The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-08-04
SERMON TO YOUNG PEOPLE
RESPONSIBILITY OF CHILDREN TO
THEIR PARENTS AND FAMILIES.
The Rev. Worth vi. Tippy Tells Why
Young People Should Feel Moral
Responsibility.

usual. OF Sunday evenings the pastor Rev.
Worth NJ. Tippy. has been delivering a
series of sermons to the young people. Last
night he spoke on 1.-THE Cloud of Witness
es.' Mr.. Tippy spoke in part as follows
at is an incentive of the most powerful
kind for man to work with the conscious
ness that many eyes are watching his
achievements. He bends himself 10 his
task, like strong man bowling himself be-
meath a burden. He summons every energy
of body and brain day after day. knowing
that countless faces hover about MIN, some
of them full OF solicitous tenderness, ready
TO cloud with sorrow or brighten with JOY.
Tine author of Hebrews saw such cloud
of witnesses watching over the lives of
the Christians of the first century and in
spring them to a service of love and TO
deeds of heroism. 1 know of no finer per-
grafton in the literature of oratory than in
that sublime passage. in which he mar
shals the long line of prophetic Hebrew
souls, who through fifteen hundred years
of history had endured as seeing Him who
is invisible
LIVING NOT UNTO ONES SELF.
ut is a conviction that grows upon young
people who are just entering upon man
hood that their lives are their own and
that they should be allowed the right of
personal judgment and the privilege of fol-
lowing the bent of their own desires. Re-
straints are therefore irksome, and the
revolt against authority of every kind is
in the blood. In a profound sense this is
right and natural 1t is natures signal of
maturity; that the time has come for the
young man and the young woman more
no
protecting environment of home, and to
go alone into the wide world to make their
way among their fellow men.
But in an equally profound sense this
voice of independence is wrong and dan
gerous. The dependence and obligations of
young people to others is of equal author
ity with their independence. Up to the
age which you young people have reached
you have received vastly more from others
than you have made for yourselves. The
strength, the beauty, the happiness of your
lives have been given to you from the full
ness of other lives.
THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES.
Therefore l want to take your thought
/ out of yourselves, away from the narrow
ness of your personal ambitions and pleas
ures. The noblest life is not conferred within
| itself. The finest qualities of the soul
wither and die in the presence of self-inter-
est, like flowers under the MONDAY sun in
a time of drought. 1 desire to help you
| feel your obligations to others; to help you
| to realize this evening the cloud of wit
| neSseS, from whom you have received so
much and who are looking upon you with
! such deep solicitude at this hour. They
are here this evening, parents, brothers
! and sisters, relatives friends teachers
! There are perchance invisible faces of the
| loved and lost who out of heaven know
what Is happening at this hour, and who
will follow you in the after years. How
| the thought of these other than yourselves
| should sober you, should chasten your JOY
] should enable your purposes, should sancti-
~ your lives! Lift your thought out of
| yourselves, my dear young people, and give
place with gratitude to these who love
you.
II would narrow your thought however.
! TO a rev, but to a very select and precious
few, from this cloud of witnesses-who are
| present visible or invisible at this service.
1 would call your thought to your fathers
| and mothers.
PARENTS AND CHILDREN.
They have made a heavy investment of
money in you for many, many years, and
remember always that money represents
toll. 1t has been a joy TO them. They have
sung at their tasks, but nevertheless you
have been bought with a price.
But their investment has been more
precious than a sacrifice of material things
1 fear l cannot explain to you the patient
suffering, the days and nights of watching
nor the anxiety. the seif-deniaI and the
wealth of yearning love, that they have
put into your lives these fifteen or sixteen
years. Some day you will know and under
stand, but l would have you try to under
stand even little now. They have guarded
your health, shaped your habits, shielded
your childhood, sent you TO school, pro-
vided you with raiment and daily bread
ministered to your happiness in thousand
ways, and loved you with love which has
no parallel except in heaven they have
asked only one reward-that you requitt
them with affection and by becoming high
minded men and women.
"One thing more l have need to tell you
II is that more and more, they grow
older, fathers and mothers live in theil
children. In old age wealth loses its charm
pleasure of the usual sort its fine relish. and
the activities of the world their fascination
but the love of parents for their children
abdes. The future happiness of your faith
ers and mothers is largely in your keeping
You may make them supremely happy oil
exceedingly sorrowful. You may make the
closing of their day respondent with
golden sunset. you may cause ii to pas:
out amidst storm and thick darkness
can go over in my memory many instance.
in which the lives of parents have beer
filled with distressing pain, because of on
erring child. / have known ministers t
give up their work, others fortunes repre-
senting the toll of the years; mothers I,
weep through the long hours of the night
because of a boy or girl who had gon
full and so utterly cruel?
/, ION the other hand, nothing surpasse
the comfort, the quiet satisfaction and tn
happy peace, which dwell in fathers an,
mothers hearts when their children hav
been honor TO them Remember then
my dear young friends, that you are no
= living for yourselves, nor will you ever liv
for yourselves. Whether you will or not
! the happiness of other hearts will be in
timately bound up with your successes an
failures.
THE DESIRE OF PARENTS.
2 Just word in closing about what you
fathers and mothers will most want you I
do. They will be anxious that you succee
! i'm whatever you undertake as a life occu
T ! patton. This is natural and right. Som
parents desire their children to succeed a
! any price. and they are not particular wha
other things they do, so long as they acct
= mulate wealth. l do not believe, however
that many parents have such feeling an
l trust that none who are here are so gnC
! BILE. Above any materia! success the aver
age father and mother value child wit
! fine moral qualities. No amount of success
4 / will atone for dishonor. Not all the pei
{ / fumes of Arabia sweeten the fOulnes
' / of impurity and littleness of spirit Yo
will bring upon your heads the benedictior
= I OF this cloud OF witnesses. II, in your pei
sonal lives you are clean, in your aspirs
tions you are high-minded. and in the al
fairs of the community you publ
spirited
Il have also learned something else in IN
intimate pastoral associations of years wit
my people. III is. that in the secrecy OF the
hearts men are profoundly religious. The