The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1882-07-08
A TIMELY SUBJECT.

college commencement season Just closed. |
in our Judgment. the most noticeable for
its excellence, was that of President
Porter, Of Yale College. 1t is full of
profound and suggestive passages that
may be pondered as prottably by all ed
ucated Americans as by the graduates
and alumni to whom it was addressed.
The evil effects of the materialsm and
unbelief that are getting more and more
prevalent could not be better depicted
than in his mastery address.
'Unbelief dwarfs and lowers the indi-
vidual man. says President Porter, so
far as it cuts him off from God. 1t
lowers and limits his intellect Our in
tellectual solutions of the problems of
the universe carry us back to the com
prehensive intellect of the living God.
Every discovery of a cause OF Il force
suggests Il more comprehensive force be
hind, who is surely none the less Il force
because He is intelligent. Every dis
cernment of law points to a broader and
deeper rule or construction of laws be-
meath. Every indication OF purpose
opens to wider adaptation, such as wis
dom and goodness best explain. Every
chain of development brings out in more
luminous relief prophecy passing into
history and history explained by proph-
ecy and binding us 10y a golden chain to
the throne of the living God. Do you
say that a Seli-exccllent person is a mys-
| terry that logic and science cannot faith
ON and. therefore, cannot accept? We
reply that it is no more IA mystery than
I'll. l..
/ to fathom the living God, whom faith
projects upon the background of the uni
verse is no more really an enigma than
the living men whom science cannot fail
to find in the foreground. because they
do the work of science. The man that
never has more thought of this, OF that
thinking Of it does not accept it as true.
has narrowed his mind-whether his un-
| belief is that OF the stolid earthworm or
the quick and large minded intelligence
who i'll the multitude of his works and
ways, has no thought of God.
If one questions whether uabelief
| tends to evil let him notice attentively
one of its darkest and gloomiest aspects
in that hopeless pessimism OF our day
which is rapidly taking hold of a consid-
cradle class of cultivated men as they
seemingly reject or positively ignore any
hope for man IL The revitieniiai guidance
or redeeming spirit of the living God.
The goddess OF animaliZed unbelief of the
masses in our time is dangerous and de-
pressing enough when coAjoined with
their credulous hopetulness when clutch
ing az every new shan, Of social or pollt-
| ical reform. The silly hopefulneSs with
which a section of materialistic atheists
promise for the race prosperous voyage
over the Pacific seas to the islands q; the
blest on sundry physiological ponpitions
provokes alternately our wonder OF our
compassion. But there is no sign of the
times that is SO dismal as the pessimiStic
indifference and despair with which so
many cultivated deniers of the CHRISTIAN
faith lonk forward III the future of the
| race, and simply because their phloso-
| ply Of the past and the prophecy of the
future disdains to acknowledge the living
| God as an agen" of power and blessing.
| These peSSmists are indeed a motley
crowd There are cool and hard headed
materiaists who think they believe in
nothing beyond what the fingers can
handle apa tho eyes tan discover There
are believers in what they call force and
tendency, seif-instructed and self-nov-
ing, more mysterious and mystical ex,
cept in name, than the living God, whom
they say is now an exploded conception
of The past. There are enthusiastic
dreamers of human perlectibility who
have seen the dreams Of thpif youth shat
teren iuto fragments, aud who. with the
loss of the silly romances of their youth,
have flung overheard their faith after
them. There are not few once Chris
tian devotees who for many reasons have
TUNED their backs upon Christ and His
church. There are supereilieas critics
of the eTeeds and lives of other men,
| who profess no earnest creed and no
earnest life of their own. There are sol
fish and selt-indulgent fayaGitea al fash
| ion or OF letters whu arr TOO dainty for
the struggles and sacrifices which human
progress involves. There are idle and
law voluptuaries of the flesh or the
spirit. or of both, half philosopher aud
half Sybarite.
but they all unite in a common cry,
Let the world go, for all we care to the
ruin to WHICH it is doomed and from
which nothing can save it. Reforms and
progress in sciences, in government, in
morals and religion, are all in vain.
And why in vain' Simply because they
have neither faith nor inspiration from
the living God, who is ever working sal
Walton in the earth. No greater evil can
befalI man of culture and thoaght than
to sink into such a heartless, faithless
and hopeless mood
1t is under the Presidency of this posi-
tive champion Of the Christian faith that
Yale has grown and prespered. Nor
will such utterances as these weaken his
hold on those thoughtful and conserva-
tive men whose beneicencc is the main
stay of cur colleges.