or hereafter.
There are many books in the world, but there is only one book. The Bible is unique. It is in a cla.s.s by itself. It seeks to control everything, but it co-ordinates itself with nothing. It sets forth imitable examples of character, but it is not itself imitable. No one has ever written or ever will write a second Bible. The very phrase which every one uses, "The Bible," signifies the uniqueness of this book. It is a whole library in itself, and yet it is more than a simple collection of books. There is a h.o.m.ogeneity and consistency to the whole which lead us to speak of scripture as being a single story, not many revelations. The Bible is the exhaustless book. It may sometimes prove exhausting to its light-minded readers, but it never exhausts itself. "It is the wonder of the Bible," observes Dr. Joseph Parker, who has preached more than twenty-five volumes of sermons upon scriptural subjects, "that you never get through it. You get through all other books, but you never get through the Bible." On the basis of a rationalistic criticism, this quality of exhaustlessness is really inexplicable. And when we come to realize that, after all has been said as to scrolls and tablets and styluses and human factors and copyists, G.o.d wrote the Bible, we understand why it is that scripture is so rich in treasures of wisdom. We see that we can not exhaust the Bible because we can not exhaust G.o.d. The Bible wields an influence that can not be estimated. The spoken word is powerful, the printed word surpa.s.ses it. The one is temporal, the other is eternal; the one is circ.u.mscribed, the other is unlimited. The spoken sermon of today is forgotten tomorrow; the written word of thousands of years ago still sways the ma.s.ses of today.
The whole civilized world bows down with reverence before the book of all books, the Bible. The Roman sword, the Grecian palette and chisel, have indeed rendered n.o.ble service to the cause of civilization, yet even their proudest claims dwindle into insignificance when compared with the benefits which the Bible has wrought. It has penetrated into realms where the names of Greece and Rome have never resounded. It has illumined empires and enn.o.bled peoples, which Roman war and Grecian art had left dark and barbarous. Where one man is charmed by the Odyssey, tens and hundreds of thousands are delighted by the Pentateuch; where one man is enthused by the Philippics of Demosthenes, millions are enthused by the orations of Isaiah; where one man is inspired by the valor of Horatious, tens of millions are inspired by the bravery of David; where one man"s life is enn.o.bled by the art in the Parthenon, scores of millions of lives are enn.o.bled by the art in the sanctuary: where one man"s life is guided by the moral maxims of Marcus Aurelius, hundreds of millions find their law of right and their rule for action in the Bible. It is read in more than two hundred and fifty languages, by four hundred millions of people living in every clime and zone of the globe. It const.i.tutes the only literature, the only code of law and ethics, of many peoples and tribes. For thousands of years it has gone hand in hand with civilization, has led the way towards the moral and intellectual development of human kind, and despite the hatred of its enemies and the still more dangerous misinterpretations of its friends, its moral law still maintains its firm hold upon the hearts and minds of the people, its power is still supreme for kindling a love of right and duty, of justice and morality, within the hearts of the overwhelming ma.s.ses. Were it possible to annihilate the Bible, and with it all the influence it has exercised, the pillars upon which civilization rests would be knocked from under it, and, as if with one thrust of the fatal knife, we would deal the death blow to our morality, to our domestic happiness, to our commercial integrity, to our peaceful relationships, to our educational and chart-table inst.i.tutions.
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 G.o.d 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 a.s.semble, 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 ma.s.ses, 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 G.o.d, 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 n.o.bler 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 acc.u.mulating, 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 compa.s.s 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 h.e.l.l 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 ma.s.s. 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, pa.s.sive, 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 pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d"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 pa.s.sed 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 c.h.i.n.k 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d 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 inst.i.tution, 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 G.o.d? Second, What is man?
Third, What is the relation between G.o.d 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 G.o.d? 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. G.o.d--one true, righteous, loving, helpful Father of the whole human race. G.o.d--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 G.o.d. If he is not, if he fails in that, he fails being a man.
He is in the image of G.o.d, and not until he has come to be in the image, of G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d than that.
When this fullness has been realized, when you and I have the fullness of G.o.d in us, when G.o.d 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 inst.i.tution, 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 mult.i.tude 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 pa.s.s to more gorgeous and beautiful apartments, where the streets were golden. Here I observed another mult.i.tude, 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 pa.s.sed) 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 circ.u.mcision availeth anything, nor uncirc.u.mcision." 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 G.o.d 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 mult.i.tude 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 quant.i.ty? No. I was a Universalist?
No. But "Pure religion and undefiled before G.o.d 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. Pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d"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 circ.u.mstances. 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 a.s.sertion 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 a.s.sertion of David"s, so we will attempt to cla.s.sify 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, a.s.serts everything, denies anything.
During the campaign this lie is a factor. Men buy papers to read it, and go miles to hear it. The campaign lie is the greatest worker in the canva.s.s for votes. He pats the workman on the back and promises to fill his pail with sirloin steak and fresh salmon, when, if the other man is elected, he will have to carry liver and codfish. He grasps the merchant strongly by the hand and promises him larger sales and better profits in case his party gets into power; he enters the magnate"s office and promises him increased dividends and no strikes; he promises everything till after election, when he has no more promises to make.
There is the polite lie, too. A very gentle affair this. A very proper lie, clothed with the attire of an elegant etiquette and of graceful form. It is never harsh and never rude, but smooth as oil, as gentle as a zephyr. The number of polite lies that are told every day are legion. It would be useless to attempt to cla.s.sify them, worse than useless to try to enumerate them. They are of all sizes, colors, descriptions and shapes. They have much in common, but differ widely in particular. No locality is dest.i.tute of this venerable and cla.s.sic falsehood. The ancients used it, the moderns still cling to it; the poor find it handy, the rich could not keep house without it; it abounds in every clime and thrives in every lat.i.tude. The polite hostess says to the departing guest: "We have been delighted by your visit; do us the favor to come again," when she sincerely hopes that most any catastrophe may overtake her rather than another visit from this same personage. There are the every-day expressions, "Not at home," which the housemaid is instructed to give the caller; and a score of other social lies which in truth deceive n.o.body, nine times out of ten. Society would lose little and gain much if the polite lie could be banished, and every man say what he thought and speak as he felt.
Another lie I will notice is the business lie. The business lie is a very matter of fact lie. It sounds well. There are some genuine bankrupt sales, of course; there are a few bona fide smoke, fire and water mark-downs undoubtedly, but there are more advertised in a week than there are failures and fires in a year. Good, staple merchandise will usually bring its value, and he who advertises an unheard of bargain has generally set a trap for the unwary. One cla.s.s of goods in the window marked a certain price, an inferior cla.s.s on the bargain counter at the same figure. You bargain for a piece of furniture at a surprisingly low figure; when it is delivered you have every reason to suppose that it is like what you bought in appearance alone. A roll of cloth marked "all wool," it is half cotton, and the rest shoddy. The business lie, though found so often, is never the friend of merchant or purchaser. It is the foe of all honest transactions. Office, salesroom and storehouse would be better without it; proprietor, clerk and purchaser would thrive better if rid of it.
The lie of gossip. If by some power, human or divine, the gossiping tongue could be silenced and the tattling mouth effectually closed, half of the evil of this world would already be stopped, and the other would commence to languish for want of patronage. The lie of gossip is the blackest of them all. The blackest of all the black horde, the very worst of the whole evil troop; insinuating, sly and crafty, it creeps around with a serpent"s stealth, and carries beneath its tongue the deadly poison of ten thousand adders. The venom can be extracted from the cobra"s fangs, but no power on earth can tame the tongue of an unprincipled gossip. Some lies you can kill, but the lie of gossip is imperishable. You may clip its wings, but its flight is unhindered; you may cut off its head, but two will grow out in its place; you may crush it to earth beneath the heel of denial. Let it alone and possibly the dirty, contemptible, infamous thing will die; touch it not and it may droop and languish; do not chase it and it may grow weak for want of exercise.
Oh, my dear reader, above all things, don"t have your life a lie, your career a falsehood. Be no hypocrite, live no lie, and the G.o.d of all truth will see something in you to admire if you live truthfully and honestly before all men. Truth is a sure pledge not impaired, a shield never pierced, a flower that never dieth, a state that feareth no fortune, and a port that yields no danger. We can not build a manly character unless we are in possession of the imperial virtue, truth.
Ah! truth is the diamond for which the candid mind ever seeks. It is the sanction of every appeal that is made for the good and the right.
It may be crushed to earth, it may be long in achieving victory, but it is omnipotent and must triumph at last. Christ brought truth into the world. Truth, then, is a personal, experimental and practical thing.