The Jericho Road | Page 6

"the aims and purposes of the order be legitimate
and praiseworthy, why shroud them in mystery rather than give them
the broad sunlight of publicity."
The objection is not new, nor is it urged with any increase of its

original force, whatever may be the fact in the matter of vehemence.
Answer might be made: The order does not choose to ascend to the
house tops for the purpose of heralding its affairs to the world. But that
answer would not be satisfactory, nor is any likely to be that may be
presented, now or hereafter. It is nevertheless true that there are certain
matters pertaining to the order and its works with which the outside
world has no sort of concern, even as with those very peculiar secret
societies, the individual, the family, the church and the state. If other
organizations prefer to resort to the newspapers, the pulpit, the rostrum
and other information conduits for the purpose of advertising their
wares, their greatness and their goodness, and the vast amount of
humanitarian work they are doing and purposing, such is their
unquestioned privilege.
But if the preference of Odd-Fellowship be for quieter and less
obtrusive methods, pray who shall fairly contest its right of choice?
And then it should be remembered that there are matters in which the
right hand is prohibited the privilege of interfering with the
prerogatives of the left, and the left with those of the right. Nor should
the fact be forgotten that there is Divine example, if not precept, for the
established "modus operandi" of the order. Upon a certain occasion the
Great Teacher had performed a very humble service for one of his
disciples who was sadly at loss for the why and the wherefore, and the
answer, received to his inquiry was: "What I do thou knowest not now,
but thou shalt know hereafter."
And in the grand hereafter, when the films of ignorance and the
warpings of prejudice and superstition shall have melted away under
the bright sunlight of Eternal Day, it is not impossible that our vexed,
inquisitive, worrying opponents may be permitted to look back over the
pathway this order has traversed, glance at the work that has been
wrought and peradventure discover how unreasonable, as well as
fruitless, has been the warfare they have been pleased to wage with
such persistent fury. A long time to wait, maybe, but then good things
do not come rapidly nor all at once. Meanwhile, to encourage them in
their waiting, their watching and their worrying, let them take this
lesson from the same Great Teacher: "The wind bloweth where it
listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it
cometh or whither it goeth." Ah, no! it will not do, because you can not

see and comprehend all of everything, inside as well as outside, to
conclude that it must necessarily be bad. Adopt that theory, and you not
only fly in the face of reason, but bump your head against almost
everything in nature, in art and in science.
Secrets! yes; they are within us and without us, above us and beneath
us and all about us, and "what are you going to do about it?" Well
might Israel's old and gifted poet king write: "We are fearfully and
wonderfully made," soul and body, the mortal and the immortal, the
material and the immaterial, strangely and mysteriously conjoined!
God's secret, this! Will you denounce Him and withdraw allegiance
from Him, for the reason that He fails to make clear to you a clear and
satisfying revelation? The same old singer said thousands of years ago,
"The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His
handiwork." And those heavens, with that firmament, are charged and
surcharged with mightiest and profoundest secrets. We seize the
telescope and "plunge into the vast profound overhead, intent upon
mastering the secrets of the revolving spheres."
We travel from star to star, from system to system, until we reach yon
lonely star that appears to be performing the Guardian's task, upon the
verge of unmeasured and immeasurable space. We may descry and
describe the form and outlines of those heavenly bodies, detect their
movements and approximately determine their distances and
dimensions. But what more? Little that is satisfying. When they had a
beginning, what purposes they subserve in the sublime system of God's
stupendous universe, and when they shall have a consummation, we
may not certainly know. Secrets, these, and such "Secret things belong
unto God." We would like to know these secrets, but must wait; for
there, "roll those mighty worlds that gem the distant sky," as distantly
and dismally as when Chaldean and Egyptian astronomers and
astrologers viewed their movements three thousand years ago, rifled
meanwhile of but