Connecticut western news., 1902-06-26

and do not disgrace it. If you dis grace this home. remember that on the great day of judgment before God l
 shall witness against you and tell God that you were brought up right and dedicated by our prayers to his serv- ice, and that you went to destruc- tion of your own accord" You know just as much what you morally ought to do as James Harper knew what he
 morally ought to do.
 So on this graduation day of June
 congratulate you young people because you have had such competent teachers
 to develop your intellect, and I also
 congratulate you because you have
 had such efficient moral teachers to develop your heart. You were rocked in a Christian cradle. You were start ed forth with Christian prayers. There has never been a day in all the time you have been away to college that your father at the family altar did not make a morning prayer something like this: God bless and protect and guard
 our boy and girl at college. God make
 John a good man. God make Sarah good woman" Your mother, kneeling by his side, would say: Amen, amen. God bless my absent son and my ab- sent daughter" There was not week
 in all your college life when you did , not receive letter from home. Per haps your professor of belles lettres l might say they were poorly written, but Christ would say they were beau tifully written letters. In those letters your mother always wrote about her Saviour, and she always penned a ! sentence something like this: My dear boy, remember that when you are studying about the ancient Greeks and Romans you must not forget to read your Bible and study about Christ. would have you know nothing but Jesus only rather than have you know everything that worldly scholars might
 want you to learn if thereby you would neglect to know about my Christ"
 Do No DtshonOr.
 To show how much a young man ought to appreciate the moral training 1 of his old home, as well as the intellec- tual training which he receives at col lege, the late J. Sterling Morton, who was once a member of MT. Cleyeland's s cabinet, placed this epitaph upon the tombstone of his dead wife: Here lies Caroline French, wife of J. Ster- ling Morton and mother of Joy, Paul, Y Clark and Mark Morton" Then the { father took his four sons to the grave i of his dead wife and said: Boys, your
 mother is buried here. If any one of \ you does anything dishonorable or any f thing of which she would be ashamed \ If she were alive, I will chisel your \ name from her tombstone" And so, f addressing you in the same spirit in which Secretary Morton spoke to his \ four sons, I now say to you, "1oung men and young women, remember the teaching of your parents, who first gave the right direction to your heart
 and nature, and. as you would not dis
 honor them by ignoring their moral teaching, so I beg of you do not intel lectually dishonor or disgrace your al-
 ma mater, from whose walls you are being graduated today"
 Again congratulate you, young peo- pie, because hereafter you are about to have the inspiration of daily re- wards. 1t is hard task for young man to work for something that Is to
 happen ten, twenty, thirty years hence, l to work for something that is to take place so far away that it seems as
 though the fact wIrl never happen, to
 work for something in the way that a young man pays his first life Insurance premium. I suppose my personal ex- 1 perience in getting insured is' that of almost every other young man. When ! took out a twenty year tontine life i insurance policy, I felt as though I was | paying for something which would ! happen at the end of eternity. I paid ! my first premium very grudgingly; I paid the second in the same way. At : the third year I was almost ready to : surrender the whole policy, but as the
 flying years began to go over my head : as flock of migrating birds I began to see that the twentieth year was not so 1 far away. Now, the last investment I ] would be willing to sacrifice Is that , twenty year life insurance policy.
 So the young student who works at ] his studies is sometimes willing to slight them because graduation day.
 like death, seems to be far away at the edge of the horizon. The more the
 student works the farther graduation
 day seems to recede. But, my young
 friends, from now on you shall see the ' direct returns from your daily labors. An aged writer once figuratively de clared, "The longest half of a mans earthly life Is that in which he lives
 before twenty years of age is reached"
 think that statement is true. No matter whether a man lives to be sev-
 enty, eighty, ninety or even a hundred ! years old, the longest half of life is 1 that which he passes during the first
 twenty years. When we were young,
 time seemed to have leaden feet. Time,
 like a snail, would crawl. It never
 walked or ran or flew. To a little
 boy the last week before Christmas
 Is almost endless. Every second has
 the longevity of an adults hour. The
 week seems as long as the average
 adults year.
 But as we grow older the years seem
 to have seven leagued boots. They
 grow so fast that they almost seem to
 be born with gray hairs. To the man in active life January seems almost
 to tread upon the heels of December,
 and spring and autumn seem to be
 twin sisters. My young friends, though
 you may hardly be out of your teens,
 yet in the sense In which I speak~you
 have already lived half of your life.
 During that first half you have had a
 hard struggle to get an education. At
 times you were almost in despair. But
 in answer to your mothers and
 fathers prayers, and also to your own,
 God always came to your rescue. You
 were able to get through somehow.
 Here you are at graduation day. So,
 in the latter part of your life, if you
 trust God and do your best he will
 surely see you safely through. You
 are going to have troubles, and hard