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AUGUSTUS FREDERICK ADOLPHUS GEEEVES, the subject of this notice, became connected with the Manchester Unity by initiation, in 1830, in the Loyal Mount Gilead Lodge, No. 1, of the Nottingham District, to which those eminent members of the Order, P.P.G.M. Tunstall and P.P.G.M. Elsam then belonged.

now.

The Manchester Unity was then a very different association to what it is It was a body existing without the sanction of the law; its members were comparatively few; its own laws were crude and undigested; and, what especially attracted the attention of Past G.M. Greeves, its financial condition was both unjust and unsafe;-unsafe, because the law afforded no protection against the waste or embezzlement of its property; unjust, because members of all ages were admitted upon the same terms, and with small regard to health and constitution.

To the precarious condition of the Order, from these causes, he called the attention of the Unity, in his paper published in the Odd-fellows' Magazine for July, 1839, "On Comparative Payments;" and we believe that this was the first occasion on which the members had their attention drawn to the necessity for a consideration of this subject. At all events, the matter was taken up immediately by influential members, and those great financial and registrative measures were passed which at once gave to our admirable Institution the stability afforded to its financial position by statistical science, and the security derived from the protection of the law.

With this legacy to the brethren in Europe, and after serving the chief offices of his lodge, the subject of this sketch emigrated to Victoria, in the year 1839. He had not forgotten his old predilections, for, on the 5th of November, 1840, he opened the Loyal Australia Felix Lodge, in connection with the Manchester Unity, under a dispensation from the then existing Sydney District, professing to be a Branch of the Manchester Unity.

VOL. II.

R

The following are the names of the Past Officers and Brothers present at the inauguration of the Order in Victoria :-P.G. Greeves, P.G. Hayes, P.G. Cooper, P.G. Sugden, P.G. Hill, P.G. Sheppard, and Brothers Mazagora and Strode, who advanced five pounds each towards the expenses attendant upon the Opening.

From this nucleus has grown an important Society-now recognised as one of the Institutions of Victoria. It has available funds amounting in the aggregate to £13,600; it has given existence to thirty-two Lodges, five Districts combined, in which are two thousand three hundred and thirty-three Members good on the books.

Although immediate steps were taken to procure a Dispensation from Manchester direct; yet such was, at that time, the difficulty of communication between Manchester (and, indeed, England) and Melbourne, together with the disorder of the Unity's affairs, that this Dispensation, applied for in 1840, was not granted at Manchester until the 12th February, 1845. When it was sent, however, it was not forwarded direct to Melbourne, but to the Odd-fellows' Lodge in Sydney,-just as if a parcel from Melbourne to Manchester were sent to Quebec-and, meanwhile, the Sydney Lodge having resolved to sever its connection with the Manchester Unity, difficulties occurred which prevented the Dispensation being received in Melbourne until the end of the year 1846.

But, notwithstanding this delay, on the 4th of October, 1846, the Dispensation was formally presented to the Loyal Australia Felix Lodge, and from that time till the present, the Order has gone on progressing in a most gratifying manner. Its numbers and financial position will be seen by our quotations from the last returns; and we are justified in saying, that not only as regards the manner in which the Order is worked, its ceremonies observed, and its principles adhered to, will the Order in Victoria bear a favourable comparison with the best districts at home; but, in regard to its social position, it is at least equal to any. These cheering results have not been arrived at without the exercise of great intelligence, perseverance, and well-directed exertion. Every member, at all acquainted with the history of Odd-fellowship in Victoria, will therefore readily award so Past Grand Master Greeves the merit of having assiduously laboured towards the advancement of the Order in every way that his great talents, and his honourable position in society, could be rendered serviceable.

However much Odd-fellowship may have claimed of the time and attention of Past G.M. Greeves, he has meanwhile been most honourably associated with almost every public institution of his adopted land; and whenever Victoria may have her history chronicled, his name will appear, not only as Councillor, Alderman, and Mayor of Melbourne, but also as a distinguished member of the Legislative Assembly.

Past Grand Master Greeves is still in the summer of life, and long may he live to enjoy the competence at which an extensive practice of his profession in earlier days enabled him to arrive.

ODD FELLOWSHIP: ITS PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE.

IV. LECTURES, DEGREES, AND EMBLEMS.

In attending lectures, you tell me you have never felt easy-there appeared such an awful effort to be solemnly decorous, you were tempted to laugh outright; however, you did not, but on each occasion listened attentively, more attentively, you say, than ever you did to anything else before; and you have been somewhat annoyed to hear afterwards a member (who was always there when you were) invariably begin another lecture of his own, addressed to everybody generally, and no one in particular, upon the nature, necessity, and utility, and, at last, as he said, the "absurdity" of the lectures.

As to the solemnity, that is a fault of the officers, not the lectures. Those who have to give them have of course heard them before; and you will generally notice they keep an air of mystery, and insist upon trifles, regarding position in sitting and standing, through which a sort of oppressive silence reigns, and in the minds of those who are not quite weighed down, some ludicrous ideas arise about mock gravity. Some few may depart impressed with a conviction they have heard something of the highest importance.

Now it may not perhaps be of much service to express such an opinion, but I think you will agree with me that, if officers were to communicate the lectures in a kindly and familiar manner, in fact, if they breathed more of their spirit, treated their hearers as equals, and with frankness explained, as they best could, what in the lectures seems strange or obscure, the meetings would be more attractive, and therefore better attended. I do not mean we should have these things done in the unceremonious way they are occasionally. "Here you are; come and take your turn; we shan't stop to read lectures. This is the pass word, now don't forget it. You'll come with us, we're going to a visit;" but, as I said before, in such a manner as so show they who deliver them have partaken of their spirit, believe in their utility, and desire that all they have learned shall be known and understood by their fellowmembers. There may be officers who cannot accomplish this in the way to please others and satisfy themselves; not that they are unwilling, but because they have not received what is called a decent education. This is the reason why it is well we should discuss these subjects, and offer some remarks, through the Magazine, to our brethren.

Some excellence can be attained, by steady application, if a man comes to a firm determination about it; and, remembering there are few of us perfect, he may forgive himself should he make any little slip in the outset. I do not hesitate to say, that even a "raw countryman" (without offence let me use the phrase) may soon discover, if he thinks at all, that our lectures are necessary and useful, and not quite so absurd as some think. It is plain that the projector thought upon the subject, as a good father would of the training and welfare of his children; and if at home it was thought well to instil the same teachings into the minds of all, and with a proper insight of their public and private rights and duties, incite them to a noble and useful life; so in our lodges it was evidently good that our members, by some universal teaching, should be drilled to be as like each other as possible; indeed, we might compare them to the minute particles of sand in the hourglass on our emblem, each perfect, but all running together in the great race undertaken by the Unity, on the high road of progress. I put it to you

as a townsman, and a thinker, to answer if the lectures were not exactly what was wanted. You agree they were, but that they might have been of a better character. I grant it, but recollect they were written many years since, at a time when there was not so much cock-crowing as in these days, about the glorious Nineteenth Century, or, it might be said, the galloping age. You find, even now, that the old lectures are better liked in the country, and why? Because they are suited to what we may call the universal intelligence. I question very much whether the march of intellect has made such rapid strides as our dandy parlour philosophers preach. The appearance arises from nearly every man setting himself up for a critic in his own peculiar way, or, as they express it in the workshops, he shows himself to be "sharp." Of course you would not like to maintain now (though some steadfastly believe it) that " Adam was the first Odd-fellow," in the sense the generation before us understood it. That belongs to our past history. Again, you have heard the old joke about lectures: "Why do Odd-fellows wear aprons?" "Because they are made in Manchester." That notion has exploded. The cotton city has no more to do with the Order now than Glasgow, Dublin, or Southampton; but it gave the name to the Unity, and by common consent we have Manchester for our headquarters.

Passing these matters, we insist that the moral and social principles innate in man are the same, in degree, in all time. We said on a former occasion, that these principles impelled us to join in Friendly Society combination, and in our Lodges we endeavour to practise all the good we can. In common life we well know how all, from the highest to the lowest, have Christian teaching in some commonly accepted form, to keep us up to the mark. It naturally follows that our members also require some provision to keep them up to the mark. Thus, then, when the weaver leaves the loom, the carpenter his bench, the labourer the fields, the miner his toil below, the mariner his ship, the clerk his desk, the manufacturer his counting-house, the minister his pulpit, and the lord the senate-house, all meet on lecture nights, on equal ground, to be reminded of the theory of our common practice, the high and lofty principles which actuate us in our union, and, it is to be hoped, to become better and wiser men, if, as you have said, they "listen attentively." You have thought this, and that with the scriptural allusions in the old lectures, and the moral and philosophical disquisitions comprised in the new, we have a very useful library of instruction for our common use. Really there is no reason for calling them secrets, for they are simply plain truths, lying open before all the world, but to the majority of our members, doubtless, new in the shape they are presented. Could we hear of a magistrate exercising his right to have them produced to him, (as, under the Friendly Societies Act, he can do from any legal Society,) we may be certain he would not say they must be laid aside as dangerous secrets, but rather praise them, and advise us to increase our stock. Nay, he would possibly also say they might be in print in the home of every member. Here we should have to suggest to him our objects would not then be achieved; for by stimulating the curiosity of members, we keep them in a state of suspense until they have heard all the lectures, and at the same time we ensure (in their progress upwards) the discharge of the necessary offices and duties in Odd-fellowship. Those who refuse or neglect to take the labours of office do not deserve the honours, and therefore to them the entire lectures and degrees remain a sealed book and secret, whilst those who exercise common industry have had them unlocked and explained. I need hardly say to you that the Lodge lectures and degrees are open to all, even without taking office. It is a member's own fault if he does not attend, and receive them, within about six months after his initiation, and if he be a

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