The University daily. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 18??-????, 1898-06-06
THE BACCALAUREATE.
A Very Strong and Beautiful
Sermon
Replete with Impressive Moral and
Spiritual Isessons---A7 Deep impress
sion Made n the Vast Audience
An Abstract OF the Discourse.

Replete with Impressive moral anu
Spiritual Isessons---A7De Impress
sion Made Of the Vast Audience
An Abstract Of the Discourse.
"a STANDARD FOR MANHOOD.
"Unto perfect man; unto the measure Of the
IysI3. Sss. H. l@s
Ernest Renan, the eminent French
historian and man Of letters, said not
] long before his death, fI fearthat the
work Of the twentieth century will
consist OF taking out Of the waste
basket3a multitude Of excellent ideas
which the nineteenth century has
heedlessly thrown into it.p A recent
lecturer I'M Yale university said in
commenting on this strange remark
Of Remains, .sThe sceptic's fear is the
believers hope. This nineteenth
century Of ours has been an age Of
doubt. In science, in letters and in
philosophy, the doubter has been in
evidence. No one can read the poetry
OF the century without hearing what
Mathew Arnold called ssThe eternal
note Of sadness The experience of
DesCartes In feeling his way toward
certainty by the process Of doubling
everything, has been, SO. far as doubt
ing is concerned, the experience Of the
philosophy OF our time. Tt is a fact
for which to be thankful that many
/ Of the greatest scientists of the CEN
fury have been, and are, men of strong
faith. While recent hypothesis have
overturned the faith eof many, they
I have only strengthened the faith Of
others. But the faithtof many has
been overturned. Apostles Of science
have been also apostles of doubt.
Many masters Of letters whose genius
has expressed itself in the literary
] masterpieces of the age. have been no
tably lacking in faith. They have
cut God out OF their thought. The
extreme is represented by such writers
as Zolo. He closes one Of, his books
with the description of a railway,
train which is crowded with. soldiers
and dragged by an engine whose driV-
er has been killed. The train, heavy
with human freight, dashes headlong
into midnight. The train represents.
the world. We are the freight. The
track is fate. The darkness is death,
and the dead engineer is God. This,
! of course, is realism gone mad. But
take such a writer as George Eliot.
No one, can read some of her books
without feeling that God, as a per-
sonal being, has been left out. Mr..
q Myers, who has SO beautifully told
the story of her lifeas related n her
letters, describes how at Cambridge
be walked with her once IN the Eel
lows garden OF Trinity, ut was on
an evening Of rainy May, and she,
stirred somewhat beyond her won't,
and taking as her text the three words
which have been used So often as the
inspiring trumpet-calls or men-the
words God, Immortality, duty-pro-
nounced with terrible earnestness,
how inconceivable was the first, how
unbelievable was the second, and how
preemptory and absolute was the third.
Never, perhaps, had sterner accents
affirmed the sovereignty Of impersonal
and unrecompensing law. listened,
and night fell; her grave, majestic
countenance turned towards me like
a Sibyl's in the gloom; it was as
though she withdrew from my grasp,
one by one the two scrolls of promise,
and left me the third scroll only,
awful with inevitable fate" Many a
young person has risen from reading
the books Of this distinguished wo-
man full Of unrest through confused
religious notions. 1t is not strange.
It is natural result. Faith gone
from the writer means shaken faith
in the young reader. Nowhere is the
influence Of lost faith SO pernicious as
in the writers of fiction. The story
4 faclnates. The uncritical reader
!. does not stop to think that God or
Immortality has been left out or mis-
represented. Before the reader is
aware the deadly work is done. a.
Whatever else may be true of our
century, it is certainly true that from
the standpoint of religion, it has been
an age, OF doubt. 1t is true that
under the influence of doubt havoc
has been made Of superstition and
bad logic. 1t is also true that great
harm has come lin the destruction Of
faith. It is very easy to say that if
faith goes down under doubt 1t ought
not to live. That is in harmony with
thelaw Of the survival Of the tittest. "
It is altogether out Of harmony with
the law Of God, which teaches not the
.ssuryival Of the flttest,n but how
men may be made at to survive. 1t
is ali right to sympathize with this
spirit OF doubt We ought to. 1t
has done much for truth. But we
ought also to remember that it has
attempted to throw a multitude Of
excellentideas into she waste-basket. .
Among these excellent ideas is one
long held with reference to the dig
nifty Of man. Wherever Christianity
has gone it has given this explanation
of mans origin, constitution and des-
tiny. Man is the erection Of a personal,