The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1901-12-03
CANTON ELKS' TRIBUTE
TO THE ABSENT BROTHER
''The faults of brothers write upon the sands
Their virtues upon the tablets of love and memory"

lutlT NlItutS uDOu Ouc Udt
other notices of our order, charity
| Justice and 'brotherly love- trilli-
thon of virtues upon which is builded
the character of perfect manhood.
Principles which have enabled our or.
| adera among men as the world has
ever known.
MONUMENT TO THE DEPARTED.
"How better it is to erect monu-
ment in the hearts of friends WHO
will mourn our departure and gen.
timely regret our loss, than to accu-
mulate a store of worldly wealth for
those, who may be all too anxious for
our demise, that they may succeed
without effort. to wealth we have
devoted our lives to obtain. Not
that the accumulation of wealth
honestly earned is bad, not that the
ambition, energy, enterprise and intel
ligence necessary to produce wealth
are in the least reprehensible. but
when man sacrifices every finer in
stinct, curbs every nc:blar impulse,
forgets his fellows and cares not to
win their friendship and respect;
when he devotes all his thoughts AMI
all his energies to the mere getting
of gold, his life is truly sorry mis-
take and can be useful TO his fellows
no further than as an example of what
not to do.
"And this is a lesson that our orde,
would teach in the observance and cer-
emonies of today and well for us ii
IL sinks deeply into our hearts.
LIFE is UNCERTAIN.
But one short year ago there met
with us on this day, in the different
lodges of our order, men, our brothers,
full of life and hope and fairly and
reasonably indulging themselves in a
long expectancy of life. Today their
dust commingles with the common
earth and We who then sat side by
side with them, now sit listening to
the reading of the death-roll that the
year has heightened. Human life and
death is typified everywhere in nature.
The beautiful flowers of spring-time
that raise their fragile blossoms to the
orb that gives them life and lowell
ness. with the first frosts of winter
fade and sink and perish. The fol-
iage of the forest that with the sun
and the dews of springtime sprang
into life and gladdened the eye of
man with it's freshness and beauty,
has withered, decayed and fallen and
autumn has witnessed in this great
tragedy of nature a far more sublime,
far grander spectacle than the spring
and summer witnessed in the birth
and life of flower and foliage.
almost a decade of centuries ago
the old Persian poet, Omar Khayyan,
described the constant work of death
in this language:
Weather the cup with sweet or bitter
run
The wine of life keeps oozing drop
by drop
The leaves of life keep falling one by
one"
"The added experience of nine CEN
turtles but demonstrates the force Of
this simile. The leaves of life are
still dropping one by one Death is
the final, unavoidable price we pay for
life and whether 1t be blessing or
curse is the yet unsolved mystery of all
ages.
Had We known a year ago whom
death had marked SO shortly for his
own, how our hearts would have gone
out to them in, pity and in love. How
kind and considerate of them we
would have been, how we would have
We'd with each other
IN LAVISHING FRIENDSHIP,
kindness, sympathy on our brothers SO
soon to be striken and how we should
have bewailed the miserable weak
ness of our common humanity that
prevents us from rescuing our brother
from death when once he is marked
as its victim.
Our day of usefulness to him is
gone forever. We can live together,
but every man must die alone and
though We may give him some trifling
sOlace In his hour of dissolution we
may relieve to some extent his ply
sical suffering yet IL a million were to
die at the same moment of time, each
is an individual death and neither
aids nor assists the other. The his
tory of each year teaches us that
some one or more of every large as
sociation of men must in the year sue
ceeding yield his life in pursuance of
the stern decree that all men must die.
Next year our deathrolls will be aug
mented by the names Of many who are
participating in today's ceremonies.
Who will 1t be? You or or many of
us? Our order does not require, but
1t urges upon its members to act to
wards each other with the same charity.
with the same justice, with the same
brotherly love, with the same fidelity
that he would II he knew that that
other were the next one marked for
death.
DEATH OF THE PRESIDENT.
"The uncertainty of life and our i'm
potency in the presence Of death has
been demonstrated recently in the
dea h of our late beloved president
| suppose no death in your lifetime
or mine has so wounded the heart Of
a nation as has his. Indeed I might
say the whole civilized world has beer