The Ogden standard. [volume] (Ogden City, Utah) 1902-1910, 1909-02-22
7 0
KNIGHTS OF
PYTHIAS
1.-THE CALL OF BROTHERHOOD.n
SUBJECT PRESENTED.
Fraterna Orders, Churches and Re-
lielons All Grew Out of Same HUI
man Needs and Aspirations.

In his address to the knights OF
Iythias at *, of P. hall yesterday,
Rev. William Thurston Brown said In
part:
This whole nation has been think
inG lately of man OF our own race
almost of our own time-who in his
character and career was noble and
convincing illustration OF exactly the
principle we are considering today
Abraham Lincoln was not a miracle
he did not descend from the skies
lie was In no sense the creature OF
artificial culture or a great heredity.
III there ever was Il man who be-
longed by all the circumstances and
experiences of his life to the com
nonest type of men, that man was
Lincoln. His parentage was the
humblest, He had no family tree
No one knows anything with certainty
about his ancestors. They are lost in
obscurity. His father and mother
had neither culture nor education.
He was born in poverty, in the wilder
ness. He spent less than one full year
In a public school, and that of the
most inferior kind His life was
never succeeded in a business ven
tUre. He was never out of debt from
carly manhood. until after he had
taken his seat as President OF the
United States His biographers tell
Us that he did not study widely in the
law. Measured by dollars and cents,
he was never successfui man And
yet. we have never had In our public
life In this country a man who was
in all ways his equal. Among all the
trained and experienced statesmen
who surrounded him In Washington
from 1861 to 1864, there wasn't man
who measured up to him in all round
wisdom Or in moral and spiritual
qualities. No public man of that time,
so far as We know, possessed In such
measure as he did the indispensable
qualities needed in the president or
n divided, warning nation. Where
did these qualities come from? They
didn't come out of the skies They
were not inherited from Thomas Lin
colin and Nancy Hanks. No, they were
the sole product of the moral and
spiritual training of the man. II you
will read the story of Lincolns life
and compare it with the story of tho
lives Of his contemporaries, the men
with whom he associated as a lawyer
and politician, you will find that the
greatest difference between him anu
them was a moral difference. Scores
OF his contemporaries were just as
familiar with Shakespeare and the
Bible and all the other books that
Lincoln had read or studied as he was.
besides knowing great many books
which he did not know. What made
Lincoln the unquestioned superior OF
every other lawyer or statesman OF
illinois and later of the nation itsel:
was the simple fact that he, more
Than any other of those men, was &C.
Quainted with this fundamental law
Of human life and human society
the law OF growth, moral growth. the
law of brotherhood America was
something very different to Lincoln
from what it was to most Of his con-
temporaries. To them, or most OF
them, 1t was something fixed ana
changeless. Not only did all the
statesmen OF the South look upon
negro slavery as permanent thing.
but most of those OF the North did.
too. But Lincoln saw clearly that 1t
could not be permanent Indeed. bet
ter than any other man of that time
who held public Office. Lincoln saw
that many other things which were
regarded in the same way were not
and could not be permanent America,
TO Lincoln. was more than merely