The Mena weekly star., 1908-05-14

Now is your chance to become the man the woman you wish to be.
 The baccalaureate sermon last
 night by Dr. F. k. DeLongy,
 rector of the Episcopal church,
 attracted an attendance that filled
 the Davis opera house, every seat
 being taken and some being
 forced to stand.
 After song by the high school
 pupils, Prof. w. T. Adams, prin-
 cipal of the Mena schools. pre- scented Dr. c. K. Marshall, pastor
 of the Christian church, who de- liyered au invocation ia a manner full of earnes.ness and depth of feeling.
 Dr. DeLongy was then intro duced by Prof. Adams and deliv- cred an able sermon that held the closest attention of the entire as. setnbly despite the rather excess sive heat of the evening.
 The sermon in full follows: My young friends: Experience enables me to say that you have ar rived at an important point in the
 history of your lives, and therefore
 l shall attempt in this, your bacca- laureate sermon, to furnish some
 practical hints for useful, helpful
 thought and conversation for the future. For this purpose 1 have selected a passage of Scripture as our text which would recommend you to engrave upon your memory and adopt as motto for the re- mainder of your entire life. The text is: 1st Cor, 16:13, Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit ye like men, be strong" :"
 In these words of the apostle we are bidden to play the part of men. not spoiled children; we are to act worthily of all that is highest and best in ourselves, to throw ourselves on ourselves and quit us like men like women. And in order that we may do this effectually, God in his goodness has so ordered it that, as life advances, self is lost and swallowed up in something higher than self. Our higher self, that which makes us men, not beasts, is the image of God in which we were created, the image which Christ came to renew, and this, by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit is drawn into likeness and union with Him to whom we were likened at first. Our strength is therefore not merely moral strength, it is spiritual and divine.
 1t has been necessary for me to allude to this because 1 have ven- tured to speak of strength as fact in our nature. Moral strength is the gift of God to man, and in mans most perfect life this strength con- tinually co-operates with the divine. There can be no good acts done with out the grace of God or separated from the grace of Christ, but men think they are standing alone be- cause as yet He has not revealed Himself to them.
 God deals with us as father does with child. He says act up to what is noblest and best in you and l will give you something higher still. Quit you like men" and ye shall be strong in the strength which is divine.
 How many of us are using to the full these sources of divine strength? This is practical question, and, too, this is proper time to pro- pound it, for it is the occasion of all the scholastic days in the high school efforts for us to take account of the past; not perhaps in that more general sense in which we are at times cal ed up to enter into with our Lord, for the calling as it does for baccalaureate sermon, is one more to human frailty than that.
 It is the day and occasion we are to sum up the benefits the literary blessings received within those high school walls, to what degree we have made use of them, and what benefits we may still hope to reap from those that have not yet been | fully improved. And my friends l assure you 1 approach my subject | with temerity amounting almost | to fear, because 1 realize the impor- tance of this occasion.
 Knowing as do that the preacher often has cause to regret that after opening out his masters message to hose to whom he has been commis- stoned to instruct, and dwelling pos 'ibly with eloquence and fervor up- ,n some subject with whose vital to those around him, he s himself most deeply impressed. h md no sooner is the scene changed md the common occupations of life 'nce more resumed than all efforts 'f his impassioned appeal has vanish 'd, and all the earnest and solemn ; eaehing has been but as the idle words of one beating against the ( .ir.
 Often is the seed no sooner sown f 'roadcast over u e field than some V 'ust of passion, some rushing swirl a f folly sweeps it from off the face V f the ground, and suffers it to take Q