ture of our Order, as well as the noblest grace displayed upon the unsullied escutcheon of our holy religion.

While, therefore, we would claim for Odd-Fellowship that which is her just and lawful right, we would be equally careful of making invidious comparisons, or detracting, as others have done by us, from the merits of sister Institutions. Some have averred, that in our organization we are but the illegitimate offspring of a kindred system, which claims as great antiquity as the Laws of Moses. The "Lex Talionis" is not our statute book-we will not return like for like; but let our works speak for us; they are our glorious "Book of Heraldry," where our honors shine forth, and our titles are seen. The goddess of Peace holds unrivalled empire in our sanctified halls, while charity, the celestial seraph of heaven, is her messenger of love.

Ask the political demon of discord and death, who roams at large up and down the earth like some roaring lion, setting on fire the worst passions of man's unsanctified nature; sire against son, and son opposed to sire, arrayed in hostile panoply; what of Love? what of Friendship? what of Truth? he understands you not. His delight, like the laugh of the whirlwind or the shrill scream of the tempest, is heard in unison with grief's hollow moan; bloodshed and murder his happy associates; corruption and fraud his ministers of State. Ask him of Odd-Fellows' Hall; he knows not the place. Cloud-cap'd Sinai to the affrighted hosts of Israel, when Jehovah descended in the majesty of his power, and round the fire-crowned summit hung the dark galleries of his mighty wrath, shaking with eternal voice great Horeb to its base, was not more dreaded than are the symbols of our sacred Order to that dark spirit.

Ask that gloomy and malign principle, whose hundred eyes out-watch the Argus, "that makes the meat it feeds on," and startled by "trifles light as air," grasps the murderous hilt-what of Odd-Fellowship? it knows not the term. Deep, deep in the dungeons of moral guilt, jealousy finds home, while solemn despair, her kindred spirit, crowned by the furies and hung with funeral drapery, forms her hideous council. Hatred, with her train of evil spirits, finds no entrance among us. As virtue cannot hold commerce with vice without contamination, so neither may Odd-Fellowship, in safety, hold unrestricted communion with a corrupt world; therefore, she hath enveloped herself in the mystic mantle, which the very genius of wisdom hath conferred upon her. From thence, as from behind an impregnable rampart, she hurls her darts at folly, and lets fall the thunders of her power upon its kindred vice, while at the same time, she pours into the wound of suffering humanity, Good Samaritan-like, the sacred balm of consolation.

None are too mean or low in their fortunes to be made recipients of her bounty; while none can be too high to be benefitted by her noble institutes. In her arms the exile finds a home, while in her fraternal embrace, persecuted innocence meets a ready shield.

Go to the sick room of the stranger. Far away from country and from friends, mountains and seas rise and roll 'twixt him and his home; before him yawns an opening grave; around him is spread the mantle of despair, while upon his pale cheek and wasted form is seen the impress of the arch destroyer, death; no cheering voice of wife or children gladden the stranger's heart, or breaks the dull silence of his passage to the tomb; no sister's

sympathetic heart throbs in kind unison with a brother's woe; no mother's silent tear tells the sad tale of a parent's grief; no father's kind love smooths the last pillow of a son's repose-but a seraph is there; the Odd-Fellow, true to his vow, and regardless of his own danger, hath sought and found a suffering brother.-Look at that silent train of regalia-clad mourners, with solemn tread, marked alone by the dull beat of the muffled drum; they move their sad march along; no long line of carriages, with heraldic bearings blazoned forth, mark with funeral pomp the moving scene; no sable clad relatives, whose outward garb but poorly speak the soul within, swell the pageant train. It is the stranger's burial.

The franchised spirit of an Odd-Fellow hath winged its way to worlds unknown; and now borne by the "Brotherhood," his body is consigned to its last resting place; it reposes upon the "lap of earth."

Were it not for our Order, unknown he had slept,

No stone marked the spot, unhonored, unwept;

But Love, Truth and Friendship, closed his sad eyes,
While faith winged his seul to the "Lodge "in the skies.

The world may condemn, hatred impugn, and prejudice scoff, but hallowed in the sight of heaven, are such acts of burning charity; and in the great day of accounts, in which all the doings of men shall be revealed, in connection with the motives that inspired them, the faithful Odd-Fellow will rejoice in his labors of love.

Not only the sick and destitute brother, but the widow and the orphan are the objects of the Odd-Fellow's peculiar regard. More than $100,000 are annually appropriated by the Order in the United States, for the relief of the distressed. And where is the reward? in the testimony of a good conscience, which speaks the approval of heaven; in the widow's prayer and the orphan's tear. Like sweet incense they rise to nature's God for blessings upon Odd-Fellowship. One such prayer to heaven is better than a thousand benefactions from man. It lays hold of the throne of Deity; it apprehends Jehovah himself; it applies the promise of the Father through the Son, and the widow's God becomes the protector of the Order. No other cause may be assigned for its unparalelled prosperity and great success. But a few years since and it was not known in our land. Now count its scores of Lodges and its thousands of members, all united and banded together by the mystic ties of the Order; their minds are directed and their energies devoted to the good of the world.

Next to being a christian, and nobler than the king on his throne, is the high privilege of being ranked among Odd-Fellows, the moral philanthropists of the earth; his insignia is more honorable than the jewelled collar of the monarch-more noble than the ermined drapery of earth's proudest potentates.

A Howard, a Wilberforce, and a Montesquieu, in their mighty labors did but reflect the glories of Odd-Fellowship; while immortal Washington and patriotic Lafayette were but the self-denying models of its moral super

structure.

The principles of the Order will live when the earth shall have passed away. The sun shall grow dim with age, the firmament wax old as a garment, the earth weary with fatigue, and great nature stand silent and still, ere the virtues of Odd-Fellowship shall cease to exist. Immortality is em

blazoned upon her institutions of charity, while nobility's stamp is seen in all her acts. 'Neath the broad wing of freedom she rejoices in love, and a voice from the hill tops pronounces her blest.

The plumage of liberty hathed from on high,

As Jove's mighty bird wheels aloft in the sky,

Immersed in the sunbeam, it shows not more bright

Than love's sacred flame 'mid the world's moral light.

As an oasis in the midst of the sandy desert, surrounded by desolation, presents to the eye of hope a place of rest for the weary traveller, so OddFellowship rises from the centre of life's moral waste, adorned with the evergreen of tranquil repose. Beneath her broad branches the pilgrim may rest secure from the storm, while through her thick foliage the sunshafts of ruin in vain shall seek way.

Hail brethren of the Order, Grandsires and Nobles,

"Patriarch, Pilgrims," and Priests of the "Rod,"

Ye who own allegiance to Abraham's God

Your insignia to-day, points you out to the world as ornaments of virtue, patterns of benevolence, and Truth's undaunted champions. Go on in your labor of love. Still succour the distressed, and snatch from despair the widowed heart. At the bedside of death let your presence be found; at the Odd-Fellow's grave your spirit be seen. Still let those emblems of virtue in honor be worn, that a gainsaying world be constrained you to praise. So, when life shall wane apace, and the spirit begin to plume its wings for another and better world, the Almighty Grand Master of the celestial Lodge above may give the travelling word, "well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joys of thy Lord "-the "Sign" of which shall be the sign of Jonas in the heavens; the "Token" the cross of Christ, and the "Password" glory to God in the highest.

Hail, hail thou blest spirit of holy abode,

Thy seal stamps the soul with the image of God;
Thy mind in Odd-Fellowship shines from above,
In the sanctified virtues-Truth, Friendship and Love.

WHAT IS TRUTH?

BY MISS E. C. HORLEY, OF NEW YORK.

TRUTH is the source from whence doth spring

All attributes benign;

From this both Love and Friendship rise;
These hallow Heaven's shrine.

Truth when unfolding brings to view

Earth's joys to gild our way;
Emerging from a field so vast,

It gilds where'er we stray.

Structure for Friendship, cold the name

Which blesses most the earth;
Unlimited its broad extent,

Unspeakable its worth.

It lives not, with the ebb and flow
Of passions as they roll,
But fixed and firm as polar star,
Beams brightly from the soul.

Truth, the foundation for all good,
Wherever man is found,

In this both Love and Friendship live,
It gives life's pulse its bound.

THE THIRTEENTH.

A TALE OF DOOM.

It was on a sultry July evening that a joyous party of young men were assembled in the principal room of a wine house, outside the Potsdam gate of Berlin. One of their number, a Saxon painter, by name Carl Solling, was about to take his departure for Italy. His place was taken in the Halle mail, his luggage sent to the office, and the coach was to call for him at midnight at the tavern, whither a number of his most intimate friends had accompanied him, to drink a parting glass of Rhenish wine to his prosperous journey.

Supper was over, and some magnificent melons, and peaches, and plates of caviare, and other incentives to drinking, placed upon the table; a row of empty bottles already graced the sideboard, while full ones of that venerable cobweb-mantle appearance, so dear to the toper, were forthcoming as rapidly as the thirstiest throats could desire. The conviviality was at its height, and numerous toasts had been given, among which the health of the traveller, the prosperity of the art which he cultivated and the land of poetry and song to which he was proceeding, had not been forgotten. Indeed, it was becoming difficult to find any thing to toast, but the thirst of the party was still unquenched, and apparently unquenchable.

Suddenly a young man started up, in dress and appearance the very model of a German student-in short frock coat and loose sacklike trousers, long curling hair hanging over his shoulders, pointed beard and mustache, and the scars of one or two sabre cuts on his handsome animated countenance.

'You want a toast, my friends!' cried he "An excuse to drink, as though drinking needed an excuse when the wine is good. I will give you one, and a right worthy one too. Our noble selves here assembled; all, so many as we are!" And he glanced round the table, counting the number of the guests. One, two, three, four-thirteen. We are thirteen. Es lebe dic Dreizhen!'

He raised his glass, in which the golden liquor flashed and sparkled, and set it down, drained to the last drop.

Thirteen!' a pale-faced, dark-eyed youth named Raphael, starting from his seat, and in his turn counting the company. 'Tis true. My friends, ill luck will attend us. We are Thirteen seated at a round table.'

There was evidently an unpleasant impression made upon the guests by this announcement. The toast-giver threw a scornful glance around him'What!' cried he, are we believers in such nursery tales and wive's superstitions? Pshaw! The charm will soon be broken! Rascally cockdrawer! where are you hidden! Come forth!-Appear.

Thus invoked, there toddled into the room the master of the tavern-a round bellied, short legged individual, whose rosy gills and Bacchus like appearance proved his devotion to the jolly god whose high-priest he was. Sit down here!' cried the mad student, forcing him into a chair; 'and now, Raphael and gentlemen all, he pleased to shorten your faces again, and drink your wine as if one with a three after it were an unknown combination of numerals."

The conversation now took a direction naturally given to it by what had just occurred, and the origin and causes of the popular prejudice against the number Thirteen were discussed.

'It cannot be denied that there is something mysterious in the connection and combination of numbers,' observed a student in philosophy; and Pythagoras was right enough when he sought the foundation of all human knowledge in the even and uneven. All over the world the idea of something complete and perfect is associated with even numbers, and of something imperfective and defective with uneven ones. The ancients, too, considered even numbers of good omen, and uneven ones as unpropitious.'

'It is really a pity,' cried the mad student, that you philosophers should not be allowed to invert and re-arrange history in the manner you deem fitting. You would soon torture the crooked stream of time into a straight line. I should like to know from what authors you derive your very ori-ginal ideas in favor of even numbers. As far as my reading goes, I find that number three was considered a sacred and a fortunate number by nearly all the sects of antiquity, not excepting the Pythagoreans. And the early Romans had such respect for the uneven numbers, that they never allowed a flock of sheep to be of any number divisible by two." The philosopher did not seem immediately prepared with a reply to this attack.

'You are all of you looking too far back for the origin of the curse that attends the number, Thirteen,' interposed Raphael. Think only of the Lord's Supper which is rather nearer to our time than Pythagoras and the Roman shepherds. It is since then that Thirteen has been a stigmatised and fatal number. Judas Iscariot was the Thirteenth at that sacred table, and believe me it is no childish superstition that makes men shun so noble a number.'

'Here is Solling, who has not given his opinion yet,' cried another of the party, and yet I am sure he has something to say on the subject.— How now, Carl, what ails thee, man? Why so sad and silent?'

The painter who, at the commencement of the evening, had entered frankly and willingly into the joyous humor of his friends, had became