being not unfrequently urged by persons of candor and honest impulses.
"If," it is demanded, "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