The Columbus dispatch. (Columbus, Miss.) 19??-1922, 1919-09-21
IN MEMORIAM.
Tombigbee Lodge No. ~, Knights

/ should we disguise the matter; the
simple truth is that our own deep
sense of loss is the very highest
tribute we can pay to him who has
gone from US.
We sometimes call death the Great
Leveler; and so it is. But death is
also the Great Revealer. Now that
the long and honorable career of
service, of his beautiful and tender
love of home and family, and his
conspicuous and courageous Pythian
Fidelity is brought to a close, we
realize, as never before, how bless
ed we have been m his presence and
association with us, and how great
is the loss we suffer. But here, at
last, is Natures final decree in
Equity. The wrongs of time are re-
dressed. Injustice is expiated; the
irony of fate is refuted; the unequal
distribution of wealth, honor, capa-
city, pleasure and opportunity, which
makes life such an inexplicable trag-
edy, ceases in the realm of death"
Our brother Harris at the time
of his death had been Pythian for
more than a quarter of century
His unselfish and splendid life of
Christian humility, speaks for it
self and all who knew him are famil-
| To-, ,.,;kb - IT, b;v,. kba,.o ,,,os roAh;oo.
more sublime than DUTY; and,
think of it, DUTY-then-H
By a beautiful necessity does not
the one lead always to the other?
When we know that to live in Christ
then, also, we know that to die is
Gain. 1t is then, for ourselves, that
we mourn, knowing our great loss
while he has assembled to his Father
and our Father, to his God and to
our God We love to think of our
brother in his family, in his daily
contact with his fellows; and to Won
der at the perfection of the human
qualities he possessed in such at
tractive form.
"He was a man, take him all for
all'
eve shall not look upon his like
again"
Now when one who, as did our de-
parted brother Harris, had come into
the world richly endowed, when he
has trained and disciplined his mind
and submitted all toNthe Father of
our Spirits, when man has unspar
ingly given himself for others, and
counted not his own life dear unto
himself if only he may work the
work of him who sent him while yet
it is day, and when at last his every
thought has not been for self alone,
but for others, why should such
soul not be able to say with the
Apostles:
81 have fought good fight. /
have finished the course. | have
kept the faith; hencforth there is
laid up for me the Crown of right
eousness which the Lord, the right
eous Judge, shall give to me at that
Day?
And can we doubt that even the
liberated Spirit of such man has
heard the approving words:
"Well done, good and faithful ser
want; enter thou into the Joy of
the Lord
And Now,
WHEREAS
1t has pleased the Almighty and
Supreme Ruler of the Universe, in
His Infinite Wisdom and Grace to re-
move from our Castle Hall and from
the World, our esteemed and well
beloved brother
GIDEON D. HARRIS.
who has for so many years sustained
with us a genuine fraternal relation
ship in our Lodge room; who has
maintained high standard of citizen
ship approached only by men and
knights of his high and noble char
acter; who has himself maintained
at all times and under all circum-
stances a character unblemished and
untarnished, and reputation above
reproach; brother whose "hands
we know have been filled with deeds
of charity and now that he has come
to the river that marks the unknown
shore he holds the Golden Keys which
open the palace of Eternity"
Now Therefore
BE 1T RESOLVED:
BY Tombigbee Lodge No. u,
Knights of Pythias, that in the
death of our brother and friend,
Gideon d. Harris, who passed from
this life to the Great Beyond on the
4th day of September, A. D., 1919,
beng then in the 74th year of his
life and in the 55th. year of Pythian-
ish. we have sustained the loss of a
friend and brother whose friendship
1 cd fel1o,vshin II was an honor and