The Delawarean., 1900-07-07
YOUNG DR.. WILSON
TALKS ON YOUTH
Sermon at the Epworth League
Anniversary at Santa rlonica.
THE HALF-CONvERTED METHODIST
Told by the Preacher His Sins are
Forgiven Him, He Starts Out in
the World, but Cannot With
stand the Dance Hall or
Garnn nP fIInnnn
Game of Chance.

Game of Chance.
18th Epworth League anniversary
address on the Force of Forces" de-
livered to the young men of Santa
Monica, California, May 13, 1900, in the
M E. Church, Sunday evening, by the
pastor, Clarence True Wilson, D. D.
Let no Man Despise Thy Youth. y
Tim. 4-12.
There are forces and forces in this
world. Any good book in physics will
inform you of those natural forces so
important in their nature and effects
Would you know the relation of natur-
al phenomina with the laws of mechan-
les, get a book on natural philosophy
Would you understand the forces of
cohesion, the affinity of gasses, the
composition of material substances, go
to the labratory of the chemist. To
comprehend the forces of wind and
tide, you would study physical geogra-
ply; Of temperature and climate, you
would look up the weather bureau.
What are the forces that control the
steller hosts? What has made the
evolution of our planet? Ask the as
tronomer as he scars. and the geologist
as he delves. What are the laws of
governmental conditions and of in
tellectual life? The economist and the
psychologist will tell you. Where are
the laws of moral life? What are the
forces of the spiritual realm? Now,
we must take from the shelf the Book
of Books and hearken unto God.
1t behooves us to know what are the
forces with which we are to deal and to
master the laws of their operation. But
there are controlling powers all about
us more potent than any material
forces, and to these we must give at
tention Certainly, one of the settled
things is, that the greatest forces are
not material or physical, but mental
There is nothing great in the world
but man, and nothing great in man but
mind. We speak of the power of steam;
but there is very little force to the
steam we see rising out of an open
kettle. 1t is only as the human mind
contrives boiler and engine and ma
chine to utilize and direct force that
we are unable to realize its advantages.
So with electricity. Three Thousand
years ago God spoke to his servant:
"Job. canst thou harness the light
ning?" The Patriarch of Uz trembled
at the thought as he saw the wild fire
flashing through the heavens, and he
answered in the negative. But the
centuries roll away until Franklin
lassoed the wild lightning. Morse
harnessed it for mans use, and now
Edison drives it on all sorts of errands,
and we send our message on wings of
were here before we were, but they
were of little use until the human mind
grasped their limitation and uses. The
force that controls the powers of ma
cure and utilizes them is not matter but
mind. And the mind represents differ
ent relationships to the phenomina of
the worlds forces in the different
stages of its evolution.
Archemedes said: Il have a lever
with which l could move the world if
only had fulcrum on which to place
it," But we have discovered in this
latter day that the experience and con-
servatism of age is the fulcrum upon
which the lever of youthful vigor and
enthusiasm may be placed to move the
world. Every achievement crystalized
in the civilization of the present repre-
sents the dynamics of youthful ag
gression a generation ago, and the
balance and steadiness given by the
maturity and experience of age. Youth
is the period of greatest activity, of in
tensest zeal and of enthusiasm. ItI
may not be time of mature thought
or of best judgment. 1t has not been
not experience. But other important
characteristics mark it, 1t may not
be conservative, but it has life. 1t may
not be cautious, but it has determina-
IIOH. lucy II QOCo lOl hGCp COOlg IL
generates heat. 1t does not look back,
but turns it sanguine eyes toward the
future. 1t does not cling to probabili-
ties, but seizes the possibilities at
hand and brings the so-called impos-
sible to pass; believing that because
the Almighty wants new things done in
new ways, He takes one generation off
the stage of action and brings another
on.
No wisdom of the divine economy is
more pronounced and infallible than
which places those two influences,
youth and age, side by side to act and
react upon the moral elements of life
about it, like the centrifugal phenom-
ena of gravitation tending to fly from
the center and the centripetal to bring
it back. 1t is no discredit to those
whose honored maturity has placed in
the hold to ballast the ship, or sta
toned them at the wheel to steer.