The Odd-fellow's improved manual

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. * m

Enol am.dPrmte i hy XMButLe

And hatli made of one Hood all nations of menfoi to dwelVcm all the face of the earth. X**

Preface

TO THE "IMPROVED MANUAL " — 1868.

The Manual submitted to the brotherhood sixteen years ago has met with approval and success far beyond my most sanguine hopes. Most members of the Grand Lodge of the United States, at its next session, and (then and since) numerous most eminent brethren, including the Grand Scribes and Grand Secretaries of our State Grand Bodies generally, commended it to all who desired full and correct knowledge of the principles and usages of Odd-Fellowship. For these numerous voluntary commendations I was and am very grateful.

And now, with these sixteen years of added experience, aided by some of our ablest brethren, I have carefully conformed the Manual to the present condition, usages and wants of the Order. To secure all possible aid and information for this revision, in May, 1867, I addressed every Grand Scribe and Grand Secretary of the State Grand Lodges and Encampments, beside other distinguished brethren — over fifty, in all — and solicited copies of constitutions of their Grand and Subordinate bodies, and requested their individual corrections and advice. Every one kindly sent documents, and many added judicious comments and advice. A few friends (among whom I must specially name Grand Secretary Ridgely, of the G. L. U. S.) revised the book, noted valuable corrections and remarks on its margins, and sent me these precious tokens of their goodwill. I have most gratefully profited by these numerous documents, criticisms and annotations. J* v

VI PREFACE

The brief historical sketch of the Order has been entirely rewritten, and brought up to the present year, and the biographic sketch of Father Wildey added. The language of the Emblems (so various as to be sometimes inharmonious, being derived from different authorities) I have simplified, and harmonized with the lessons of each degree to which they belong — retaining every explanation heretofore most approved. And to each degree I have assigned its special emblem — the peculiar emblem of that degree — being thereto advised by many eminent and experienced brethren. To arrange the emblems consistently — to give expressive unity, directness, and fulness to them — cost me more thought, anxiety, and rewriting, than all other portions of the work. I am happy, therefore, in having won the praises of P. Gr. Master Fred. D. Stuart, of this city, and of P. Gr. Sire J. B. Nicholson, of Philadelphia, on this portion of my labors ; for they had this subject under consideration for several years, as a Committee of the G. L. TJ. S.

Those forms for dedications, &c, which the Gr. L. TJ. S. has declared " shall be used, and none other," will be found here, pure and unmixed. Hence no Encampment, Lodge, or brother need fear that this guide will " lead to bewilder, or dazzle to blind," or conduct into " by and forbidden paths."*

The additional and original Odes by Mrs. F. W. Gillett, of Michigan, and Revs. D. K. Lee, D. D., of New York, and A. C. Thomas, of Pennsylvania — written expressly for this Improved Manual — will be read and used with delight and profit. And the Business Forms, so much commended heretofore, have been revised, and added to, as experience suggested.

I have thus labored to make this a complete Manual and

* Notice of any error, in doctrine, law, usage or fact, will be gratefully received and promptly corrected.

TO THE IMPROVED MANUAL. Vll a correct Guide ; but aware of human imperfection, and deeply sensible of my own, I dare only hope that it is an improvement on what an indulgent brotherhood has pronounced " the standard work of the Order " — and as such I offer and

DEDICATE IT

To all Inquirers who desire to know what Odd-Fellowship is — its aims, means, and measures — and how it attained its present form and power.

To the Families and Friends of Odd-Fellows, that they may be induced to encourage their " loved ones " to be Odd-Fellows in deed and verity.

To all Odd-Fellows, of every degree, rank, and station, as a Teacher and Guide to direct them onward and upward in the performance of duty as members and officers — as

"Brethren of our Friendly Order."

And may our Heavenly Father, who is especially " the Father of the fatherless, and the widow's God," bless its instructions, so as to imbue all our minds and hearts with the love of God and of humanity — that thus we may promote the welfare of our Order, the elevation of our race, and the glory of our God.

A. B. Grosh.

Washington, D. C, July 1st, 1868.

EXTRACTS FROM THE PREFACE TO THE ODD-FELLOW'S MANUAL OF 1852.

A pew remarks will inform the reader why I prepared this book, and what were my supposed qualifications for the work.

I was initiated in Oneida Lodge, No. 70, at Utica, N. Y., September 8th, 1842. The nearest Lodge, on the one hand, was at Rochester — on the other, at Schenectady. Few of the members knew much more of the principles, usages, and workings of the Order at large than myself. Periodicals and other publications of the Order were almost unknown among us. The Lodge itself was a new one. Often and sadly, as I passed onward through the degrees, and through the chairs, did I feel the need of such a Manual as that I now present to my brethren of the Order.

As years rolled over me, my station being among the working men of the bodies to which I was attached, I gained experience and found able counsellors, and from time to time furnished such items as I deemed useful to " the fraternity for publication in the " Golden Rule," the " Covenant," and the " Ark." Thus gathering experience and materials, with no particular view to making a book, I was urged by several distinguished brethren to prepare a full and complete Manual for the Order. I have done what I could to gratify their wishes.

The First Part is for the general reader. Yet it may furnish needed information for not a few members of the Order.

The Second Part is for Odd-Fellows only. Yet those out of the Order may there learn what we are obligated to perform, and may, perhaps, read a page of duty to guide themselves.

The Third Part contains ceremonials for all public occasions of the Order, with suitable brief Addresses, Invocations, Prayers, Responses, &c, which may be interesting, perhaps even profitable, to all.

Appendixes A and B contain Odes and Music for various occasions, and blank Forms prescribed by our Grand Bodies, besides others which are useful in the transaction of the business of our Order.

The whole is arranged so as to commence with the Inquirer merely, and proceeds, in regular succession, to instruct and direct all in their duties as Odd-Fellows, and Committee-men, and Officers, from the initiate up to the highest degree and highest office in the Order.

In all this I have not wrought alone. Professor Patterson* has so materially assisted me in the preparation of the various ceremonials, that the credit of this portion of the work is in a measure due to him. He has, moreover, carefully examined and approved the entire work. To William Curtis, Esq., for many years the well-known, efficient Grand Secretary and Grand Scribe of the R. W. G. L. and G. E. of Pennsylvania, I am also indebted for judicious counsel and criticism in preparing the work. To several others I owe gratitude for kind suggestions ; and I have freely copied not a few extracts from the essays of my co-laborers in our periodicals. But the written as well as the unwritten work of the Order I have considered sacred from revelation. A few quotations it has made from prior sources, I have felt at liberty to use from the same fountains ; also a few phrases which, by frequent quotation in orations, &c, have become common property. But beyond this I have not advanced. Yet every doctrine, principle, and precept it enjoins will be found here in regular order, mingled with a few additional remarks of my own.

* Henry S. Patterson, M. D., Past G. Master, and Past R. W. Grand Representative of the G. Lodge of Pennsylvania — since deceased.

viii

Part First. Matters External To The Order

PAGE

Chapter I. — History of the Order 13

Origin and Uses of Secret Societies — Antiquity of our Order — Origin in Great Britain — Convivial Practices — The Independent Order — Origin in the United States — Biographic Sketch of Thomas Wildey — The Order under the Grand Lodge of the United States.

Chapter X. — Duties and Deportment of Odd-Fellows 189 Lodge Attendance — Payment of Dues — Conduct in Debate

— Gentlemanly Deportment — Correctness in Working — Voting and Balloting — Duties to Self, Family, and Others.

Chapter XL— Of Committees and Committee-Men 202

General Duties of Committee-men — Investigating Committee — Finance Committee — Auditing Committee — Trustees and Curators — Charges and Trials — Relief Committee and Watchers.

Chapter XXI. — Of State Grand Lodges 305

How Commenced and Constituted — The Grand Lodge Degree — Members, Representatives, and Committees — Appointed and Elective Officers.

Chapter XXII. — Of Districts, their Committees and Officers. 312 Dist. Grand Committees — Appeal Committees — D. D. G. Patriarchs — D. D. G. Masters — Institutions and Installations — Insubordination and Disorder — Reclaiming Charters.

Chapter XXIII. — Of the Grand Lodge of the United States. 320 How Constituted and Supported — Members, Representatives, and Officers — Appointed Officers — Elective Officers — Regalia and Jewels.

Chapter XXIV. — Miscellaneous 326

Diplomas and Cards — Pass-words — Examination of Visitors — Honors and Courtesies — General Interdicts.

Xll CONTENTS.

Chapter V. — Funeral Ceremony 350 APPENDIX A

Odes for Various Occasions, with Music 356

Two Dedication Odes, by A. B. Grosh — Dedication Ode, by Rev. A. C. Thomas* — Ode for Laying a Corner-stone, by Mrs. F. W. Gillett* — Do., by Rev. D. K. Lee, D. D.* — Another, Author unknown — Hymn, Dedication of a Cemetery, by A. B. Grosh* — Funeral Ode, by Rev. J. G. Forman

— Do., by Rev. D. K. Lee, D. D.* — Do., by Rev. A. C. Thomas* — Rebekah at the Well, by Rev. A. C. Thomas* — Daughters of Rebekah, by Rev. D. K. Lee, D. D.* — The Rainbow, by Mrs. S. J. Hale — Dismission, by A. B. Grosh

— Friendship, Love, and Truth, by James Montgomery.

APPENDIX B.

Formulary, containing many Blank Forms infrequent Use.. 370

* Written for the Improved Manual.

THE

ODD-FELLOW'S IMPROVED MANUAL

Chapter I. History Of Odd-fellowship

§ 1. Origin and Uses of Secret Societies.

The earliest records of human history furnish proofs of the existence of secret associations among nearly all the nations of the earth. They have everywhere accompanied, if they have not advanced civilization, and been the conservators, if not the promoters of religious, scientific, and political truth.

Picture-writing and, afterward, hieroglyphics or abbreviated symbols, were at first the only means men possessed of recording doctrines or events, or discoveries in science and the arts. And as nearly all learning was confined to the priesthood and royal family of each nation, these hieroglyphics readily suggested, if they did not constitute an exclusive art by which they communicated with each other, and handed down to their successors those doctrines, discoveries, and state secrets which they deemed it improper to disclose to the world. 2 * 13

Hence in nearly every nation — in Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Eome, Gaul, Germany, and Britain — religious mysteries were the foundation-doctrines, and the priesthood were the founders of secret societies. Even the rites of religious worship were, in most cases, but acted symbols — speaking of common religious ideas to the multitude, but conveying deeper meanings to the initiated eye.

That these early societies were often perverted and grossly abused, is readily admitted. But that furnishes no argument against their proper use. All associations have been corrupted or perverted. Written language is abused every day — the tongue itself is an unruly member, breathing not only prayers to God, but curses on our fellow-man — yet no one, for that alone, would doom society to solitude and silence, or abolish pen and press forever.

On the contrary, the vast utility of ancient secret associations of priests, philosophers, and patriots, in advancing religion, conserving literature, art, and science, and in ameliorating the condition of states and communities, has commended them to the imitation of the wise and good in all subsequent ages of the world. Christianity availed itself of the principle in its early progress. When the iron heel of the bigot and tyrant was raised to crush the springing germ into the dust, it was removed into privacy and was nurtured in secret until the storm was overblown, or its strength was increased to endure the tempest. Says one, whose opposition to Romanism is undoubted : " No instructed man can deny that the Roman Catholic Church presents one of the most solemn and majestic spectacles in history. The very arguments which are employed against its rites, remind us of the mighty part which it has played on the theatre of the world. For when we say that the ceremonies of its worship, the decorations of its altars, and the evolutions of its priests, are conceived in the spirit of Heathenism, how can we forget that it was once the witness of ancient Paganism, the victor of its decrepit superstitions, the rival, yet imitator of its mythology? When we ask the use of the lights that burn during the mass, how can we fail to think of the secret worship of the early Christians, assembled at dead of night in some vault, beyond the eye of observation ? When we wonder at the pantomimic character of its services, its long passages of gesticulation, are we not carried back to the time when the quick ear of the informer and persecutor lurked near, and devotion, finding words an unsafe vehicle of thought, invented the symbolical language which could be read only by the initiated eye?"* That which has proved so beneficial, though now it has ceased to be appropriate, or been corrupted, may well be imitated, and superseded by that wherein is life and purity.

The Albigenses, Waldenses, Cathari and other early Reformers, during the long persecutions of the Papacy, prior to the Reformation, also found in secret association, remote from the eye of the persecutor, safety in worshiping God. And all through the dark night of feudal ages, the various mechanic crafts and guilds, and other secret associations, kept the feeble light of knowledge, virtue, and freedom, glimmering amid the surrounding gloom of semi-heathen darkness, until the world at large, awaking from its leaden sleep, lit its thousand torches at the hardly preserved tapers, and

* Martineau's ''Rationale of Religious Inquiry," Lecture II. p. 19.

threw the blaze of a general revival of religion, letters, arts, and sciences, once more over our benighted race.

And since that revival, similar associations have aided no less in speeding onward the flood-tide of civilization, humanity, and freedom, to its present full-flowing progress. The reform that has swept away doctrines and institutions of Error and of Wrong, grown hoary with ages of general acknowledgment and reverence, replacing them with the True and the Right, has oft been nourished in the silent secresy of a few chosen souls, until it gained strength to go forth boldly and grapple successfully with the monster errors and giant vices of the age. And the revolution that, in a few days, overturned thrones and banished tyrants, replacing the one with better institutions, and giving the abused powers of the other into rightful hands, frequently gathered its earthquake-power in the privacy of isolated circles, which met to pray and deliberate for their country's welfare, and separated to spread abroad the light and strength which Heaven gave the few, to direct the minds and nerve the arms of the many.

We may be told, however, that error, vice, and diplomatic despotism have also had their secret organizations — even a "Holy Alliance!" True; so also have they had their public meetings and national congresses. Shall we reject the latter also, because bold, bad men have used openness and publicity for evil purposes?

Among so-called secret societies of modern times, we know of none that has excelled the beneficent influence of Odd-Fellowship, within its own pale, in relieving the sick and distressed, and especially in preventing suffering and poverty in the families of its members. Nor is there one whose measures of relief and benevolence have been more generally copied than those of this " friendly Order;" and- seldom, if ever, (astonishing as it is in this age of improvement,) with any important addition enhancing their efficiency.

An institution manifesting so much influence, performing so much good, preventing so much evil, and increasing so rapidly and widely its numbers and its power, may well attract public attention, and excite a laudable desire to know its origin, progress, principles, resources and measures, its aims and objects.

§ 2. Antiquity of the Order.

A love of mystery and blind veneration for antiquity has induced most associations to claim an origin traceable to the remotest ages of the world. There have not been wanting well-meaning Odd-Fellows to render that doubtful service for our Order. Confounding principles with the institutions embodying them, they have claimed equal antiquity for both. And similarities, which can easily be found between the modes of initiation and other ceremonials of ancient associations and those of our own Order, have been triumphantly appealed to, in proof of the unwarranted assumption. And even where such likeness could not be found, it was easy to draw upon imagination for facts, and cover modern inventions w T ith a seeming rust of ages.

A brief enumeration of some of these fabulous histories of our Order may serve to guard the unwary against further imposition. The greatest exertion of tradition was to make our great forefather, Adam, the founder of our Order. Prying Mother Eve was probably excluded, and all her daughters with her! Grand Sire Wildey, during his visit to England, in 1826, procured from one of the lodges there, an emblem representing Adam laying the foundation-stone of the Order, which emblem he presented to the Grand Lodge of the United States.

Another tradition declares that the Order was founded among the Jewish priesthood, by Moses and Aaron. James Spry, C. S., in his " History of Odd-Fellowship " in Great Britain, mentions such an Order among the Jews while captives in Babylon, to enable them to circumvent their oppressors and maintain fidelity to their religion ; and which was kept up until after their subjugation by the Romans. Some members being organized as a Roman legion in A. D. 79, and proving faithful, the Emperor named them Fellow Citizens, and Odd Fellows, and gave them a " Dispensation engraven on a golden plate," with emblems of mixed Jewish and Roman ideas. (Another tradition makes this a Christian legion!) By the Romans the Order was introduced into Britain in A. d. 98, and remnants of its practices remained up to Saxon times, when they were lost to public view!

Other fables have ascribed our origin to the Goths, Huns, Scandinavians, Suevi, Moors — down through Spain, Portugal, France — thence to England as a "Loyal Grand Lodge of Honor" in the 18th century, when it became the " London Order of Odd-Fellows!" All these and other baseless and silly stories, after repeated calls for testimony, have been utterly discarded as proofless and absurd, by the Grand Lodge of the United States. — See Journal, Vol. I., pp. 336, 337.

Accordingly P. G. M. Ridgely, Grand Secretary of our National Lodge, publicly declared in his Oration, in Boston, June 19, 1845, after dwelling on the antiquity and divine origin of our foundation-principle, human fraternity : —

" I know that it has been not unusual, on occasions like the present, to claim for Odd-Fellowship affinity with secret institutions which had their origin in periods of time when the passions of men were fiercest, and the midnight of idolatry overshadowed and blighted the promptings of the human heart. I am here to repudiate such associations."

66 Although we may discover a similitude in the fact of initiation, in rites, ceremonies, and in gradations of degrees, between those institutions and Odd-Fellowship, we w T ill find no traces of the principles of fraternity,

which distinguish eminently our affiliation."

" Odd-Fellowship invokes not the aid or sanction of such ages to consecrate its principles ; and if, in truth, these could be summoned to attest its antiquity, they would rather awaken just indignation against its character, than serve to commend its merits to an enlightened public opinion. Dismissing therefore, and I hope for ever, the Oracles of Egyptian or Grecian philosophy, and the still more absurd pretences which would discover the sources of Odd-Fellowship in the Roman Camps; and assuming that its benign principles have been drawn from the image reflected upon man in his creation, let us turn to a truthful narrative of the origin of Odd-Fellowship, and its capacity to compass the brotherhood of man."

§ 3. Origin in Great Britain.

The origin of Odd-Fellowship as an institution is involved in obscurity. When the small stream first issues into the light of history, it is very humble also.

The Nile, though known long before the days of Joseph, has only lately had its sources discovered by Europeans. Mr. Spry, in his " History of Odd-Fellowship," says, that " in the early part of the last century, the writer Daniel De Foe mentions the Society of Odd Fellows; and The Gentleman' 's Magazine for 1 745, speaks of the Odd Fellows' Lodge as a place where very comfortable and recreative evenings may be spent." In 1788, as we learn from his Biography, James Montgomery, the poet, wrote the song given in Appendix A, beginning

"When Friendship, Love, and Truth abound Among a band of brothers, "

for a society in London, bearing the motto of our Order, and presumed to be a lodge of "Ancient and Honorable Loyal Odd Fellows." All beyond these dates is mere conjecture. We only know that when Odd-Fellowship comes into the domain of certainty, the Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man are its foundations of precept and of practice. ISior can we trace the precise steps by which our peculiar measures of mutual relief in sickness and distress, and provision for the burial of the dead, and care for the widow and orphan, grew up among our predecessors. But knowing that it was an institution originated by common circumstances of want and providence, and cemented by social feelings frequently indulged until they warmed into a fraternal glow, we can readily imagine how great principles would be suggested, and measures for carrying them out be successively improved. They were toiling laborers, in a land and under a government where hard-handed industry is less esteemed than' here ; where distinctions of rank and wealth are greater than we have ever known. Their daily labor barely sufficed to procure them daily bread. When sickness came, gaunt and terrible want was not far off. When calculating wealth refused them the privilege to toil for bread, they lacked means to seek employment elsewhere, and support their families meanwhile. When on the bed of disease or death, none could spare time to smooth the creased pillow, or moisten the fevered lips, or speak calmness to the delirious mind. When they looked forward to the close of this " fitful, feverish" life, beyond it was only a pauper's coffin to be pressed into, a pauper's grave into which to be huddled out of sight, without a breathed prayer over the dead, or a whispered text of hope and consolation for the living. And for the surviving partner and bereaved children no future was presented, but trundling them from parish to parish until they were thrust into the vice and infamy of the almshouse ; or, perhaps, thrusting them into the streets, to grow up beggars or criminals, if they did not earlier perish in the gutter ! Such were, most probably, the circumstances and prospects of not a few who commenced our Order, devised its first crude measures of relief and burial of the dead, and based the whole structure on the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man.

Feeling that Rank and Wealth would'degrade them if they could, they resolved to support and aid each other, and to contribute weekly a portion of their scanty earnings for that purpose.* Feeling also how sectarian

* The " Odd Fellow's Keepsake " states, that the early English lodges were supported, and their members relieved, by each memand party strifes estrange men from each other, and render them powerless and abject by such divisions, they excluded all such topics and distinctions from their meetings, and resolved only to know, to labor for, and to love each other as men — as brethren.

§4. Convivial Practices.

At that period (and is it not too much the case at this?) convivial practices were common everywhere, among nearly all associations and gatherings of men. But especially in Great Britain, all social and moral societies, even vestry, presbyterial, and other church meetings for business, were stimulated freely with intoxicating drinks and the fumes of tobacco.*

ber and visitor paying a penny to the secretary on entering a lodge. If a brother needed aid, a sufficient sum was voted him. If out of work, he was furnished with a card and funds to reach the next lodge. If unsuccessful there, that lodge provided for his further progress, and thus he went on until he found employment, when he deposited his card in the nearest lodge. When a lodge's funds ran out, it sent word to other lodges, and visitors were sent to swell the penny collections. It was common for a whole lodge thus to visit a needy lodge, and hundreds of Odd-Fellows went, week after week, until the exhausted treasury was replenished.

This contribution system was superseded by our more reliable system of stated benefits, based on regular weekly or quarterly dues — making donations on special occasions only.

But weekly dues were collected weekly up to 1835. The warden with his axe, heart in hand uppermost, went to each member, received his weekly due, and announced the payer's name to the Secretary. After 1835 larger amounts began to be paid, and regular quarterly accounts kept, as at present.

* Even so late as 1835, Rev. Heman Humphrey, D. D., President of Amherst College, Mass, gave a discouraging view of the habits of clergymen and church-members generally in Great Britain. He says, quoting from another, "In some presbyteries, (in Scotland,)

We need not wonder, therefore, that Odd-Fellows, at that early day, were addicted to practices which greater light and a purer morality now declare to be "inconsistent with our laudable profession." Meeting, as they did, in public houses of not the most select character, the only places open to men of their humble pretensions and limited means, the beer-mug, the pipe, and the toast circulated freely, as the song and jest excitedtheir mirth and hilarity ; until, by frequent repetition, calling for increased indulgence, it is no wonder that the noble objects of their meetings were too frequently made but secondary to mere sensual gratifications. The wonder is, not that those early Lodges were so greatly convivial clubs, but that they did not become merely such.*

the presbyterial dinner is furnished with liquor by fines imposed on various occasions," and paid by the clergy! — See Foreign Tour, Vol. 2, pp. 5-32.

* We give a specimen or two of the songs said to have been sung in those early Lodge meetings, that the reader may see the moral progress of the order, by comparing them with the Odes and Songs in use at the present day, as given in Appendix A

The following is said to be a chorus : —

"Then let us be social, be generous, be kind,

And let each take his glass and be mellow ; Then we '11 join heart and hand, leave dissension behind,

And we '11 each prove a hearty Odd-Fellow.

And the following is said to have been a long-standing favorite : —

" Oh what pleasure for to meet

With friends so blithe and jolly, Who all delight for to dispel

The gloom of melancholy !

Then let us throw all care aside

Let 's merry be and mellow ; May Friendship, Love, and Truth abide

With every true Odd-Fellow.

The singularity of its name, and humility of its origin, needed not these convivial practices to bring the institution into suspicion and disrepute, nor a defective organization to involve it in trouble and internal dissension. On the extension of the Order to Liverpool, the lodges united in a more general system, under the title of " The Union Order of Odd-Fellows," having London as its -seat of government. This arrangement continued until about 1809, when, after the institution of Victory Lodge in Manchester, some intelligent men perceived the necessity of reforming the convivial practices of the brotherhood, and making mutual relief and charity the main

" True Friendship is a treasure great, As such we may regard it ; May discord ne'er our Lodge intrude,

Nor any thing retard it; But let the song and toast go round,

And every heart be mellow ; And may our motto still be found In every true Odd-Fellow."

A contrast no less gratifying can also be made between the General Rules and Regulations of that and a later period, and the state of the Order at this time, and especially on this continent. Fines were common then, for going to sleep, for getting drunk, for noisy demonstrations, and for introducing improper toasts or songs, during lodge meetings. No such penalties are needed now, for the General Law of the Order, that "no refreshments of any kind, except water, shall at any time be allowed in the Lodge-room, or in any of the apartments or passages thereto belonging," renders them unnecessary.