The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-12-02

livered into the hands of our generation
under the seal of blood; that from the
time of the original compact, throughout
all forms of government, the struggle
between freedom and bondage. between
right and wrong. has ever been one OF
unequal warfare.
brew captive in the palace of the Chaldean
Monarch, from the writing on the wall,
proclaimed the downfall of the Babylon
ian empire: when Rome's providential de-
liverer crossed the Rubicon and fell a
victim to the treachery and Jealousy Of
the unbidden phantoms of disappointed
ambition; when Charles the Great rehab-
ilitated the Latin empire and in the streets
of the Eternal city, with the badge OF an
imperial Caeser. was crowned Emperor OF
all the Romans: when the mighty Crom-
well made kings and queens to shudder ON
their thrones and taught tyrants that the
voice of humanity must be heard; when
other tyrants were defiled by the valiant
fathers of our liberty who contemptously
hurled into the dark waters of Boston har-
bor the badge of the oppression. That
same warfare was still being waged ana
eternal justice was struggling in the
throes of a death agony. when the gloom
of Waterloo spread over the world. en-
shrouding the visions of men and the great
Helena by a band of Poltroons and time
servers who. smarting under the lash OF
his genius, and though thirsting for the
blood of Bonaparte, dare not shed It,
lest the desperation of humanity rise IN
it's might and eXterminate from the face
of christendom every vestige of royalty.
What BrOthcrIy Love Is.
And that same warfare will still go on
until every vestige of fostering corruption
places and the last unholy minion of ty--
ranny and oppression shall have been cast
out of the councils of men:
Brotherly love is the cement which holds
together the brick and stone of our social
fabric. The sanction which perpetuates
the security of hearth and home. the fuel
that feeds the fires of national enterprise,
the motive that induces men to submit to
government. 1t Is the uncompromisinS
foe of envy. hatred and revenge. and the
implacable enemy of coveteousness and
selfishness.
Fidelity is the parent that has engen-
dered all our other offspring. She Is the
mother who gave birth to charity, JUS
tice, Brotherly Love and all their kindred.
Though in all her great family there may
be weak and erring children yet with
their many flights among them there was
never yet a traitor. She is the arbiter to
our ii''s social nf difrerences nee Without fidelity
this world would be n cold and barren
waste of desolation; with no confidence IN
men humanity would become babel OF
confusion. The melody of mems souls
would discord with the harmony or truth
and integrity. Fidelity gives repose to
the aspirations of men that incomparaply
transcends the security of houses and
lands; aud with the prophetic voice of
sancti!ed wisdom promises us the advent
of that golden age. when The Wolf also
and the lamb shal dwell together
and little child shall lead them"
The principles upon which the founda-
tion of this order are built are as old as the
history of creation, they are coeval with
the hopes and fears of the human under
standing Long after the tradition of our
origin shall have faded from the memory
of men and the history of our first strug-
gle shall have been lost in the midsts Of
antiquity those principles will live in the
human heart. Even though governments
may pass away; though empires may fall
and kings and queens outlive their use
fulness: though republics-the crowning
fabric OF all civil institutions-may totter
on their foundations, If We write these
principles over the entrances to our re-
treats and therein teach the sentiments of
those principles. our name will live to the
dawn of eternity. and until that time may
we so live and die that when the end shall
come and we shall each be summoned to
our narrow house, our brothers will write
our virtues on the tablets of love and the
memory and the world will write our vices
on the sands of the sea of oblivion where
they will drift away to the mists of ever
lasting forgetfulness.