Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1889-12-26

Inc emblem or mourning winch hangs
about the picture of him who founded
this wide spreading and beneficent Or
der, admonishes us that our great lead
er has crossed the portals of mortality.
That the great wide doors of Heaven,
have swung upon their golden hinges,
to receive into eternal Knighthood, the
benevolent soul of Justus II. Rathbone.
Born fifty years ago, enjoying a fin
ished education, he seems never to have
been touched by flames first caresses,
until in that little theatre, in a small
city of Michigan, sitting out the play of
Damon and Pythias, his refined ma
ture grasped the outlines of what soon
after rose upon the world of reality,
this magnificent organization, which
we recognize, which all civilization ad-
mires, the order of Knights of Pythias.
The immediate background to this
picture which lured his imagination to
the task of building the purely literary
formula which was to give rymthe and
cadence to the real life, was the dark
midnight of civil war.
In February, 1864, when the strife of
nearly four years had grown to such
tremendous proportions as to challenge
the intense anxiety, not only of our
own mighty country, but of all the
wide world; when the life of the only
genuine Republic under the sun seemed
about to go out in complete darkness;
when the passions of the cOntending
forces were at last aroused to their ut
most tension, and the barbarisms of
bloody, relentless war, drove all men
far out on the wild ocean of reckless
hatred; then, just then, this heretofore
unfavOred son of lOwly fortune, all I'M
known to fame, comes upon the dread
full scene, and, saddened beyond ex-
preston at the awful bitterness which
urged brothers, even to rush madly at
each other, and locked in deadly EN-
brace, fall together into one bloody
grave formulates his ritual, so full of
melody, so rich in its appeals to-Friend-
ship, Charity and Benevolence as to
quite captivate the few immediate COM
panions of his every day life at the ma
tons capital. That then was instituted
on February 10Th, 1864, the first or
primitive lodge of this Order, of which
it should be our hourly pleasure to
boast membership In.
Compassion was indeed, the shining
star of his truly benevolent soul; for,
while others stood back utterly dazed
at the herculean undertaking, of lead
ing back to brotherhood and fraternal
embracings, the torn and bleeding frag-
ments of the two grand armies, so long
facing each other in that awful struggle
for supremacy, this unpretentious,
philanthropic man said: IF fraternal
love held all men bound, how beautiful
this world would be-" And moving
right forward on this line, gathered
about him in the twenty five years just
past, an army of men devoted to the
sole idea of the Fatherhood Of God and
the brotherhood of man vaster than
that which Napoleon led to destruction
at Waterloo.
Taking inspiration as we must now
believe he did from the transcendent
loneliness of character of the one only
perfect man who has trod the earth
since the morning of Creation, in whom
there was found no guile, Justus H.
Rathbone, builded better than he knew,
for against the solid wall of Friendship
Charity and Benevolence the storms of
passion have beat in vain for six thous
and years, or more.
And SO tonight, by all the lovely at
tributes of his tender heart, by the bles,
sed memory of his kindly efforts, dur,
ing his fifty years of life to ameliorate
the hard conditions of poor humanity
to make it possible for men to lay down
the dripping sword of passion and hat
red, and clasp each other in fraterna
embracings, to illuminate by his teach
ings, only the pure, the noble, the beau
tiful in human nature; to cover with
the roses of tenderest compassion the
manifold weaknesses of poor, frail hu
manity; to follow the north star of en-
lightened civilization to its glorious
home, rather than daub our hands in
the blood of our fellowman at the bid
ding of passions ugly sway.
Ii we who tonight bask in the beauti
full sunshine of this good mans nobl'
life work, if we but never so feebly ap
preciate his noble eXample-now gu
inheritance-w shall be happier men
wiser citizens and nobler patriots.
Standing here by the very tomb, so t
spe:ih Of our late grand leader, it is fit
ting that we each in theory symbol
cast our flowers of respect and venera
ton over the closed grave of the mos
unpretentious man among us all, an
well will it be for our noble Order, if tn
same enthusiasm, the same charmin
modesty, which made this man SO muc
respected shall serve to curb the inord
nate ambition of so many who are S
wrapt up in their own pitiful egotisn
as not to realize that there are other
beside themselves in this world.
t Gcntleness, blameless modesty, tru
| courtesy; these are the trinity who's
: corrollary is Friendship, Charity an
t Beneyolence, three stars, the brighte:
: in human character.
: We have often thought they Shone S
dimly within the pretty walls of on
: Castle Hall here, but possibly it was
mere fancy or dream. But however
may be, let us here in the dead presenc
of our late serene master, renew on
! VOWS to be m0re than ever carefl
what we say, what we do, lest in an III
guarded moment we do violence to tn
order, we should first of all render sir
eefe homage to.
( Oysters Oysters.