Page:Oration Delivered on the Occasion of the Dedication of the New Hall of Cooper Lodge.djvu/13

Rh nourish all; from the modest flower, that blooms and dies unseen on the mountain bosom, and wastes its fragrance on the mountain winds, up to the lofty oak and the stately pine.

Again, my brethren, remember that the law of love and kindness is to the moral universe, what the law of gravitation and attraction is to the material. It is the latter that binds and keeps in harmony the material universe of God; and under its control all is order and peace. No part of matter, how minute soever, is beneath its notice and care, and none too great for its power and influence.

And thus it is with the law of love and kindness. God, who is love, has ordered this law to govern and preserve the moral universe, as he has ordained the other for the material. And what is wanting to bind the whole world together in bonds of amity and concord, strong and firm as that which bound the ThebeanTheban [sic] warriors to each other, in life and death, but the spirit of brotherly love?

Masonry has been often assailed and accused by her ignorant enemies, as anti-christian in her principles and tendency, and yet she has ever shown more of true christian spirit than any society or association on earth, except the christian church in the first stage of her pure and primitive condition and character.

And, my brethren, if we have been tedious and redundant on this subject, it is not to praise Masonry, but to impress upon your minds the necessity, and at this time the great and increasing importance of preserving this spirit of amity and kindness in the bonds of peace. Do this, my brethren, and much as Masonry is despised by her foes, she yet may be the conservative power of the social and moral world. She yet may say to its stormy elements—“peace, be still;” and they will obey her.

Brethren, when did acts of kindness and brotherly love, and charity and gentleness, meekness and forbearance,