The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-09-23
Rev. Wallace Nutting's Dis
course Sunday Evening.
The Privilege Of Being Young at This
End OF the Cycle,
A Wide Outlook and Splendid Prob
abilities for Christian Manhood.

ne seoono III the serles oi ounudy
evening discourses on the Relations of
Society," by Rev. Wallace Nuttiug from
the pulpit OF the Union Congregational
Church delivered last evening,was entitled
"Young Manhood. The text was !
Tim. 4:12. LET no man despise thy
youth" The discourse in full follows:
Young manhood in this day occupies a
unique position, because II has entered
on world very different from that of
any OF our fathers. To the young man
OF Cato's or Pericle's day the readiest
way OF advancement was in the military
life; this was generally true In ancient
society, and has been so TO recent date
on the continent. Now not one Ameri-
can in ten thousand anticipates greatness
for himself in that direction. We who have
now entered on manhood look out over
new physical world. Nobody preceding
US has had any such experiences as await
u.s.
Wendell Phillips could lecture only q
few years since to prove that there was
nothing new under the sun. And he was
able to make people believe II. But since
bis death the world has advanced more
rapidly than it had before in all its his
tory, in physical lines Ii was only this
week that We read of a telegram being
sent under the ocean and an answer be-
ing sent back in fve seconds. Conver-
sation by word of mouth half way across
this continent Is now feasible from our
city with men, who in their youth, were
months travelling from Providence to
their Western home. And ii Is possible
not only to hear them but TO see them.
Their features and gestures may be pro-
jected on screen here while we talk
with them.
Preaching for you on a Sunday / was
informed in Chicago the Tuesday follow
ing, of your request that very evening
Il haQnp1a
still westward i was able 10 preach the
following Sunday on the shores Of the
opposite ocean.
Men say there is no opportunity in
these days for the young man. But it is
in these days that the canals are being
opened somebody must be engineer. In
these days man, not long since boy,
installed the great power plant at Nj
agara. 1t is now that the Chicago drain
age canal Is being carried through--per-
haps the most beneficent appliance Of
genius to physics that has ever been un-
dertak en-. The demands on human power
surpass those Of any former age. Never
before were pipe lines required across
states; never before was there SO large q
manufacture OF steel rails that bound
states together as during the past few
weeks. Ship transit across the lstnmus
above Nova Scotia is nearly accomplished;
Manchester has become a seaport; rail-
road runs form the sea shore TO Jerusa-
lem though think the Philadelphians
outDid Providence in furnishing he To-
comotives. The wealth of the world 40
far exceeds that of any previous era, that
men move forward confidently TO sever
the remaining narrow necks OF conti-
nents; TO find new means of locomotion,
SO that the ridicule Of yesterday becomes
the applause of today.
Some ages have been notable for build
In fnr nj Ot har fnr
ary genius; Others for the codiiication of
law; some for rapid development of en-
pire; Others for religious activity. Our
age Is the first in which activity has been
great in all these directions. Probably
few remember how many Arctic explo-
rations are on foot-or under SAIL Africa
has passed through more phases Of de-
velopment In the past fifteen years than
the new world passed through in the first
hundred and fifty after Its discovery. Out
of the Orient has arisen Nicolas Tesla and
coming TO America has shown us of the
west the last best things about electrici-
ty. A resident of Providence has brought
forward a remarkable and long sought
invention in watch, Is not Yankee,
but a resident of the remote Mesopotanian
plain whence Abraham arose. The
WORLD SUDDENLY SEEMS REVERSING
ITSELF,
and our great novelist Howells, after re-
his successive literary passions,
now declares that in the maturity of his
Judgment he bows down TO the genius of
t he Slav, and the name OF Tolst )i-the
prince OF serious modern literatuls sounds
out to us from the bleak plains OF Russia.
When the giant awakes he must be fed.
W hen the ola world of Asia becomes the
most promising field of development as
nj present, it appears that the worth of
power w Ill be greater than before, and
{ he manhood OF today looks out upon q
world more demanding than ii could
have hoped for In its childhood. 1t means
simply that we have more to do than our
had. Ii is only recently that
We heard what prodigious fortunes were
made during the war. Some of the
fortunes have been made
since the war. / suppose that more
critical and thorough work has been
done by large numbers OF students on the
Bible within fifty years than had been
done In the previous fifteen hundred.
Every manuscript has been searched, the
orient has been ransacked for more; the
light of archaeology, OF philology, OF
genius has been poured unstintedly upon
he early writings and history OF the
,hurch. Men like Tischendorf and Greg
Dry, Ezra Abbot and Westcott are new
pye OF man who have worked upon new
materials and placed the records OF re-
And in religious thinking every doctrine
II Christianity has been reviewed and
crutinized by the savants OF four great
nations, until IL is said that new argu-
nent Is impossible. Into fiction, history
md poetry, as formerly into art, the mat
er OF belief has entered and reigned, so
hat the first writer's in all these fields
ire bent on exhibiting the moral relations
" society.
1t is in our day that the greatest poet
rsnnyson, and the greatest statesman,
have lived.
should a great poet now arise in our
ountry he would find larger and more
audience than 1t has been the
ot OF any man OF genius in a former gen.
ration TO possess. With seventy millions
u Americans. and nearly as many more
english speaking citizens in other coun-
ries, he would enjoy an audience some
hing like sixteen times a. great as
had, while Homer sung to
ever persons, perhaps, than are contain
d i'm one OF our smaller American states.
IL Is the same with the potter as II Is
With the poet. II you enter a store where
he products OF clay are sold, you will
ind simple little pieces OF ware made In
- .tal.