The copper era and Morenci leader., 1913-12-12

 an Elk is never forgotten, never for Saken."
 Often and lovingly, within the privacy of our lodge rooms, tender memories of our departed brothers
 are recalled; their virtues, written upon tablets of love, are again and again retold, while the noble deeds they wrought upon earth-deeds. mayhap, of which we only know the secret-deeds of charity, deeds of self sacrifice, deeds of devotion to prin- ciple, aye, and deeds of suffering links in the chain that binds us in memory to them-furnish the topic for frequent and reverential converse.
 50 far, we hold, it is right and proper that we should, within our own home and within our own hearts do honor in our own way to the memory of our brothers who have gone before. Thus far, even as our Orders customs and requirements, our acts of charity or philanthropy, our ambitions, our failures, our suc- cesses, our joys, are our own, so also are our sorrows.
 But in those of our sorrows, my friends, which come of departed brothers, we need must confess your partnership, and happy indeed are we to do so. In honoring them, we do most by acknowledging the equal right of all who held them in esteem to join in loving tributes to their memory. They are our dead, it is true, but they are your dead, too; they were our brothers, in one of the greatest fraternities whose benefac- tions have cheered the weary travel CT along life's rugged path, but they were your brothers also, mayhap your fathers, your sons, your protectors; they were valued, worthy members of our Order, but they were none the less respected and none the less la mented citizens of your State, your county, your town. We revere their memories for the good deeds they performed as devoted Elks, but you revere their memories as well for the good deeds they performed as public-spirited citizens. We mourn their departure as stars plotted from out our constellation, to rise in a higher sphere, but from your lips likewise come songs of sorrow telling of the pain with which you contem- plate the loss, If not of oue from your own fireside, of an honored member of society, a co-worker in those bene- hcenJ and Idtriotic causes for which all loyal citizens strive.
 Thus it is that our annual memo rial service is your s; that once each year, on the first Sunday in Decem- Der, we invite our, friends and neigh bors, and they who were the friends and neighbors of our honored dead, to join with us in a just and deserv- ed tribute to the brothers whose names we call in vain and whose virtues we would here commemorate.
 And so it is that today, in more than 1400 lodges of the Order, in every State and Territory of the United States and foreign posses sions, representing a membership of over five hundred thousand, the broth CTS are joining in the service of which this one is an illustration. Thus it is that half a million hands, in the fancied clasp of old time fel- the shadow-chasm which marks the boundary between life on earth and in Valhalla, across the sacred river which runs, through caverns measu- reless to man, down to >sunless sea- The pulses of this vast multi tude are quickened by memory's pie ture of old familiar faces, ears are at tuned to the music of voices well re- hearts are saddened with the thought that this side of wonder shore we shall neither see nor hear them more. Rolls are calling, but only echo answers; halls are draped, eulogies are heard, songs are sound ing, tears are falling-the great heart of Elkdom throbs in brotherly love. Life's cares are laid aside, it's petty pleasures suspended, quip and jest and laughter hushed, while in spirit and in deed, in thought and in fact, garlands of ivy and wreaths of flow CTS are banked over the hallowed graves of our honored dead. Forget ful of human imperfections, with thoughts only for the beauties of character and traits of goodness by which they who now dwell in fields Elysian were known and loved, by which they are missed and mourned, he mind of every Elk in Christendom reverts to the absent ones, keeping ever before them the motto of our Order, 'The faults of our brothers we writ upon the sand, their virtues on ,ablets of love and memory. in the words of the poet, it is that golden key that opens the palace of etern- ty."
 Today all Elkdom is gathered, in and sorrow, about the va- can't chair. Neither direction, To- cation or cline mark an exception. piercing winds and chilling blasts mingle with the responses of ,ur Alaskan brothers, even as the placid waves of the Pacific, washing he shores of the Philippines, give to the songs of the Elks of Manila, while from the north to south, from the east to west, there 'ises a silent prayer that the spring ime of eternal life brightens the Grand Lodge home in which our loved ,nes dwell. The same tender thoughts Ire in every Elk's mind, the same owing tributes on every Elk's ton que, while from their station on high standing in the presence of the EX- llted Ruler of all, our absent bro hers give testimony that living or lead, on earth or in heaven, an Elk s never forgotten, remembrance of Jim ne'er allowed to grow old.