Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1874 — In Essentials, Unity; in Non-Essentials, Liberty; in All Things, Charity. [ARTICLE]

In Essentials, Unity; in Non-Essentials, Liberty; in All Things, Charity.

Such is the motto which the National Grange adopted in its Declaration of Purposes. It is a.worthy motto. In our unity lies our strength; a truth so manifest that it needs no illustration or enforcement. But unity implies the sur 1 render of individual liberty; implies concert of action,-and implies a one purpose which all understand', and which all make effort to accomplish. To enter our gates is, so far as obligations to the Order restrict and the good of the Order and the attainment of its purposes require, to give up individual opinions and forego individual effort. The novitiate should understand this at the start, and if it does not meet his views or his convenience he should withdraw from us. Once within, he has indeed his right, with other members, to explain and insist upon his own views, and it surely i 3 his duty to do so; but when that is done, ■the 'decision of the majority should receive his hearty support, whether, privately, it pleases him or not. The restrictions which the Grange imposes are meanttp be not burdensome, and in al,l that is non-essential to ,the furtherance of its positive designs it iriiposes no.bonds,. but accords the largest liberty. In politics it favors no party and opposes none. In religion it discriminates against no church, and adheres to none. In social life’it offers its own excellent facilities, but frowns not on others. In business pursuits it encourages the greatest freedom of individual enterprise, devoting its energies to the removal of obstructions which lie in the way and the breaking of bonds which might entoil and iestrain. In education it gives its encouragemfeht to all ipen; but it sternly demands that the rights and the proper instruction of laboring men shall be first considered, and the refined and luxurious accomplishments of the wealthy and the in-

dolent shall not be gained at the cost of the poor and the ignorant. The union is for the purpose of making a common, effort to free ourselves from the enthrallments of prejudice and superstition, the oppressions of monopolies, the depredations of scheming dishonesty, and the failures which come from ignorance and weakness; a union which, in the end, shall give us a larger liberty, but which for the present requires the harmonizing of individual opinions and methods, and the consolidating of individual eftorts. Our Order has no narrow bounds to its charity. ' It is, to be sure, an organizationof farmers and it looks primarily to the enlightenment and the assistance of the farmers as a class; but it well knows that “the field is the world,” and. that men are men, with the rights, duties and privileges of men, whether they be farmers or otherwise; and it knows that manhood-is of far more consequence than any class-hood, and fellowship as men than any fellowship as a class. The field is the world, and may the time soon come when all men, of all lands, forgetting, class distinctions, despising class prejudices and learning that class interests are best served when the common good and the general interest are sought out and fostered-, shall be as one brotherhood. — Patron's Helped*.