Seguindo nesta estradaCom a verdade na mãoSigo sempre na verdadeO Amor eterno
Truth in the hand
The image in the hymn above is concrete and worth not smoothing over. Truth is not described as a conclusion reached or a doctrine assented to; it is carried along a road — com a verdade na mão, with the truth in hand — and the same hymn then says the singer follows always in it. Truth in this vocabulary is closer to fidelity than to correctness.
A truth given to be passed on
The hymns repeatedly make truth something received and then owed to others. In O Cruzeiro it is what is given so that it may be set before one's brothers, and elsewhere it is joined to duty and obligation — conhecer esta verdade, para chamar meu irmão: to know this truth, in order to call my brother. The obligation is part of the definition rather than a consequence of it.
Padrinho Sebastião's hinário names it alongside the other three: eu tenho harmonia, o amor e a verdade, eu tenho a justiça da Santíssima Trindade — the four are not separate virtues to be acquired one at a time but a single gift attributed to the Trinity.
Where the word came from
Verdade reaches the doctrine through the Círculo Esotérico, whose members were to vibrate together toward Harmony, Love, Truth and Justice, and through the Círculo de Regeneração e Fé at Brasileia, whose motto in 1916 was Harmonia, Amor e Verdade. The doctrine did not coin the term; it inherited it and then put it to work in hymns sung by people who, in the Acre of that period, were mostly rubber tappers and labourers rather than the literate urban esotericists of the parent order.