Hill's New Hampshire Patriot

I. O. of O. F.

AN ADDRESS,
Delivered before "White Mountain Lodge No. 5,
I. O. of O. F.," at the Dedication of "Harmony
Hall" in Concord, on the evening of Aug. 8, 1845,
BY THEIR REV. BRO. MOSES G. THOMAS.

Dear Brothers of the Mystic Tie—and ye gentle
Sisterhood that grace our presence now: we hail you
—we bid you welcome in the sacred names of FRIENDSHIP,
LOVE AND TRUTH!

We have assembled on a somewhat unwonted occasion.
The principles of our Order, as such, are comparatively
new in this community; and the dedication
and consecration of these goodly walls to their promotion,
with the invitation which has been extended to us
many as this ample space will convene, seem to call
for some notice of that, concerning which, these things
are. Would that the duty of being speaker on this
occasion, had fallen to some one better able to meet it.
But I will remember that I speak to Brothers, and to
those whom they have introduced, at least, to this portion
of our Fellowship, and who we trust, will not be
less charitable than ourselves.

Let me then first speak of the principles of our Fraternity.
Most of them are by no means peculiar to us.
They are principles too high and holy, too comprehensive,
far-reaching and divine, to be the exclusive possession
of any portion of our Father's children. They
are all contained in that Book of all books The BIBLE—
which occupies so large a space in our peculiar
rites.

Indeed, we confess that if the Word of God were
perfectly received and obeyed of all men, there would
be no longer any need of our Order. If the churches
were all that they should be according to the Divine
Master's spirit and practice, and all were members of
them, then too, we confess, that our Order would be no
longer needed.

We do not therefore claim originality in the principles
of our Order. No. We are all disciples. Disciples
of those principles and duties which our Heavenly
Father hath revealed. Our principles are as old as the
revelations of the One only Living and True God.

Should it then be asked—what need of our Order?
we would ask a question in reply—to wit—what need
is there of various churches of differing denominations?
Respective portions of these differing christians will
doubtless answer, that there are certain truths and
principles and practices of Christianity which they deem
essential to their truest good, which other churches
have not embraced or made sufficiently prominent; and
that therefore they form a church among themselves to
embrace and promote them. They will doubtless allow,
that if all lived perfectly all the requirements and
spirit of the Gospel, and were perfectly and fully enlightened
concerning it, they would all be of one
Church having "one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one
God and Father of all." Then indeed would there
be no need of differing churches of different denominations.

The same is the answer we would give to the question—
“What need of your Order, since your principles
are contained in the Bible?'
We answer—
there are a portion of those principles and duties therein
enjoined, which we deem essential to the happiness
and good of man and to the glory of his Maker, which
are not embraced, enjoined and practised as they should
be. Therefore our Order, that these neglected principles
and duties of christianity, essential to human happiness,
relief and blessing, may be professed and practised;
nay, even most solemnly, affectionately and
awfully impressed upon the heart. When all shall become
so thoroughly christian that these shall need no
urging, but all shall voluntarily and perfectly observe
them, then, indeed, our Order may be no longer needed;
for the principles of Odd Fellowship will have become
universal.

But it may be asked yet more definitely—“What are
the neglected principles of Christianity to whose rescue
and revival our Brotherhood would come?'
We answer—they are practical. We meddle not
with the thorns and briers of theological polemics.—
They are too profitless, too ungenial, too strife-bearing
for own deep Brotherhood. Herein we leave each to
.his own Master, to conscience and to God, unquestioning
and unquestioned. So also of all political strifes
do we shake our garments clean within these sacred
walls. But those practical duties and precepts of Christianity,
that are matters of the practise of every hour
and day of our lives—that enter so fully into character
.and contribute above others to the relief, happiness and
blessing of mankind, are the foundation stones of our
Fraternity. The duty must be done, the life must be
lived, the blessing must be conferred, as well as received,
or there is departure from the principles of the
Order. Thus eminently and emphatically are they
practical.

They are also humane, benevolent, principles of
Love. They were revealed from God by Jesus Christ
when he said—“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Do unto others as ye would that they should do
unto you." When he enjoined the giving of meat to
the hungry, drink to the thirsty, shelter to the stranger,
clothes to the naked, visits to the sick and to the imprisoned,
as acts which should be owned in the soul's
account as done unto him; and for which shall be uttered
the welcome, "Come ye blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
of the world." They fell from the lips of Jesus
in the story of the good Samaritan; from the lips of
James when he bade us visit the fatherless and the
widows in their affliction, and keep ourselves unspotted
from the world.

Need I say more of their humane and benevolent
character? Is it not a work that Angels may share
to open wide the full and free hand to the destitute—to
watch the stars out, smoothing the pillow of a Brother's
agonies and ministering to his wants and necessities
even though he be a stranger from earth's remotest
realm—and when he is gone, to see the clods of the
valley with true affection laid decently o'er the sleeping
Brother? Nor is this all. Our Brotherhood doth
watch the widow's loneliness, that the winter's fire
shall not go out upon her hearth-stone, and that meal
shall be supplied in her barrel, and the oil in her cruse.
The blanket also shall be upon her little ones and protection
to her fatherless children. O, sweet and grateful
to men and Angels are the offices of our holy Brotherhood!

We answer still further concerning our principles, that
they are social. There is much of communion in them.
There is meaning in our Fellowship. Would that it
might become so general and universal as no longer to be
Opp. Here too we gather our principles from the
source Divine. Where will you look for a truer fellowship
among Brethren than existed between David
and Jonathan? True to their covenant Brotherhood
while living, and how tender and touching was the lament
of the survivor, when accursed war had ended
their earthly covenant and drank the blood of the slain.
"How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!
O Jonathan thou wast slain in thy high places. I
am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan; very
pleasant hast thou been unto me. How are the mighty
fallen and the weapons of war perished!" We would
copy from that Holy Word. We would not that fellowship
like theirs while living, and when the one for
a time was outwardly divided from the other by death,
that a sorrow like that of him who was left, should die
out from among men. Such jewels of' Friendship are
too precious to be forgotten. May the sheen of their
Friendship shine on with undiminished glory and love,
through the long vista of departed centuries and rest
upon us. May its star, with triple ray of Friendship,
Truth and Love, be ever the ascendant star of our
Fellowship. Before it the cold and hollow forms of
ghostly etiquette shall vanish away, and those of different
lands and different climes, and (thanks be to God
and our English Brotherhood,) of different colors, meet
where they may, upon earth or ocean, shall no more
pine for Fellowship or Brotherhood. That Fellowship
and Brotherhood of Love shall shine out from the true
Brother's bosom, and into the true Brother's bosom,
surely as shone the love of God through the Urim and
Thummim upon the breast of his chosen Priest of old.

But I must dwell no longer upon the principles to
which we dedicate these walls. Suffice it to have
shown that we have fastened upon those sadly neglected,
yet practical, humane and social, portions of religion
that so brightly shine in Revelation's pages and
are so essential to the happiness and good of the Universal
Brotherhood of our kind.

Brothers: I have spoken of our principles—what
they are. Shall we not now commune together that we
may live up to them? Nought will it avail us to have
an Order of the purest and the holiest principles that
ever shone out from the throne of a God of Love and
Truth, if we are unfaithful to them—if not only the
outward life, but the sentiments and dispositions of the
heart are not conformed to them. And although I cannot
add to the solemn obligations between the living
and the dead, that are voluntarily upon us so to live,
yet would venture with the hand of Brother
love to touch the chords of our golden harp, in hopes to
elicit a more perfect harmony, that shall be responsive
as it were, even to the deep diapasons of Eternal Love.

Brothers, it is a mighty work to live up to the principles
of our Order. A work that will make us greater
conquerors than an Alexander, for we cannot so live,
until we are perfect masters of ourselves, of every sentiment,
emotion, thought, feeling, or purpose that may
arise, or stir within us.
We cannot so live without
much inward watching and conflict and prayer. If a
Brother should be unfaithful, or do us wrong, or exhibit
pride, or attempt to overreach us, or in any way to injure,
it is no small work to most of us to bid the rising
storm within—Peace—be still and obeyed

Filled with prejudices and biasses, religious, political
civil, literary and pecuniary, as we all are, I fear, in
some degree, a mere wish as we enter these sacred
walls and join the Brotherhood will not be enough to
suppress them all—to banish every sentiment and
thought but that of perfect Brotherhood. Yet, unless
we effectually do it, what better will be our Brotherhood
than the not unfrequent and sad solecism, of a
quarrelling and contending church of the Prince of
Peace? The outward act I have no doubt will be apparently
conformative. But for this we care but little.
We would be Brothers in feeling—Brothers at heart,
or all is comparatively in vain. We would have the
heavenly feeling of a divine Brotherhood within us, so
that it may mark all our lives, —may go out from us,
as virtue went out from him who was perfect in the
leaven of love we would breathe. Let our faithfulness
to our principles be such, that the world can never
point in mockery, or scorn, or just reproof, at the spots
in our character or conduct. If we are unfaithful, so
that quarrels and animosities and wrong acts can be
pointed out among us, and bad feelings be known to
exist, then farewell, a long farewell to this hope of human
Brotherhood. Our Order will duly and justly sink
in its own eyes, and in those of the public, and in THE
ALL-SEEING EYE OF GOD. According to its principles
it now appeareth as a covenant bow of hope and
promise, high in the moral heavens, giving earnest to
the eyes of all who behold it, of the approaching time
when man shall love his brother as himself—when
the bow of covenant love shall span the human race.

Brothers: There is another reason why we should
faithfully live up to all the solemn and affectionate obligations
of our Order. We are neither selfish nor exclusive
in our aims. We would take that course which
we believe will be most effectual to spread the principles
and duties of our Order among all men, and especially
where they would not be recognized and obeyed
under any other existing course. We do not, as some
suppose, confine our views or our benevolent purposes
and aims to the Lodge alone. It is there indeed that
our direct labor lays, yet it is to the end that we may
become a pure leaven that shall help to leaven the
whole lump.

He would be but a partially instructed
and short-sighted, nay even narrow-minded Brother,
who did not look and hope for good influences of the
Order, in the improved hearts and amended lives, not
only of its members, but of all in the community of
which they may be a part. As well might churches
be accused of selfishness when they refuse all save
those whom they deem worthy and who will comply
with the requisite condition. They do so, not from
selfishness, but because they think so best to preserve
the purity of their order, and to send forth a goodly
leaven into society. Even so, we deem the terms and
conditions and many of the circumstances of Odd Fellowship
as essential to the effectual promotion of its
practical duties and its principles, not only among its
members, but through them in society at large. For
the good of others then, Brothers, let us be faithful to
our principles living up to them.

One point more in regard to living up to our principles.
You well know that they are such as your religion
enjoins—such as Jesus practiced and taught in the
name of God the Father. I need not then say to you
that it is your highest and your everlasting good to live
up to them. Nay, let it be put to our own consciences
my Brothers—can we ever be fashioned for the celestial
Lodge of all God's true children, unless we feel
within, and manifest in our lives, and breathe in our
spirits, the sentiments and the spirit of the Brotherhood
of Odd Fellows—such as they profess and aim to be?

We close on living up to our principles.
Trusting to your patience, there are but two points
more which I propose briefly to notice. One is our
Charities. Every mite that comes into our treasury
should be sacred to the cause of human Brotherhood.
We may not innocently appropriate a dollar, save it
be by voluntary subscription, to aught that we do not
deem essential to the truest good of the Order and its
principles. May it ever be so. And whatever of taste
or of beauty may adorn our Halls, beyond the necessary
and the convenient, let it be of the free-will gift. We
would not that one groan of anguish and agony unrelieved,
or one want of a sick bed unsupplied by night
or by day, or a solitary fireless hearthstone, or a suffering
widow, or orphan, or the shades of the unburied
dead, should ever rise in judgment against us because
of our having otherwise directed the least iota of our
sacred treasury.

We will not dwell on this topic, but all Odd Fellows
will be happy that we open upon that of the Sisterhood
ere we close with due degree of remembrance on this,
as on all other occasions.

Sisters—We have no fulsome flatteries to set forth
in chosen words to offend your good sense, or to manifest
our own want of the same. You have heard the
substantial, and we believe, christian principles of our
Order. Those of you who as wives, or as widows and
mothers, may be connected, or may have been connected
through the now silent dead, with this Fraternity,
will we trust find that you are not forgotten among
the substantial blessings of Odd Fellowship. In sickness
and in trouble, when the reed on which you are
wont to lean for human aid is brought low, or broken
at the behest of our Father in Heaven, will you find
for those heavier duties ye would, but may not, often
render, and the watchful eye of waking Brotherhood
for each live long night shall be ever responsive to the
first information that shall reach one member of those,
to whom as Brothers, this Hall is dedicated. And when
God shall have changed the countenance of him you
loved, and shall have sent him outwardly away, you
will still find the Brotherhood to which you were united
through his faithfulness, will gently help to lay him in
his silent abode, and to give back into your bosom according
to your necessities, the holy trust with interest.
which he while living laid upon our sacred altar. No
tear of suffering necessity from thy widowhood, or the
orphanage of thy fatherless children in the ways of
virtue, shall overflow, if known to us, that our Brotherhood
will not wipe away. Nor is it, sisters, as a
charity alone that we do it. He living did it unto others,
when he joined our happy, holy band of Brothers,
and we but give you yours with interest. Bread which
he cast upon the waters returneth unto you many fold.

I need not say more to convince you that you are not
forgotten in any of our leading purposes. Suffice it
further to add, that he who is known as not the friend
of virtue in precept or in practice, can never come
within the circle of our mystic Brotherhood, but by repentance
and reform.

Brothers of the White Mountain Lodge: I congratulate
you upon the goodly conveniences this evening
dedicated to your use. May they be sacred to the truest
Brotherhood that can be known between the children
of a common Father. I have sought to present the
leading principles on which would that Brotherhood
should rest. I lay the willing offering at the shrine
of FRIENDSHIP, LOVE and TRUTH. And while I
thank you for the trust assigned me in this service, I
would only, that the offering were more worthy.

I will at once relieve your patience, with the expression
of an earnest hope that we may so live up to the
principles of our Order, that when all earthly bonds
shall be loosed, we may rise in robes of more than
Priestly purity—white as no fuller on earth can white
THEM TO JOIN THE FELLOWSHIP OF HEAVEN.