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GREAT AND GROTESQUE CELEBRATION.

The "Odd Fellows'" celebration on the 19th June last was, in many respects, a great affair. It was great in its display of numbers, great as an instance of sudden and almost unprecedented growth,-great in the fine appearance of its "Fellows," and last, and least, great in the unsurpassed foolishness of its decorations, and the infinite absurdity of its official display. I never witnessed an exhibition which excited in my mind more mingled. feelings. At one moment I was awed into the most thoughtful mood by the imposing influence of great numerical display,-and the next moment excited to the highest pitch of mirthfulness at some part of their ridiculous trappings. There was scarcely a man in the procession who was not worthy a prominent place in the picture-gallery of "Hood's Comic Annual." To describe the motley array would task the pen of a Rogers or the pencil of a Hogarth. Most remarkable of all was the fact that the "Fellows " were so thoroughly drilled by their funny-titled officers that they made all this childish display with countenances as sober as so many clowns. This was, of course, a great trial to their muscles, -and it must have been a great relief to get within their secret conclaves, where they could unbend their iron cheeks and do the laughing on their countenances, which all the day long they had been doing in their sleeves.

Where so many people came from-and how many towns must have been emasculated to enable them to be present-is a problem which would puzzle a Bowditch, and confound a Malthus. A large portion of them, judging from their conspicuous display of the "lone star "-came from Texas. It may be, however, that this distinguished emblem, instead of being indicative of their origin, is prophetic of their destiny! It would be idle, though, for me to attempt to interpret any of the "strange devices" of this ingenious order, and I will therefore leave the Sphynx to solve her own riddle. Who, for instance, could solve the deep

meaning of those auctioneer's hammers, or shoe-binder's mallets, which so many of them sported? Doubtless they have some sort of a knock-down significance, but it would take a Paul Pry or a woman to discover it.-Again,-those red and white poles,looking for all the world like the sticks of patent candy exhibited in Lee's famous Saloon, on Washington-street,-how I wondered what sweet meaning could be intended by them! The carving knives, too, which some of them wore,-what could they mean? I looked sharp at them, and they looked sharp at me,-and brighter blades surely never exchanged glances-but I am as much in the dark as to their typical beauty as ever. One chap, from Baltimore I think, had a belly of the true Falstaffian swell, and such was his love of fitness and propriety, that he had his knife, or scimetar, rounded to his exact abdominal curve,— making altogether the most unique figure in the procession.— Perhaps as ludicrous, and certainly as incongruous, a sight as was afforded to us "outside barbarians," was the priests, who were dotted about the procession like scare-crows in a corn-field. Most of them held a big book in their hands, edged with guilt but otherwise dressed in mourning, which may have been a bible, and may have been a dictionary, and may have been their black book of rites and ceremonies: but I guess it was a bible; for that really great and noble book is used as a sweetener for every pill, however nauseous, which it is thought best to coax down the throat of the "dear" (but obstinate) "public." These gentlemen in black and white, (who doubtless think that if their "Master" was upon the earth he would delight to be tricked out with an Odd Fellow's regalia) walking in sober state and mock majesty in that many colored crowd,-trying to "fill" the people with "solemn awe," looked as comical as Yankees Hill and Silsbee, in their most ridiculous representations.

The most prominent article of rigging which distinguishes the Odd Fellows is their variegated apron. This is made of all grades of material, from the coarsest canvass to the most costly velvet (according to the "degree" of foolishness which the mem

bers of this peacock tribe have reached, or bought) and is ornamented with all sorts of figures, from the solitary star, made of bunting, to the very cross itself, made of real gold. Between these two extremes, are all sorts of "crinkum crankums" which were ever conceived in the labarynthian mind of man or woman. I venture the assertion, that the dolls in the royal nursery of Queen Victoria do not have more gaudy pinafores than this body of grown up men,—and are not more proud of them. And the wax figures in the Museum do not submit to their fanciful trimmings with more silent acquiescence than these Odd Fellows submit to theirs. A few years hence, and one of these brethren, tricked out in full regalia, will be as great a curiosity, and as suitable for a museum, as a fashionable woman with her enormous bustle, or innumerable petticoats. And when garrulous grandmothers tell little children how that once on a time great big men used to march through the streets with mantles and pinafores on,-and take the dear little ones to the curiosity shop to show them a wax representation of an Odd Fellow in full uniform-the wondrous story will be as astonishing to their young minds as the most grotesque rhymes in Mother Goose's Melodies.

How long

But I must draw my sketch to a summary close. before this band of really fine and kind-hearted young men will shed their unnatural feathers,—and give up their senseless mysticisms and stupid ceremonies, depends upon what degree of countenance they receive from the uninitiated public. They have virtually suborned the press and the pulpit, and are just now on the "full tide of successful experiment." How they can look their wives and sisters in the face, after strutting about all day in their peacock uniforms, or engaging all the evening in their senseless formalities, must be set down as the greatest mystery connected with the concern.

I notice that Masonry-for some time considered obsolete—is hurrying out of its grave, wiping the mould from its gaudy dress, -and commencing a new existence under the favor and patronage of Odd Fellowship. This was to have been expected; for the

two institutions are twins,-bound together by a tie as strange and unnatural as that which unites the twins of Siam. They are both founded on principles as false in philosophy as they are pernicious in practice. And both have just enough of good about them, to deceive a thoughtless and superficial community. Odd Fellowship is "young yet" (in this country) and has thus far shown chiefly its bright side. But the time is not far distant, when it will bear fruit as bitter and poisonous as that of Masonry in the palmiest days of its corruption. Our miscalled "courts of justice," our churches, our academies of learning, our social and business relations, all will "eat of the tree," and be fearfully corrupted by this organized secrecy. A more dangerous element cannot be introduced into our system. It is comparatively pure and harmless now, but the day is not far distant, when it will vie with the church itself in rottenness and guilt. Proscribing the weak and the sick,-despising the colored man, whatever his condition, uniting with grog-sellers, slave-traders, and their abettors," loving darkness rather than light,”-it contains all the elements of the most subtle, and therefore most dangerous iniquity, and ought to be watched with most jealous care by every friend of man, whether within its spiked walls, or without. I know this will seem wild and extravagant to most of the members, but I also believe that (as much to their sorrow as to mine) what I have said will be found tame and insufficient in comparison with the ultimate facts.

EACH IN ALL.

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown, Of thee, from the hill-top looking down;

And the heifer, that lows in the upland farm,

Far heard, lows not thine ear to charm;

The sexton, tolling the bell at noon,
Dreams not that great Napoleon

Stops his horse, and lists with delight,

As his files sweep round yon distant height;
Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent :
All are needed by each one,
Nothing is fair or good alone.

I sought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home in his nest at even ;—

He sings the song, but it pleases not now;
For I did not bring home the river and sky;
He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye.

The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave;
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me:

I wiped away the weeds and foam,

And fetched my sea-born treasures home;

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things

Had left their beauty on the shore

With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar !

Then I said, "I covet Truth;

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat,—

I leave it behind with the games of youth."
As I spoke, beneath my feet

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burrs;

I inhaled the violet's breath;

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