The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1859-05-05

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Church, Honolulu.
EccLEsI.srEs ", 9, 10 1.-TWO better than one; because
-Por L they fan The one viii I'm up his fellow: Blu! wo OF, to him
up"
Gentlemen Of tie Independent order of Old Feuors:
When, through your presiding officer, you invited me, though
not n member of your Order, to deliver a sermon on this grand
jubilee occasion, am sure I honored you as well as myself, in
taking two things for granted: LIST. That you did not ask of me
as n minister OF religion, to make a special plea for the purity Of
your principles, or the benefcent working of your Order, for IT
were the poorest possible compliment to you, to suppose your
principles so unstable and lettering as to need endorsement or
propping up from anybody, in any station.
And the second thing which I regarded as implied, was this.
that you reposed fun confidence in my Christian courtesy, which
would forbid me to abuse my privilege by saying aught with the
purpose of damaging your interests, or offending your taste
Cordially responding to your expression Of confidence, and
entering heartily into the spirit of this, to you most joyful
occasion, 1 shall cherish no feeling of embarrassment, nor deem
that there is any danger of giving offence. If 1 speak the truth
frankly and fearessty-as a man may always talk to full grown
and intelligent men, A sermon never was designed merely to
tickle the ears, and to aatter the vanity of any man, or any body
of men. If, as an ambassador of Christ, 1 have any message to
you for the promoting OF your highest welfare. it behoves ne
kindly, yet faithfully, to utter it, and you, candidly, to listen to
it. But If for another purpose. and in a different spirit, We have
come together in the house of God, neither Of US has any business
here A sermon is not a mere secular harrangue, but should
ever rise to the dignity of a sacred Grafton
We have asked Of me a sermon, when I had thought 1t prefer
able to give you merely a secular lecture. How then, seeing ye
have asked of me bread, shall L give You a stone 2"
With this expression of a mutual confidence which I am sure
exists between US, and this frank avowal of the manly spirit in
which I desire to address you, 1 am prepared to enter upon my
subject. Without combining myself so closely to my text as to
limit my remarks to a narrow range, 1 shall yet endeavor fully
to apply and Illustrate the principle it announces-so far as it has
to do with the practical working of your society.
My theme is Odd Feliowship-its right uses its proper position
and its true spirit.
This will lead me first, to show the advantage of intimate asso-
citation for mutual Improvement and mutual relief, on the prin.
- NJ. n t..- 800
they have a good reward for their labor. FOR If they fall, the one
will lift up his fellow but wo to him that is alone when he falieth,
for he hath not another to help him up.
Secondly, I shall endeavor clearly to define the position which
your society is adapted to fill in the complicated mechanism,
whether voluntary o r ordained, which is working together for the
relief and elevation Of tie race to show the relation which it
sustains to other institutions, not as a rival, a substitute, or
suppIanter, but as a co-worker for good within its appropriate
sphere, establishing the upright and lifting up the fallen. And
finally, I shall speak of the spirit and zeal with which you should
prosecute your work, IL you would have 4 good reward for your
labor.
First then as to the right uses of this and kindred associations
1t is manifest that they are adapted to serve an important pur-
pose, in exerting a binding influence upon the naturally discord-
ant elements Of society. Tf rightly used, your association is
adapted to clasp with its golden links of :" Friendship, Love and
Truth men of all classes, all calings, all creeds, and all nation
alfties. No man being debarred from its privileges by the fact
that he follows this trade, or that professionalism his style of
living is according to one standard or another-that he holds to
this doctrine, or rejects that one-men of diverse positions are
brought into close contact and the most heterogeneous elements
are fused and assimlated and conjoined.
1 suspect such associations had their origin in those feudai
times when caste was much stronger than it is now, and when
the artificial distinctions of society were barriers to the free in
tercourse of the great human brotherhood. Wherever and when
ever men are disposed to look with jealousy or envy, with aver
sion n suspicion, upon those who chance to be Of a different
calling or a different creed; wherever society is broken up into
clans and sects and factions, It is important that men OF all
classes should. in some sphere, be brought into close contact.
Doubtless lis peculiarly important that these gravitating infu-
ences should be felt in such a community as this, where are
gathered from every quarter Of the globe the material, for the
best or the worst society, according as We choose to mould and
harnonize, or to ALLEVIATE and dkintegrate it Here, it may be,
there is a special necessity that hard-fsted labor should grasp
and greet the representatives of a somewhat too fastidious culture
and refinement. Here it may be sanctity needs to have some of
the starch Of Pharisaic Journalism taken out of it, tina, it may not
seem so frigidly cold and SO hideously repuisive to those whose faith
is excessively flexible, and whose practice is superlatively trivial.
Here it may be arstocracy, always stTted and awkward in pro-
portion as it is removed from sympathy with universal manhood,
to be taught lessons of good common sense, IL not Of common de-
e cen BY being Sc; down III upon the solid gronnd, where talne IS car
class, here a everywhere, need to learn the practical lesson, that
taller nor more graceful than the same tree standing on the COM
s %m .dY Yankee meI and Il the 2 persistent .s mtE En eli s npa,A should ouhiI better @n know
and more justly appreciate each other, while both might be the hap
Frenchman, and the patient. meditative German.
die. I NAV. a" q : r rao rs' ac 9 a ipsa, a with IN the m eharaeser @m habits baSs
OF the people, derive many Of the advantages Of foreign travel SIM
lands here resident. So IS it that without the expense and discom-
world three or four times year. In so far a YOUR association is
adapted @ bind together these various classes in friendship, love
God has made US social beings and it is only as the Devil has
against his fellow, that we become selfish, secluded and unsocial.
God has made IS genial, generous and spontaneous in the out-gush,
ing Of our sympathies and affections and it is only as the Devil
has marred this masterpiece Of Divine workmanship, that man be-
in his views, and mean in his Disbursements both of love and
@ ~tS = ha n 'a sSen OF s enhm ssny If i, { be ee H@a ssp ~ e s1a'. actively Ussy
throbbing with generous impulses
fellows, whether by being elevated far above, or by being crushed
coming supremacy selfish or superlatiyely mean. Why v n dog
that has been kicked and cuaed 50 much a to make it stink away
everybody's foot and afraid Of everyboiy's hand.
and a better man, seciusion tends to make him narrow, exclusive
It is true that evil communications and evil companionships,
corrupt good manners But on the other hand, secusion from o
any manners to be corrupted. The history Of of m nom e" life is %y
witness that putting a man into a safe $ a poor security AGAINST the
daming up Of the waters Of human sympathy may turn IA fountain
its pesIIentlal yap@s. Shut ont from society, men lose some of
lives for the culture Of their nobier qualities while OF the other
hand, the manifest and manifold advantages secured to the family
and wife. brother and sister the extent to which national pros
i5ess % the sssaSishea III ins aa y ps@ 20 Of she ie" ooansr y ; 't the We IL
achieved by the combinations of capital and energy for The prose.
some benevolent purposes, or for the realizing of some grand COM
merciai scheme-these all are Illustrations Of the principle that
= two n better than one, because they have a good reward tor their
ianos." And may l not without word Of naitery, say thar the
to-day holds Jubilee in mi. island Kingdom, and in thirty three
ton Of the sentiment Of my text. Surely the fact that you have had
s ss good a reward for your labor. IS a proof that : two are better than
But the right uses Of intimate fellowship are apparent not alone
in its tendency and adaptation to break down arbitrary distinctions,
and 70 fuse together men Of different positions and Of diverse prin-
cipies and prsjudices it is OF advantage in your Order chiefly for
the mutual relief and mutual Improvement OF those who II thus
closely bound together.
Pecuniarly. your society acts - a savings bank, a mutual insur-
snce, o a joint stock compsny- As such, its claims and advanta-
gs are to be Judged Of solely from a business point Of view. Your
terms Of initiation, your s,ipends, taxes and dues, are to be on
trasted with the stipulated alowance in case f sickness. the APP
preparations for burial, and the promised relief to the widow and
the orphan. This Pecuniary relief is In no respect accounted by
you As a charity. 1t is a business transaction In which, o your
part. obligations IN simply fulfilled. and o their part nothing but
what IL due on tie contract Is received.
But aside from this business view, there IN advantages arising
from the obligations assumed by the members Of this close corpo-
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