Ibigb %iving BY WARREN A. CANDLER, D.D., LL.D. Sometime President of Emory College, Oxford, Georgia. "Our care should not l>e BO much to live long u to live well." Seneca. "Thy Ufa vert tliou tUe pltlfullest of all the OUB of earth 1* no idle dream, bat a solemn reality. It IB thy own; it is all thon haul to front eternity with." Carlyle. "The life congistotU not In the abundance of things a man hath." Jena. ATLANTA, GA.: THE FOOTE & DAVIES COMPANY. 1901. COPYRIGHT, 1901, Bv WARREN A. OANDLER, D.D., LL.D. OCTi dedication. THIS WOBK OF HY HANDS I DEDICATE TO THE SONS OF MY SOUL, THE LOVED AND LOVING "EMORY BOYS" WHOM I TAUGHT FEO&I 1888 TO 1898---- THE BEST FRIENDS I HAVE IN ' THIS WORLD. r .V, CONTENTS. i CHAFTBB. PAOX. 1 PAKT I. EXHORTATIONS TO HIGH LIVING. vtii With all the signs of promise that we have, no man can yet say what use our nation and generation will make of its opportunity. While our productive power has been most wonder fully increased, our devices of self-indulgence have been more than proportionately multiplied. It may turn out at last that we shall fail of the good pleasure of God concerning us, that anoth er people may take our crown, that all our heroic aspirations may be overcome by an enfeebling sensualism, and that all our bright visions may be darkened by an unlifting cloud of paganism. If such shall be the case stand at your post and do your duty, neither coveting the approval nor fearing the condemnation of a world not worthy of you. Such a sense of duty kept the sentinel at his pcjt at the gate of ill-fated Pompeii when the stifling dust and ashes came thicker and thicker from the volcano and the liquid mud streamed down, and around him, and the people *0a the occasion of planting the class tree on the campus, this class gave their notes for $5,000 to the endowment of "The George W. W. Stone Chair ol Applied Mathematics" thus complet ing the $25,000 required. '' What Will You Do With It f" 41 fled. There his bones have been found in helmet and breastplate, with the hand still raised to keep away the suffocating dust from mouth and nostril--a monument showing the world how heroism undaunted may survive in a voluptuous society, and die unawed when it can do nothing else but die. So stand ye in your lot in this day of luxurious living unawed and uncorrupted. If our civili zation, as others before it, shall be over whelmed in some great upheaval, physical or social, your heroic endurance and fidelity some worthier race in a nobler age will discover and thus at last you will help to create the new earth wherein righteousness will dwell. For be you well assured that self-sacrifice never fails. Po litical power perishes, dynasties fall to rise no more, laws become obsolete and literatures pass away; but the influence of a life devoted to un selfish service is as indestructible as the divine love which inspires it and the omnipotent power which protects it. Though envy slay it, as Abel died hardby the gates of Paradise, from the ground its blood shall cry to heaven, and in faroff ages its voice shall be heard speaking better things than selfish desires ever wished or world ly hopes ever dreamed. Though friendless it slumber in a manger-cradle, the stars of heaven beam kindly upon it and angels of light sing its 42 High Living and High Lives. praise. Its poverty may be deeper than the des titution of the unhoused foxes of the forest, or harder its lot than the want of the unsheltered birds of the air; but multitudes shall be fed from its bounty, and the desert place shall re joice in its wonder-working power. Its crown of thorns shall at last become a diadem of royal power. Enter, I pray you, the fellowship of its sufferings that you may share the glory of its triumph. And now, my dear boys, may G-od be merciful unto you and bless you and cause His face to shine upon you, and keep you faithful and true till the end. m. "A TOUCH OP ANARCHY EVERYWHERE." (1892.) The young men who graduate from American colleges at the present time, come upon the stage of action at a momentous and interesting point in our history. It is not made so by the fact of a national campaign and a Presidential elec tion, but by the moral and social forces which have been long operating and which now seem to be approaching a culmination. An editorial writer in one of our great dailies recently attempted an analysis of the situation, under this caption: "A Touch of Anarchy Everywhere." He declared that in every field of human thought and action, in the business and industrial world as well as in other lines of effort, this touch of anarchy is visible; that we see churches revising their creeds, politicians revising their systems, and popular leaders revis ing onr social common laws. He went on. to affirm, "The times are out of joint and people seem to be ready to accept the wildest theories and to do anything that is unreasonable and un expected." Wb.en all due allowance is made for the 43 44 High Living and High Lives. evident desponding mood of the writer, candor compels us to admit that there is in present con ditions much to suggest if not to justify such a view. That great outward changes are in progress no observing man fails to see. I should therefore perhaps be unfaithful to the responsibilities of this hour if I failed to forewarn you of the tempest into which you are now passing, or neglected, as far as I may be able, to forearm you against its perils. The industrial world has been utterly revolu tionized during the last thirty years. Invention has increased the productive power of man, and multiplied gains have begotten intense greed. So eager have men become to acquire wealth and escape toil that the processes of industry and in tegrity are discredited and discarded for the doubtful arts of the "hustler" and the "specula tor." For every bushel of wheat which comes out of the ground ten bushels are sold in the Produce Exchange of New York, and when our cotton-fields yield eight millions of bales, the crop grown in the "bucket-shop" amounts to six ty millions. By such methods money is shifted from hand to hand in such a haphazard manner that one man rises from the pains of poverty to the power of affluence in an hour, while another falls from plenty to penury with the casting of "A. Touch of Anarchy Everywhere-" 45 a die. And so we see from day to day reckless rioting on one hand and madness and despair oil the other, wildly contending along the highways of trade. In the political world a similar spirit prevails and similar methods are employed. Established principles of wisdom, justice and moderation are renounced that men may pursue the more piquant politics of frenzied reformers and frivol ous fanatics. All misfortunes are traced for their origin to the government, and it is proposed to remedy all evils by legislation. There is no ill to which flesh is heir which cannot be cured by some new device of taxation or some ingenious tinkering with the currency. Political messiahs cry to a distracted people on all sides, saying: "Lo here" or "Lo there," and many foolish ones go after them. With these disturbances of commerce and agi tations in the social and political world, many are dragging anchor morally; for as Madam, de Stael truly says, "It is the fatal effect of revo lutions to obliterate altogether our ideas of right and wrong, and instead of the eternal distinc tions of morality and religion, apply no other test in general estimation to actions but suc cess." To such a period naturally belongs a certain 46 High Living and High Lives. .- class of adventurous theologians, putting forth all manner of freakish gospels. They are the stormy petrels of such a time, skimming along the surface of the waves, taking the mollusks and other creeping things cast up by the pertur bations of the deep. They are vain talkers and deceivers, teaching things they ought not for filthy lucre's sake, engaging in "profane and vain babblings and oppositions of science, false ly so called, proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words." These we have in abundance, mingling their voices in the cries of the market place and with the decla mations of the demagogues, publishing many new things which are not true and a few true things which are not new. Into such a Babel have you come. How will you deport yourselves? Let me exhort you first of all that you behave yourselves with moderation. Wise are the words of Dr. Shedd concerning the duty of the edu cated. "The proper posture of the educated mind," says he, "toward the current opinions of the age in which he lives is that of moderation. The educated man should keep his mind equable and in some degree aloof from passing views and theories. He ought not to allow theories that have just come into existence to seize upon hia "A Touch of Anarchy Everywhere." 47 understanding with all that assault and onset with which they take captive the uneducated and especially the unhistoric mind. * * * He occupies a height, a vantage ground, and he is to stand upon it, not with the tremor and fervor of a partisan, but with the calmness and insight of a judge." You know, or ought to know, that much of what nowadays is paraded as progress is some ancient vice of trade revived, or some discarded theory of government recalled, or some exploded heresy in theology recovered and exhibited as a fresh revelation from the skies. Cornering grain was an infamy in the days of Solomon, for the wise man wrote in the Proverbs, "He that withholdeth corn the people shall curse him, but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it." The prophet Amos, nearly a thousand years before Christ, gave the world a full-length portrait of one of our modern "Napoleons of finance," when he said: "Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, "When will the new moon be gone that we may sell corn and the Sabbath that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsi fying the balances by deceit, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea and sell the refuse of the wheat?" 48 High Living and High Lives. The pretentious theories of government and ambitious systems of theology, which also are clamoring for the attention and acceptance of people, are but the cast-off clothes of former generations. Arrayed in them intellectual tramps are seeking to hide their nakedness and win the admiration of the ignorant. Surely you have been too well instmcted to follow or to be led by them. Allow me, therefore, to exhort you further to stand by old-fashioned, antique righteousness. There is nothing better in this world, and chaos must finally come to order in obedience to its authority. The "touch of anarchy," which our editorial friend sees "everywhere," is the finger prints of men who think and act as if there were something better in this world than being true and doing right. Such men in the business world bring wreck to themselves and damage to the public, because they despise the slow and moderate rewards of honest industry, that they may reach sudden wealth by extraordinary methods. You will not give honor to them, much less fall into their ways. They are storm-centers in our civiliza tion. Your patriotism and your piety alike will impel you to abhor their methods. In spite of all the gilded pageants of hastily "A Touch of Anarchy Everywhere." 49 gathered wealth which we see about us, let us continue to believe in old-fashioned industry, frugality and integrity. Let no sophistries beguile you to forsake these homely virtues. That is a dangerous, delusive and fleeting success which is won by renouncing them. It comes too dear. He who for gold will sell such virtues is no better than the painted savage who exchanges the cost liest gems for strings of worthless beads. And, as I commend to you these antique excel lencies for commercial life, I would, with equal earnestness and positiveness, warn you against the political and governmental novelties with which some would displace the principles and practices of the fathers of the Republic. It is easy for one to be carried away by the plausibilities and fervor of some of our modern agitators. There are doubtless evils to be cor rected and wrongs to be righted, and smarting under a sense of injustice, the people may, for a season, be misled by ardent reformers who in vite them to bow down to graven images as the gods which have led them out of bondage. But the people will not be deceived always. When the heaven-appointed leader comes down from the mount, they will know him by his radiant face, and walking after him they will follow the pillar of cloud and of fire, by which this nation 50 High Living and High Lives. has been.led hitherto. Thus led they will find the old paths and walk therein. Do not, I pray you, be disturbed by the pass ing storm and imagine because the sky is over cast all the stars hare gone out. The great prin ciples of good government have been known in this country from the beginning. They are fixed stars shining bright and clear. They looked down upon our fathers and will shed their kindly light upon our children's children. Do not hesi tate to walk by them, nor count them cheap because they seem commonplace. They are com monplace because they are fundamental-- commonplace like the sun which has been always with us, and by which the seasons have come and gone, springtime and harvest and the rich re wards of autumn. Stand also by the old time religion. As they sing at the camp-meetings, "It is good enough for me." I have read some of the writings of our modern scientists and apostles of the "destructive criticism." I think I have been open to receive any real truth they have had to reveal; but at last I have not found that they could teach me any thing better than that I learned at my mother's knee. The old Bible written to be understood by common men and women, not a technical llA Touch of Anarchy Everywhere." 61 book for critics only; the old Bible showing plain people how to bear trial, overcome temptation and be faithful unto death; the old Bible is what the old standards claim for it--"a sufficient rule of faith and practice." If it be not the true rev elation from God there has never been given a revelation. There is not a sin which it does not condemn nor a virtue which it does not com mend. Since its last page was written, there has not been a moral discovery. Stand by it and take it for what it says. Especially, I pray you, let the revelation which it brings o the other world get hold upon you. Until a man finds something which is worth more to him than life, something for which he would lay down his life, he cannot really and truly live to purpose. And not until eternal life becomes real and vivid to him, will this something be found. Martyrdom and heroism --they are of one substance--are sustained by faith in eternal things. "Look not at the things which are seen, but at the things that are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." I know I advise you to take a high and diffi cult path. I should dishonor your Alma Mater and mine, if I advised you, her youngest sons, to take a lower course. When the old Cardinal Barromeo was about to 62 High Living and High Lives. leave Lodi to go and minister to the sick in plague-stricken Milan, his clergy advised Vn'm to remain where he was and wait until the disease had exhausted itself. He answered, "No! A bishop whose duty it is to give his life for his flock cannot ahandon them in their time of peril." "Yes," they replied, "to stand by them is the higher course." "Well," he said, "is it not a bishop's duty to take the higher course?" And he went to Milan. Take the higher course; is it not the duty, is it not the way, of Emory's sons to take the higher course? I cannot promise you that it will bring you wh&t is called success. Kb man can lay before you a plan of life upon which he can guarantee to you success. Some one asked the Duke of Wellington what was the secret of his success in battle. He replied that he had no secret for success; that no man had. All that a man could do, he said, was to plan as carefully as possible beforehand, do his best and trust in God. It is thus with the battle of life (and you will surely find life a battle). A true man. is called to a state of war. Go into the battle undismayed; do your best and trust God. If that shall not bring you success it will bring you a high life more sublime even in defeat than all the vic tories of ignoble greatness. IV. THE SOUTH THE HOME OF AMERICANISM. (1893.) I am not sure that I will escape the censure, of good and fair-minded people, not to speak of the abuse of the ill-natured and malicious, for what I am about to say to you to-day. But I feel it my duty at this hour, to call your atten tion, and, as far as my voice may reach, to call the attention of all the educated young men of our section, to the peculiar duty and responsibil ity of the South in view of present conditions in the United States and threatened dangers to the Republic. Many things have conspired to preserve in the South the spirit and habits of the founders of our government, and it is, therefore, the duty of our people to lead in the sorely-needed revival of what we may call, for lack of a better wor.d, Americanism. I have no disposition to indulge in indiscrim inate eulogy of our own section, or ungenerous criticism of any other section. If I were thus disposed the proprieties of this occasion forbid such idle, and worse than idle, discourse. This 63 54 High Living and High Lives. is not an hour for the boasts of sectional pride or the blasts of sectional hate. "We may not in this place encroach upon the especial preserve of the politician and the agitator. It is ours to consider calmly the conditions of our country and our duties arising from these conditions, and, having ascertained these duties, to set about the discharge of them earnestly and resolutely. It is ours to subject sectional passion to the author ity of a benevolent patriotism which concerns itself for the welfare of the whole country. And to-day I speak from a motive of interest and anxiety for the welfare of our entire nation, rather than from any motive of sectional pride or animosity. By the trend of events and the providential movements of the last half century, there has come upon the South the hard and high duty of preserving and propagating the spirit and tradi tions of that Americanism by which the nation was originally established, and through which it has achieved the noblest triumphs of its his tory. From causes which it is not necessary to dis cuss to-day our section has been somewhat set apart to itself, and has thereby escaped influ ences which have overspread and injured the civilization of other sections of our country, and The South the Home of Americanism. 55 we owe it to the conservative elements of those sections to make such a stand here as will save both them aad us from the most dangerous and destructive radicalism. In the conflict of oldfashioned Americanism with all sorts of for eign innovations and alien customs we occupy a position of advantage which enhances our responsibility and calls for the most unfaltering fidelity. The chiefest characteristic of the founders of this great Republic was their faith in God and their reverence for the authority of the Bible. They never doubted for one moment that the Bible was the Word of God. The "higher criti cism," if it had come among them, would have despised their simple faith, and their simple faith would most certainly have despised the "higher criticism." In his Bunker Hill oration Mr. Webster said of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, "The Bible came with them, and it is not to be doubted that to the free and universal reading of the Bible is to be ascribed in that age that men were indebted for right views of civil lib erty." That acute Frenchman, M. de Tocqueville, said, "Religion gave birth to Anglo-Amer ican society." In the thickest darkness of the Revolutionary period the Continental Congress 66 High laving and High Lives. imported 20,000 Bibles to distribute among the colonies, justifying the action by the declaration, "The use of the Bible is so universal and its importance so great." What Hildersham affirmed of the Xew England colonists might, with equal justice, have been declared of all the rest: "They were agreed in nothing further than in this gen eral principle--that the reformation of the church was to be endeavored according to the word of God." That they sometimes persecuted each other on account of divergent religious opinions is quite true; but this reveals intensity of religious con viction if it also discovers unwise and uncharita ble devotion to it. Their religion was alert, not a nerveless, indolent indifference. They were always ready to "contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints" and to "give a rea son for the hope" that was in them. "While some of our modern lights, if they had lived in that day, would have accounted the wisest of the American fathers ignorant vulgarians, those simple, nigged men, displayed a moral heroism and political integrity which the liberalists of all ages and climes have not been able to parallel with one single example. These heroes of the Republic were also heroes of faith, believing implicitly the Old Book and sacredly observing the holy day of worship and rest. The South the Home of Americanism. 67 While the war was raging, Washington, who incarnated the best spirit of the people, issued on May 2, 1778, this order: "The commanderin-chief directs that divine service be performed every Sunday at 11 o'clock in those brigades to which there are chaplains,--those which have none, to attend the places of worship nearest them. It is expected that officers of all ranks will by their attendance set an example to their men. While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of patriot it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian. The signal instances of Providential goodness which we have experienced and which have now almost crowned our labors with complete success demand from us in a peculiar manner the warm est returns of gratitude and piety to the Supreme Author of all good." All the world knew that the real founders of the Republic were Christians, whatever might be the opinions of a few persons among them. Lamartine said: "Washington fought, spoke and suffered always in the name of God, for whom he acted; and the liberator of America died confiding to God his own soul and the lib erty of the people." 68 High Living and High Lives. If the fathers of the Republic asserted vehe mently the doctrine of religious toleration, they did not thereby demand a charter for political atheism, but a defense for the freedom of the faith, that it might run and be glorified in godly livesand noble heroisms" Prof.Bryce,in his able work entitled "The American Commonwealth," justly says: "Eeligious freedom has been gen erally thought of in America in the form of free dom and equality between different sorts of Christians, or, at any rate, between different sorts of theists; persons opposed to religion alto gether have until recently been extremely few everywhere, and practically unknown in the South." Another characteristic of primitive Americans was the place which women occupied in their social system. Believing, as they did, implicitly in the Bible, they accepted St. Paul's teaching that "the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church." The women of the colonies were womanly to the last degree. One might apply to them the language of St. Peter: "After this manner in the old time the holy women also who trusted in God adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands." The picture which Washington Irving gives of Mary Washington is that of a The South the Home of Americanism. 59 mother in Israel, "with her little flock gathered round her, as was her daily wont, reading to them lessons of religion and morality out of some standard work," her favorite volume being Sir Matthew Hale's "Contemplations." When, after seven years' absence, her illustrious son returned victorious from the war, "he found her alone, her aged hands employed in works of domestic industry. With a mother's tenderness she noted the lines which care and toil had made on his manly face, spoke much of old times and the friends of his early days, but of his glory not a word." Her heart was in the home. Subse quently, when he had been called by the unani mous voice of his countrymen to the Presidency, and had come to bid her farewell before repair ing to the seat of government, she said to him: "You will see me no more; I shall not be long in this world. I trust God I am prepared for a better. But go, George, fulfill the destiny which Heaven appears to assign you; go, my son, and may Heaven's and your mother's blessings be with you always." No wonder the strong man wept as a little child when, after these words, he kissed for the last time the furrowed cheek of such a mother. One such a mother is worth all the unsexed female agitators and manipu lators who have lived from the days of Jezebel 60 High Living and High Lives. to the Kansas campaigners and the screamers in "The Woman's Congress" at Chicago. Another salient feature of the national spirit in the early days of the Kepublic was the jealous care of the people for local government. From Teuton ancestors on the banks of the Elbe, through English progenitors who had wrung from unwilling tyrants the liberties guaranteed in Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Eights and the Habeas Corpus Bill, they had inherited the spirit of freedom. The Declara tion of Independence, the Articles of Confedera tion, and the Constitution, palpitate with thi? spirit. There is no understanding those great documents at all if we fail to discover the sensi tive jealousy for local self-government which pervades them in every part. These, then, were the great fundamental prin ciples of primitive Americanism, viz., intense Christian convictions, intense devotion to wom anly modesty and domestic virtue, and a jealous care for the securities of individual freedom and local government. In the maintenance of these principles they showed uncalculating fidelity. Commercial considerations could not seduce them to depart from their convictions, nor any worldly interest divide their attention, or chill the ardor of their zeal. They were not of the The South the Home of Americanism. 61 worshipers of mammon who abound in pruden tial virtues and who are deficient in the virtues which impel one to self-abandon in the defense of right. It is easy to see how from the prevalence of these principles of an earnest Christianity, a reverence for the Bible, a religious type of wom anhood, a sacred regard for local government, the most beautiful civilization would naturally spring--a civilization the unit of which would be the Christian home, sheltering a people who looked up to no one but God as they lived a life than which there was nothing better but heaven. And such, indeed, was our country, and such it yet may be. If such it shall be, the result must largely depend upon the people of the South. With all the faults of our people it remains true of them that a greater proportion of them than of any other people on the planet are vital ly related to Christianity and the church of God. There are more church members in the South than among the same number of people in other land, and their faith is the simplest, purest, and best. Moreover, the type of their piety is evan gelical, not rationalistic. Religious isms and quibbles have never flourished among our peo ple. The Christian Sabbath is sacredly regarded and the Old Book is implicitly believed. Our 62 High Living and^High Lives. people not only believe that the Bible contains the word of God, but that it is in truth the word of God. Our women believe the Old Book and gladly accept its teachings concerning their sta tion and duties. They are not pining for wom an's suffrage, nor heeding the subtle tempter who tells them how pleasant is this forbidden fruit to the eye and well adapted to make them 'vise, and that in the day they eat thereof they shall become as men. They know full well it means the despoiling of the home, sweet emblem of the paradise lost and symbol of the heaven to come. They know full well that when at one time the women of Rome secured all their "rights" the empire perished," and woman with her short-lived independence and glory sank beneath its ruins. They know how holy marriage was despised while domestic infidelity and multitudinous divorces destroyed the Roman home and thereby pulled down the Roman government. That history is too notorious to havo escaped attention, and it teaches its les son with clearness and cogency. The Lex Julia of Augustus was an enactment which advertised the deadly disease it was intended to cure, providing as it did for a number of special privileges to the married, which were in fact a The South the Home of Americanism. 63 handsome bribe to induce citizens to enter the conjugal state. It points to that wretched state illustrated in the case reported by St. Jerome, who tells us he witnessed the funeral of a woman who had been married twenty-three times and was followed to her grave by a husband who had been married twenty-one times. In all theoe innovations which look to the revolution of the social and political relation of women, there are hidden the germs of these ills which cursed and killed the Roman state. From them our noble women turn away. They prefer to be the sover eigns of our homes than to become the sport and slaves of the populace. All our people still believe in local self-gov ernment--in home rule and home religion. Least of all things are they willing in these days of concentrated wealth to yield anything which looks toward a centralized government. The South stands for all these high principles of which I have been speaking, and you are to act your part in your day and generation in the South. You will not act that part well if you lose sight of these high and holy things, I would not have you think for a moment that none but Southerners stand for these things. In every section of our country there are many good people who stand with us. But our history 64 High Living and Hiyh Lives. has temded to preserve these principles among us in a degree unknown to other sections, and for this reason our responsibility for their main tenance is proportionately increased. And it is time our people had gone beyond a mere defensive attitude with reference to them. "We must begin to spread them. We must join hands with good men of other seetions in propa gating them. We cannot have an enduring Republic with out an abiding Christianity, accepting the au thority of the inspired Book and walking in tha ordinances of the living God. A Lamartine well says: "An atheistic republicanism cannot be heroic. When you terrify it, it yields. When you would buy it, it becomes venal. It would be very foolish to immolate itself. Who -would give it credit for the sacrifice--tha people un grateful and God non-existent?" To the same purpose speaks that other brilliant Frenchman, It. DeTocqueville: "Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. How is it possi ble that society should escape destruction if the moral tie be not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters, if they be not submissive to the Deity?" And a greater than either of them, even Washington, The South the Home of Americanism. 65 the peerless, said in his farewell address: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experi ence both forbid us to expect that national mor ality can prevail in exclusion of religious princi ples." And be ye well assured religion cannot pre vail if the people lose faith in the divine revela tion, or abandon the day of worship for the sports of a holiday. The alternatives of thought are an infallible Church, or an infallible Book, or Agnosticism. There can be no other. And whatever theory of the Sabbath the people may accept, if they cease to observe a holy day for worship, hedged about against worldly toil and worldly pleasure, faith will languish and religion die. Stand, then, I beseech you, for God's word and the Lord's day as pillars of our government and supports of our civilization. Stand also for tke Christian home and resist every influence which tends, however slightly, to impair its sanctity or lessen its influence. Howeverpliuriblesuch influences may appear or 66 High Living and High Lives. with whatever promises of reform they may seek to beguile, they mean evil, only evil, and that continually. "As a nation we rise or fall as the character of our homes presided over by woman rises or falls; and the best gauge of our best prosperity is to be found in the measure by which these homes find multiplication in the land. In true marriage and the struggle after the highest ideal of home life is to be found the solution of more of the ugly problems that confront the present generation--moral, social and political-- than can be enumerated. If women grow more modest, sweet, truthful, trustworthy and woman ly by familiarity with political intrigues and controversies, if her home grows better in conse quence from her absence from it as voter and candidate, then by all means let her vote early and often."* If the number of true marriages is to be increased by a policy which arrays the sexes against each other and diminishes a mutual respect and affection, let us adopt that policy without delay. But if old-fashioned motherhood, with its holy devotion and tender ministries, is required for the creation and preservation of homes in which manly virtue and womanly pur ity are brought to their best estate, let us resist the miserable innovations by which some strongminded women and weak-minded men would *"Every-Day Topics," by J. G. Hoi land. The South the Home of Americanism. 67 degrade the queen of the home to a brawler in the market-place. You have learned in your classics of how, under the colonial system of the ancient Greek cities, when the mother city sent out a colonizing company, the emigrants took with them fire kindled at the public hearth (the prytaneum) wherewith to supply their own altars with the sacred flame with which they perpetuated the religious rites of their ancestors. To-day, as you go forth from your Alma Mater, I bring you to the altar fires of Americanism kindled by the fathers of the Republic. Take of this sacred flame and keep it all aglow until it shall blaze from altars on every mountain and hilltop in our land--altars from which all the nations shall learn inspirations to Christian faith, civil freedom, and domestic purity. And let your fidelity be the greater by so much as you know that if this holy fire be extinguished in our own land, we can have no reasonable hope that it will be rekindled elsewhere. If it expire here "darkness shall cover the earth and thick dark ness the people," for, as Emerson remarks, not with boastful extravagance but with a solemn sense of responsibility, "Our whole history ap pears like a last effort of the Divine Providence in behalf of the human race." America is the hope of mankind, and the preservation of the 68 High Living and High Lives. purity, piety and patriotism of the founders of the Republic is the hope of America. Stand for these high and holy things without fear and without compromise. May the blessing of the God of our fathers go with you and abide upon you always. V. COMPLETING THE WORK OF THE FATHERS. (1894.) It was a saying of Seneca that "those who have been before us have done much, but they have not finished anything." These words of the Roman sage contain a wholesome, nutritious thought for the consid eration of young men of culture and consecra tion, who are about to be dismissed from the tasks of college life to the larger engagements of after years. The pagan philosopher gives in these words an echo of our Lord's declaration to His first disciples: "Other men have labored and ye have entered into their labors.^/' Such words impel us to reverence the good already achieved by those who have gone before us, and to seek, as much as in us lies, to make it better. -They exclude alike contentment with or contempt for the past. They leave no room for anarchic radicalism on the one hand, or apathetic conservatism on the other.", In our day there are many persons of shallow thought and vehement vanity, who never weary of exalting the things of the present at the expense of all that has been done before us, so 69 70 High Living and High Lives. that they allow nothing to be good or great except it be recent. They prate of progress as if the race had made no progress until they came, when at last mankind, aroused by their quicken ing presence, suddenly awoke, and by a somer sault bounded forward to an estate a little lower than that of the angels. With the American "innocent abroad" they weep at the graves of patriarchs and prophets, because those belated barbarians never lived to see them. On the other hand, there are those who dwell among the tombs, possessed by an evil spirit which tells them so much has been done there is nothing left for them to do; that the oppor tunities of mankind are forever past. These tell us the days of oratory have gone, the eclogue has supplanted the epic, heroism is obsolete, and in every department of human effort there is nothing in order except the languid acceptance of the insipid conditions of a commonplace era. "With neither of these views can a man of healthy mind have sympathy. He will rever ently and thankfully acknowledge that they who have been before us have done much; he will intelligently recognize that they have finished nothing; and in holy devotion to the ancestors who have gone before him and to the posterity who will follow after him he will manfully undertake Completing the Work of the Fathers. 71 to carry forward, as far as he may, the unfin ished labors of former generations. He values the immense achievements of the past, but he courageously perceives the essential equiv alence of opportunity in all times, and discerns with Emerson "that the disadvantages of any epoch exist only to the faint-hearted." When Seneca wrote and spoke there were doubtless many about the Roman capital who indulged the delusion that in other lands and times than their own there had been next to nothing worthy of esteem, and that in the age of the Caesars human history had culminated. But before them had been the venerable systems of the East, and the graceful civilization of the Greeks. If from Roman life the elements derived from these sources had been extracted, more than half its glory had been effaced. It is quite probable there were also at Rome in those days companies of listless youths walk ing the streets of the imperial city and lounging in its luxury, who, while despising the provin cialism which ignored the achievements of other nations and other ages, excused themselves from effort in their own times by the claim that there was nothing left for men to do. They would inquire, "Has not Homer sung, Demosthenes spoken, Alexander conquered, and the great 72 High Living and High Lives. spirits of Syria and Egypt done all that men can dare or hope?" Looking back over the eighteen centuries which stretch between us and Seneca; centuries in which have lived and la bored Dante and Milton, Charlemagne and Napoleon, Bacon and Shakespeare, Luther and Wesley, Cromwell and Washington, and the innumerable company of immortals who have carried forward the triumphs of the race, how puerile and mean such views must now appear! How true were the words of the philosopher, "They who have been before us have done much, but they have finished nothing!" He spoke more wisely than he himself knew. He knew almost as little of what had been done as he foresaw what was to be. What did he know of the laws of Moses and of that little but lasting commonwealth of Israel? What did he know of the innocent and omnipotent sufferer of Cal vary, who, in dying, had founded an empire world-wide in its scope and imperishable in its structure? What knowledge had he of an inspired tent-maker who about that time was wandering over all the region from Palestine to Spain, preaching sermons and writing letters which have regenerated 1he earth and saved man kind from defeat and despair? Unknown to the Completing the Work of the Fathers. 73 worldly-wise, vascillating Latin sage, who vainly attempted the impossible career of the servant of truth in the life of a courtier, these mighty spirits had toiled and agonized, and but for that which they achieved, such good as he accom plished would long since have perished from the earth. Standing as we do upon a loftier eminence, in a purer atmosphere, with the clearer vision of Christian students, we ought to be able to per ceive, as the Roman could not, what has been done and what yet remains to be done. We can compute with some sort of accuracy what we owe to the devout worshipers of the East, to the viva cious and high-spirited Greeks, and to his own rugged Romanism. Or if we fail of an accurate estimate we may at least know our calculation t in error, and offer in payment a gratitude as indefinitely large as our debt exceeds our power of statement. We know also our inheritance from the productive centuries this side the age of Seneca. We know how medieval students, in darkened cloisters, toiled to preserve for posterity the rich treasures of literature and religion, which we enjoy. We know that when a flood of ignorance swept over the world, submerging the highest elevations of intelligence,those devout men kept 74 High Living and High Lives. afloat an ark in which were preserved the stocks from which has sprung the civilization which glorifies the earth to-day. We know that we are debtors to even that blind, and sometimes brutal, chivalry, which in a semi-barbarous age main tained respect for manly courage, reverence for womanly purity and faith in the truth of God, showing to all succeeding generations to what divine heights of usefulness human nature can rise when touched by a noble sentiment. Coming nearer to our own days, we know our birthright procured for us by the unlettered barons of Runnymede and the unfaltering mar tyrs of Smithfield. Or still nearer, we know and value the work of our political ancestors of '76, and our religious fathers of the Wesleyan era. All these, "through faith, subdued kingdoms; wrought righteousness; out of weakness were made strong; waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens." And whilst they obtained a good report, and heavenly prom ises for themselves, God hath provided some better things for us that they, without us, should not be made perfect. Wherefore, Christian stu dents ye who are "heirs of all the ages in the foremost files of time," be it known unto you, as you enter upon your life work, that you arc compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses Completingihe Work of the Fathers. 75 eagerly desiring that you run with patience and finish with victory the race that is set before you. In your place and measure, you are to carry for ward the work upon which they who have gone before were once engaged, and which they left unfinished. When Napoleon addressed his grand army under the shadow of the Pyramids, he said: "Soldiers of France, forty centuries look down upon you to-day." In a sense far more solemn and affecting, may it be said to the army of young men coming forth from our Christian institutions: "All the centuries look down upon you. Quit you like men." The inheritance of unfinished work which comes to you is not only magnificent in propor tions; it is sacred in character. It has been sanc tified by suffering. Pain has been the price paid for all the permanent good among men. With out the shedding of blood there is not only no remission of sins, but there is no good of any sort. The best and strongest parts of our govern ment were laid in a cement of suffering. From the "stones in the walls and the beams of the timber" of all our Christian institutions cry out the agonies of soul by which they were laid in place. In the solemn tones of the creeds and the liturgies of the Christian Church, the 76 High Living and High Lives. attentive ear can hear the sighing and groaning of the great souls whom John saw under the altar, "slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held." If the good which was begun by those who have been before you is ever finished, it must be carried forward in like spirit. It is not said, other men have labored and ye may enter into rest, but "Ye are entered into their labors." Because they have labored you must toil; because they have suffered you must endure. Above five hundred years ago was begun at Cologne the splendid cathedral but recently com pleted. Persistently, over many obstacles and with many detentions, the work went on until at last, amid the rejoicing of the civilized world, the great structure was finished. Far back in history, with the service and suffering of Abel, was begun the great spiritual edifice towards the completion of which all the generations of men have contributed something. Like the patient masons who worked on the great cathedral, many have toiled with little or no conception of the majestic proportions and noble uses of the great work upon which they were engaged. To you it has been granted to see somewhat of its final beauty and grandeur. The vision should strengthen your hearts and steady your hands. Completing the i Work of the Fathers. 77 The part of the work you are to do is not less than that which has been done by any who have gone before you. Your times are as holy as any times, and there are yet deeds to be done by men as great as any which have been. done. Tea, and greater works await achievement because the Son has gone unto the Father, and in the afflu ence cf His enthroned omnipotence, replenishes with increasing potency the energies of his serv ants. Let us respect ourselves as sons of God, and magnify our work. Then, as Emerson tells us, "the first step of worthiness will disabuse us of our superstitious association with places and times, with number and size." "Why," he con tinues, "should these words, Athenian, Roman, Asia and England, so tingle in the ears? Let us feel that where the heart is, there are the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River and Boston Bay you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are--that is a great fact, and if we tarry a little we may come to learn that here is best. See to it only that thyself is here--and art and nature, hope and dread, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being shall not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest. Epaminondas, 78 High Living and High Lives. brave and affectionate, does not seem to us to need Olympus to die upon, nor the Syrian sun shine. He lies very well where he is. The Jer seys were handsome ground enough lor "Wash ington to tread, and London streets for the feet of Milton. A great man illustrates his place, makes his climate genial in the imagination of men, and its air the beloved element of all deli cate spirits."* Find where the great workers, who were just before you, left off the efforts which transfigured them and which glorified their time and place. Then lay hold, entering into the fellowship of their sufferings and sacrifice, and you cannot fail You have no right to give your time and strength to passing jobs for bread and butter as a tramp might chop a few sticks of wood f >t his breakfast, and, having fed, pass on to the next village. No such hand-to-mouth working is worthy of an enlightened mind. Eelate your efforts to the historic movement of the race, and do work which will abide. Truly said Frederick Maurice, "No man has a right to begin a work which he does not think has a principle in it that may live and bear fruit after he is dead and forgotten." Believe something well enough From essay on "Heroism." Completing the Work of the Fathers. 79 to die for it in order to make room for it among men, and cast forth your lives into the ever liv ing universe and God will see to it that they do not perish. He who would not allow waste of the bread and fishes which he could multiply at will, will never permit one particle of truth or germ of goodness to be lost, let him who puts it forth be never so obscure and humble. Let me exhort you in the words of a great American essayist, "Pour into your age your whole life, if it be pure and good, and be sure that you have done something--your little alL There shall be no drop of that life wasted. Where you put it there shall it be, an atom in the slowly rising monument of a world redeemed to goodness. If you cannot take counsel of God in this thing, and with the counsel, courage, take it from the most insignificant of his crea tures--the madrepores that build islands covered with gardens of wonderful beauty under the sea. The little polyp may well be discouraged when it sees how little it can do in the creation of the coral world, to which, by a law of its nature, it is bound to contribute. But it gives to this world the entire results of its little life--a cal careous atom--and then it dies. But that atom is not lost; God takes care of that. All He asks of the madrepore is its life, and though it may 80 High Living and High Lives. not witness the glory of the structure it assists to rear, it has a place in the structure--an essen tial place--and there it is glorified. Through those strangely fashioned trees the green sea sweeps and wondering monsters swim and stare, till little by little, as the ages with heavy feet tramp over the upper earth, they rear themselves into the light and hold the turbulent sea asleep beneath the smile of God. Little by little they lay the foundation upon which a new life rests, and become the eternal pillars of a temple in which man worships and from which his voice of praise ascends to Heaven. * * * Give that little life of yours with its little result to the twig where you hang, never mind ing the surges of the eea which try to dislodge you, nor the monsters that stare at you, and be sure that the tree shall emerge at last into the light of heaven--the basis and assurance of a new and glorious life for a race. * * * Go forward unto the realm which stretches before you; climb the highest moun tains you can reach and plant a cross there. The nations will come up to it some day."* Laboring thus faithfully, you will in process of time finish your course, but not your work. None but Christ could ever From "Gold Foil," by J. G. Holland. Completing the Work of the Fathers. 81 truly say, "I have finished the work Thou gavest me to do," and even of His unapproachable sacrifice an inspired apostle spoke, in words of weighty meaning and mystery, of "filling up which is behind of the afflictions of Christ." Pathetic beyond all expression is the unfinished work beside which true men of every age have laid down and died when they could do no more. "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." How sorrowful but how sublime is this life of persistent faith and patient serv ice! It is Abraham, gathered to his people when an old man with the promises of life unfulfilled and the plans of life unfinished; it is Joseph, dying in a strange country with a lifelong hunger in his heart for the old tent home in Canaan, giving commandment con cerning his bones; it is Moses with undimmed eye beholding the land which he had yearned for so long, piteously but vainly begging on Pisgah's lonely height, "I pray Thee, let me go over and see the good land which is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain and Lebanon;" it is Paul in a Roman dungeon, ready to be offered 82 High Living and High Lives. up, but longing as at the first to preach the gos pel ir. the regions beyond. It is every mighty spirit who in any age loved men and served God, but was not able to finish the work before the night came, going home at last with a break ing heart, sobbing and crying in the twilight as he went, "Let thy work appear unto thy servants and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it." And you, my dear boys, will thus fall some day with life's unfinished tasks about you. Sea to it that whatever you may have done by then shall be fit to be joined to the glorious deeds of former generations, and worthy to be finished by the noble souls who will come after you. Then indeed when, "Thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan that moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." VL SELFISH GUI/TUBE A DEPRAVED THING. (1895.) Sir Francis Bacon, discussing "wisdom for a man's self," by which he means selfish culture, says "wisdom for a man's self is in many branches thereof, a depraved thing." Concern ing this strong affirmation he, the high priest of experimental philosophy, certainly had experi mental knowledge. TTia culture was almost infi nite, and well-nigh infinitely selfish. Wherefore he was justly characterized as "the greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind." Of those who pursue such culture he says "they are many times unfortunate. For whereas they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune; whose wings they thought by their self-wisdom to have pinioned." TTia own unhappy and shameful career, full of restless ambitions and unscrupulous manipula tions for place and power, exemplifies the wis dom of his utterance--a wisdom he could clearly perceive but which he could never practice. 83 84 High Living and High Lives. As you go forth to-day from these academic halls, no more important counsel can be given you than to warn you against this selfishness of culture. While a collegiate course makes no more than the beginnings of intellectual culture, the number of those who are able to secure the op portunities of such a course is eo small -when compared with the whole number of young men in our country, college-bred men occupy vantageground above their contemporaries. Because they are thus advantageously placed, many of them become arrogant in their pretensions and selfish in their methods, to the injury of them selves and to the discredit of the institutions from which they go forth. These are they who affect airs of superior wisdom, patronize or despise the illiterate, close their eyes to all de mands of usefulness, seek only their own com fort and advancement, and prate much of "cult ure for culture's sake." Of such hurtful culture a great American editor has written: "Any competent observer cannot fail to have noticed that the seeking of that which is most admirable in intellectual finish and furniture, simply for the sake of holding it in possession, has the same degrading effect upon the soul that comes to the miser Selfish Culture a Depraved Thing. 85 from hoarding his gold. * * * So it often happens that as men grow more learned by study and more skilled in intellectual practice and more nicely adjusted and finished in their power, and more exact and delicate in their tastes, do they lose their sympathy with the world of common life, and become fastidious, disdainful and cold. They seem able to warm only toward those who praise them, or who set an extravagant value upon their possessions, and to hold fellowship with none but those of kindred pursuits." Of the culture of these men the writer proceeds to say: "Such culture can have no broad aims except the selfish m'm to be broadly recognized. Whatever work it does is done for the few. To contribute by kind and self-adaptive purpose to the wants of the many is what it never does. It is too proud to be useful. It would be glad to command or to lead, but it will not serve. It works away at its own refinement and aggran dizement, but refuses to come down into the dusty ways of life, to point men upward or to help them bear their burdens. The world all might go to the dogs or the devil for anything that selfish culture would do to prevent it". That work is done and must always be done, by those who have faith--by the humble who have some thing better than culture, or the high who have 86 High Living and High Lives. placed their culture under the control of that law of love, whose feet stand upon the earth, and whose hands grasp the throne."* In the parting advice of this hour I would solemnly and earnestly warn you away from this selfish culture, and call you to that divine culture which walks the paths of self-sacrifice, has com passion on the multitude and daily goes about doing good. The considerations by which this counsel may be enforced are manifold, making their appeal to all the motives of both piety and patriotism, as well as to all that is allowable in self-love. It is through the faults of selfish culture that there exists in the popular mind any prejudice against colleges and college-bred men, and if nothing else but this fact could be alleged against it, this alone would be sufficient to establish the injurious character of such culture. The mind was made to know as the heart ya? made to love, and he who is responsible in any measure for estranging any human being from knowledge is a sinner as truly as he who makes the poor to hunger and the faint to thirst. Thomas Carlyle says: "This I call tragedy: that there should *J. G. Holland In Scri&ners' Monthly. Selfish Culture a Depraved Thing. 87 one man die ignorant who tad capacity for knowledge." But now often have college-bred men been "accessories before the fact" to this tragedy of mental murder! By imperious airs and arrogant assumptions of superiority they have shut the gates of knowledge against not a few of their less favored but perhaps more gifted contemporaries. Nowhere in the English-speak ing world is this tragedy of men dying in ignor ance who had capacity for knowledge more com mon than in the South, and no people can so illafford to have it daily repeated among them as our people. But if college men by the selfish ness and vain fastidiousness of their culture con tribute to the continuance of the prejudice un der consideration, they will insure the increas ing frequency of the tragedy which the sage of Craigenputtock bewailed. Most popular prejudices have at bottom some reason for their existence, and the prejudice against colleges and college-bred men which some people entertain has some ground for its justification, notwithstanding it is often indis criminate and unjust. It is not confined to the ignorant and vicious. Horace Greeley prayed that he might be delivered in his newspaper work from what he called "those horned cattle, the college graduates." The Emperor Frederick "Wil- 88 High Living and High Lives. liam of Germany, who reigned so briefly but so well that all men lamented his untimely death, shortly after his accession to the throne expressed in a note to Prince Bismarck his misgivings con cerning the value of "one-sided efforts to increase knowledge," which he declared brought more discontent than blessing to his people. If one of the greatest of journalists and one of the wisest of princes have shared in any degree this preju dice against the college man, surely the ignorant and half educated may be pardoned for enter taining it. There is certainly some good reason for it, and we need not go far to find that reason. It is found in that selfishness of culture from which arise all those conceits, affectations and impracticable notions which too frequently char acterize college-bred men. They pause to pose when the world calls for earnest work and not for a vain spectacle of bookishness. A few such men discredit the whole body of the educated to which they belong, and on their account some parents are moved to withhold from worthy sons collegiate advantages which if given might redeem many lives from joylessness and sterility. You will not understand me as giving any comfort or countenance to the Philistine demand for what is falsely called "a practical education." Selfish Culture a Depraved Ihing. 89 To all the preachers of that low creed I would say "Get theebehind me, Satan. It is written man shall not live by bread alone." The educational simony which seeks knowledge only as a means of getting gold should be abhorred. God save you from it! God save you from enslaving your higher faculties to the service of your lower natures! God save you from "eating your heads off," from cooking your brains, and frying your minds with a flitch of bacon! But while yielding no respect to the culture which serves mammon, I give even less favor to the inflated culture which worships itself. While rejecting the coarse utilitarianism of Herbert Spencer, I despise the attenuated dilettantism of Matthew Arnold. "Truly" says Carlyle "thegospel of dilettantism is mournfuller than that of mammonism. Mammonism at least works; this goes idle. Mammonism has seized some portion of the message of nature to man, and seizing that and following it, will seize and appropriate more and more of nature's message; but dilettantism has missed it wholly. 'Make money?' that will mean with all, TDo work in order to make money?' But 'Go gracefully idle in May-fair.' What does or can that mean?" Such "culture for culture's sake" is a savor less culture which is good for nothing but to be 90 High Living and High Lives. cast out and trodden under foot of men. As you love the Christian institution which sends you forth this day with its blessings upon your heads, "turn away your eyes from beholding this van ity," and devote such culture as you have ac quired, or may yet obtain, to the blessing, of men and the service of the King. Add not one act to the stock of vanity and selfishness where by popular prejudice is awakened against the higher education, and whereby the gate of op portunity is so often shut against struggling young men who hunger for knowledge. But selfish culture not only discredits the insti tutions of learning from which it issues. It in jures also the men who selfishly possess it. It diminishes their influence and paralyzes their faith. It begets a cynicism nothing short of intel lectual Pharisaism. This common-sense world of ours wisely refuses to follow any man who lives for himself. Self-sacrifice, by the immovable convictions of mankind as well as by the immutable decree of God, is the condition of wide and enduring influ ence in the earth. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abidetli alone." Anselm spoke most truly, therefore, when he said "God often works more by the life of the illiterate seeking the things which are God's than Selfish Culture a Depraved Thing. 91 by the ability of the learned seeking the things which are their own." And one -who was far greater than Anselm exhorted a church that was in danger of deifying its attainments: "Covet earnestly the best gifts and yet I show unto you a more excellent way: though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cym bal." If one will have power with bis own or future generations let him know that character goes further than culture, that love outlasts knowledge. It "never faileth; but whether there be prophecies they shall fail; whether there be tongues they shall cease; whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away." Few things can be more hurtful to character, as well as injurious to influence, than culture sought for its own sake. The editor from whom I have previously quoted forcibly declares: "Cul ture thoroughly Christianized--culture pursued for ends of benevolence--strengthens faith, but culture that ends in itself and its possessor is infidel in every tendency. The culture which is pursued for its own sake makes a god of self, and so turns away the soul from its relations--earthly and heavenly--that self becomes the one great fact of the universe. A culture which does not serve God by direct purpose and with loving and 62 High Living and High Lives. reverent devotion is the purest type of practical infidelity." And this loss of faith in God is followed by that most unlovely and disgusting form of doubt --cynicism. Doubting God inevitably leads to doubting goodness. What more sorrowful sight can one find than an educated young man out of whose heart all high faith, generous confidence and noble ideals have perished, who sees nothing to admire or reverence, who breathes naught but sneers and speaks nothing but satire, who turns the hope of life into vindictive despair? Better a thousandfold be deluded by the darkest super stition and deceived by the most unsubstantial visions than that one should come to such a state --"without God and without hope in the world." But such is the melancholy fate which awaits every man who devotes his life to seeking culture for culture's sake only. The wisest man whom the world ever saw could not escape this result when he coveted wisdom for wisdom's sake. Bos desire was granted, but as he grew in intellect his heart hardened and his affections ossified. His mental acquisitions only fired his ambi tious and passions, so that as his intellectual riches increased his moral resources dimin ished. His culture augmented the forces which attacked his purity and his peace, and Selfish Culture a Depraved Thing. 98 weakened tlie powers which defended his char acter and happiness. At last in the bitterness of his soul he cried out: "Much study is a weariness of the flesh." "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." And so it is vanity, if selfishness is the inspira tion of such study. But the culture which, dedi cated to God, joyously bends beneath the law of self-sacrifice is not vanity. It is fruitful as di vine love is fruitful, and sweet as the incense which rises from altars of faith. Such culture is Christian culture. It is trans figured by the touch and glorified by the approval of Him concerning whom the inspired evangelist wrote, "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stat ure and in favor with God and man." Such was the culture of that man of God, who learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, the most en lightened nation of his times, did nevertheless devote all his powers to the deliverance of a poor and servile people from bondage, on their behilf talked face to face with God, and divinely inspired organized them into the most influential commonwealth which has ever been known, on the earth. Such was the culture of that devout pupil of Gamaliel--the only man of our race worthy of lacing named in the same breath with Israel's great lawgiver--who, catching a vision of his crucified but glorified Lord, laid all his treas- 94 High Living and High Lives. ures of knowledge at his Saviour's feet, and humbly inquired, "What wilt thou have me to do?" Such culture seeks not its own, but in the fullness of its heaven-blessed and earth-blessing powers exclaim, "I am debtor both to the Greek and the barbarian, to the learned and the un learned." This Christian culture is never inflated with pride. In its meekness it inherits the earth. TVTiile bearing in its heart the consciousness that it comes from God and goes to God, and that it has heavenly power in its hands, it stoops to wash the feet of the most unworthy disciples of its Lord. It lets its light shine upon men, refusing like the generous sun to shine for its own sake. Meek and benevolent, it doubts not God nor despairs of men. At its approach the commonest bushes burn with celes tial fire, and at its command the most hopeless souls arise from their bondage. It walks with its Master on transfiguring heights, communing with the mighty spirits of the past, proposing no tabernacles, however, in which to linger there in selfish ecstasy; but with radiant face descends to acts of mercy among the distressed who cry for its help at the mountain's base. It is a joy to believe that this culture has taken hold of you and that you have taken hold of it. Selfish Culture a Depraved Thing. 95 I hold the confidences of mos* of you, yet I can not see the inner springs of your life except as they are manifest in outward conduct. But I befieve in the sincerity of your professions of Christian faith, and therefore I rejoice with joy unspeakable that every member of this large class goes forth at graduation a communicant in some branch of the Christian church. Among your number are Methodists, Baptists and Presbyte rians, but no man who is indifferent to all churches. This is surely a remarkable and cheer ing fact. Go to your places in the world, to be active forces in the churches to which you belong. Go carry this Christian culture everywhere. Go to the homes of the poor and soften the rigors of their lot by your Christian sympathy and brotherly helpfulness. Go instruct the ignorant, cheer the faint, soothe the sorrowing and bind up the wounds of the broken-hearted. Look upon the fainting, shepherdless multitude with a Christly compassion. Break for their nourish ment the stock of food which the Master has placed in your hands. Distribute for their relief without stint and without misgiving. The loaves shall multiply as you break them, and the mir acle of the manna shall be repeated before your eyes. 06 High Living and High Lives. Let your culture be as the generous sunlight and the fertilizing showers, falling like the divine love upon the just and the unjust in im partial loving-kindness. So shall the blessing of him that was ready to perish come upon you, and the smile of the Lord shall be the joy of your souls. The blessing of God be with you! Through TTia grace may you be faithful unto death and thus win crowns of life. VII. MUCH LEFT FOR Us TO Do. (1896.) Yoifhave heard the well-worn story of Alex ander, who, when news was brought that his father had taken a city or achieved some vic tory, instead of finding pleasure in the triumphs of Philip, used to say to his companions: "My father will go on conquering till there will be nothing extraordinary left for you and me to do." If you who are just now entering upon life will give heed to certain voices, all too common nowadays, you too will become the miserable viofr'ma of the same wretched ambition which made this restless Macedonian prince so unhappy. There are many to tell you that you have come to the world too late, that everything worth do ing has already been done before you arrived. They tell us the days of the great orators and the great orations have passed. The world's greatest poem, they say, was written centuries ago,andthatsuchpoets as are now left are degen erate specimens of a species which will presently become extinct. They inform us that statesman ship has done its best in former generations and 97 98 High Living and High Lives. that nothing is left for present-daypublicists to do, except to get office and hold itJjj^JPrey sug gest that even the sublime themes of the gospel have become trite, and that the age of the great preachers is behind us. These sentiments of disappointed and despair ing ambition have found ready acceptance in not a few hearts among the cultured classes in recent years. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton in "The Par isians" expresses the opinion that if one could poll all the educated young men in England-- perhaps in Europe--at least half of them, di vided between a morbid reverence for the past and a nerveless curiosity for the future would sigh, "I am born a century too late or a century too soon." And so we find scores of writers dis cussing the question, "Is life worth living now?" and thousands of readers poring over the pages of these barren discussions. Let me call you away from such enervating reflections to-day. In the strong, wholesome words of Emerson, I would say to you, "Here you are; that is a great fact, and if you will tarry a little you may come to learn that here is best." From what noxious root does this fretful and repining ambition spring? Is it the degenerate fruit of a good stock made evil by an unwise cul tivation, or is it the poisonous fruit of an essen- Much Left for Us to Do. 99 tially bad growth? Why should a man lament the triumphs of his father? Why should a genera tion bewail the achievements of its ancestors.? Why should the richness of our patrimony per turb our peace and discourage our hearts? Ought it not rather to provoke our gratitude, exalt our aspirations, assure our faith, enlarge the area of our efforts, extend the scope of our purposes and widen the horizon of our hopes? The Macedonian could never have felt such discontent if his ambition had not mounted to a very mania. His heart you will observe was not set on doing the necessary thing--the useful, true and right thing. He wished to do only the "extraordinary." Selfish vanity was the seed of his surliness. If he had loved his country, or had cared for men, he would have rejoiced in everything achieved for the welfare of Mace donia, or the advancement of mankind, whether the achievement were his father's or his own. Butselfishambitionsouredhis soul, and eventual ly he came to look at the kindly stars of heaven with grief, being mortified by the number of worlds which were out of reach of his conqueiing hand. This made life a hollow mockery to him so that the greatest victories could bring him no satisfaction. The bloom and beauty of manly strength he brushed away while yet 100 High Living and High Lives. young, and perished as a jaded debauchee be fore he had lived twoseore years. It is the same evil spirit which creates the unworthy discontent of the restless souls of the present time. It is no new demon which pos sesses them but an ancient tempter which has overcome many before, moving them to dwell among the tombs. At every point in the progress of the race when a great man has appeared and set forward the interestsof mankind his contemporaries were indulging this discreditable despondency. When Peter and James and John and Paul were turn ing the world upside down, there were palsied Pharisees at Jerusalem and languid philosophers at Athens who felt they had no fair chance in life because there was nothing great left for them to accomplish that was not the impossible. When Martin Luther stood up to renovate a decayed Christendom there were thousands of men in Europe who were standing idly around believing that they were hopelessly misplaced in history. When Wesley and Whitefield were calling fire from heaven in the eighteenth century to warm into new life a church frozen by the chill of worldliness until it was too stiff to move, there were hundreds of exquisite ecclesiastics sitting down in the winter of a helpless discon- Much Left for Us to Do. 101 tent burning strange fire because they had come to believe the great spirits of former generations had exhausted the celestial flame. As we look back to those great epochs we wonder at the stupidity of men who thus lost the gift of prophecy by over-absorption in build ing tombs for the prophets of former days. We are amazed that they could so fervently admire the work of the ages before them, but could not read the signs of their own times, or serve grand ly their own generation by the will of God. Why were their eyes so holden? The Divine teacher supplies the answer to the question in his deep saying, "If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" Their eyes were not single. They set before themselves not truth and duty but spectacular display and vain reputation. They admired the heroes of former generations not for their goodness andgreatness,but for their fame, and since they themselves aimed at the fame of heroism rather than at heroism itself, they were capable of only theatric manhood. Present piety and power were therefore lost in adulation of past purity and strength. Where fore the Pharisees could play at the devotion of David's heroic aeJkJ,-riA^nt discern that 102 High Living and High Lives. David's Son was among them and that the king dom of God was at their doors. Thus also the priestlings of Luther's time, while strenuously contending for their suc cession from the apostles, fell short of every apostolic virtue, and betrayed into the hands of priestcraft the great cause for which Paul toiled and Peter suffered. So again the impotent parsons of the eighteenth century gar nished the sepulchres of Luther and Latimer while maltreating Wesley and Whitefield, the only real successors of the Kefonners in all Eng land in their day. It is ever thus the cowardly human heart extenuates its own paltry meanness by glorifying the victories of "the days of old." It seeks to make up for its own want of worthi ness by extravagant admiration of bygone worth ies. We may be sure this disposition to minimize present opportunity by magnifying past achieve ments does not spring from real reverence of greatness gone, but from an unconfessed scepti cism of the reality of any present virtue. It doubts the feasibility of righteousness in its own day and is driven by its doubts to satisfy the im perishable longing of the soul for epic qualities by apotheosizing the heroes of other times. How false and monstrous are such doubts? They Muth Left for Us to Do. 108 stupefy the mind and suffocate morality. They were able to enfeeble and brutalize one as wise as Solomon even. Hear him after he had imbibed such sentiments: "I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun. * * * * There fore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun. * * * Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive." To one in such a state of mind hero ism is but a mythic antiquity, unreal as the giants of which the children dream. The glory of the world is departed, "The curtain of the universe Is rent and shattered; The splendor-winged worlds disperse Like wild doves scattered." ; What can prevent us falling into such doubt id despair? What can cure the dreadful disease if it has already fastened itself upon any of us? Our security from it is found in the constant renewal of our faith in simple goodness, and the daily strengthening of our confidence in the power of unaided truth as the only instrument to be relied on in clearing the way for the prog ress of the human race. If we have read history to purpose we must have observed that this plain creed was the firm foundation upon which the 104 High Living and High Lives. lives of all the great men of the world rested. They incarnated the commonplace principles of righteousness which pigmies and paralytics call platitudes. Their golden deeds were the outcome of that divine alchemy whereby homely^ trnth is transmuted into heavenly character. ''They fed themselves and the multitudes which followed them with plain things like barley cakes and fishes, because, fearing God and loving men, their hearts were set on refreshing the hungry rather than on making a show of their wonder working powers, and because they knew that it is by these things mankind live. Such men feel called to serve theirown gener ation by the will of God, and waste no energy pining for the opportunities of any other ag'e than their own. They feel at home in their own times and raise the most depressed condi tions to the level of renown. The man of to-day who drinks deeply of their spirit will not imitate any of them, but he will do his own work so well it will be worthy of association with theirs in the annals of high achievement. None among us can justly complain of a lack of opportunity in the present age if only we hav this elevated spirit. If our times differ in the matter of opportunity from any which have gone before, it is rather in the greatness of the Much Left for Us to Do. 105 responsibilities to which, we are called than in the smallnesfTof the fields which invite us to service. '* Oh, the mighty world-involving issues which just now wait for their settlement by the hands of mighty men, brave enough to stand for old-fashioned truth and strong enough to make it triumph over all its insidious foes! jx -rBut while these great highest interests of mankind are in jeopardy every hour thousands look thisway and that for "a chance," as they call it. They are blind to the chances they have, because they think the problems which confront them are beyond solution, and they despair of solving these great questions be cause they believe there is something better than down-right righteousness for settling mat ters of personal and national duty. But it is not deeper insight for which the times call most loudly, but for more reverence for the truth we know and for more faith in the God who made us and who has determined both the.time and the place in which we are to live./ - '-'In the national council of the Republic there has been little else but dreary droning for a score of years or more, not because men lacked ability but because they lacked singleness of purpose and elevation of aim. Now and then, however, there have been scenes in which reappeared the 106 High Living and High Lives. greatness of former days. K"ot to carry you into the contentions of the political market-place, but to illustrate and enforce the truth which I seek to impress upon you to-day, let me refer to one such scene. It was in the United States Senate in the early spring of 1878. A great issue of national policy was under consideration. A Southern Senator had been instructed, by the Legislature of the State which he represented, to vote against his own convictions of duty to his people. The debate was drawing to a close when he sent to the clerk's desk to be read the instructions which he felt bound to disobey. After the reading he arose and said: "Between these resolutions and my convictions there is a great gulf. I cannot pass it. Of my love to the State of Mississippi I will not speak; my life alone can tell it. My gratitude for all the honor her people have done me no words can express. * * * During my life in that State it has been my privilege to assist in the education of more than one genera tion of her youth, to have given the impulse to wave after wave of the young manhood that has passed into the troubled sea of her social and political life. Upon them I have always endeav ored to impress the belief that truth is better than falsehood, honesty better than policy, cour age better than cowardice. To-day my lessons Much Left For Us To Do. 107 confront me. To-day I must be true or fake, honest or cunning, faithful or unfaithful, to my people. My duty as I see it, I will do; I will vote against this bill." And that Senator was a son of Emory College, brought up in this quiet village and nurtured at these holy altars--Lucius Q. C. Lamar, durum ct venerabile nomen. Forbearing to express any opinion concerning the correctness or incorrect ness of his views of the measure involved, I do commend to you his example. And I cannot refrain from saying that if the great issues which agitate the public mind to day were more com monly approached by our public men in the same noble manner, those issues would be more easily and wisely settled, happy prosperity would dis place frowning adversity, a new generation of statesmen, great as any who have gone before, would appear, "commanding the applause of listening senates, despising the threats of pain and ruin, scattering plenty over a smiling land and reading their destiny in a nation's eyes." I do commend to you therefore with all my heart the simple but sublime creed, "truth is better than falsehood, honesty is better than pol icy, courage is better than cowardice." There was never yet an age which was not a golden age if there were enough men living in it who be- 108 High Living and High Lives. lieved in their souk this noble confession of faith. And there was never an age which did not offer the fullest opportunity for high service to any elect spirit who was minded to walk and work by this golden rule. In the periods which have been most blighted by drifts of common place, or blasted by wastes of weakness, or parched by heated wickedness,' one such man appearing has been instantly recognized by grateful multitudes "as a hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as jjfopt shadow of a great rock in a weary land."{J'Qpe such man arrests the dreadful drifts of nefarious custom and stays a nation from its ruin. One such man makes faith in goodness and confidence in its feasibility easier to all his contemporaries! -" ""Would that at least one such man might arise from among you whom Emory sends forth to day! "Would that the great God might anoint every one of you for such high service in your time. How sadly the times are calling for such ser vice! The multitude waits for leadership. In the complex, confusing conditions which con front the people they long to hear some heav enly voice speaking to them with authority and directing them to safe and pure ways. It is not Much Left For Us To Do. 109 an echo of their own cry which they long to hear, nor a weak agreement with their mutable moods that they desire. They wish the strong guidance of a divinely led leadership. They wish direction from a courage braver than their own and from an intelligence wiser than their wisdom. They yearn for some one to go before them whose life is anchored to eternal truth and who brings to bear upon the world that now is the powers of the world to come. They wait for one to go before them who in the secret places of the Most High has been touched with unearthly influences, and who walks thence forth with the strength of the life that is "hid with Christ in God." They are ready to wel come the man who knows how to walk alone be cause he has learned to walk with God.