United States. Ladies who receive it are to be invariably accompanied by their husbands throughout the ceremonies.

NOTE.-The Degree of Rebekah is an honorary degree, to be conferred, under the regulations adopted by the Grand Lodge of the United States, upon such Scarlet Members and their wives as may desire to receive it; but the officers of all Lodges which are in possession of the work ought to be in regular possession of the degree, upon the same principle that they are required to assume other obligations belonging to their official stations.

The annual P. W. of the Ladies' Degree should be given at the outer door, and the Lodge may sing any part of the Odes at the time that ladies are introduced by the Conductor.

Widows, (of brothers in good standing who may have deceased after the adoption of the degree, September 20, 1851,) if they still remain widows, may receive the degree in the Lodge of which their husbands were members, by the assent of the Lodge, and providing that other ladies with their husbands are also present for the purpose of initiation in the degree.-Decisions of the G. L of the U.S. ut the Session of 1852.

Part First.

THE LESSONS AND CHARGES OF ODD-FELLOWSHIP.

CHAPTER I.

N important period of a man's life may that be considered in which he passes the threshold of Odd-Fellowship. The duties taught him, and the lessons inculcated throughout the progress he may make in the Order, will tend, if he be true to his nature, to his moral and intellectual advancement, and consequently to his happiness. He should therefore prepare his mind for the task he has undertaken, and determine to be attentive to the instructions he is about to

receive. He will find in these instructions the voice of Wisdom and Truth; and he will see that whoever shall hear and obey them must be respected by the wise and good. They teach him his duty to his God, his country, his neighbor, his family, and himself; they show him how he may live in the enjoyment of a peaceful, contented mind-which is the highest wealth a mortal need desire; they demon

strate to him that "vice is a monster of such frightful mien" that it should be shunned and hated; they persuade him that there is, in fraternal union and love, the truest, sublimest pleasure; they lead him to obedience of the commands of his Divine Maker, in which he cannot fail to be blessed in life, death, and eternity.

2. For we are but shadows, floating for a moment over time, soon to be dissipated by the light of eternity. Our sight is darkened by ignorance, our un derstanding enthralled by passion. Void of wisdom, we know it not. Yet how brief is our life-how necessary that we should prepare for its close! How often are we called upon to shed the tear of sympathy over the grave of our fellow-how constantly are the ravages of the destroyer beheld amid the busy tribes of flesh and blood-perhaps in the very circle of relationship and friendship--changing joy into sorrow, the fairest spots into the gloomiest wastes, and severing the most endeared and tender associations! Indeed, man is surrounded by innumerable mementoes of his mortality. To-day he looks upon the coffin of the smiling infant; to-morrow he sees the youth, in the bloom of life and hope, consigned to an untimely grave; and again he follows one, who, after a long pilgrimage through life, has sunk, at length, to rest. Upon his own brow is stamped the seal of mortality; and he is ever reminded, by the inroads of decay upon his own system, of that time when he shall become a tenant of the tomb. "Man cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth as a shadow and continueth not ;" alike in the moments of solitude and sadness, when the days of other years, and the forms of the departed, long buried in the stillness of the tomb, come over the mind with the vividness of reality, and in hours of triumph