Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1911-06-23

story of the miracle of turning water to
wine, the supply of wine having become
exhausted
The first lesson he found in the text was
the importance of preparation. Great,
and yet none too great, emphasis is being
placed in our day upon the value and
absolute necessity of preparation. He
then showed that the importance of
preparation was not peculiar to our
generation. All the great outstanding
characters in history including Christ,
spent much time in preparation. Pre-
pare for life and a place will be prepared
for you in life. Prepare for lfe's oppor-
tunities and you need not embrace them
they'll embrace you and literally drag
| you into service. There are many more
| places in life than there are men who
can fill them. There isn't profession or
| trade that is crowded with the material
| demanded, complaints to the contrary
| Notwithstanding. Complaints are heard
| but why? Because those Improperly pre-
| pared are bound to suffer i'm the opera
ton of the pitiless law of the survival
| of the fittest."
| In defining education the speaker said:
| We're living in the grandest age that
| the world has ever seen. Many prophets
| and righteous men have desired to see
| this day and have not seen it The
| whole creation groaneth and traVaileth
| in pain together until now to produce
this day. We're standing upon the bound
| less and fathomless sea of life while
| ceaseess tides are washing up from its
| cavernous depths truths hidden from thu,
| foundation of the world waiting to be
| revealed, until the shore all about us as
| far as the eye can reach Is literally
| strewn with the priceless gems OF eter-
| nal truth, and the soul of man is a re-
ceptacle sufficiently wide and deep and
| high and expansive to contain all the
| good and all the beautiful and all the
| true in Gods great universe of truth and
in his great world of beauty. Oh, let us
| throw open the dark shutters of our
| prejudice and lift the curtains of our
| clouded vision and raise the windows of
| our aspiring souls and let the eternal
| immutable truths of the infinite pervade
our beings and transfigure our lives.
| Nothing short of this Is education"
But preparation, he said is not com
plete in itself until it has not only looked
but actually gone beyond itself Gods
| sole employment since time began so far
| as we have or can gain any knowledge
| of Him, has been that of serving man.
| He literally spreads a table before us,
not in the midst of our enemies,
| but surrounded by our friends, and
| bids us sit down to meat and cover
| ing himself with light as with a garment
and girding himself with the white towel
| of the fleecy clouds lie comes forth and
| serves us, literally washes our feet with
| the evening dews and wipes them with
| the kiss of the morning. Draw out then
| and bear to the Great Ruler of the feast
| and your efforts will never miscarry.
| Man will be served God will be glorified
and you will be blessed,
| Possession may be nine points of the
| civil law, but it's only one point of the
moral law and even that will soon reach
the vanishing point II allowed to go no
| farther Being is not an end in itself
| but only means to a nobler end that
| of doing, that of serving Service, ne
| said, Is the projection of our individual
| lives out into the great composite life
about us So true Is the seed to this in
| stinct that not a single atom In Gods
great economy Is lost. We are but in
| fnitesimal parts Of an Infinite plan
Apart from that plan we must die A mart
OF that plan and we live and live most
| truly. At rest like the seed we die. In action
| like the plant We live. Alone like the
raindrop we evaporate. With others like
the streams we enlarge more and more
Oh, let us. the tiny individual atoms in
Gods great economy OF grace. come
down from the hills and mountainsldes
OF our selfish seclusion and ioin the
great swelling stream OF service I'm the
valley OF need
Addressing the members Of the class,