Morning journal and courier., 1892-06-27

aeasurs, under the impulse which gives
lot only to moral but to mental life its
,randest movement. Moreover-beyond
his-you have perceived unto yourselves
new power; . new element of life; a
ight-element and power, which will rem
Ter you ever afterwards q source of inum-
nation for those around you-a source
which will be knows and recognized be-
,ause of what shines forth from it.
This is the fact of your experience, and
he fact on the ground of which the ap-
peal for the future comes to you at this
hour of ending and of beginning. |
What is the appeal, with the exhortation
that attends it9 It is that which is in |
volved in and is in the closest way re-
lated to the existing fact. The writer of |
it, in the participial clause
which he adds-Ye are seen as lights in
the world, he says, holding forth the word
of life. The light power which the
readers and was, <and it should be sa
life power. And so it ought to be in the
wider application which we give the
words The call to you as educated men
educated after the Christian manner
and with the Christian principle entering
into your educated 1ife-is to hold forth
the ife-word before men, that they may
within you, what may be, and must be,
the true living force within themselves.
The exhortation is that you should be
always Illuminating lights for the world;
and with the exhortation comes the sug-
gestion as the means by which you may
accomplish what is urged upon you.
You are to hold forth the life-word, in
the first place, by keeping in its full force
the life that is within yourselves. This is
the primal suggestion of the text. Light
is of all things the one that must continue
to be, in order that 1t may continue to be
seen. If you lose energy from this hour
in the educating of yourselves after the
manly and Christian way, or if you turn
which you have been called by the voices
of the higher life, you will deny yourselves
in the very center of your souls best ex-
perience. The light will die away and be
extinguished. The thought, which the
young man, who leaves the university at
the close of his academic years, is to i'm
press on his mind with greatest emphasis,
if he would realize and Develop his man
hood, is that he is at a new beginning. He
has finished, indeed, one stage of his work
and life, but he must remember that it is
only the stage of laying foundations and
making the early preparation for coming
time. The thought must not be upon
what has been accomplished, but upon
what is to be done. The powers
have just been set in working
order. The end for which they have
been moved is to be found in the time
that follows. No inaotion, therefore, is to
be dreamed of or tolerated for moment.
On the contrary, the energy of the mind
or soul must be called forth as never be-
fore, for the life, in the true and largest
sense, is now to be created and made COM
plete. Whatever may be the special de-
partment of the worlds work, according
ly, to which you give yourselves, the fu-
ture must answer to the past in the matter
of right education. We make no demand
upon your choice in the matter of your
honorable profession or business, for the
Illuminating power may display itself any
where. But let the business be of one
sort OF other, if the mind 80 buries itself
in it that it ceases to educate itself, and to
keep itself in the light and the light in
| itself, the power of which we are speaking
will disappear. You may have other pow
ers remaining, but you will not have this
So, too, of the principle which las moral
force, inspires the education. If the mind
only is awake to knowledge and learning,
while the soul is not stirred by right i'm
pulses, the light-force of which the apostle
| speaks, OF that which is kindred to it and
| Of which we now speak, cannot exist.
Light, when it has the ecriptural meaning
impaired to it, is always life-giving for the
| manhood of men. Its Illuminating power,
| therefore, is dependent on the presence
within it of the life-prinoiple. 1t cannot
exist where the life-principle is lost. Hold
ing forth is the Pauline word-holding
forth what is in ourselves How impossi-
Bile it would have been for the men to
| De- %>L 1scs1& L.,
| in the world after the manner in which he
was confident that they were and would be
seen if they had not maintained in their
souls the knowledge given them by his
teaching and the vitalizing spirit which
that knowledge had brought with itself.
They would have been destroyed as lights
| Illuminating others as soon as the light in
themselves was suffered to become ex-
tinguished. They would have been nc
longer seen.
The thought of the apostle was that the
light must be kept shining brightly and
the life-power must be ever increasing.
have not already obtained, and am not al
ready made perfect; therefore press on
toward the full apprehension and the com
plete attainment. This was his word re-
specting himself. He pressed on in the
! same way in which he had begun the
/ uOt0ucut VI LILO LkuO 1AlCy hAoW4AS Choo -
was only as he moved forward that ht
moved in the light or toward the light
and knowing also that it was only as hi
was himself in the light that the igh
could continue to be in him. The same
thing is equally true of you. You mus
remember that you have not attained
You have gained something which is {
reality and which makes you what yor
are. But there is more beyond. The
light grows or it ceases to be itself. Yot
must move on, as Paul did, into it and il
it, by the earnest and constant effort Of
your mind and soul. That is, you mus
continue to be what, by a divinely giver
privilege of life, you now are; and it il
only as you thus continue that the priv
lege will prove itself to have been really
given for the lifetime.
Pauls word, therefore, to his readers
while it was a word of confidence in wha
they were and would be, was also . wore
of exhortation. It was full of significance
for them and it is so for each one of us
We have a ight-power within us, but il
we do not keep it within us by constant
care, and keep it brightly shining, it viii
pass away into the darkness, and ther'
will be no holding forth on our part of thu
word of life.
You are to hold forth the life-word, IL
the second place, by manifesting your sense
of the Importance of that which gives yor
the illuminating power, as compared with
everything else. This will be essential al
ways to the personal influence which you
can exert as educated men who are edu
Gated after the Christian and manly man
ner It will be 80, for herein is the force
of the personality of the man. If the mar
cares nothing for the reality of that with
in himself of which he is making
proclamation as a life-power for 9th
ers, or If he shows by hi
living and action that he thinks less of il
than he does of something else, his OWL
personality will bear no testimony to wha
he says. And if there is no such tes
timony, the words which are
spoken, however eloquent or persuasive in
their form or utterance, will be deprived
of the richness of their significance fol-
those to whom they are addressed. There
may, indeed, be teaching q some sci
ences or branches of learning which may
have somewhat of satisfactory results
when the teacher gives the knowledge he
has of them the smallest hold upon his
Utmost self But it cannot be so in life
teaching. Life teaching always passes
with its full power and influence from the
soul of one man to the soul of another
and it goes forth from that enthusiasm in
the one soul which rises out of the belief
and consciousness that the thing pos.
sessed is the great and priceless gift fol
the man.
The world is full of examples which
prove this fact We need not, however
20 beyond the one which Paul himself
points out to us. Where would have been
| tha forca for Illuminating men nv the