Brookings register. (Brookings, S.D.) 1890-1894, 1894-05-18
ANNIVERSARY SERMON.
Sermon Before Brookings Lodge No. 40
IO.O.F.

ssGS44oX&e uC lOllO"lnS StTilOH WAS
| zeASdelivered by Rev. d. n
>>1HS@~~ Mason, pastor Of the First
Baptist church, Sunday, April 20,
1894, before Brookings Lodge No. 40,
l. o. o. f., and is reproduced by re-
quest of many of those who listened
to the able discourse:
Scripture l Sam, 1851 ,5S, 1914, 20,
Is:l-7,lo, 2ol-4,12l7. Lu. lo:3o-37.
Saml 2O:42: "And Jonathan said
to David, 60 in peace, forasmuch as
we have sworn both of us in the name
Of the Lord" etc.
When a good impulse becomes a
great movement in full swing, going
forward on the flOod-tide of prosperity
above all opposition; when it feels no
more the blight of carping criticism,
looking back to the days of its small
beginnings awakenS feelings of glad
ness and of triumph.
Anniversary days are the PiSgah
heights, rising between the attempted
and the unattained, from which we
look back over all the way we have
come, and forward to the fair fields of
the promised land. The victories Of
the past grid and strengthen us for
the conflicts and cOnqueSts of the
future.
From this point of observation, this
anniversary day, the |. O. O. +. looks
back over period of 149 years to the
day when the "Secret benevolent and
beneficial association" known in its
earliest history as '"The London Or
der" had it's origin and organization
in the city of London. Sixty-four
years later, the order was planted in
Manchester where members and lodges
rapidly multiplied. Five years more
and the various independent lodges
were consolidated under the title
which the order has ever since borne,
10. O. +. The first permanent lodge
in America was organized in Balti-
more April 26, 1919, by ThOs. Wildey
and four others, members of lodges in
England. They named the Organiza-
tion Washington Lodge, No. |. To-
day there are lodges in nearly every
state and territory of the Union and
in Canada. Latest statistics show
that in the United States and Canada
there are 1879 organizations of Odd
Fellows. The number of limitations
in the year past mounts up to the
sublime tiglro of 102,24l. The total
membership of these organizations
makes gigantic host, fraternal
army of relief and comfort, rarely
equalled, for numbers by any who
have borne the implements of destruc-
tiOn for defense or conquest. A sworn
brotherhood is this army grown up in
peace and silence until its numbers
have reached l,O6O,706. In the last
twenty years it's membership has
nearly doubled.
This order has shared the suspicion
and opposition of well meaning people
in common with all secret orders.
The |. O. O. f. is not properly secret
order. 1t does not seek to hide its
organization as body: its members
are openly known: its times and places
of meeting are advertised in the pub
lie prints; on anniversary occasions
and at funerals they appear in public
with badges and regalia as we see
them today. None of these things
would be true of them If they were
strictly a secret society. The order OF
Odd Fellows is not secret society,
but a society with secrets, and that is
what every family should be. The
order has made its way to popular
favor and confidence, not by subtle
argument, persuasive speeches and
fair promises, but by patient and per-
severing practice-the practice Of the
good Samaritan.
To the fraternal spirit among men
is due whatever of cohesion is found
in human society. 1t is only by mu-
tual regard and mutual interest that
the family, the clan, the tribe, the
nation, is bound together in co-Opera-
tion for the general good. Mutual
confidence, trust, friendship, in some
degree, is the basis of organized So
ciety, Of commerce and of our civil
institution. 1t is the fraternal Sentl-
ment that makes good neighbOrhood
possible; that gives peace and security
to person and possessions: that makes
every man rejoice in every other
mans prosperity; that makes the in
creased wealth or wisdom of one the
property of all.
For lack of the traternel spirit man
has been narrow, selfish and mser-
able. He has regarded his neighbors
prosperity as inimical to his own: his
fellows wealth as the cause of his own
poverty, He has not considered that
Il is better for some to be In prosper
ity than for all alike to be in adver-
sity: better for some to be rich than
for all to be alike poor. 1t is worth
much to us when we have fallen
among thieves to have brother who
IS able to dress our wounds, to carry
us on his own beast to an inn and to
pay our bills unit! we are able again
to care for ourselves. If that priest
who "passed by on the other sde''
was as poverty stricken as some |
have known, he would have had nOught
to give the wounded traveller but
sympathy and possibly q tract. II the