The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1904-01-22
A sH9T@
AN eloaGgNf DISCOURSE .sy THE
REV. Or. J. eA>ccM SHAW.
An Interesting Lesson Drawn Prom the
Text Run >yssh R>sie&e>yrK~p]
Jesus As . Pattern Before foa IA me-
RSoe of LIE.

Sunday morning before the students of
Princeton University. He took hit text
from Hebrews kill: Run with patience"
DIR. Shaw said
There 10 a vast difference between walk
ing with patience and running with pa
tience. Both are hard intellectually hard,
but they are hard in very different ways,
and call for graees which are exact op-
quire. the grace Of repression or resig.
nation. The spirit leaps ahead but the
body must needs lag behind. We want
10 run, but We have 10 walk, and q SOW
pace when one feels he might make
haste and ought to make haste is might
Ily agravanng.
Walking with patience is one Of the
young mans struggles. He wants to get
on and up, with quick speed, but CIR
eumstances are holding him back. He has
mother TO support, be works for an un-
appreciative firm, he lacks the proper IN
fuence, he has no friends at court, he
can command no capital. Therefore, he
must stay a clerk when he deserves the
superintendency. He must 90 to business
when be would prefer a profession. Creep
ing when you are eager TO be leaplng-
ssn you imagine a greater tax upon pa.
uence than that?
Walking with patience is poverty's prob
lem. To suffer want when others no more
deserving than you are IN affiuence, and be
resigned TO it, IL is the hardest possible
a
our labor agitation-impatience under linn.
itations.
Walking with patience is misfortune's
mission. To be held back by reverses. dis
abled by sickness, retarded by circum-
stances, felled by a great sorrow SO that
We must walk instead of run-these are
among the most difficslt experiences of
life, and are these not experiences that
come to all? Who of us, the most pros
porous and fortunate, those whose track
has the fewest up grades upon steven
the young college man with his own pc
culiar problems to solve and struggle to
meet-who of US does not find frequent
need TO cry out with face turned upward.
/ want the love that all things sweety
bear,
Whate'er my Fathers hand may choose
10 send.
want the love that patiently endures
The wrongs that come from earthly Toe
or friend.
Some great soul who bad evidently
taken a full course in the school of sui
fering and won the full diploma OF res
igna.ion, has most aptiy and beautifully
expressed the souls need under such co :
ditions in these words:
The night is dark, but God, nv God,
la here and in command;
And sure am i, when morning breaks,
i shall be at the land
And since i know the darkness is
To Him as sunniest day,
III cast the anchor-patience-out,
And wish--but wait for day
God help US to learn how TO walk with
patience!
But what about running with patience;
Does IL not call for quite another school
ing OF ourselves, just as running on the
athletic fed demands a training peculiar
TO itself? Even a fast walker is not nee
essarily a good runner. The requirement
10
Here ~ needed not the grace OF repression,
rs IL the other case, but of cultivation.
OF application OF concentration rather than
OF resignation. In walking with patience,
the weights and the brakes both must be
applied in order TO nod the spirit back and
keep it apace with the bo6y,. But to run
with patience. the weights need to be laid
aside and the brakes removed that the IN
ner may keep abreast with the outward,
that our ambitions, our hopes, cur aims,
may fly forward toward the goal, nor, .
a. the line of the old hymn runs, tire
amid the heavenly road"
The very pace of the runner Is itself
the foe of patience. 1t calls, seemingly,
TO: impetuousity, and the more impetu.
Gus the runner, we are accustomed to think,
the better. Its certain effect rs TO heat the
blood and fire the nerves. Behold the
athlete with every Muscle taught, every
hne of his face hard set, his eye intense
and e. ser, the appauding crowd urging
him on! How can he be poiseful and
self-conirolled? Indeed, patience would
price of the prize. And yet every ath-
letic man before me knows this is the talk
of a novice. Ii there Is anything the run
ner needs it Is self-control, to be abe
TO keep his head" as we say, to com.
mand his nerves, TO ho,d his strength
IN check at the fret and le. it out toward
the finish, TO keep rom being unneryed
by the shouts of the crowd, to be equal to
any unforeseen turn the race may take or
any condition before unreckoned with that
might appear. And does it not always
turn out that running match is at bot
tom chiefly question of self-command-
muscle, wind, nerve, mind, yes, and heart
-aed the winner ever found to be the one
who has run the race with the greatest
patience?
Young men, this is a running age, and a
country where, whether you will or not,
you must adopt the quickest pace. step
lively" the car conductors inelegant com
mand, is Enthusiastically American,
though it may usually happen in this case
TO be spoken by foreigner. All Amer
eans are proverbially in hurry. Even our
kindergarten tots have caught the step,
and from childhood on 1t gets gradually
faster and faster, until, when a young man
reaches maturity, ne is on a dead run.
Life these days lie yeritab.e rush for ex-
lstence.
40 run, tneu II an easy lnlnR-lt p the
most natural thing in the world TO rs. we
have been bred TO 1t; it is instinct, but to
run with patience, to keep the soul calm
when the body lecomes heated and over
taxed, so that the spiritual does not lag
behind the material life. and we grow fe-
verish, sordid, impetuous-ahi this is quite
another thing Such a difficult task 10 IL
that, amid the clamor and tumult of our
modern life, II il the rarest thing 10 find
men with tranquil temperaments, stead
fast patient, reposeful. Under the strs n
and pressure of the times we get irascible
restless, nervous, narrow and shallow of
soul. Solitude has no longer any congo
niality for US, and, as DR. Samuel johnson
declared years ago, When a man cannot
bear his own company, does not like TO be
alone, there is something wrong" 1t
would seem az If Wordsworth were ar
raigning our age and not bic own, which
was so phlegmatic and meditatve as com
pared with this. when he wrote down his
memorable lines:
The world is too much with us; late and
soon,
Getting and spending, We lay waste our
powers.
Little we see in nature that s our;
We have given our hearts away, sordid
boom"
Aversive 10 solitude, and over-enamored
of society, hard driven b materialistic
gain and greed, tearing ahead for a prizs
that our nervous clutch may crush 20 soon
az II is once IN the hand, we outrun our re-
iieious duty, the claims of our inner nature
are left away behind, and we 80 dashing
madly ahead, like runaway engine into
spiritual, IL not moral ruin. This, young
men IL the feyerish race you are anon 20