The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-06-23
YALE'S GREAT FESTIVE WEEK
Continued from First Page,)

living without sinking all his ideals
 therein, there waits a more subtle set of
 tcmptations-the temptations of ambi-
 ton. If you have passed successfully
 the tests of the first hard years of life
 in the office or the shop you will find
 wide fields of success opening before
 you. Where will you seek that success?
 Is it to be in the accumulation of a
 large fortune-no longer as means of
 physical comfort, but as a means of in-
 huencing the actions of others? Shall
 1t be in social position among your fel-
 low men? Shall it be in political office
 and in the conduct of the affairs of the
 nation? Each of these ambitions has in
 1t much that is nable. The millionaire,
 the social leader the political chieftain,
 all have in their hands enormous pow
 CT for good It is just because of the
 existence of this power that the danger
 comes close home, and comes home
 closest to the very strongest among us,
 of subordinating all other ends to these
 immediate objects. The strong man, if
 he worships money, is offered the prom
 ise of many millions of dollars; if he
 worships political power, the prizes of
 office stand before his hand. Whether
 they are more surely gained in this way
 than any other I shall not undertake to
 say; but certain it is that the devil will
 be at hand to show you overwhelming
 reasons to believe that that is the only
 way in which they can be gained-that
 you can commune with the object of
 your worship only by falling down at
 his feet, and forgetting that there Is any other god. What answer did Christ give to this proposal? Not that of the ascetic, who would undervalue the world. The Christian knows the worth of worldly influence just as well as he knows the worth of worldly industry. But the man whose eyes go not beyond this influence hath sinned against the Holy Ghost. It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." Sometime you will come face to face with this choice, at a time when it will determine the outcome of your whole life. Will you fall down and worship the devil for the sake of all the kingdoms of the world? If you by your daily thoughts and your habits of action prepare to answer this question wrongly, then you may per
  not, for it takes strong man to hold the devil to his promises. If, on the other hand, you prepare to answer this question alright, then you may lose all the kingdoms of the world or you may gain them-and it makes no real differ ence which. Christ on Palm Sunday, with all the fickle multitude falling down before him, was not one whit the greater than the same Christ five days later, when the multitude were crying against him, when his very friends shrank away in fear, and when he half doubted lest His own God had forsaken Him.
 But there is yet another temptation less universal than either of these named, but to him for whom it comes yet more difficult to resist.
 It is an interesting thing to note that the order of temptations is different in the two accounts which have been handed down to us. Matthew makes as the continuation of the whole the temp ta ton to worship the devil in order that Christ may receive the kingdoms of the world. Luke the physician finds a more profoundly true climax in another impulse, less easy for the multitude to understand, but harder for the leader of the multitude to resist. If thou be the Christ. cast myself down from the pin nacle of the temple" This is no com mon temptation, no vulgar craving for | bread to satisfy hunger; no equally vul- gar. though more intellectual, desire for authority over ones fellows. It is the | desire of the strong man, conscious of | his power to assert that power in the | face of all nature. To do something | out of the common run of work, some | thing whose possibilities have been un- | realized by the vulgar mind-this is the | dream which all great men cherish, and | to which some of them subordinate eve rything else. To dazzle the world by 1 campaigns like those of Napoleon, by achievements in literature like those of Goethe; or to achieve the almost mirac- ulous discoveries which have awaited the pioneers in literature and science these are prizes to attract the ambi- tion and unsteady the judgment of any man. And even among those who do not delude themselves with the belief that they are set apart from the conn., mon lot, the temptation to sacrifice all other considerations to those of profess sional ambition, and to sink the man in the achievement, comes with force well-nigh irresistible.
 And what is the answer when this is suggested Jesus said unto him, It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God" It was just because he had Gods power and Gods spirit in Him that He felt the ability to dazzle men by His achievements and was exposed to the temptation which this ability carries with it. But the man who subordinates himself to his achievements and who in the greatness If the expression of the power, loses his sense of personal responsibility has ised the attributes of divinity to despoil himself irreparably of the substance. It S not enough for a man to be greater han his appetites and greater than his ambitions; he must be greater than his works. This is not an easy idea to grasp, but t is a terribly important one. Paul, I Augustine and Luther have in their f several ways tried to express it in the loctrine of justification by faith, ( Ioethe in his Wilhelm'S MeiSter has '