t touches us at
every point of our lives. From the cradle to the grave, every moment
of our lives we are the objects of love to some one, and we love in
turn. But human love must end. After life's fitful dream, the cares
and vanities, the vexations and pleasures of life have no terror or
concern for us, the love that thrilled our whole being will return to
the source from whence it came. But truth will never die. It is the
"imperial virtue." The heart may fail; it will fail, and the hand fall
listless by the side. The arrow will fall after being shot into the
air and never return, and the bow will be broken; the altar will be
thrown down; the sand, grain by grain, run through the hour-glass, and
the glass be shattered; the eye grow dim; the world roll up as a scroll
and pass away; the hills may crumble and the pyramids melt with fervent
heat; all the friendships will die and the love return to the Father
that begat it, but truth will stand. It is indeed the imperial and the
imperishable virtue. There, above the chaos and the confusion of time,
it will stand to warn men from the wrong, and beckon them to do right.

Despite the glamor of the world that secret societies propagate a
secresy of men's actions at the expense of truth and justice, it can
not obtain in a lodge of this order. No man ever took upon himself the
vows and studied the underlying motives, and practiced the lessons of
the order, but he becomes a better citizen. If he has become a good
husband and father, he becomes better in his domestic relations. If he
has been charitable before, he becomes more so now. Men's weaknesses
he looks upon as human frailties, until time and sense teach him that
frailties have degenerated into positive perversity of character and
baseness of heart. He will condemn falsehood and hypocrisy wherever
found.

The object of religious organizations is to make men better and fit
them for the life immortal. The object of government and its laws is
to make and protect good citizens and repress vice. The object of this
secret organization is to bind men more firmly together for mutual
protection, for help and sustenance, to look after their families, and
to be in a broad sense our brother's keeper. I would not be understood
as placing a secret organization in place of the church, or in the
place of a political government. By no means. Each has its own proper
and particular sphere of action. No one in its actions an