Morning journal and courier., 1882-06-26
Yale Commencement
Baccnlaureate Sermon by Presiden
 Porter

President Porter. It was remarked by many | special excellence, and one of the finest discourses they have ever had the pleasure of hearing. Despite the heat the closest attention was given. There was fine singing by the college choir.
 President Porter's text was Hebrews III. 12th. "Take heed, brethren lest there be in you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.'' The Christian doc urine of faith and unbelief is as original and peculiar as the Christian system itself. It is an offense to superficial thinkers and puzzle to many believers who tremble at what they conceive to be its contradictions or it's mystl cism. Alluding to the claims of superfcial thinkers as to faith and to the besetment of modern ethics and politics by questions as to how far men may be held responsible for their acts and their faith in word and deed which are prohibited by the State, such, for instance, as the Mormons' claim of obedience to God rather than man in his religious harlotry, or the murder by the ia natie of his own child, or the nations glory and pride in the name of inspiration from God, which class of claims had caused pro- tracted and desolating wars and countless prosecutions in efforts to adjust them, the speaker noticed briefly the claims of a class of thinkers who assert that faith is not a
 matter of duty at all that creeds are fash
 toned for and inherited by us-the product of environment platform erroneous be- cause right supposes responsible individ ual. The spirit of faith is all we are con- handed to possess. The faith that is genuine unites man to the living God through Christ. Unbelief is evil so far as it cuts a man off from the living God In that sense it is sin, and is thus an evil. But unbelief is also calamity. The speaker would specially in bis treatment of the subject, aim at unbelief as calamity, the more because it is insinuated among young men of culture that disbelief has sort of test of bravery.
 The heart of unbelief was evil in four par ticulars in it's influence upon the character, upon the plans and activities of the life, upon his hopes for his fellow men, and upon his relations to another life. Unbelief dwarfs cuts him off from God. It lowers and limits his intellect. Our intellectual solutions of the problems of the universe carry us back to the comprehensive intellect of the living God. Every discovery of a cause or force sug gests more comprehensive force Every lsdiscernment of law points to broader and deeper law; so of purpose and development Science objectively viewed most satisfactorily completes the universe by an intelligent pr son, in whose image man is formed, and
 whose reason and will man interprets. The speaker argued that there were mysteries constantly confronting the man who
 claims his disbelief in self ex istent person, that such person is mystery logic and science cannot accept, and he stultifes himself in such 8
 narrowness of view. He neglects or excludes
 the highest a-d noblest relations that man
 can recognize. Unbelief depresses the imag
 ination faith stimulates 1t to an intense and glowing activity, While it confesses that it cannot give exact information as to 8 future
 life it gathers from actual experience most satisfying suggestions and constructs from them rapturous and exalted conceptions of
 what lies in the domain of hope. It justifes us in following our departed friends in the unseen sphere with the assured hope of 8
 blessed life Eye hath not seen nor ear heard the things which are prepared for them that love him. Hence follow noble Ideals of life and living which bless mankind and the race. Reference was here made to the vitalizing effect upon literature of the exercise of Christian virtues. The faith of one generation may blossom into the poetry of the generation that follows, but if faith Is dead the imagination must follow to the tomb. The speaker here said of Emerson:
 No more striking example of the impo- tence of an uncertain faith to flash into true poetic fire than that furnished in the example of the gifted critic and essayist who has so recently died. Emerson united sharp common sense to a profound yearning after the unseen, with what should
 
 his aspirations for the unseen were slow in assuming the energy of a def- mite faith, and his many attempts to soar were singularly awkward and abortive. In the field of poetry he produced no fruits such as were worthy the capacities of his singular ly gifted nature. Though reverent before the spiritual and unseen, his faith ca t no clear and steady light upon the gorgeous wis
 tas, which were only vistas in illuminated cloud land, continually open to his gaze. From any less fervent type who in our day so positively and scornfully deny that God can be known, neither poetry nor fiction can be expected. The imagination shrinks before the frosty breath of the polar regions in which they dwell Satire and scorn and an- alysis and logic may be fostered by the evil heart of such unbelief. but poetry and elo- quence never.
 The speaker enforced the thought that the character of man, especially of a cultured man, depended very largely upon the type and fervor of his imagination. According as his ideals are high or low, clear or vague, such will be the man himself. A living, vivid faith in God elevated the man; with out it there is danger of selfshness and of becoming the victim of any romance that ca price of fashion or ambition may inspire. Lord Bacon knew not how pregnant was the truth, ''They that destroy God destroy mans nobility" It has been signally fulfilled by the acts of those atheists of our time, who, in order to destroy God have been willing to immolate man on the altar of materialistic denial The voice of conscience is ineffably more sacred when it is also recognized as the voice of God. The energy of conscience rises and falls with 8 mans sensibility to Gods presence and Gods will. We ought not to be surprised if atheism, which re- solves God into vague abstraction or poetic metaphor resolves conscience into progress sive public sentiment or into fickle associa- tions or brute authority; as if God is not the sacredness of the voice of conscience is dispelled. God must be present in the court of conscience to give it effect, otherwise all it's standards are lowered or sunk.
 The second branch of the subject was the heart of unbelief works fatal evil ip the con duct of Efe,-in respect to it's theory and achievement Solar as it excludes the livingGod from either, it blasts it's blossom and blights US IrulG lu6 64touI bO Wulcu lG pr0VdllS OlI- fers greatly with different men. Take either the atheist the agnostic. both of which, the speaker said, were alike as to the effects of their belief upon their life. Such men were hkened to ships without rudder or con- pass If he admits that he has plan or hope in life or for future life, he must live by faith in the Unseen. The speaker now cited some of the benefits of faith in God, such as self respect and the assertion and de. fence of ones individual rights. Man is in the light of faith no undistinguished molecule like million others of his fellows, but an individual cared for by the Creator On the other hand, in the Goddess theory of the uni verse, each man is simply nonenity and men but the momentary product of the na. tion's Ioom woven and unravelled as they make up the progressive wool of human his tory,-the individual nothing, humanity everything. One soul comes and another goes, and endure for moment and are gone. Before the relentless march of this advancing horde the single soul is tlampled into annihi- lation and forgetfulness.
 The speaker, with forceful, eloquent worlds pictured the benumbipg, evil influences of such an estimate of existence. Rights, jus tice, righteousness, fall before such theory and selfishness mounts the throne. Faith in God elevates, dignifes man. It assures every man that he has place in life and an assign ed work which he can find if he will humbly seek it This thought ennobles his life. Con- petition, rivalry come in the life struggle. Disappointment may come and prove at last & great blessing. The discipline of disap- pointment is often most salutary, and the