MAGLMWilder
MARSHALL P. WILDER 1799-1887
SPEECHES
From Proceedings, Page VII-214, December 27, 1867, on his visit to the Masonic Fair in France:
In accordance with the request of the Grand Lodge, I have the honor to report, that—
On my arrival in Paris I presented my credentials as the Delegate of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts to the World's Convocation of Freemasons, summoned by our illustrious brother General Mellinet, Grand Master of the Grand Orient of France, also Commander of the National Guard of France I was most cordially received, and furnished with a card of invitation to attend the Great Festival of the Brotherhood, to take place on the 15th of June 1867.
To add to the importance of our Delegation, I associated with me our brethren from the United States, especially those from Massachusetts, among whom may be named brothers Cummings, Usher, White, Guild and Hills of Boston, Nor should I forget to mention the presence of our aged worthy brother, the late James Herring, of New York, whose person had specially been confided to my care, and from whence he soon after took his leave of Freemasonry on earth to join the Grand Lodge above.
The Fete was one of the most interesting, imposing, and grand ever witnessed within the circle of the Masonic family. Fourteen nations were represented by about seven hundred and fifty brethren of the mystic tie, The services in the Great Hall, the address of the Grand Master, the oration, and other performances, were intrusted to and executed by gentlemen of distinguished ability.
The Grand Banquet was produced with all the elegance and recherche peculiar to French artists and caterers, each guest being furnished with a splendid bouquet of moss roses. The Most Worshipful Grand Master Mellinet presided with great ease and dignity, to whom your representative is indebted for special courtesies, and to M. Thevenot, Grand Secretary, and the Committee of Arrangements, for many other acts of politeness. Here, then, we were assembled in the Banqueting Hall of the Grand Orient of France — here in the most elegant and beautiful city of the world, alike renowned for art, science, and taste—here where the people and the products of every climate were assembled to hold a grand festival in honor of the genius, industry and progress of the age — and here to unite the world in efforts for the relief of toil, the reward of labor, and the multiplication of the blessings and comforts of mankind.
It was a most appropriate occasion for a meeting of the Masonic Brotherhood from all parts; and although differing in language, customs and manners, all were inspired with the feeling, that the dialect, color, or personal peculiarity, all were truly brethren of the great masonic family of the world.
Nor was language necessary to express the sentiments of the heart. The friendly grip, the affectionate embrace, the parting kiss, spoke more loudly than words the emotions swelling in the bosoms of brethren never again to kneel around the altar of Freemasonry on earth.
The speech of welcome was cordial and appropriate. In response, your representative alluded to the prosperous condition of Masonry in the United States, the respect entertained by his countrymen for their brethren in other lands, and closed with the following sentiment: —
"The Grand Orient of France, and the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, united by the sacred ties of masonic obligations — brought nearer by the wonderful achievements of science — may a chord of living sympathy and friendship bind us still closer together in one great circle of life and love."
The Most Worshipful Grand Master reciprocated these sentiments with the desire that the friendly relations existing between our institutions might be perpetuated forever.
One other occasion deserves notice in connection with this report. On the 24th of June a Grand Fete of the Order was held by the Supreme Grand Council of the thirty-third and last Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for France. This was held in Paris, and was attended by a large concourse of brethren. The services in the Lodge were impressive, the Grand Commander being no less a personage than our Illustrious Brother Vieunet, of the French Senate, and now in the ninety fourth year of his age. The Banquet, as on the former occasion, was arranged and provided for with taste and elegance, but what added much to its interest was the hall in which it was held for it was here that our Benjamin Franklin presented his grandson to Voltaire, whose benediction upon the child was pronounced in these memorable words: God and Liberty. Your delegate being a guest was called upon to respond for the United States. In the performance of this duty he alluded to a pleasing coincidence, that while we were enjoying the hospitalities of that hour in Paris, ten thousand of our brethren were passing in Grand Procession in the streets of Boston, in honor of Freemasonry and the dedication of a new Masonic Temple, erected at an expense of nearly half a million of dollars, and which it was believed was more elegant and appropriate than any similar institution in the world, Your representative, after thanking M. Lajonquiere, Grand Secretary, for kind attentions, concluded by proposing the following toast: —
"The Institutions of Freemasonry throughout the Universe, One in affection—one in obligation—one in destiny; May they go on prospering and to prosper, rising higher and higher in the scale of human excellence, grandeur, and glory, and rejoicing together forever as brethren of the great Masonic family of man."
MEMORIAL
From Proceedings, Page 1887-91:
"M.W. Grand Master: — The duty you have imposed upon me to present to this Grand Body a memorial Of the full, varied, and alwaj*s useful, life of our deceased Brother, Marshall P. Wilder, is one of exceeding difficulty. That life was too full of incident, and honor, and purpose, to be easily or lightly told, and it deserves time for careful and detailed study.
"The life of our Brother Wilder was of unusual length; covering parts of two centuries, and reaching almost to fourscore years and ten, and in it all we find no idle hour, no moment gone to waste ; but, full as it was of solid work and sober care, still there were times when
"Fancy chequered settled sense
Like alteration of the clouds
On noon-day's azure permanence."
"His breaking into manhood was a struggle for larger activity - not narrow and selfish, but for such action as, while it might enrich and ennoble himself, should also enlarge the world of benign experience for others, and fill the horizon of human life with beauty and with fragrance. Not only in the dull routine of business, but in the subtler manipulations of fruit and flower, he had
— " the patient brain
To track shy truth,"
till she became his friend and ally in the development of an honorable reputation, a wise studentship, an upright manhood, a devoted piety, and in the mastery of floral growths till they appeared in many new and gorgeous blooms, and in richer and more succulent pulps of berry, and apple, and pear.
"The details of his busy life have been collected with great accuracy and much completeness, and are on permanent record in the Report of the Massachusetts Council of Deliberation for the. present year, and need not be repeated for this Body. To draw the lessons of his busy life out of its multitudinous details, and give them prominence in our hearts, will be the highest tribute we can pay to his memory, and the most precious legacy we can receive, whether from his active life or his peaceful death.
"He was a man of virtuous principles and impulses. We sometimes think, or seem to think, that a virtuous life must be one of denial, cut off from the full enjoyment of God's best blessings, and that it foretokens an austere and unsympathetic disposition, a hard judgment, and a black and dismal earth. But this is a diseased opinion. Human nature is never at its fullest receptivity till all its faculties are open to receive the ministries of nature and providence, which are the unpolluted sources of its happiness. Our Brother Wilder was a felicitous instance of a spirit that held itself lovingly and joyously "to all these ministrations. He was by natural gift, and by culture, sunny in temperament, broad in sympathy, charitable in purpose, and beneficent in act.
"Look through his eighty-eight years of earth, and you will not discover a single deflection from open virtue. His youth was confiding and resolute; his manhood active and dutiful; his age cheerful and serene. In the crises of commerce, when others foundered and went down, he stood upright and firm, meeting every obligation to the full, despite all losses. This was, perhaps, in part his good fortune; it was in part, certainly, his good principles. In the ordinary courses of commercial dealing his word was a reliance; there was in it no subterfuge or speculation; it was uttered to be fulfilled in the act.
"In the relations of family and friendship he was true and trusted; no faintest cloud obscured the purity of his reputation. In public life he was the revered citizen, sought after for the place of responsibility and honor, and amply did he serve his day and generation in these executive duties. In every relation of his busy life, we may say of him in the words of the poet: —
" He seemed expressly sent below
To teach our erring minds to see
The rhythmic change of time's soft flow-
As part of still eternity."
"Closely akin to this quality of his nature was his loyalty to precise truth, and his habit of dealing with the extremest exactitude of facts. To this vigorous adherence is due in no small measure his symmetry of character, his success in enterprise, and his romantic triumphs in the modulations of natural life. Does any one believe that the wonderful results obtained by him, in the hybridization of flowers and .the amelioration of fruits, were the effects of loose speculation or careless manipulation? On the contrary, accuracy of knowledge was supplemented, by delicacy and precision of handling, and both were exercised under the inspiration of enthusiastic love and fidelity. Truth is indispensable for a self-reliant man; for. a strong or a broad man; for a stable and a safe man. But, among all the excellences of our deceased Brother, we pause to mention only his frank and comprehensive manliness. He was. open to address from every side and upon every subject. The interests of humanity were his interests. He was more than cooperative; he pursued individual lines of thought and activity, and it resulted that he was not only proficient in the achievements of material affairs, but he was -deeply versed in the matters of the intellect and the soul.
"He was an affluent writer, and gifted with the power to speak with eloquence what he had thought or written. The eloquent words of a distinguished Brother are worthy to be repeated here, as they allude to a scene which took place at one of our annual feasts of St. John, and will revive and brighten a memory that is very dear to many of us. They are these: 'A few years before his death it was our fortune to hear him make a most eloquent and feeling address to the Fraternity, warning them that his advanced age made it doubtful whether he should ever again grasp the fraternal hands around him, and giving parting words of comfort to the Brethren, and of wise advice for the Craft which he loved. Natural orator as he was, never, we think, did he rise to a higher flight of eloquence, and never did an assembly sit more spell-bound under the inspiration of one they loved as a man and revered as a Nestor of the Craft. We felt, indeed, that he was going from us; that the love, faith and will of the Craft could not detain him. We realized that the bonds of affection and fraternity which held us together .with adamantine strength would shortly become a memory, and the Grand Lodge sat hushed in the silence of the deep sorrow lying like a pall over the heart. Fortunately, the health of our Brother rallied, and he sat with us on several succeeding quarterly meetings; but we knew he was an old man, made a Mason before most of us were born, and those eloquent words lingered in our hearts, for they spoke of a doom inevitable and near.'
"But he was more than an eloquent writer and speaker; much more than this had nature and education done for him. The sensibilities of his spirit, by the pursuit , of truth, had gathered the potencies of inspiration, and he not seldom 'voiced this thought in the fulness of poetic verbiage.
"I close this memoir by presenting, for permanent keeping in the archives of this Grand Lodge, a poem, which, in his own bold and strong handwriting, he a few years since presented to me, and which is treasured as a precious keepsake. It seems to me, over and above its language, beautifully to picture some of the aspirations of his noble soul: —
"O Nature, in thy secret bowers,
Where thou dost make the fruit and flowers,
Oh, teach me how to make a rose,
And give the tints with which it blows.
"Tell me, thou source of every art,
How to the fruit I may impart
That sweetness, perfume and delight,
Which please the eye and charm the sight.
" Then hand in hand, and side by side,
I'll take thee, Nature, as a bride;
. Our loves and labors we will join
To make thy glories brighter shine.
" With thee, O queen of grace! I'll bide,
In Spring's first blush, and Summer's pride,
In golden Autumn, — all the year,
Thou fount of life, my life to cheer."
Fraternally submitted,
EDWIN WRIGHT,
Committee.
