star of hope, dashes upon them, and
is lost. All along its shores are scattered the wrecks of stranded
vessels, once laden with joyous hopes and brilliant prospects.
Odd-Fellowship renders the passage of this river safe by a bridge of
mystic form,

"On one side is friendship planted--
Truth upon the other shore;
Love, the arch that spans the current,
Bears each brother safely o'er."

It should be the most pleasing duty of Odd-Fellows to point our
fellow-travelers to this beautiful and stately arch; to lead
thitherward their weary steps. Such would be assistance more permanent
than can be rendered by silver or gold. The time is certain to come
when every young man is thrown back upon himself--must leave the
tranquil security of the parental home, and seek a refuge among
strangers. When beyond the reach of family influence--beyond the reach
of that tender providence which so carefully guarded him from vice, and
soothed his griefs and sympathized with all his youthful aspirations
and pleasures--when this influence ceases to surround him, what will
continue its ministry of love? What will be to him father, mother,
brother, sister--home? Will society? No! Society to its deepest core
is selfish, corrupt, unnatural and unloving? Society will not, and can
not. He is in the great world--allurements and temptations are rife
around him--he is sick and in distress, and must suffer alone, with no
one to console him with a word of comfort, sympathy, or love; he has no
attention but such as money will purchase--he dies, and the cold eyes
of strangers only look upon the grave, if, indeed, a grave he has.
This is a life picture, and it is at this point the beauty and utility
of Odd-Fellowship is seen, for the order is a vast family circle,
spread throughout the community; always powerful and efficient to
preserve those who are brought within the sphere of its influence. He
who is a member of this fraternity may go where his father's counsel
and his mother's care can not reach him, but he can not go beyond the
reach of that larger family to which he belongs! Silently and
invisibly, yet with unslumbering assiduity, Odd-Fellowship watches over
him, and by its wise counsels, its tender sympathies and rational
restraints, saves him from the ways of vice.

Mythic story tells us that the ancient gods invisibly and secretly
followed their favorites in all their wanderings, and when exposed to
danger, or threatened