Decisions.

The comparatively few questions that have been propounded during the year, give the highest assurance that the Order in the different jurisdictions is being administered by intelligent executive and ministerial officers, who seek to perform their respective duties by a proper study and understanding of the laws. Nothing will add more to the harmony and prosperity of the Order than uniform and consistent laws intelligently administered, and I take the liberty of suggesting that a thorough revision and condensation of the present Digest, as valuable as it is, is to be greatly desired at the present time.

Decision.—The signs, grips, and passwords of the Order are designed to speak one universal language to the initiated of every nationality the world over. Therefore the Annual and P. P. W. of the Degrees are not to be translated into any other language, or spoken other than as they are written, spelled, and pronounced in the English language. The different nations must learn to give them the one universal sound as nearly as possible, so that the sound of the word will be as familiar to the ear as the signs are to the eye, or the grip to the touch of the hand; to the end that an Odd Fellow of any country may be known and recognized in any part of the habitable globe as a brother. The language used in describing and explaining the use, meaning, and manner of performing the signs, grip, &c., may be in the tongue of the peoples in which the Lodges are working.