Omaha daily bee., 1908-06-08
ANDREWSTALKS TOSTUDENTS
Commencement Sermon is on Christ,
the Common Man.
BRYAN DISCUSSES PLATFORM
Nebraska Candidate, in Address 10
travelling Men, Tells what He
Thinks Democratic Party
wim saE.
BRYAN DISCUSSES PLATFORM
1Ero a STAT correspondent

Gro a staff Correspondent.
LINCOLN, June T-(Special)-Chancel-
Tor 4. Benjamin Andrews Of the State uni
vorsity delivered the annual commence
ment sermon to the graduating class at
the temple tonight. His subject ., was
Christ and the Cannon Man" His ser
mon follows;
Matthew 1885. Is not this the carpen-
ter's son?
by a singular perversity Of our nature
we are unable to think the familiar as
great. Christ's neiehbors could not take
Him seriously because He followed a trade,
was brought up in a one-story house upon
tho next street, lacked all wealth and titles
and had brothers and sisters whom every
one familarly knew. Go to, they said,
this Jesus cannot be Of much account, just
a carpenter and joiner's boy. bright and
q, yer enough. no doubt. but ordinary clay
icyoithelcs.. His pretensions to prophetic
powers they rallied, at as mild lunacy, then
as Wild lunncy, but lunacy and nothing
ircrc.
Reading the record. We are surprise and
Gisguxted at such patent sophisms. How
could sensible men ever have reasoned soF
Yet people ali about us today are reason
ing quite as stupidity. What is near we
consider vulgar, while we persistently
identify extraordinariness with the distant
and the unknown.
yet the Divine hand was in It, for, If
Christ was to do a redeeming work for
our race. He must needs enlist not in any
CT the rare or reconcile forms which hu-
manity takes on, but as q matter of the
great commonality. He must Identify him
self with humanity. as bone Of our bone,
flesh of our flesh, blood Of our blood.
lie must plant Himself on the platform
with the common man, hailing from the
misses and not from any Of the classes.
lone roint l beg you to notice with pc
GUITAR care. that We must not identify
the standard man. the commonalty. the
oommoEer, with extremely poor people.
These come into the picture, but only at
its edge. Christ did not represent the
proletariat. but the self-respecting. we'll
to-do artisan or middle class. His apos-
ties, without exception, belonged to the
same. They we're thrifty, self-supporting
and well off. though not rich. They never
begged or stole. and they always paid
t!cir honest debts. That this was the
sniItt of the apostolic circle you see from
tEe command issu-u ny cne OF them, him
self a Jtuin,y mau tent nlakter, that II
mca woalr uO- wJ..- ne tAer should they
e..
: isNt usF you to remark that the
s-anGaid n.. .orns the vast bulk OF
ca s~Io-ics, TIE overwhelming majority OF
LunGa kiLd. NeIy rich and very poor
versions are only the fr!nges of humanity.
IAN the ~irat moral and religious lights
CT our rs 'have been mon Of the people;
Christ and Socrates, and Buddha as well,
for though born q prince He had no power
over men till He became a m like
tha raas 1rbts "a thu tr,,n .tar,r - al Am,
prophets. apostles. reformers and priests.
Tbs. sfest intellectual teachers OF the
race. like Plato. Aristotle and Kant, have
, come up from the ranks. So have the i'm
mortal inventors like Edison, Tesla and
Lord Kelvin. So. with the exception OF
Alexander and Frederic the Great, have
all the illustrops military chief ,ains, Caesar
Cromwell. Napoleon, Marlborough. Well.
ington and also the e~poeh-making states.
men, Gladstone, Gambetta, Bismarck. d
gil foremost discoveries the story has beer
the same. Livingston was a missionary
Henry ~ Stanley was born and educated
in a poorhouse. The princes of the blood
who have done &or the race anything ex
traordinary are few enough TO be counted
on ones fingers.
Take q pointer for your ambition. Tn,
proper ideal Of personal striving is tina.
each man should be the best specimen Of
humanity that he can make OF himself
Ones great aim ought to be not to becom,
i, specially well-off in temporalities, but to b,
a multi-millionaire in spiritualities. Higher
wages would do good. Wealth is no
equally distributed. Pray for bettermen0
In thes0. regards Temporal advantage
no doubt Influence character. though b.
no means as much as character influences
conditions. We wish higher wages so IA,
as wages will help men upward in char
aeter. A thrifty population? Good. lie
us have II. But above all let us have
spiritual population. men and women o
personal worth. We would fiji the eartl