MOOSEHEART MAGAZINE
2
But in this modern time there are six hundred thousand men, who have bound themselves, as brothers, to make the pilgrimage. They, too, have a shrine. In the dawn of early morning and the dusk of starry night, they look not toward Mecca, but toward
MOOSEHEART!
Instead of dreams in their minds, they have purpose written on their faces. Instead ox castles in the air, they have them on God’s firm permanent earth. Instead of a dream for their children they have a plan.
Instead of a mere “hope for their future,” they have a program,—a great institution. Their castles already are builded! Their children already are provided for, should the angel of death take away the support and care and We of the parents.
Hope does not die in their hearts, dreams do not turn to nightmares! Words of brotherhood on their lips do not crumble into dust! They are Moose!
They have Mooseheart! Conceived in the minds of Moose, cherished in the hearts of Moose, builded by their myriad hands, MOOSEHEART stands a foe of poverty, superstition and ignorance, the temple of fraternity and love, the protector of the childhood of America, the great mother training, moulding and directing the future fatherhood and motherhood and citizenship of the people of the world.
His Hope For Their Future
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IFE is a pilgrimage!
Whether man be shepherd of olden time, or workman of the present he is a pilgrim — dreaming
struggles with poverty and ignorance, his battle with life every step of the hard, long way.
All these bitter trials may come to his children, to put grey into their golden hair, and wrinkles into their fine, fresh, fair, eager, young faces.
His dream becomes a nightmare! His hope for their future turns to ashes in his heart! Suppose he and “mother” should be called by Death! What of the children?
What of their future, their education, their lives, their very souls ?
He is sick, heart-broken, if the dream, the “castle in the air” is all he has.
And every pilgrim that ever walked the grim, hard path of life, has looked into the skies beyond the hills and dreamed dreams for his children; has had visions for these God-sent messengers, which are to bear his blood and life and hopes and aims and weaknesses and strength down the ages of time, thru the portals of immortality.
Be he shepherd of ancient land, or toiler of the “here and now,” he is a pilgrim, a dreamer, a builder of “air castles.”
Little ones hold him by the hand. He leads them and guides them, loves them and keeps them, sees visions and dreams dreams.
When the labor of the day finds him weary, he thinks of them. Exhausted by toil in office, shop, mine, mill and field hope for them refereshes his weary soul and tired body.
When he fails, he dreams of their success! When middle age finds many of his hopes unrealized, he thinks of their future. When his plans go wrong he dreams of their careers. He builds “castles in the air,” just dreams, but heart-born visions of a fuller, richer, better life for them.
But they are only “air castles.” That is the tragedy of it!
They are dreams, beautiful, but transitory. They are in the air, not on the ground. They are in the mind, not actual realities. They come and go, sooth the heart at one minute, and torture and twist it the next.
Heart-burning comes when our modern pilgrim thinks of a.l he has had to fight and suffer—his
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Purity, Aid, Progress.
Now take this text again, and see how Moosedom has been evolved out of it. Purity—“and keep ones self unspotted from the world.” Why, that is what Moosedom preaches in its wonderful ritual. Are you Moose members impressed with the Purity demand Moosedom makes of its membership? Purity! It is one of the scintilating gems that flashes out in the obligation. A beautiful silver thread is woven all through one of the greatest lectures in the initiation ceremony. Once heard, that lecture can never be forgotten. When it is ended that silver thread led by the needle “Thou shalt” has knit itself into an angelic figure, symbolic of Purity. The next time you hear that lecture, put a little pep in your conscience, and let it judge whether the “results” or “works” of your life _ measure up with the Moose demands for Purity. See how this Moose Book of the Bible called the Epistle of James demands Purity—“Put away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness”; “If any man thinketh himself to be religious and bridleth not his own tongue, that man’s religion is vain;” “The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hyprocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.”
“But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither of heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath; but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.”
And then, written all over this Epistle of James is the law of Progress. Progress in the right, Progress in peaceable association with your fellows, Progress in helpfulness to your brother, Progress in the allaying of jealousies, factions and prejudices, Progress in the bridling of the tongue, Progress in the great work of bringing the great world into the Moose life and spirit of Purity and Aid.
The Reflex Light of Mooseheart.
There is something very suggestive in the order in which the text gives the virtues of a pure and undefiled religion. First in order it names “Visiting the fatherless widows in their distress.” Then second as a sort of corollary, “And keep one self unspotted from the world.” What a suggestion that is, that Mooseheart the “great saving visit to the fatherless should reflect back the purity of its motive and the divineness of its mission into every Moose Lodge that at nine o’clock turns to Mooseheart and prays for the children there.” “And a little child shall lead them”—that, also, is Bible, and because of the hundreds of children at Mooseheart who are being led into the noble life of Purity, Aid and Progress, every Lodge should be the better in its life, the purer in its aspirations and practices, and every member inspired by the children of Mooseheart a progressive Moose in the things that are right and true and beautiful.
Many a father has been won for right and goodness by his child’s innocence. Many a father has broken up the bad habits of life for the sake of his children, that he might be to them a noble and worthy example.
Think ye well of it, ye Moose fathers of Mooseheart, and for the sake of Mooseheart progress toward and in purity, rightness, peace and all the things that are acceptable to God and blessed in manhood.	J. A. RONDTHALER
Mooseheart’s House of God
By the DEAN OF MOOSEHEART
James 1:27. Pure religion and undefiled before God our Father is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keep ones self unspotted from the World.
pie have seen and enjoyed the moving picture reels of Moose life and Mooseheart. They have travelled back and forth over the country, and are still on their pilgrimage preaching what Secretary Brandon calls “The Gospel of Mooseheart.” Do you remember the first picture in that Mooseheart series ? It is emblematic or symbolical of the whole story of Mooseheart. Some time ago, a Moose advocate was talking to a great audience of hundreds gathered in a theatre. Just before that first picture of the Mooseheart reels was put on the screen, the lecturer happened to quote this verse of the Epistle of James. As he was repeating it, that first picture shown out on the screen. There stand two Moose members talking about the Order, their faith in it, its great ideals, their hope and their love for it. Behind them, there creeps in a little girl, emaciated in figure, hunger written on the drawn face, sorrow and destitution in the eyes. She is a child whose father has been cut down in the midst of life. When these two Moose men look down upon this pitiful figure, they are at once animated by the same spirit that taught James to demand results as the consequence of faith and ideals. “Faith without results is dead.” So they stoop and “visit” the fatherless. They take her up in their arms and press her close to their hearts. That is the embrace of Mooseheart. And what is the result of this “visiting of the fatherless”? In the embrace of Moose love for the little child, her whole picture changes suddenly, and what she becomes four weeks after she came to Mooseheart flashes out. There she is, still in the arms of her Moose fathers. But what a change! Shoes and stockings on her feet, her figure clothed in a beautiful white dress, her face rounded out, dimples on her cheeks and the smile of heaven on her face, with the light of God in her eyes, as she looks back and forth to her two saviors. Then she admires herself from feet up, and with childish glee twists the white bow on her head. Somebody came up after the lecture in that theatre and said he had been a sermon listener all his life, but he had never heard a sermon that for eloquence, persuasiveness, consistency of truth and call to service equalled that one picture sermon on the text “Pure Religion and Undefiled Before God the Father is to Visit the Fatherless.” Why, that word “visit” in the text had an entire new meaning in it. It made it an aimful, armful, heartful thing instead of a mere vapid expression of sympathetic sentimentality. For that audience in the theatre the initial picture of the Mooseheart reels brought the word “visit” of the text right up into line with what this same practical Apostle James says: “What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has no works (results)? If a brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled, and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body, what doth it profit?”
QOME time they will build at Mooseheart what Mr. J. J. Davis calls a “House of God.” Then they will put this text over the arch in the Auditorium or cast it in the bell that will ring out its invitation to come to worship, or print it in a fine inscription and hang it in the vestibule of Mooseheart’s House of God. Wouldn’t it be a good idea for the Mooseheart Printery to get out illuminated cards with this verse from the Epistle of James on it, decorated with the faces of some of the Mooseheart children, with perhaps a widow-mother standing in the background where the “Light of Mooseheart” would suggest rainbows in her tears?
What a splendid definition of Moose’s Mooseheart it is.
This Epistle of James is worth studying, especially by Moose people. Many centuries ago when they were gathering up the different manuscripts for the New Testament, and deciding upon their inspirational qualifications, this James Epistle was subjected to severe trial. People who were all rapt up in theories and doctrines did not like it. It was too strongly practical. It demanded too much “result” from faith and doctrines and theories and speculations about religious things. However, after a tough struggle it was finally allowed to creep into׳ the “sacred canon.” Every now and then through the years since the New Testament books were collected someone comes along and attacks this׳ Epistle of James because it too rudely shakes the religious tree to prove what sort of fruit it is bearing. Now just because of this practical feature of the Epistle, it is peculiarly adapted to Moose ideas, Moose principles and Moose activities. For if the Moose is anything it fits square into the Epistle James definition of religion.
A Religion of Results.
The Loyal Order of Moose is devoted to getting “results” or “works” as James calls them. That is the real meaning of the old English word “works.” He says, for instance:	“Faith without works (or
results) is dead.” Read that word “results” into this Epistle, and see what a lot of Moose material you will get out of it.
The Apostle James must have been a pretty good student of the Old Testament. There are so many seed thoughts in the Old Testament that blossom arid flower and bear fruit in the New. There for instance is the first chapter of Isaiah. It is a tremendous arraignment of a religion that has no “results.” It cuts right into a life that spends itself altogether in prayers and forms of worship, and does not get out and do things. It ends up its great argument, just where James lands on the broad foundation of a practical religion. Here is the way straightforward old Isaiah winds up as the final accomplishment of religion:	“Cease to
do evil” work towards purity; “Learn to do well,” that is progress in the things that are right and true and beautiful. “Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge (that is, stand for, defend, help) the fatherless, plead for the widow.” How splendidly all this sizes up with our text. “Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep ones self unspotted from the world.” Do you see how the Moose great words, Purity, Aid, Progress are woven out of this Isaiah-James definition of religion?
The Gospel of Mooseheart.
During the past year or two, thousands of peo-