Morning journal and courier., 1891-06-22
YALE HAccALAUREATE SERMON

You are assembled this morning, my
young friends of the graduating class, to
listen to the final message of exhortation
and suggestion which the Christian teach
ing has for you before you pass beyond
the gateway of your college life. find
the message in this brief sentence
of the apostle, an 1 ask you to
think of it. The four chief words
which the sentence contains, "Chil-
dren, beloved, imitators, God," are all of
them suggestive words, appropriate to the
hour. The word of exhortation, which
gathers them into itself and binds them
together, fills them with a peculiar living
force, bearing upon and working into
Christian message in one of its most i'm
pressive forms. Ii is message for the
whole of the manly career, and is at no
time more fitting or impressive than at
the moment when youth turns toward ma
turity, and the work of preparation ends
in order that the work of what we call
real life may begin. The thoughts which
are brought to mind by the sentence are
thoughts which start from every word
within its limits. The impulse which
comes from its completeness is an impulse
moving the soul to nobleness and to the
full development of its highest and deepest
self. Let as follow the thoughts as they
take hold upon the hour and reach onward
from it into the future. We shall discover
the impulse to be in attendance upon the
thoughts, if these have their true influence
and power.
And now for our first. thought. The
apostle would have his readers do what he
asks of them, as in the condition and with
the relationship of children. His founda-
ton word is word suggestive of limita-
ton and dependence. 1t is word fitting
to this hour.
The turning point of the life from youth
to manhood and from the season of the
more general preparation to that of the
more special and permanent work, is often
thought of as the point of turning from
dependence to Independence. 1t is 80 in
reality as we view the matter in some of
its aspects. The youth has been guarded
and guided in the past years. He has been
in the process of education. He has moved
along lines which have been marked out
for him and according to rules which the
necessity of the earlier work has imposed
upon his life. He has lived as child in
in all things known more or less of the
subordination of childhood. He has been
growing, indeed, and reaching out in his
powers and freedom, as the years have
passed onward, but he has not realized the
end or become fully master of himself.
Sometimes he has found himself wearied
in the thought of the delay of the promis-
ed hour-and this not because of any un-
worthy reason or any impatience of re-
straint, but rather because the promise
which the hour, when it arrived, would
fulfill he has felt to be the promise of his
full and perfect manhood. He has ever
looked onward to the hour with hope, and
has believed in it as the beginning of all
the greatest and best things of his personal
life.
The hour has now come. Its very mean
ing is independence. He is to be for the
future thinker for himself and worker
for himself. Others are to be dependent
upon, not he upon them. He is to act as a
force in the world. Society and the state
are to look to him for energy and wisdom
and guidance and inspiration. Leadership
is to be his, in ever increasing measure; vic
tory also The joy of responsibility is to
tighten all labor and effort. 1t is to be
equalled only by the Joy of assured sue
cess. He is and is always hereafter to be,
not child, but an independent man. This
is the thought in which he rejoiees. This
is the thought for the possession of which,
as his own in his own experience. he has
long been waiting But even into this
joyful hour there comes-strangely
and Unexpectedly it may be, SO ia,
as his earlier dreams had imagined the
time-another thought of different or
der, which reminds him that the new life
is to be like the old life, after its OWL
manner and measure. This thought
makes its dwelling in his mind and heart
and abides there. 1t is the thought tina
the independent life is, after all, depen
dent, and that the man in the fuilness ane
glory of his manhood is, after all, a child
"a child, not as the picture of him is
looking backward, but as the picture is
looking forward-a child, not limited BY
the first year, or resting on an earthly
power or wisdom but little greater thar
his own, but bound within the sphere of
partial and imperfect life, and needin,
continuous help and light from a highe
source beyond himself.
The significance of this thought is seel
in your own experience, my friends, as a
this ending cf your course of preparation
you have, Notwithstanding your confden
hopes and your sense of assured strength
a shrinking at times from the struggle tina
is before you. Courageous as you are, yo
have moments of doubling. With an cage
outlook toward the rewards and triumph
yes, and even toward the tolls and hart
y
regretful wish that the old freedom fror
cares and burdens might have been your
for longer season or might return agai
at your call. The same significance Wi
be realized many times in the future, Ion
after the the youthful and college day
have passed away and the days have com
when the struggles of the world seem hare
er than they now do, while its reward
seem less. The man as he presses forwar
knows more of life than the youth does {
the beginning, and as this knowledge {
life rises out of and enters into his pc,
sonal experience, he comes to the mol
full understanding of what his powers al
and also of what his weakness is. 3
knows that the thought of all-conquerin
and all-embracing power, which filled h
mind, perchance, in the early days, ws
but as vision of perfectness to which L
reality answers The unlimited sphere
elsewhere, not here. 1t is for beings WI
have risen above the measure and stant
ard of his present life. Limitation an
childhood, in some true sense, are sti
appointed for him. His independence
ever to be limited by dependence. 1t
an independence in which he may glory {
man, indeed, but it has a wonderfl
and, when we rightly appreciate it,
beautiful intermingling with dependenc
4 - -,
meaning of the word, a child in all b
earthly career, moving on to maturity
the distance beyond; and yet, in the con
mon Specification of the term, he is not
, child, but man.
And now let us move forward a step
the thought of the apostles words. Th
childhood in manhood and manhood
childhood-this dependence in its stranl
) and mysterious union with independence
what is it but that which marks our rel
; tionship to God as his children? / pictu
! the apostle to myself for the moment
!, thinking of the child in his early years
| the child of the earthly father, but in b
later years-after what we call the chill,
, season has passed-as the child of Il
7 heavenly father. He is something mo
| and greater than he was. This is but
3 picture, indeed, and yet it has in it Il
3 suggestion of reality. The dependence
3 mature life is no ignominious thing. u
worthy of the man in the fullness of b
| manly powers. 1t is not inconsistent wi
: his honorable independence. 1t is VIII
the child's relationship to his father is
b its own season-the most lovely thing
q life, as it is the most necessary thing.
far from restraining or limiting anythi
9 that is good, it is helpful everywhere.
1 is a power-making for life and strengt
for development and perfectness, for t
a larger and grander condition which is to
8 realized afterward, when the man is f
grown.
l My friend, you may look backward
the time which seems far away in