The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1901-12-09

when it wipes the death-deWS from
pallid brow. That love has fixed it's
anchor on the buoy of immortality. The
child bids not an eternal adieu to the
aged parent, nor feels that the transit
ton which men call death has severed,
with an annihlating sword, the Cor
dian knot of love-
THE hope of immortality. as the ne
cessty that crowns love with COM
pleteness, shines along the vistas of the
past, from the scintillant splendors of
Oriental philosophy and from the twi-
light beams of an early African ciVill-
cation. Forty feeting centuries have
sought in vain, to carve decay on
sphynX and pyramid and have been
equally unavailing in erasing from the
great heart Of humanity the principles
of love and brotherhood and the be-
| lief in immortality.
These were the doctrines that seer
and patriarch, on Judean plains. en-
| bodied in song and parable. These
| themes were re-echOed by the Nedas
and Shasters. They tinged with rain
| bow radiance even the polytheism of
Greece and the wild legends of the
Scandinavian and NCrseman.
From the developed theories of PA
to and the melodius periods of fully;
from the priest and prophet, philos-
opher and bard, of ages so remote that
time in his sweeping march, has erased
the trOphied columns of palace and
temple: from the sensuous poets OF
Persia, and the grotesque culture that
centered around the Alhambra; from
the Druid sages that swept the wierd
Tyre beneath the temples of oak and
mstletoe, and the mailed warriors that
were hurled as an avalanche of steel
upon the Moslem came in no uncer-
tain tones, as ages rolled on the heels
of ages, the longings of an immortal
ity that would form the fruition Of
love.
and now, in the broad monday of
an advanced civilization, maturedunder
riper auspices than GTecian or RO-
man, Saracen or Crusader ever knew.
all the wisdom of the nineteenth CEN
fury is able to bestoW no more ra-
diant boon than love; can give no
richer theme of hope than the immor-
tally of that love; can teach no
sublimer code of ethics. no higher
scheme of philosophy than that man
is his brothers keeper
Love for humanity is love for di-
vinity. In the sententicus code, Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,
mellifluent diction is combined with a
truth that, fully practiccd, will fill the
world with harmony.
"Innumerable are the agencies OPP
eratiye in the sublime work of ex
pressing in tangible form mans love to
his fellow man. We are gathered here,
today, ladies and gentlemen, as mem
hers Of one of the most potential Of
these agencies-the Benevolent and
Protective order Of Elks.
with all the pristine vigor Of
youth, our order possesses every ele-
ment Of sturdy and matured man
hood. With a growth unriValled both
in numbers and the progressive ele-
ments Of society assimilated into our
ranks, We stand, today, without peer,
upon the roll of those organizations,
which. by active bcnevolence, by the
broad charity that thinks no evil and
by the perennial development Of fra
ternalism have made an impress for
good upon the century just terminated.
The noble men who founded the b.
P. O. Elks built far more wisely than
they dared to dream In faucy's widest
flight Without cOnceiving the i'm
mensity and solidity Of the gorgeous
temple. the cornerstone Of which they
deposited, they began the erection Of
p structure symmetrical in its pro-
portions and resplendent in its beauty
not for a single cosmopolitan city, but
for the whole OF earth's grandest his
toric nation, not for a single profess
SloiI bllgs uut III -NNly AAAH7NA Ao~A'7 '''Ai
OF genius. not for a decade, a genera
ton, a century, not even for all the re-
vOlving cycles Of future time, but for
eternity
They re-lit the torch OF charity,
which, fallen from the nervous hands
of oldworld philanthropists. was
smouldering and dying in the ashes Of
its neglected altar BY them It was
securely planted on its pedestal of
glory, and the land thenceforth grew
brighter beneath the effulgeHt rays Of
its blissful light. They rolled away
the rock that confined in a sepulchral
chamber the buried ideal Of brother
hood, and found within the darksome
recesses the bright guardian angels,
Justice Br0therly Love and Frater-
nifty, arrayed in shining garments.
They made It possible for philO-
sophie distractions to become benef-
cient realities; for inert conceptions of
generosity TO nc transformed into
tangible breathing benedictions. Theirs
was touch more potent than that
of Midas. for II converted not only
earthly dross into golden dross. but
made practicable the universally of
manhood, the dedication of benevo-
lence. the exaltation of love to its COM
pletest fruition.
"Ushered into existence SO years ago,
there is not, today, a single common
wealth Of all the brilliant constellation
that glows upon our flag Of glory in
which the name Of Elk is not revered