The San Francisco call., 1910-06-20
HADLEY DISCUSSES
FAITH AND WISDOM
Says Those Who Trust Men
Must Also Judge Them


NEW HAVEN, Conn. June 19.-TI
baccalaureate sernfon to the Yale grad
uating class was delivered today b
president Arthur T. Hadley.
His address in part follows:
Among the leaders of the civil
war General Grant was distin-
gulshed by large minded faith in
men, 1t was great source OF
strength to him; virtue that per-
others in making his career a sue
cess. He spent upon the work that
was before him the energies that
other people wasted in distrusting
or backbiting their associates; and
the result justified his faith and his
wisdom. But when he came into
the presidency he carried this be-
lief In bis friends to unreasonable
lengths. II he liked a man he. at
once had faith in him; and that
faith under the new conditions
often proved to be badly misplaced.
AS result the years of Grants
second administration were among
the most corrupt in the history Of
our country; and people for time
lost their admiration of Grants
greatness in their indignation at
his mistakes
HOW TO TRUST MEN
If you are going to trust men
you must take the trouble to Judge
l.
nate trust without Judgment is
about as bad as the extreme of
indiscriminate criticism without
faith.
No man can do a really large
work who does not believe in his
friends; but by that same token
the man who chooses his friends
wrongly or who confides in them
Witnont discrimination is fore
doomed to do his work wrong.
nf die1 1y-it ,i,s., : +it,<r
friendship is so obvious that 1 shall
not dwell upon it longer Less OBJ
vious, but perhaps on that account
III the more dangerous, is the evil
OF undiscriminating reliance upon
law.
There is no fieId-I say it rever-
ently-in which 1t is SO necessary
to combine intelligence with faith
as In our idea of God. This is
peculiarly true today, because to-
day for the first time each man is
encouraged to develop his own con-
ce,ption of what God is like and
what God wants.
In former days men were bound
down by creeds which described in
detail Gods attributes and Gods
wishes. You accepted him as he
was pictured in those creeds or you
rejected him altogether. Today we
try to Judge for ourselves regard
ing Gods attributes and Gods
wishes. OF alIthe responsibilities
Wnlcn go with the exercise OF pri-
vate judgment this is the greatest.
When Robert Ingersol1 said, AN
honest gods the noblest work of
man., he uttered a profound truth,
(which many who professed to be
more religious than he might well
take to heart
WAY TO SHAPE FAITH
You scall your God the God of
justice; see to it that your faith
takes such shape that you could
worship him only by doing Justice.
You call your God the God of love;
see that your faith is so shaped as
to make you give love instead of
merely trying to receive it. You
call him the God of battles-and
this is perhaps in a real masculine
faith the highest title of all. See
that your trust in HIM Is an inspi-
ration to you to take your part in
the battles both with courage and
with intelligence; for otherwise
that faith is mere blasphemous
idolatry
The soldier who fights without
faith fights badly; but the soldier
~also fights badly who fights with
such blind faith that he relaxes his
watchfulness, his intelligence or
his sense of personal possibility.
This is true in the physical warfare
between nation and nation; 1t is
yet more profoundly true in the
great moral war between right and
wrong.