Then as we may best show our love to Him by loving one another, is it not well that we commence loving those around us at once?  Ah! yes, and like the ambitious vine, do thou reach out all thy tendril thoughts to what is nearest, the while aspiring to the oak or the pine of the loftier trust, even the faith of Abraham that was accounted unto him for righteousness.  Would I had some new phrase for love, some new figure for hope!  How lonely and weary must that life be without love, how tasteless all its joys, and how vacant every scene.  If we have the spirit of love we will live for others.  Auguste Comte inscribed on the first page of his work, “Politique Positive,” wherein he depicted in systematic form, life that had been forming itself throughout human history, these words:  “Order and progress—­live for others.”  The force of this thought is, in accord with Odd-Fellowship, which teaches love of our kind, love of right, zeal for the good.

Man’s happiness consists in living as a social being, living for self in order to more truly live for others.  This is summed up in the word humanity.  But affection, as the true motor force of life, must have a foundation, must stir us not only to the right things, but to the right means; in other words, action must be guided by knowledge.  Improvement must be the aim of social life, as it is the incentive to individual effort.  It is not enough to desire the good, or to know how to achieve it, we must labor for it.  Associated effort gives the opportunity for gaining grander results than centuries of divided activity.  The conception of humanity has grown nobler.  The good of the vast human whole is now acknowledged as the end of all social union.  Humanity embodies love; the object of our activity; the source of what we have; the ruler of the life under whose span we work, and suffer and enjoy.

All religions, all social systems worthy of the name, have sought to regulate human nature and perfect the organization of society by proclaiming as their principles the cultivation of some grand social sentiments.  Philosophers, moralists, preachers have united in saying:  “Base your life upon a noble feeling, if you are to live aright; base the state upon a generous devotion of its members to some great ideal, if it is to prosper and be strong.”  All have agreed that the difference of life could only be harmonized by placing action under the stimulus of high unselfish passion.  Odd-Fellowship has grown strong under this governing law.  The banner it bears aloft proclaims sentiments that are attractive to all the nations of the earth.  We are strong in as far as we truly interpret, for the good of humanity, this elevated aim, this devotion to fraternal ends.