First Sentence

"I cannot begin speaking to-day-the first Convention at which I have ever begun to deliver a lecture without our beloved President-Founder at my side-I cannot begin without sending to his sick-room a message of love, a message of reverent sympathy, to that most loyal, most faithful servant of the Blessed Masters, who for one-and-thirty years has carried the banner of the Society unwaveringly, in spite of every difficulty, of every trouble, of friends who have betrayed, of enemies who have attacked, but who has never wavered, never faltered, never been shaken in his loyalty to Them."