The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-06-12
SERMONS TO STUDENTS
DIR. BURROUGHS DELIVERS WABASH
COLLEGE BACCALAUREATE.
Rev. DR.. Purves breaches the Com
mencement SermOn-Exercises at
Franklin and Bloomington.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal.

the delivery OF the Ddccdlduredte sciIuOh
by President G. s. Burroughs, at Center
Church. The music was a feature of the
occasion. Ed G.. Cox presided at the organ
and the choir member were Mrs. w. F.
Hulet, Miss Mary Thomson, A. A Mccain
and Omer Cox. President Burroughs chose
for his text the following:
IF We abide in my word, then are We truly
My disciples: and We shall know the truth,
viii, si-a2.
Il am the way, and the truth, and the
life; no one cometh unto the Father, but
by Me."-John xiv, 6.
What should be the character of these
last words OF advice is clearly indicated by
the fitness of things" said the president.
Rightly they should bring to a focus the
varied instructions Of the past years. They
should unity the messages of truth that
have been received in the laboratory, in the
lecture room, in the place of social college
prayer. They should emphasize, in some real
fashion, the unity of all the several quests
of truth which have been followed along
the paths OF science, of literature, of phil
osophic thought. These should be clearly
pointed out as one common divine search
for that which is, not bootless but fruit
full, not speculative but practical. not an
outward grasping after a fleeing phantom
but an inward laying hold of an abiding
substance.
I'VE say the college life is the quest of
truth. What has this truth meant to US?
Has 1t seemed something abstract, imper-
sonal, something outside of us, something
having no necessary relation to our living
experience. Has truth in nature inorganic
appeared but inert atom, mechanical force
and lifeless formula. Have natures laws
been undirected, blind processes. at once, in
absolute contradiction, orderly and yet by
chance? Has truth in nature vegetable and
animal been but forms. outward and I'M
plastic, to be gathered, punched, classified
and labeled? Has truth in human condi-
lions been simply what pen has happened
to record of what men have happened 10
do in a blind struggle for self. in which
CHANGED to fall forward rather than back
ward? Has truth in the realm of spiritual
life been simply opinions that men have held
and words-empty words-in which they
have transmitted these to us? And have all
these SO-called truths of nature, man and
the higher life been separate and unrelated.
some 10 be seen and known by one class of
men and others by another? If these
things have been so, then have we known no
truth. We have been dealing with puppets
and walking through a vanity fair of
science, history and religion. all falsely So
called. Nor can Ii be wondered that all
such must, before the survey of the shows
of existence be half completed, have alto
gether lost the earnest. honest Christ and
become disciples of the sneering PLATE.
aloud, with sinuous, circumplex accent, what
is truth? Not so has Wabash taught her
sons.
TRUTH AND SCIENCE.
First of all. let us note how the personal
element, or the character of truth as per-
sonal enters in TO the realm of science
strictly so called. 1t is fair to say that
science is constantly becoming more and
more biological throughout, less and less
physical. By that 1 mean that nature is
viewed more and more in terms of life, less
and less in terms of mechanism. From
nebulae up to man the pathway is seen more
and more clearly to be a pathway Of life
and not a pathway of mechanical forces. 1
do not mean that law is being ruled out,
but L mean that law is becoming more and
more evidently discovered to be a method,
a manner, a habit of life. l do not mean
that force is being overlooked or forgotten.
But this is true, that force Is more and
and more found TO be power of will. Law
Is personal. Force is personal. Science
says this more distinctly each day.
We glibly talk of the law of gravitation.
What do We mean? Directly as the mass,
inversely as the square of the distance-that
is the law. the observed habit, of the en-
ergy that pulls bodies toward one another.
But what Is energy? Ultimate analysis an
swers. the will of God. Gravitation is a
habit of God. And so We might pass on
through one formula after another: we
might look under one natural law after an
other, only to find the hidden personal ma
ture of things, that God who wells himself
from us even while He reveals himself to
US Natural law is the revelation of God.
Sure as He is sure, unohanging as He is
unchanging. 1t is a basis of divine character
underlying all natures moods. and phases;
IL is personal truth cooperating with US,
teaching US constancy, perseverance. pa
of physics and mechanics, for God Is there,
and where God is there is moral relationship
and moral fellowship, so soon as man shall
truth in natures life.
Man does not flee from Gods presence
when he goes down into the vein where the
silver is mined, nor when he climbs in
thought to the curving motions of the plan
cts in the heavens. In mining God is: In as
tronOmy God is: wherever there Is energy,
God is. Wherever in the natural universe
man may go on the scout duty of labor or
of thought, there, as stood Kingsley before
before the towering presence Of deity, say
ing. with the language of the devout En-
glishman. and with bated breath. Truly.
nature. through Old Testament and New,
Is the thought of an indwelling. For Jesus
there was no creation finished long since;
ing forth new forms of life, physical,
mental, spiritual, social. The thought of
evolution and the thought of the Christ have
to-day met together. and the thinking of
the Son of Man has christiani2ed, not simply
made theistic. our understanding of the cos
mic processes.
TRUTH IN SOCIAL CONDITIONS.
us there also a personal element in social
study? Can we find truth in the investiga-
ton OF social conditions, without finding
that truth to be personal. 1 cannot believe
1t. And If you ask me why, 1 point you
to that marvellous parable Of ministration
uttered by the Christ. When men are gath
cred on the right hand and on the left,
when ministration or lack of ministration
has segregated them into those possessing
eternal life and those possessing it not, the
final verdict is passed upon the finding of
side. or the finding him not. God goes into
er than the child of God. That blind cry
of the English unionist, Somehow i feel. l
don't know how or why, that Jesus is the
only solution of our problem. shows the
visit OF the Christ to the heart and con-
science of that son of toll. The principles
of the kingdom of heaven will be made
the political economy of the day of recon-
of the incoming of the kingdom of man
simply because he is man, sharing Gods
reason and bearing still the marred imprint
of his sonship- Political science and politi-
cal life shall come together only when men
shall see that God is In the state, that So
ciety. from the family on through all it's
forms. is not what 1T is by social contract,
but by manifestation of the divine, life
that personal truth which Is In man who
ever is growing into manhood through his
relations to his fellows. Tempt is per-
Sonal. but IL Is Of the person as a factor