http://www.authorama.com/jericho-road-22.html
Like the rivers, forever running yet never passed, like the winds forever going yet never gone, so is Odd-Fellowship.
“I have lived much that I have not written, but I have written nothing that I have not lived, and the story of this book is but a plaintive refrain wrung from the over-burdened song of my life; while the tides of feeling, winding down the lines, had their sources in as many broken upheavals of my own heart.”
A book, like an implement, must be judged by its adaptation to its special design, however unfit for any other end. This volume is designed to help Odd-Fellows in their search for the good things in life. There is need of something to break the spell of indifference that oftentimes binds us, and to open glimpses of better, sweeter, grander possibilities. Hence this volume, which is a plea for that great fortune of man–his own nature. Bulwer says: "Strive while improving your one talent to enrich your whole capital as a man.” The present work is designed to aid in securing the result thus recommended. We send it forth, trusting that it will find its way into the hands of every Odd-Fellow and every Odd-Fellow’s friend and neighbor, and that those who read it will gather from its pages lessons which shall enable them to pluck thorns from their pathway and scatter flowers instead.
W. Bion Adkins.
October 1, 1899.
“We have careful thoughts for the stranger,
And smiles for the sometime guest,
But oft for own,
The bitter tone,
Though we love our own the best.”
Today’s Demand
God give us men. A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor;
Men who will not lie,
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duly and in private thinking.
For, while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps.
God give us men!
–Selected.
God, give us authentic people!!!
ReplyDeleteIn the link provided, the issue was very much about
ReplyDeletethe role of man as husband and father vis-a-vis that
of the role of woman as wife and mother.
“It is a woman, and only a woman–a woman all by herself,
if she likes, and without any man to help her–
who can turn a house into a home.”
It is a woman who can, if she will, turn a house
into a home, but she cannot do these all by herself,
without any man to help her, who can effect
such a beneficial transformation.
Woman possesses magical powers in
the way of building up a home;
but home naturally implies the
presence and protection of man–and it is man himself,
if he likes, and without any woman to help him,
who can give that home
a semblance of that place where,
as some people believe,
the wicked suffer after they have “shuffled off this mortal coil.”
The husband can never make the home,
but he can succeed most admirably,
if so he choose, to unmake it,
to banish its happiness and comfort,
to exile from it its
ministering angels of peace and content,
to shatter woman’s sweet
and blessed work to its very foundation.