The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-12-02

| look upon his lace ana see MS genia
smile.
It is good to meet here; to lie {
member of the Benevolent and Protec
| tive Order Of Elks, because it is a.
| order fusing two extremes and bring
ing from the crucibIe of humanity
| what is best in man.
/ An order whose ritual is patriotism
/ whose password is liberty; whose
altar is our country's flag, and whose
| charity falls silently like the dew
| from heaven on the arid earth, and
| has no set bounds.
The closing address of the service
was by L. E. Pinkham. It was as
follows:
Once more are we assembled to honor
the absent ones, and to bare our hearts
to the influences that knit mankind to-
gether as one in a common destiny.
There come to the living memorial
days, when recollection marshals be-
fore us the forms of those who have
passed from our sight, and are hidden
by the impenetrable portals of death.
Our backward vision sweeps over the
silent multitudes, receding from year
of yesterdays, until the retrospect is
dimmed into the darkness of persisted
history.
The vast hosts seem to divide into
companies of years, armies of decades,
and the legions of the ages, until an
eternity or death seems to overwhelm
the world.
Memory keenIy seeks, in each near
rank, ITO discern the dim forms once
flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood,
and spirit Of our.spirit.
AS each shadow reveals itself, love
adorns it with all the sweetest attri-
butes tender. recollections can revive.
No curious spirit can enter into the
sacred chambers of the heart, that, on
these memorial days, communes with
it's own dead.
The student memorv searches to the
limits of recorded events, for the illum-
ed human characters, that have left
their imprint for good or for evil, for
justice or for oppression, for the up
lifting or the degrading of their fell
lowmen, or have dared, like Satan, to
aspire to initiate the attributes of
Divinity in power and domination, but,
like Satan, have fallen to the lowest
estate, and to the universal level of
death.
Through the portals of death has no
man, of the earth earthly, passed and
returned.
Silent as the infinite abyss of space
are all these countless myriads, that
once shared the hopes, joys, sorrows,
ambitions, successes and failures the
Creator planned as man s earthly her
itage.
- -
force of the sea, the strength of beasts,
all unaceountable to man, unable to in
terpret the forces of nature; the har-
vest and the famine, want and plenty,
all an enigma, forced his dim inteili-
genee TO worship the strange deities his
coniured, as dealing with
him for good or for evil, for life and
for death.
from inconceivable degradation to Of
ferings gentle and reverent, all sought
in turn to still the wrath, propitiate
and gain the favor of these mystic
powers.
As arts and culture refined man s
spirit, the gods of imagination too be-
came more refined in form and feature,
until Homer sang, and Jupiter became
enthroned on Olympus, and lesser gods
dwelt in temples, the noblest and most
exquisite the highest art could plan
and execute.
Morality and ethics had no funda-
mental character among the many gods,
but man had learned that social order
required the influence OF virtue and
conscience, and that the unity of
the universe pointed to one supreme |
creator and ruler, the one true God.
Egypt and Babylonia have yielded the |
most ancient of records, yet they but |
hint of the mysteries of untold centu-
ries preceding the hoary ages they rep
resent.
Doubtfully and weakly man strug- |
gled to advance his own ethical condi- |
tion, that the nobler characteristics of |
human nature might reach toward the |
light, dimly seen through his expanding
conscience.
The magi, the sorcerers, the philoso-
pliers, false prophets, plausible mislead- |
ers, selfish and aggrandizing priest |
craft and ceremonial, have stood be- |
tween the simple spirit and that veil |
of mystery behind which, inv his wis |
dom, the Creator has chosen to hide |
himself.
Twenty centuries ago was one born, |
the gentlest spirit ever present in the |
similitude of man, who brought the |
greatest hope, the sweetest light yet |
shed upon the enigma of life, not the
light of science, not the light of exact |
and critical revelation, but the gentle |
spirit of love to God and good win to-
ward man.
Again not content strange men have
built up theologies, ceremoniaIs, relig- |
ious craft, often sacriligious in pre- |
tensions, elevating designing teachers
and selfish leaders, until man at this |
age is struggling with doubts and men,
tai and spiritual uncertainties, the |
vision of his soul distracted from the |
simple light set nineteen centuries ago, |
to guide him in life, until the firm hand |
of the Almighty holds him safely, for |
ever.
Shall man attempt to rend the veil |
that hangs at the portal of death and |
seek to enter with pride of achieve |
ments, the accommodations of great |
wealth and earthly power, and shall he |
plead gifts and charities, the means for |
which have been unjustly, with hypo- |
faint, wrested from others, and |