Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-03-09
A GRAND SERMON.
REV. F. a. HORTON ON THE LELAND
STAMFORD JR. UNIVERSITY.
ings Upon IT, Honorable and
Glorious Work.
From the Oakland Times, March sd

/
! First Presbyterian Church, last evening
j delivered the following sermon on the Le
land Stanford Jr University 10 large and
appreciative audience, taking his text from
Pslam iii, 8: His work is honorable and
glorious"
Paul charges the Romans xiii, y,
"Render, therefore, to all their dues; trib-
ute to whom tribute is due; custom to
whom custom fear to whom fear honor
( to whom honor" Our work this evening
is on the line of obedience to this COM
mand. If with propriety and profit we
may study noble acts done in past ages
which have lastingly benefited The race,
with equal propriety we may study those
that are occurring in our own times and
under our own eyes. But, indeed, it is
feared that the jeglousies, the personal likes
and dislikes, the contempt that familiarity
breeds conspire too often to close the lips
of praise and to repress the words of COM
menuation that would fall gratefully upon
the ear of the benefactor. We weave too
many chaplets to be laid upon mems cof-
fins and not enough to be placed upon
their brows. We speak too many words of
| praise in funeral eulogies when the cold ear
| OF death can no more hear. If we have
| words that may cheer and encourage and
show our appreciation of noble deeds, let
US speak them now while those most con-
cerned can hear them and be refreshed.
Render unto all their dues;
| honor to whom honor is due
| The original reference of our text is to
God-"His work is honorable and glori-
ousn None of his works are low or mean
or degrading, but, on the contrary, they are
| like himself, honorable in character and
glorious in outcome beneficent to man and
| rejecting glory upon God.
| But by accommodation we make the
| text refer in degree TO every man who tries
! to think Gods thoughts after him and
work beneficently for the well being of his
fellow-mau. There are lives that are self
centered. OF such it can never be said
| that their work is honorable and glorious.
When Mr.. Astor a few days ago gave up
the ghost, and with it his vast estate of
more than one hundred millions. it could
be said of him that the few hundred thou
sands which he devoted to the care of the
library bearing the family name and the
sum devoted to hospital purposes and to
friendships were works most honorable and
glorious, while the uncountsble dollars
emassed for family agrandizement scarcely
deserve passing notice, and that not
wholly complimentary. Here, again, it is
the man who loses his life that finds it. He
who centers his thought upon his fellow.
man, who loses himself in them, who
evolves grand schemes foI their benefit
who, like single grain of wheat cast into !
the soil, find itself again full head of
many grains, multiplied hundred fold |
he it is whose work is honorable and glori-
GUS and whose righteousness endureth |
through all generations. Such a man
opens springs of blessings that shall flow
down in refreshing streams so long as
thirsty race shall crave the cooling draught. |
"a mans life consistent not in the
abundance of the things that he possess
eth" said Jesus. But many reverse the
idea and spend their time and energies in
the one work OF gathering and boarding.
Life. in its tTueSt sense eansisla- IN tha
abundance Of the things that a man useth
wisely. A tricking stream that child's
hand could dam is OF more value to the
race than reservoir, though ample for
city, but shut away from public use.
To but few men is the ability given to do
great work for humanity. Each of us in
small ways may, according to our ability
and opportunity, do what we can, and it is
Joy to think that life is made up of vast
multitude of little things, and that no cup
of cold water ever given with loving heart
and from right motive shall lose its re-
ward. But the men of ten full talents who
And among those who have the ability
there is often painful lack of Willingness.
And among those who are able and willing
there is not always that breadth of view,
that wide horizon of thought and plan,
that bring forth results of good, real benefit
Sometimes severe discipline leads up to
the grand and glorious work. Heart
strings are wrung, cherished hopes are de-
stroyed, a world that seemed so full but
| A., - 1a,- A.. a..
future OF our hopes and plans for whose
full coming in we longed is now a dreary
waste, mile after mile of which we pass
over toward our final station, taking but
little note of happenings by the wGy. Then
it is that the soul, too great to be crushed,
rises out of its wreck, and with clearer
vision of the real and the seeming, with
wider horizon of life, with truer estimate
of values, plans to cheat death at his own
game, and live more grandly and eternally
by virtue of what he has lest and of what
he has suffered.
By such mysterious leadings of the di-
vine hand the foundations of the great Le-
land Stanford Jr. University were laid.
The granite mausoleum hard by the main
entrance to the University tells, by its
presence, the whole story. As one looks
upon it all the history of the past rises be-
fore the eye; the promising youth, heir to
vast estates, the hopes and plans of loving
parents, his young desire to be a blessing
10 the youth of his native State, then the
chasm that crosses every path somehow,
sometime, over which we may not go /;
then the passing of those lives into the
future, the transmigration of those souls
into these walls and Corridors into this
vast seat of learning, becoming incarnate
as its soul and living forever, speaking
through a vast succession of lips, father
and mother and son forever inseparable,
forever receiving to their care the genera
tons of youth who enter those halls and
in some sort adopting them as their own.
fancy that we are yet TOO near to the act
ors and events to appreciate at its full
worth the grandeur of this conception.
But every age shall cause 1t to rise higher
and higher. l greatly doubt if even the
founders have been permitted to take full
view of the work that they have been
chosen to do. But the agents, in our view
of it, while worthy of vast honor and re-
ceiving it at our hands, are lost sight of as
we try to climb up along the thought CT
God, which they have incsrnated. What
have they done in founding this wondrous
seat of learning? What mind can forecast
its future? What shall be Us influence
this State? How widely shall it reach
with the advantages of its magnificent en-
dowments and of Its faultless equipments?
We stand before the thought in wonder
and say 1T is too high for me, cannot at
tain unto it,"
As walk among these rising buildings
and along these half-finished arcades over
the ground where fountains are to play
and flowers are to bloom, feel within me
the rise of the old student spirit. l won-
der whether was not born too early in the
worlds history. l see myself pacing these
| long arcades, grooming some formula or
parodigm that needs to be planted firmly
| in memory. hear the splash of soothing
waters as l sit on some easy bench in the
quadrangle studing between recitation
| hours. l find myself engaged in health
developing, ill-producing labor that also
lengthens out nay greatly shrunken purse;
| see the merry groups as they go tramp
| ing along those corridors singing class
songs and knitting their hearts to the very
stones of their Alma Mater; see those
stones weather-beat and dark with age,
covered in many places by ivy, bat never
| diDgy and cold and frowning like the grand
old piles at Oxford, and, better than ALL /
| see the long line formed of youth whom it
| is to pour into society in an unbroken
stream.
Now that the institution is about to open
| its doors for the reception of students, we