Page:Oration Delivered on the Occasion of the Dedication of the New Hall of Cooper Lodge.djvu/8

6 possible, what, my brethren, is the greatest want of the age, of our country and the world? Is it science, intelligence and education? No, my brethren, science, intelligence and education were never so active, so successful and widely diffused as at the present. Is it the want of moral and religious instruction? No, there never was so much of activity, labor, zeal and money expended in a single age, for religious and moral purposes, as in the present; and yet what is the result? You all know—the world knows, if the statistics and records of crime are true, that in the midst of all this march of progress and improvement proclaimed aloud to the world by its leaders—that in the midst of it all, there is more crime, more poverty, more discontent, more lawlessness and open rebellion, as well as infidelity, than in any former period of our country’s history. And as a necessary consequence of all this, men in church and state will say and do things that our fathers would refuse to entertain a moment in the most secret recesses of their hearts.

My brethren, it is not by the diffusion of science or knowledge alone; not by an increase of colleges and schools; not by the extension and multiplicity of rail-roads; not by commercial enterprise and industrial activity; not by any or all of these alone can individual and social happiness reach its culminating point of perfection; but by the extension and diffusion of Brotherly Kindness and Charity. Let these prevail among men, then all the other appliances will become instruments and agencies in extending and promoting universal peace and happiness among men and nations.

And while we are neither the eulogists nor the propagandists of Masonry—but only her defender, we must and can say in truth, that she, of all systems and associations the world has ever known, has preserved and exhibited in their highest and purest degree and character these divine principles of charity, peace and good will to men.

What time, when and where in her history did she persecute, or attempt to enforce or extend her principles by the fire and sword? What time, or in what land or