Morning journal and courier., 1889-06-24
YALE nAooALAuREATE.
IcoNcLuDED FROM FIRST PAGE ]

CONCLUDED FROM FIRST PAGE
 other souls also, and the joy which it has in learning from them, bear testimony to the
 existence of the allcomprehending soul-a
 testimony which becomes stronger with eacn
 new measure of experience brought into it's life by the years. So true is this, in all our
 observation of life, that the man who cannot
 bring himself to believe in the existence of
 the divine being and divine friend, seerDs to
 us all to have a kind of strange loneliness in the world; and the more so es he draws nearer to the end of his earthly living. Without God he seems most truly and sadly to be, as sacred writer says of him, with. out hope. He loses and denies the lessons of his life. The years thus move along the line of Christian teaching, and lead the soul in the pathway toward the truth which it re, vealed. It's message is of knowledge which meets and satisfies the whole man; which begins with faith and moves forward through love; which grows towards God while it believes in him; which has It's lire
 and being where the souls dwelling place IS,
 and in the communion of the human soul with the divine.
 If we look now in the second place, at the educating influence of life as related to duty,
 we may notice first the matter of thought
 fulness, childhood we often call the thought
 less period. It is part ot the beauty oi
 that section of our life; perhaps we may
 justly say that it has this. character. The
 young are not old, and they ought not to be so. As life passes out of childhood toward manhood, however, new stage Of develop
 ment begins. The youth enters upon higher
 things. He thinks and knows. He looks forth into the future as the time of deeper
 thinking and larger knowing. But he, in
 his turn, does not ordinarily move beyond
 his years. Unless the peculiar circumstan-
 ces of the individual life have anticipated
 the future for him by making him dependent
 on his own strength and effort, he is carried
 forward by others in all things, except the
 special work appropriate to his age, and is
 carefully freed from anxiety and care.
 While he learns and plans, therefore, with in his own sphere of work, and while he often does SO with much thinking, he not called upon for the thoughtfnlness of the years that are to <fsalc% J RsAs9E4Aan these years come tha:s@es1e.. m }s at once made. Hs must now provide for himself; he must take his place in the world; he must as- sume the responsibilities of manhood; he must fulfill his relations to society and to the State; he must move onward for the future in that independent, personal life.
 He has passed out of the quiet haven into the open sea, which is, and IS to be perchance, @ rough and stormy sea. Thoughtfulness comes now, as contrasted
 with mere thinking and learning; and as it
 comes it impels to duty. It is most inter-
 esting to watch the progress of men, as we
 who remain in such a place as this can 50
 often do, during the ten years which fol-
 low immediately after their graduation.
 The change which comes upon them is a
 great one; but what is it? It is not a
 change in the foundation principle of the
 life. These are established in the earlier
 period-often times before the university
 course began. It is rather Q natural change
 connected with the movement of life and
 the new condition in which the man has
 been placed.
 The man has become thoughtful in a new way, and in @ larger measure, because the time has arrived for it. Life is more serious than it was. Its duties become sterner things. Its work is more earnest and more solemn to his thought. Duty, therefore, rises into @ higher significance than it once had. It makes up a larger part of life. The sense of it's importance lead to the growth of manliness, and the thoughtful man, who appears before us, shows himself to be the result ot the pass ing of the years, even a3 he shows in his looks and in his work that the fulhllment of duty has become to him the business of life. This is surely the natural teaching and influence which come to the true man with the years.
 And what is this thoughtfnlness as bear ing upon duty but an answer of the true soul to the voice of God in the Christian teach ings
 Surely it is such an answer when we think of duty in the highest sphere. We may look as the educational influence of life as related to duty also in another line of it's working. The teaching of the years bears to every man who hears it's true voice the lesson that his happiness rests upon what he is and does, and not upon his surroundings. Let him enter upon any sphere of good work, and take up his abode in any place, and there will be more there than he can do for himself than for others.
 Our sphere of working is always larger than ourselves. The sorrowful thing about our lives in this regard is that we have un- used so much of our power, which we could make effective if we only laid hold of the op- poItunities that offer themselves to us. It is the weakness within that lose3 the reward. The man himself fails. He may fill his sur- rc undings with the pe1cefulness of his soul, if he only makes his soul to be full of faith fulness and love. This is lesson which we, in this age, are peculiarly prone to forget, as we look out upon life from its beginning and often times as we move onward in it. But lot a man study himself as the years pass, and he will know its truth. There is no better study to you, my friends, than your own souls. If you give your thought to this study you will find 1t bringing to you much of what the divine father would have you learn.
 If, however, happiness lies in what a man Is and does and not in where he acts and is, the teaching is, of course, of duty. Do the work that lies before you is the bidding. Let the work be what it will, 1t is you're. Let it ba smaller or greater in the judgment of the world, 1t Is great according to the true There is no great or small from the point of view of the end.
 The faithfulness in the few things gives the rulership over the many things. All the
 II Iw,As1 GNr- 1s which are preparatory to the many and greater ones of the future. In es much as ye did it unto one of the least Of these, my brothers, said the lord when he spoke of the last day in presence of his disciples-inas- much as ye did it unto one of the least of these ye did it unto me. And those who have done 1t unto the least shall enter into the possession of the eternal life. The eiowth of thoughtfulness and the discovery of the secret and source of happiness these things are the natural results of the education which life gives.
 The influence of this education, therefore, is to the end of duty, es it is to the end of truth; and it is the divine influence. The fact that it is working in all true lives, js a fact that may be recognized by every man for himself, and 1t is one which carries in it. self its own proof of what Jesus said to his followers.
 Our third and final view of the education al influence or the progress or HIo may we'll be with reference to it's bearing upon life i.- self. What do the years tell of the wonde- of our lives. Many things, am sure, and the teachings of them all point towards the future. Let me speak of some of them. One of the first things I think, which the yeaIs impress upon our thoughts is, that life is very short, and what is beyond it is very long. I am pot referring here to the thought which man at the age of seventy or eigthY may have as he looks backward and forward. The past may well seem to him as dresu, because 1t E ended. The future alone may have a reality to it's mind. But I would speak of what begins to come to 8 man soon after the preparatory work is fin ished. am persuaded that most persons, within the ten years which follow their col- lege graduation, find new views and thoughts in regard to this matter rising in their minds There is @ time at this preiod of life that marked change occurs, and what I may call sense of the eternal life comes to the man.
 The man is never afterward precisely what he was before. Life assumes new aspect to him and places itself more nearly in it's just relations. And 1t is, in no small measure, in connection with this change that thought fulness of which have already spoken, is