Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-06-21
CONN ENCEMENT EXERCISES
At Bowdoin-Bacralaure Sermon by
President Hyde to the Grad uatiag
Class.
Bruins WICK, June 20.

BRUINS WICK, June 20.
Commencement at Bowdoin began TODAY
with the baccalaureate sermon by President
Hyde At 4 this afternoon the church on the
bill was well filed, and the seniors had
marched TO the seats in front reserved for
them. Professor Chapman assisted in con-
Quoting the exercises. The sermon, whose
delivery occupied 40 minutes. wa. an urgent
appeal for the accepting of Christianity. aud
| concluded with a short address to the gradua-
ting class. Monday evening occurs the jun
ior prize defamation. The following is an
abstract of the sermon:
Behold, now is the accepted time; behold
now it the day of salvation. III Cor. 6:2.
1t is always now it is never bye and bye
The present ever is; the future never is. We
live in the present; We always must. The
future. as future, ever remains beyond US
like the end of the rainbow which the child
pursues. When the child comes to the point
where the bow seemed to meet the earth the
apparent point of the meeting is Just as far
away as ever. The child soon learns that
nowhere in space can that meeting point be
found. Well were it for grown men and
women could they learn as quickly that the
point where the future is really present is
nowhere to be found in time.
What of these truths? Our purpose here
is not philosophy but life. To make these
truths practical, onlv single inference needs
to be added. 1t is this. Whatever we heart
lily resolve with whole-souled energy to be and
do in the present now is real, abiding, sure.
Whatever we dreamily expect to be or do in
the future is unreal, delusive. false. The
application ia obvious.
First; with reference to intellectual life
now is the accepted time. The first six
months out of college will decide the ques-
ton whether you ever become scholars or
not. You start with and intellectual momen-
tum. Maintain and increase that, ard all is
we'll. Lose that by Incidence or by absorp.
ton in alien interests, and your last hope of
scholarship is gone. If you cannot keep up
the impulse the college gives you, you never
will create an impulse of yourselves. From
him that hath not, time soon takes away the
little that he bath
The same truth applies to the moral and
spiritual life. The mere unimproved lapse
of years never brought man auyht but evil
To the tiny gem that resolutely puts forth
the little energy stored up within itself, time
well improved brings indeed the giant trunk
| the spreading branches aud the expansive
| foliage of the majestic oak. But to that same
massive trunk when once it has ceased to
put forth its vital energy. the passing years
being only decay and dissolution. SO to the
moral fiber of human soul time steadfastly
subjected to strong moral purpose brings
character and honor; but time neglected
brings to that same soul nothing but rotten
ness and corruption. Expect from the lapse
| of time no slightest favor, save such as you
wrest from it by actual conquest in the real,
present, everlasting now. Only the solid
achievements you win today, and keep by
you tomorrow and the third day perfect in
habit these and no more are ever yours.
| Years may roll over the weak, indolent.
irresolute dreamer But years change not
the temper of mind and heart save for the
| worse. The man who lacks the strength of
will to lay hold on the absolutely right the
first time he clearly sees it, is weaker man
the second time. The third time finds
his moral faculties already stiff and rigid.
BY the fourth time subtle paralysis has laid
hold on them, and after a few more inetfec-
tual efforts to rouse the benumbed and fiabby
moral powers the lost soul sinks back into
hopeless impotence, staring at the impending
doom which its undeveloped. unexercised
faculties are powerless to avert.
Nor can God be blamed tor the ruin of such
a soul. As the tree that ceases to push its
root downward into the fertile earth, and fails
to spread its foliage to the sunlight and air
of heaven, has no just complaint against the
tempest that fually lays low its lifeless, un-
slightly trunk no more can the man who
fails to strengthen himself by unseltish SER
vice of human wants, and neglects to feed
upon the ever-present love and grace of
God no more can he complain of the Divine
decree which doems his dwarfed, disfgured
undeyeloped soul to darkness and destruc-
ton. In the precepts of his word, in the
voice of conscience, in the example of Christ
perfect in life, gracious in death by the in
fuence of the Holy Spirit coming to you
through deeds and words of Christ's true fol-
lowers, God is doing for your salvation all
that moral being, using only moral means
in reverence for your freedom can do. What
ever outward influences hereafter NAV be
brought to bear upon you, never again will
you have the sensitveDess to the voice of
Gods spirit that you have today. Let your
acceptance of Christ, and your reception of
the Spirit be now complete, full, unqualified
and you are saved from sin and death now
and forever.
Do you ask what assurance there is that
what is done now. if really and thoroughly
done. abides forever? Because the soul is
unit, and lives undivided in an eternal now
This unchangeableness is the prerogative of
the soul in all its higher activities. These
humsn friendships one with another you here
have formed, think you that time will alter
these? No. There presence today within
your breasts is the all-sufficient guarantee of
an endurance which neither the lapse of
years, nor the width of oceans, nor the cold
hand of death can weaken or DESTROY
If such be human friendship, can the love
of man to God. grounded in deep whole
souled reception of the love of God in Jesus
Christ be fuctuating or insecure? If the
master poet of human passion in sonnet after
sonnet filings defiance in the teeth of devour-
ing time that would remove the object of his
human love, not less triumphantv does the
great preacher of the love of God exclaim.
"Who shall separate US from the love of
Christi"
As with reception so with rejection, pres
ent choice is eternal. The soul that can look
the infinite goodness and love and grace of
Christ calmly in the face and say to him ssIn
the far-off future which never will be present
should like your love and mercy, but do
not care to trouble myself about it in the real
now the soul that with full deliberate con-
sciousness can do that is too far gone in sell
fshness and shamelessness for even the in
finite grace of God to recover and redeem.
That sin in the very nature of things is un-
pardonable; because there is not enough spir-
tual responsiveness in such soul for pardon
to lay hold Of Suppose some one to whom
Won offer your friendship and affection were