John Pawson Entwisle wrote "The Covenant" or the first Degree of Odd Fellowship in 1820. This Degree became one of the most beautiful, instructive and consistent part of our ritual. From the very beginning and for some years to come, the authorship became disputed and some claimed it had been derived from Masonry. In 1844, a committee of revision, composed of brothers Chapin, Ridgely, McCabe, Moore and Kennedy, who were also members of Masonry, met in New York City to settle the controversy once and for all. The investigation was diligently pursued. They consulted every masonic work that they could find. They found no trace or foundation for the imputation.

At the Grand Lodge of the United States, when this report was considered, McCabe was outspoken in his opinion of the fallacy of the charge. He himself was a high-ranking official of The Masonic Order. The report of the committee was unanimously adopted thus ending an era of criticism and discredit to John Pawson Entwisle.

If Entwisle had done nothing more than this, his fame would be as sure and lasting as the life of the Order. When he died suddenly in 1824, he fell almost unnoticed in the confusion of the events then occurring. His sudden departure was soon felt as a great calamity and his likes was not to be found for many years.

He was born in England in 1800 and died in Baltimore, Maryland at the age of twenty-four. He sleeps but his spirit yet walks among us and still inspires the work.

You cannot be a true Odd Fellow unless you are grateful to your creator, faithful to your country and fraternal to your fellow man. These three cardinal requirements constitute the existence and embodiment of the vital fundamentals of the Order.

Grateful to your creator--a person who is not grateful to his creator, for his existence, his life and the manifold blessings he continually enjoys is not a fit subject to become an Odd Fellow. He has no place among us. He can have no proper conception of the primary obligation administered prior to his advance in the Order. He is out of his element, and cannot consistently be a desirable or acceptable member of our Order. His place is outside of the realm of pure and undefiled Odd Fellowship.

Faithful to your country--a man who is not faithful to his country, who owes no allegiance to the principals of established civil government, and does not honor, respect and revere the flag of his country as the emblem of freedom, which gives him safety and security in the protected enjoyment of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is an ingrate and even worse than an infidel. His place is not within our ranks of law-abiding, law respecting citizens.

Fraternal to your fellowman--Fraternity is the golden key which unlocks the secret to success. Fraternity is our chief corner-stone and cap-stone. We aim to make men more social and humane. Fraternity is the lesson of the hour, the ultimate hope and need of the world. Fraternity is the golden key that could indeed bind all nations, kindred and tongues and make it possible for one law to govern all and that law is the law of universal brotherhood. Friendship is the guiding star of our destiny, love is the supreme fulfilling of the law and truth is an imperial and consecrated virtue.

Probably, the best known event ever recorded in the history of Odd Fellowship was the dedication of the Thomas Wildey Monument in the city of Baltimore, Maryland in memory of this founder and to this illustrious Odd Fellow. Much has been written about this event in glowing words and many pictures showing that it was indeed an outstanding event. Of all the writers who told the story of the dedication, only one told of an unlikely witness who never dreamed that he would sit with all the dignitaries and experience this moment of history. This is the rest of the story.

After the Civil War, Jefferson Davis, the deposed President of the Confederacy, sat in a Federal prison in the city of Baltimore, Maryland as a common prisoner of war waiting to see what fate would be his lot. He was despised by the prison guards who attended him and many had expressed in no certain words what they hoped would happen to him.

Now, at this time, preparations were being made for one of the greatest events of all time. On April 26, 1865, the handsome shaft of stone had been erected with appropriate ceremony but the dedication which was scheduled in September 20, 1865 promised to be their greatest moment in all the history of the Order. No finer chairman than Past Grand Sire James Nicholson could have been selected and reports came from near and far as to the progress of this event.

Jefferson Davis became excited by the bits and pieces of information he received about the event in September and at every opportunity, he would ask about it. One day a new guard was assigned to him and he treated Davis much more kindly. In the course of a conversation, he learned that one of the Generals on the post was an Odd Fellow. Jefferson Davis persuaded the young guard to take a note to the General. Days passed and Jefferson Davis had just about given up on hearing from the General. One morning, the General appeared at the cell of Jefferson Davis and commanded the guard to open the door and he and the deposed President extended the handclasp of brotherly love. The next morning, the best carriage on the post arrived and Jefferson Davis was escorted to the site of the dedication and there he sat with all the dignitaries to witness this event.

Jefferson Davis learned that those who are bound by the chain of Friendship, Love and Truth are indeed Brothers.

Friendship is one of the most beautiful flowers that blooms in life's dreary wilderness. Its petals are tinted with radiant hues of heaven and it borrows its fragrance from the amaranthine bowers of paradise. The frost of adversity can not destroy it with its withering touch. The spurious flower planted by satan misnamed friendship, blooms only when fanned by the breeze of prosperity and loses all its beauty and fragrance when the storms of adversity come.

How sacred should be this tie which binds us as a brotherhood. No one can know or feel until experience has taught the lessons and left its impress upon the heart and memory by a lifetime of toil, of care, of want and a hundred other ills consequent upon the attendant of his life. To whom then must we look, from whom expect condolence, sympathy and a just regard if not from those who travel the same rugged, thorn strewn pathway, if not from our own brotherhood who by experience has been taught these truths. All the wealth cannot buy a friend nor can it replace one that is lost.

True friendship keeps no profit and loss accounts, post no ledger and strikes no balance but takes gratitude for granted and regards affection as always solvent. It has no clearing house, gives no notes of hand and makes no bargains in its commerce of affection. How grad we all would be if every Odd Fellow would resolve to be a good neighbor, a better man and a true friend. We can do this and more by being a true Odd Fellow.

The best preacher is the heart, the best teacher is time, the best book is the Bible and the best friend is God. These rules of action exhibit practical Odd Fellowship.

The story is told of certain man who was traveling on foot and came to a mountain pass. It was late in the autumn and the first snow of winter had begun to fall as the man began his climbing the steep slope. The trail was long and the man was benumbed and freezing. But, after a great deal of difficulty, he reached the top. Looking down the other side, he wondered if he would be able to make it. Putting forth every ounce of strength in his bodv, he soon stumbled over some object in his path. It was most difficult to regain his feet and he began to look and see what he had stumbled over. Brushing back the new fallen snow, he discovered that it was a fellow traveler lying unconscious and near death from the bitter cold.

Forgetting his discomfort, he quickly began to massage his body and limbs vigorously and seemingly with all of his remaining strength. Before long, the stranger began to show signs of life and after much brisk exercising, was restored to full consciousness.

The amazing thing the traveler discovered was that the harder he worked to save the stranger's life, the stronger and warmer he became. He eagerly lifted up the stranger and together they descended the mountain side to shelter and safety below. The question has been asked many times. Who received the greater blessing -- the one who gave help or he who received it?

To a true Odd Fellow, the answer is obvious. In Odd Fellowship, we are taught to serve knowing that to serve Odd Fellowship is to lose oneself and knowing that the best way to find oneself is to lose oneself in service to others.

To understand the emblem of the corner-stone and angles, it would be necessary to understand Thomas Wildey. He was a lover of mystery and secrecy in connection with the society, a vivid imagination made the emblem, the signs, and the words sacred in his eyes while his somewhat credulous mind invested tradition with too much importance.

In 1826 he persuaded The Grand Lodge to manufacture an emblem for the halls which he described in detail and with such enthusiasm. The emblem of the corner-stone and angles was purchased and was for a long time an object of curiosity. Of what it was emblematic no one had been able to discover, certainly of nothing in the Order. It was a day of wonders and The Grand Sire in his report to the special committee of the Grand Lodge of the United States made October 3, 1826, refers to it as "The Foundation Stone laid by our forefather Adam." If such was the fact, it was not apparent without an appeal to the wildest fancy. In form it was a mechanical combination of the crank, pulley and windlass supported by a three pole derrick used for raising heavy weights. It was a small model mostly of brass with a stone cube swinging from the pulley and was a pretty piece of mechanism. But cui bono?

His worship of mystery made him a fit priest to preside at the decorated alters. No boy was more bewildered and delighted with fancy's story than this man who was as natural as a boy in his love of the marvelous. To him the crowns and mitres of the officers were real and the gavel and title of Noble Grand and Grand Master gave full assurance of splendid rank and supreme authority. The legends of the ceremonies were to him veritable history and thus a kind of supernatural importance was attached to the doctrine and duties they enjoined. He came to believe in them with the simplicity of a child but with the will of a giant, and here we may find the secret of that devotion which made him great.

CSB2004