Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1909-07-02

When the 109th commencement ex-
ercises of Middlebury college opened
Sunday morning in the Congregational
church, the edifice was crowded to the
doors, and in the center of the big audi
ence were the 48 members of the senior
class, the largest in the history of the
gathered to hear the bacca-
laureate sermon preached by President
John NJ. Thomas His text was 'Thy
Wise Men, o Tyre, Were in Thee; They
Were Thy Pilots" Ezekiel s7:s.
President Thomas sketched briefly the
commercial history of the Phoenicians
and maintained that the wisdom of Tyre
was commercial wisdom. not broadened
by the love of knowledge, nor tempered
by the reverence of the right. Her wise
men were her pilots, not her philosophers
or her statesmen, or her priests or her
prophets or men of letters. Her sages
were men Of trade and her talent, her
genius, her energy and her toll, went for
the finding of markets and the gathering
of gain. He described che condemnation
spoken by the prophet Ezekiel against
the city, and said that it is a condemna-
tion which holds good wherever among
the cities of men there is found one
which has lost the sense of the things
by which men live, which has 10 "larger
horizons, no hopes beyond material ad-
vancement."
AMERICAS GREAT MEN.
Our wise men are not our pilots; not
yet, thank God. The men that stand
out in American history are not the men
who have made great corners in mar
kets and run printing presses for the
limitless issue of stock. You may ask
the boys on the streets, or the workmen
in the quarries and factories, the rich or
the poor in the city or in the country;
you may ask the great multitude of the
honest, hard working folk that make up
the strength of this nation, and for the
wise men among us, the names of Amer
can honor, you will not hear the names
of those who have gathered most gold;
but first, and before ALL and in affection
chiefest, you will catch the homely
name of Abraham Lincoln, with malice
toward none, and with charity for all,
who didn't know how to make money,
who paused in affairs of state to write to
a mother who had lost five sons on the
| field of battle.
After Lincoln you will find in the
hearts of the people men like Long
fellow, who wrote of the village black
smith, who could look the whole world
in the face, since he owed not any man,
and who could hear the mothers voice
in paradise when his daughter sang in
the church; men like Whittier, the gen.
tie, the pure, and the lover of the bare.
foot boy; and Grant. who fought with
death to pay his debts, and, of course
Washington, who knelt in the forests
when his soldiers were without shoes.
| OUR TRUE AMERICANS.
These are our wise men and our true
Americans; some of them men Of fortune
and of large responsibility in affairs
valued not for their ability to promote
their own wealth or that of others, but
for the cleanness in which they discerneC
the right, the strength by which they
held to their duty, and the self-sacrific,
in which they gave their lives for thu
uplift of the world. You may search
through any community, a prosperou
city or tiny hamlet, and whom will yol
find accounted wise? Not yet, thank God
the men who have made most money
but some hard-working self-sacrificini
physician, some humble citizen who
always looking after the boys and ism
afraid of taxes in school meeting, som
minister of religion who speaks the trut
with an open heart and visits the sick
or some master of industry who is ma
that can be counted on for the publ
betterment of a community, or when an
stricken family needs a strong wis
friend. Let us shape our ideals in tn
light of the truth of the ruins of Tyre.
THE TRUE IDEALS.
When we are in a crowd no one coul
stir us to enthusiasm with the recital of
selfish achievement, however great. W
would catch the eye of others, and |
ashamed to cheer at such a thing as II
mere getting ahead in trade and gail
But when we are alone and tired of life
hard work, we give ourselves to dream
we are inclined to forget the tenth cor
mandment, and the wise men of OF
inner heart become those who correspor
to the pilots of Tyre. May God forgi'
us! And may he bring us back to Il