sions of regard for the interest and prosperity of the Order in America, and most earnestly requests a more frequently epistolary intercourse. Accompanying this communication, was received a valuable package containing the minutes of the proceedings of the A. M. C., which assembled at York, in 1840; the General Laws of the Order; a list of the lodges composing the Manchester Unity, and several copies of the Magazine, being a continuation of the series heretofore received from the Board of Directors of England-all of which are herewith presented.

Cordially reciprocating, on behalf of the Grand Lodge of the United States, the warm and sincere spirit which appeared to pervade the letter of brother William Ratcliffe, Corresponding Secretary of England, toward the Order in the United States, and another very favorable opportunity in the embarkation of brother Pooley, Grand Marshal of the Grand Lodge of New York, for England, supervening, I addressed the subjoined letter to the Manchester Unity, in the hope that it would arrive out in sufficient time to be laid before the A. M. C., to assemble at the Isle of Man, on 31st May, 1841.

"I. O. O. F.

THE R. W. GRAND LODGE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

To the Grand Master, Deputy Grand Master, Board of Directors of the Manchester Unity, and brethren of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in England-Greeting: WELL BELOVED BRETHREN

The undersigned, charged, by appointment, with the general correspondence of the R. W. Grand Lodge of the United States, I. O. O. F., takes occasion to address you on behalf of that body, upon the interesting concerns of our common Order. He ventures to hope that some account of the condition of Odd Fellowship in America may not prove uninteresting to the brethren in England, especially as the narrative of its progress in this hemisphere, while it is cheering to the Grand Lodge of the United States, is alike honorable to the Order in England-the great parent of our Institution in America.

He congratulates you upon the prosperous condition of Odd Fellowship in England, and takes great pleasure in informing you that its march is still onward in this great republic. Odd Fellowship in America, not unlike the government under which we live, has had to encounter many and very formidable obstacles in its origin, its organization, and its progress to usefulness as a benevolent and moral institution.— After the example of our forefathers, the pioneers in this hemisphere, have the early votaries of Odd Fellowship battled its way despite of public disfavor, until the Order has assumed its proper and deserved rank among the humane Institutions of our country. That victory, long doubtful, has been ultimately achieved within a very few years past, and has been mainly accomplished by directing its energies exclusively to its professed objects, namely, the relief of the distressed, the succor of the widow, and the education of the orphan. To promote so laudable an end, it became necessary at once to sever from the Order original practices coeval with its existence in America, which were offensive to the moral sense of a virtuous people. Thence the name of an Odd Fellow, once a reproach, ceased to be an obloquý to the citizen; and a society originally composed of the humblest of our fellow men, soon numbered in its ranks, from among all classes of our people, the choicest citizens of the nation. Continuing under such auspices, it is not a matter of surprise that Odd Fellowship in America, known and appreciated as a purely philanthropic and strictly moral institution, has attained so rapid a growth, and that its advance in respectability has been so eminently successful. No attempt will be made in this place to recount its length and breadth in this country, inasmuch as the official communications which have been transmitted will furnish that interesting detail. Its condition here is truly gratifying to the heart of every Odd Fellow. Its success approximates comparatively to the brilliant career of our national character as a people, and it seems to be a plant peculiarly cherished under our form of government.

You will recollect that in less than three-fourths of a century since the organization of the American federal system, that from thirteen, twenty-six states have been formed, and the aggregate population of these states has reached twenty millions.— It is also a matter of very modern history, that our principal city, New York, with its three hundred and eighty thousand inhabitants, already outranks every city on the European continent, excepting London, Paris and Constantinople. In the same comparative ratio has Odd Fellowship progressed in a shorter period than twelve years since the first impulse was given to its march. From a beginning extremely limited, it struggled in obscurity until the year 1830, when rising above the difficulties which had encompassed its youth, it rapidly and astonishingly worked out its own way to character, by the inherent influence of its own moral power. The greatest obstacle which interposed itself, for many years, to the spread of Odd Fellowship, was the fact, that from the place of the assemblage of its lodges, and the convivial practices indulged in at lodge meetings, an opinion universally obtained in the community that it was a mere merry-making concern; and however it proclaimed itself as a humane charitable institution, it was believed that such a title to public approbation was hypocritically put on, for the purpose of cloaking practices, which, if acknowledged, would be sternly rebuked by public opinion. As such an impression for a long time cast Odd Fellowship, in this country, into disrepute and opprobrium, so from the moment of the removal of the cause, was a corresponding opposite disposition evinced towards it by our people. A spirit of inquiry into the principles of the Order at once prevailed, and happily produced the conviction, that it contained within itself elements of great good, and could not fail, when disencumbered of such obnoxious features, to attain to a degree of moral excellence which would crowd to its lodge rooms the best and purest citizens of the republic. This, my brethren, so much to be desired result has been more than realized, and the proud satisfaction is now enjoyed by us in America, of witnessing as the fruit of our efforts in this reform, a spectacle at once imposing and sublime. There scarcely exists in the vastly wide spreading territorial limits of America, a single state or district where the votaries of Odd Fellowship are not to be found-every where, from the extreme northwestern boundary to the southernmost point of the republic, and from the very shores of its Atlantic coast to the furthermost region of the father of its rivers, the great Mississippi, are the temples of our Order rising to the skies, dedicated to the cause of suffering humanity. Such is the picture of Odd Fellowship in the United States, and under its existing auspices it is destined, at no distant day, we fondly anticipate, to afford relief to a greater amount of individual suffering than any other kindred association of equal resources in this country. Its great moral influence is felt and appreciated by the fraternity in the integrity of character which it inculcates, and the rigid adherence which it exacts in all the relations of life to the practice of those virtues which adorn and dignify man. When such, its highest and holiest motive shall cease to animate the Order in America, its epitaph will have been written as an institution deserving to claim no public consideration or concern whatever. No such fear however alarms us; but moving onward in silent and unobtrusive zeal in the promotion of its real purposes, with these cardinal principles ever in review, its future greatness and influence upon man's social and moral condition none can pretend to portray. Our career, be it with all deference spoken, affords an example not unworthy your imitation, and by regarding the results accomplished in America, at the simple cost of discarding conviviality as a feature in Odd Fellowship, utterly at war with the respectability, dignity, and consequent usefulness of the institution, a lesson may be taught, we trust, not entirely unprofitable to the brotherhood in England. These suggestions have been made in no spirit of complaint, but are affectionately submitted to the calm and dispassionate reflection of the Manchester Unity, in the ardent hope that they may lead to a reform in the Order in England which will tend to give a renewed vigor to its energies, enhance its weight of character, augment its influence, enlarge its sphere of action, and promote, as inseparably blended in one common interest, the welfare of the Order in Europe and America.

Having said thus much in relation to the condition of our Order in this country, and very respectfully commended to your imitation the means employed in producing sc gratifying a result, I beg leave to invite your attention to a topic extremely interesting to the brotherhood here, and about which a very considerable degree of solicitude and curiosity prevails-I refer to the real origin of Odd Fellowship. In the year 1837, pursuant to a resolution adopted with great unanimity by the Grand Lodge of the United States, the undersigned, as chairman of a committee, was di

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rected to open a correspondence with the Manchester Unity on this subject. An interchange of communications accordingly took place, and the information conveyed from your Board, being but a literal repetition * believed to have no foundation in historical truth, greatly disappointed our expectations. Let me again recur to this subject-in doing so, I will premise the application now made, in the same language employed on the former occasion, "by earnestly requesting, however lowly may have been its beginning," a full, candid and unvarnished account of the origin and early history of the Order in England. Your archives will doubtless furnish this desirable information. We care not what Odd Fellowship originally was, nor however humble may have been the occupations, or limited the pretensions of they who first bid it into existence. We know what it now is in America, and the greater the contrast the more eminently honorable will be our rank among the benevolent Orders of the earth. Many and various have been the traditionary accounts of its rise, derived from time to time, from brethren who have arrived among us. In no instance, however, known to the undersigned, has a statement been made sufficiently authentic to entitle it to any reasonable degree of confidence. It is believed by some, that the Order has existed certainly more than a century; that the London or Union Order is the great generic, from which the Manchester Unity or Independent Order seceded in 1809, both of which with probably a third, are now practised in England, under a separate and distinct organization. You will not be surprised, that this subject should be interesting to your brethren across the Atlantic, and we therefore indulge the hope that you will unhesitatingly respond to the inquiry now made. If the Order was originally one and undivided, it would be gratifying to us to know when it became severed, the causes which led to the separation, and whether the reasons of the division are of so grave a character as to shut out all hope of resolving the whole into one great original, animated by one principle, producing one work, one language and universality throughout the globe. Such a result, if attainable, would constitute a jubilee in Odd Fellowship.

In conclusion, it is proper to advise you that in consequence of the changes made in the work in England, there is a great difficulty encountered by your visiting brethren in this country. What necessity, if any, led to such important alterations in Great Britain, we have never had the good fortune to learn; we respectfully ask to be informed the extent of these changes in the work, and the circumstances under which they have been made. It will be obvious, that unless great uniformity is maintained in this particular, our members will be respectively excluded from each other's lodge rooms, and one of the brightest characteristics of the Order, to wit: its faculty of succoring a distressed brother in a strange land, will be frequently unexerted by reason of the difficulty of understanding "that peculiar language" by which Odd Fellows should be readily known in every clime throughout the habitable earth.

This letter has proved protractive-the undersigned trusts however, that the great importance of the topics referred to in so desultory a manner may serve as its apology. Your brother, in Friendship, Love and Truth,

JAMES L. RIDGELY,

G. Cor. Sec'ry of the R. W. G. L. U. S., I. O. O. F.

To this letter, written, as has been intimated, in a spirit of brotherly love and affection, no answer whatever has been received. It was transmitted by brother Pooley to the office of the Grand Secretary in Manchester, and the parties apprised of his intention very shortly to return to the United States. The undersigned would have been at a loss to determine what reasons had produced so sudden and abrupt a change in the feelings of our brethren in England towards us, but for the light shed upon the subject in the proceedings of the A. M. C., which assembled at the Isle of Man, on 31st May, the 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5th days of June, 1841. For a copy of this journal, herewith presented, the Grand Lodge is indebted to the politeness of brother P. G. M. John A. Kennedy, of New York. The following proceedings will be found on page 8, of the minutes referred to.

"Resolved II. We preceive from the American correspondence, that brothers arriving in that country, labor under great disadvantages, and can seldom if ever, avail

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themselves of the benefits of Odd Fellowship in American lodges as at present constituted. We consider it advisable that the Board of Directors be empowered either to open lodges, or to take such other steps as may seem to them better calculated to carry out the principles of our Institution."

This proceeding was submitted by a sub-committee, in the nature of a report to the A. M. C., on the 2d day of June, 1841, and adopted by that body in the following form.

"Resolved, That in accordance with the second resolution of the sub-committee, the G. M. and Board of Directors, communicate to the next Conference of the United States, that unless arrangements be made in America previous to the next A. M. C., so as to treat members arriving from England in the true spirit of Odd Fellowship, the Directors will be under the necessity of making such arrangements, for the interest and comfort of the members of the Independent Order now in America, aš may seem to them most proper."

These proceedings explain, beyond doubt, the cause which induced the Manchester Unity to arrest the correspondence with this country. It seems strange that any thing in the letter of the undersigned could, by possibility, be tortured into an interposition of obstacles to the admission of properly qualified Odd Fellows from England, into our lodges, or a forbearance on our part, "to treat in the true spirit of Odd Fellowship, members arriving from Great Britain." It is true that some difficulty is suggested in my letter in their obtaining admission in our lodges by reason of the changes which have been made in England from the ancient work, and an earnest appeal is made to reproduce uniformity in this essential particular, in the Order, throughout the world, but the undersigned has not been able to perceive that any sentiment has been expressed, in the slightest degree calculated to warrant what appears to him to be the gratuitous conclusions of the resolution of the A. M. C. of England. It may not be deemed entirely digressive from the true line of my duty, to recur to a part of the legislation of the Grand Lodge of the United States, on the particular subject of grievance complained of in England, as perhaps furnishing additional ground for the feeling manifested in that country in the premises, and to some extent it may be added, perhaps, that our own unstable and changeful action upon this very subject, may be regarded as somewhat extenuative of the temper displayed in the proceedings of the last Annual Moveable Committee at York.

At the session of the Grand Lodge of the United States, of 1839, a plan was adopted by which an annual P. W. was agreed to be reciprocally exchanged between the two countries, as the certain means of insuring the admission of travelling brethren in the lodges, respectively subordinate to each jurisdiction, without further requisition as to qualification in the Work of the Order. The expediency of this plan was considered in England and formally concurred in, and notice of which was transmitted to all the lodges in the Unity, together with the American P. W. which had been sent out; and instructions were also given to admit all American brethren without further examination, who were in possession of the P. W., into their various lodges. This arrangement, which promised to a great extent, to remove every obstacle to the harmony and union so desirable between the two countries, after having been entered into in good faith by the Manchester Unity, and considered as the settled basis of mutual regulation between the two countries, was abrogated by the Grand Lodge of the United States, at the very next session after its passage, by the

adoption of the following report, presented by the Committee on the Work of the Order, to wit:

"That no individual claiming to be admitted to visit, or deposite his card in a lodge of these United States, shall be so admitted, unless he shall present a regular card, signed by the N. G., attested by the Secretary, under the seal of the lodge; and that the same be attested by the signature of the Grand Secretary of the Grand Lo ge; or if in England, by the Grand Secretary of the A. M. C.; and unless he shal' be able to work his way by the regular S. P. To. and G. known to the Order."

That part of this law was modified at the ensuing session, which required the counter signature of the Grand Secretary; but the predominant principle of the law, restricting the previously determined practice in relation to the arrangement with England, as to travelling brethren, was specifically enacted in the following language.

"Resolved, That no individual claiming to visit or deposite his card in a lodge of these United States, shall be so admitted, unless he present a regular card signed by the N. G., and attested by the Secretary, under the seal of the Lodge, and the name of the individual holding said card be endorsed thereon in his own proper handwriting."

In view of the very great disappointment and derangement in their plans, which this change from the original understanding had with the Manchester Unity by the Grand Lodge of the United States on this subject, no doubt produced, and it is not improbable that here was the exciting cause of the feeling manifested in the resolution referred to, more especially when it is considered that the existing law of the Grand Lodge of the United States virtually excludes their members from our lodges, since no English brother versed only in their work as now in force, could by possibility "work his way" into any American lodge of Odd Fellows. The true cause of the whole difficulty, and the fruitful source of much evil to the whole Order, is attributable to the great error committed in England, of altering the work, and unless they and we agree to conform to each others work, there can be no hope of the universality of Odd Fellowship, as one and the same Order throughout the earth. The suggestion of exerting their authority to regulate or control Odd Fellowship in America, will be regarded here as it deserves to be, as idle and nugatory. The Manchester Unity can surely not be ignorant of the fact, that the Grand Lodge of the United States, by virtue of their own grant, is independent of that body, and of all other bodies upon the face of the earth, in the affairs of Odd Fellowship in America, and occupying such a position, must regard the pretensions set up in England in the proceedings of the A. M. C., and the tone and temper of their resolutions, as rather the ebullition of feeling than the serious determinations of that body in the premises. It is respectfully suggested that the interest of the Order would be promoted by a re-enactment of the law of 1839, on this subject, if the Grand Lodge should not deem the proceedings of the Manchester Unity of such a character as to preclude any further legislation on the subject, until the same shall have been rescinded and withdrawn.

The unprecedented prosperity of the Order in England will be a subject of lively gratification to the Representatives, and it it hoped, may incite our brethren to active emulation. The Manchester Unity now numbers two thousand six hundred lodges in strict compliance, embracing one hundred and eighty thousand members. A detailed statement of the place, and time of meeting of each lodge in England, accompanies this report.