Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1895-06-21
NORTH STREET SCHOOL.
The Annual Commencement EX-
ercises.


sermon---Essays of Graduates---Guy
&. Lamson's Address.
An audience which filled the Universal
list church gathered Sunday night to listen
to the baccalaureate sermon preached by
Rev II. d. Maxwell to the graduating
class of the North street school. The ser
vice was made additionally impressive by
the organ playing of Lucien Howe and the
singing by the Baptist choir. The pulpit
was covered with white, and white cur
tain was suspended in front of the singers
seats. There were decorations of green
and ferns about the pulpit and laurel in
blossom were draped at the sides of the
church and in front of the choir seats.
The speaker said in the beginning that
it was natural and legitimate to seek adj
vice. There is a modesty and humbleness
in real education which stands in marked
contrast to the obnoxious boldness and
bravado of superficial and intellectual
charlatanism, and the scholarly mind in
its modesty and humbleness rejoices in the
help and companionship of other cultured
minds. Christ realized the need of the
experience of one greater than he, and sell
dom or never did he pass through any great
crisis or enter into any important under
taking without seeking the father. Youth
and inexperience should and do ask for the
encouraging and guiding thought from age
and mature judgment. There is economy
in the process of the development of the
individual and the race. The proven and
accepted knowledge of one generation is
the heritage of the following centuries. A
truth over which our fathers labored long
and patiently becomes our possession in a
moments time.
You who have become learners are to
become seekers Follow the stream of
progress of the ages and you will find that
its current has been forced on by the effort
of those who have been enthusiastic seekers,
seekers after material or mental kingdoms.
The kingdom of the transient or the king
dom of material possessions and physical
enjoyment receives in our time priority of
attention. There is a straining after wealth,
constant, intense, bitter. This national
ambition, had it not become so irresistible
that it passed beyond all control of the
reason, would have been the glory of the
century and the promise of greater good to
come.
Another and smaller number are seeking
the kingdom of knowledge. With some it
is the kingdom of science, with others that
of philosophy; some are interested in or
igins, some in the secret of present deyel-
opment, and others in destiny. And so
the enumeration OF the different kingdoms
which men are trying to realize might be
continued; but it is enough to note that
all men and women are seeking something,
ard that this seeking is the earnest of the
worlds redemption, and whether it be
after riches, or truth, or power, or fame,
or pleasure, it carries with it a degree of
commandments in proportion to the le-
gitimacy and unselfishness of the ideal.
The speaker referred to the question of
the hour in the minds of thousands of
young men and women who at this season
complete their preliminary training: To
know what to do in life, to know what
kingdom to search after.
Has Christianity, or the church which is
the-{natrument of its expression, any help
iul word to offer in so vital a matter?
Christianity claims to hold in its
system of philosophy the secret of
life; it claims to have a personal,
redemptive message for every man and
woman. Such an all-powerful and all-wlse
teacher must surely have clear and definite
Instructions to give on the very question
which is absorbing our attention. Chris
tianity has an answer, and yet it is not the
kind of an answer that we are probably
expecting, but it is the only reply which
from the nature and purpose of Christianity
it could give, and the only reply which
from the character of human nature would
be of any value.
The secret of the universal power of
Christ or Christianity is to be found in the
fact that it is something more than a col
lection of definite instructions to be follow
ed in particular circumstances or exigen-
cies; 1t is something more than an infinite
number of different remedies for an infinite
number of human perpleXities or ailments.
In the teaching of Christ there is no large
number of rules or principles; the I'M
paralleled genius of the man was exhibited
in his ability to embody his legislation for
the whole human race in one or two
brief principles. Destroy everything that
Jesus has said excepting the golden rule,
destroy everything that the Bible contains
except this one great principle and you still
have preserved the real heart of all that
Jesus said or all that the Bible teaches
Christianity never descends into the ex-
preston of particular, individual instruc-
ton. Christianity legislates for every
individual in the world, it has no special
legislation for any man or woman.
The whole gist of the matter lies right
here; Christianity being simply a few
general principles deduced from an ex-
haustive analysis of human nature, and
from knowledge OF Jne secret OF lie, has
nothing whatever to do with what a man
shall do in life; but rather just before we
start in the great race, speaks few words
of advice, applicable to any and all works,
which, if followed, will invariably bring
success and honor.
According to the divine judgment one
legitimate work is as good and worthy as
another. The most that Christianity
says to a young man or woman is that it
will be well to engage in that effort which
is best adapted to your powers and which
will be most congenial to you, but it never
chooses a definite work for any one. 1t
does not concern itself with what a man
shall do, but with the method by which he
performs that which he undertakes. The
greatness of Christianity lies in the fact
that it recognizes that that which saves one
not what he does, but how he does it.
There is one kingdom each and every one
of us must seek before success and happi-
ness can be obtained, and the words which
should so powerfully impress themselves on
our minds that we never will forget them
are these: " Seek We first the kingdom of
God and his righteousness and all these
things shall be added unto you"
Today, when Jesus says "seek first the
kingdom of God" an inner mental method
of life is meant. The kingdom of God
IL q KINGDOM Of OOVarnment EVarv