St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1895-06-21
AT THE ACADEMY.
The Baccalaureafe.

sermon preached TO the graduating class
of the Academy by Rev. DR.. Edward T.
Fairbanks. There was no service in the
North church nor in Grace Methodist
church, so there was opportunity for
members of these congregations to at
tend the union meeting.
After an anthem by the choir, Rev. DR.,
Heath read selections from the 10Th and
18th chapters of 2nd Corinthians, and
offered prayer.
Rev. DR.. Fairbanks took for his text
the symbolic words "There appeared in
the Cherubims the form of mans hand,
under their wings" Ezekiel X, s, and
from these he preached a mastery dis
course, full' of beautiful and helpful
thoughts, not only for the young ladies
and gentlemen of the graduating class,
but for all his hearers.
He dwelt upon the symbolism of the
wings and the hand-the wings for aspir-
alton and flight, and the hand for practi-
cal work. MANS wing! Man, gifted
with intellect, with spirit, and thus
winged" at is mans wing, as truly as
mans hand that we're to see And we
needn't wonder at their being together:
it's no weird fancy of some old Semitic
Seer. Each of us can find it in himself
Hands for work, wings for thought and
worship. If work is set for u.s. so too is
aspiration, The same Bible that tells us
to work with our hands shows us the
way to mount up with wings as eagles. ,"
"In sense as real as air, without
bit of sentimentality in it, do say we
are winged creatures-in so far as our
intelligence carries us above the foot
levels we go in. This, my visible person,
never gets far up-but this, my essential
person, the 1 myself, invisible does take
wing"
"What is liberal education but the pro-
cess of lberating, drawing out wings,
folded up snugly in every young life,
against the time of intellectual outreach
and adventuring.
Now the point I'm trying to sharpen
for you, just here, is this-that in your
lifelong, postgraduate education you
must get more than facts, data, learning
or encyclopedia You must have inspir-
alton, elevation, wlsglat, freedom OF the
universe.
You, at the top of your Academy
course are far enough up to want some
thing more than the ingenious toy called
the story book; something above the
indispensable daily-though grant you
this is a wonder of the age kaleidoscope
and multitudinous, with all the world in
it and more too Sunday edton). But
| want your eye on the great mmortals;
the books that hold the worlds divinest
thought on whatsoever theme, epic and
drama, great romances, orations and
essays and debates, hymns of the ages,
sweet lyrics and idyls of life-these will
never resign their kingly rank. They're
in front of you to give sweetness to feel
ing, precision to principles, wings to
thought'-as Bouve says. Keep COM
pany with them and see if they do not
stir that within you that wants to fly
taking you up las they say mother
eagles do their eaglets) till you feel NOV
ing within you some wing-stir of senti-
ment, aspiration, ideality, love of mys-
terry, poetic feeling, and robust or tender
thinking
Take time for facts; take time too,
for flight. Get information, get inspira-
ton too. That and are 8, is dead
sure, but it's not an inspiration. Facts
are as much foundation necessity Tor
us, as bread and butter, but they do not
often start in us the sort of thoughts,
that wake to perish never We're so
made and balanced that the imaginative
and practical should be never far apart.
Wings, and hand under the wings.
"Not every girl can, like Lucy Larcom,
be literally handling spindles, weaving
verse; not every boy, like Bobbie Burns,
take wing, while the hand beneath the
wing is straining away at plough that
is turning up mouse nest. But some
touch of Ideally is folded up i'll every one,
wanting to be coaxed out, winged.
Some bit of something anywhere, green
field, stump, some cows, a yellow
primrose, will be enough to start the
imaginative wing OF any one who has
learned how to use it. Stopping mo-
mcnt to look into the way-side pond, he
will say OF its wigglers and tadpoes, as
Tennyson did, what an imagination
God has"
when alongside the routine Of com
mon life, your bible pilots you out, it is
invariably up towards Ornaments of
truth that widen and reCedc before you
in still mightier horizons.
"You become aware of one never-to-
be-seen, whose name is i am His habi-
tation is eternity, his pavilion is light,
his robes are honor and majesty, and
under Him, the supreme soul another
soul, your own, born of him, set to the
compass of the self-same eternity with
him, The mighty framework of things
visible you find to be only outskirts of
his ways; builded out of nothing by the
word of his power, >"
"Fervent in spirit, diigent in business
wings, and disciplined, consecrated
hand under the wings, worship and daily
duty, this is what God desires OF each of
us, and this is the way he gets his work
done, i, e., on earth, where indeed it
should be done, as in heaven"
behold show you mystery, or it
YOU please shadow sketch Science run
ming its keen eye backward finds the
wing rising up i'll prlmeval time, tore
type and iOrerunner Of this very arm and
hand, like the GROWING facts OF Bible
story that were sketChed beforehand in
type and prophecy, So the outline of