The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1879-07-23
FOrcible and True Words.

jda FOrcible and True Words. o.:
We copy the following passages from
the baccalaureate sermon of President
Seelye before the graduating class at
Amherst college last Sunday as we'll
worth the reading and consideration of
the public generally .|.. .-..
Happiness only comes from a duty
done, from selfTforgetting, perhaps self
sacrificing, labor. The most unselfsh
heart, the most self-forgetting heart, is
both the hottest and happiest heart.
Second is a truth very easily and
very often overlooked that even the
means OF our most ordinary qualification
depend upon something back of our labor
for them and back of our desire for them,
tor neither the labor nor the desire orig
mates itself Or is originated by its object
We. pride ourselves upon our civilization.
but when we come to look calmly and
closely at what is ours therein, at its hu-
man contrivances and products, it is quite
possible that we shall find its glory grow
ing dim more than we shall find our
selves becoming dazzled thereby. Go
and ask these mighty achievements of
human industry and invention, upon
which the present age prides itself,
whether they are lessening the disturb,
ance of social inequality, or removing the
ills OF poverty, or staying the course of
crime, or lightenlng,in any actual degree,
the great burden of human want and
wretchedness. 1T is questionable, saws
Mr.. Stuart Mill, ''if ali the mechanical
inventions yet made has lightened the
days toll of single human being"
Look beneath the surface so smooth and
shining, of our northern civilization, and
see how with the advancement Of science
and the increase of culture and the prog
ress OF art, society is becoming more
restless under all the attempts to keep it
in order and to give it peace.
The social disturbances of the present
time were then sketched, when he pro-
ceeded to say: ut is very easy for us |
know, in facile optimism, to talk about
establishment of all these social disturb
ances through social science and econom-
ic laws, which men only need to be
taught and to follow and the perfect So
clal state should come. But men do not
follow social science and economic laws
by being taught them. Men may be
taught the laws of health until they know
them perfectly, and yet may plunge in
sickness in defiance Of these very laws, as
we find them doing every hour. And a
society might know all that social science
teaches, and yet be far from regulating
itself accordingly. Moreover, social sci
ence, if it could be carried out, would be
far from reaching the root of the trouble.
We build our citadel of political econo-
my, and there with strong ramparts of
what we call social forces, and girt round
about by bristling chevaur. de frise of
economic laws, we take refuge against
the invading forces of disturbance and
social discomfort, and deem ourselves Sc
cure from all attacks of communism or
socialism or nihilism. -. @.5.s'.'
I have yet to learn that economic laws
and adjustments, however firmly trusted,
however forcibly taught, however true
and perfect they may be in our apprehen-
sion, have ever of themselves created hope
and JOY, have ever removed the care of
the capitalist or remedied the complaint
OF the laborer. or made the problem of
work and wages any easier of solution, or
really improved the practical relations of
man with man. The question of society
is deeper than economic. "sz .,s =
All social disturbance, all defrauding
and oppression and tyranny, all wrong,
In fact, OF any sort, are only when one
seeks his own interest rather than an 9TH
er's, and now we undertake to do away
with all this evil by convincing men
that they have made a mistake respecting
their true interests, which, if they would
see it as it IS, would rather require them
to Putsaw all enmities, and to live as
acknowledges, in mutual forbearance and
mutual love- ." @ssys III ,.E .
Honesty is indeed the best policy, but
did any amount of policy ever make an
honest mans Men may bind themselves
together in various associations as they
may bind sticks in fagot for convenient
handling and use, but the union together
like the branches ofa living tree, with
the interdependence and mutual helpsof
an organic relationship, where each is
working for all and all. for each, men
have no more impulse to accomplish
for themselves, and no more power to
produce by themselves, than have the
dead elements of nature the instinct and
the energy to lift themselves out of death
into the mystery and beauty and glory of
life. Z n5t'i' @kIut '8vs =.
Only the brooding spirit and creative
OF Divine originator can give life to
dead matter, and only lie who has life
in himself, who is the life and the foun-
tain of life, can quicken human hearts and
bind them together in fellowship of
perpetual love which is also fullness of
eternal JOY, of JOY unspeakable and full
Of glory. Hao 1@stf IL. I'll