The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1904-04-25


selfshness, of kindness over greed, of
samaritan charity over Pharisaic
hypocrisy. Look back and behold the
grand strife upward from the days of
Paul to the age of LincOln.
When that great apostle of Jesus
who, as Lyman Abbott puts it. trans
lated Christianity into the intellectual
forms of Europe, proclaimed on the
Areopagus of Athens that man and
man, the world over. should brothers
be and all that" he laid by that glor
ious proclamation the first stone to
the temple of Oddfellowship. What a
revelation that was to a world which
then knew but Romans and barbar
Greek! 1t was as startling an an
nouncement as if a scientist would
discover second sun in the MONDAY
sky To the aristocratic Athenians it
sounded like tale told by an idiot.
What. shall we consider the Persians
our brothers, or the barbarO"e 7'0o-
domains, or the slaves or the crippl"e"
Paul, thou art beside thyside, But
the little apostle knew that he pro-
claimed a truth which. though but
spark, should some day become a
WOrld-cOnsuming flame. that though
L. h no I
ants. God and one are majority. I
cannot help being impressed With the
evolution of brOtherIy love from that
first sermon on Oddfellowship to my
address tonight!
Eventually truth began to work in
the human heart. Wealthy followers
of Christ gave freedom to their
slaves. The barriers of national pref
udice began to crumble. But after the
first enthusiasm vanished, the old evil
reasserted itself. Cain appeared some
times in the form of a ruler who
would tyrannize his subjects, some
times in the form of a Spanish inQuis
itor, who tortured his brother under
the plea of religious fervor When the
wanderer sees in the moOnshine the
dark ruins of castles from the time
the high hunt in which the German
nobility. the rudest and sternest in
the world, pursued their victims. He
viii see how unarmed men We're
slaughtered by thousands: how they
We're racked, speared and martyred;
and from the waving cornfields he
Will see the bloody peasants heads,
holding mysteriOusly. while above the
lark is singing it's innocent rounde-
sands that persisted in the Thirty
Years war? How about the blood of
the Huguenots? How about the
widows and orphans who grOaned be-
meath the iron heel of a Bonaparte?
care not how glorious these victor
les We're; l care not about the con-
querors fame: I believe with Victor
Hugo that homicide is homicide: that
blOOdshed is bloodshed: that it serves
nothing to call ones self Caesar or
Napoleon: and that in the eyes Of
the eternal God, the figure of a muir
derer is not changed because. instead
of a gallow's cap, there is placed
upon his head an emperor's crown.
Even today we are far from being
perfect. Even today the Belgian gov
eminent demands carloads of cut off
hands to punish the natives of the
Congo Free State for falling short of
the mark in gathering rubber, Even
today we have a street in Buenos
Ayres where annually 1900 ill-starred
| Genoese girls are msled into what is
| pointedly called the street of blood
and tears" Even today We >Dend
more for armies and navles than Tor
our public schools! Even today we
| down those that are down and pat
| those on the back who succeed, no
matter how. Even today it is easier
| for camel to go through a needles
eye than for rich man to go the
| penitentiary!
Still Oddfellowship will triumph.
/ Error is harmless where truth is left
| free to defeat it. 1t is but a few years
| ago when one of our multi-million-
aires stated that to die rich is to die
disgraced," and the same man hast
ems TO give libraries to every city in
the land. 1t is but a few years ago
when The Hague tribunal was estab-
lished, which proclaims a principle
that would make Frederick the Great
and Napoleon turn in their graves,
1t is but a few years ago when the
Red Cross society began its Samari-
tan mission, With the rise of demo-
cratic sentiments the world over,
with the coming of the telegraph and
the advent of universal commerce. the
| Ole order ch9OCatb cyiy-;ro v-o1- 70