My Library

believe in Progress, Law and Order, and in Selfdevelopment. They believe firmly that God helps those that help themselves; and they consequently adopt as the motto of the Order, the word TRY, and they believe that this little word of three letters may become a magnificent bridge over which a man may travel from Bad to Better, and from Better to Best—from ignorance to knowledge, from poverty to wealth, and from weakness to power. III. We constitute a large society in the world, and our ranks bid fair to largely swell in this land of Practical Men. There are hundreds of men of large culture, deep intuitions and liberal minds, who actually languish because they do not know each other—there being no organized body, save our own, which invites such men to join its ranks and find the fellowship which such men of such minds need. In our Lodges such men find all they seek, and more; in our weekly reunions the rarest and best intellects are brought in contact, the best thoughts are elicited, and the truest human pleasure experienced; forasmuch, as nothing impure, ignoble, mean or unmanly, is for an instant tolerated under any circumstance whatever; while, on the contrary, every inducement is held out to encourage all that is noble, good, true, beautiful, charitable and manly—and that, too, in a way totally unknown and unpractised in any other order, or association of men.