Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1912-06-21
18TH ADVANCEMENT.
Continued from Page ~


dawning s of the past.
Therefore, if any question and doubt,
/ would say, the matter is not a problem
of the study; it is the trial of the met
tie of your life. We do not believe be-
cause we do not live. We are not sure,
as was Moses, of the great | AM, be-
cause we are not engaged like Moses
in the emancipation of a race. Abraham
Lincoln, on this common American sod,
proved that a man could not do Moses
sort of work without arriving eventually
at Moses sort of faith, even though at
the beginning he was not much predis-
posed to it. Our real faith, our creed
as God sees it, is the testament of our
daily deeds. If our hearts were all for
cause, if the pitiable needs of the
boys in our upland valleys who have not
one decent chance at large and worthy
life so weighed on our hearts that from
the mountains yonder we could not re-
strain feelings like those of the Master
over Jerusalem, then we also could defy
Pharisees and lift men to revolution
in behalf of holy right.
There is no need of the present day
which equals the need of positive,
we'll grounded conviction in the reality
and might of God. The spiritual life
of our churches goes hating because
of the lack of it, and the morals of the
time are disheartening because so little
vital faith rises to their rebuke.
If we really believed the things that
are written in our creeds, its articles
on sin, on heaven, and on eternal
punishment, we couldn't play with life
as we do. My brothers, they are
more nearly true than perhaps you
think. The world isn't doll nursery
and the men who have written seri-
GUS creed have come nearest the truth.
A little doctrine, more or less, is not
such a serious affair, but grip on
things as they are in matters which
have to do with the spirits of men is
of prime Importance. We need just
now belief in the great God of reality,
the spiritual power that reaches every
moment down into these lives of ours,
that chooses them if we are false-yes.
You have known men who by the might
of their faith in the eventual goodness
and justice of God have shown forth
magnificent manhood to the world.
You have seen before your eyes the
fleet of their faith, iii their devotion
to duty, their loyalty to honor, their I'M
yielding grip on the principles that keep
men brave and clean. You have be-
leved in them; then believe also in the
God who made them what they were.
The God of your fathers. the God of the
strong, clean men you have honored and
admired, summons you to catch tn e fire
that burned within them for the build
ing of better world and the bringing
of all men to the nobility and large
ness of life which the heroes OF
ACHE vement in the past have demon
strated as the proper life of all men.
God is not the God of dead philoso.
phies, but of living men. The mer
who have lived by Him declare His
realty beyond the shadow of question.
"Thy voice is on the rolling air;
hear Thee where the waters run;
Thou standest in the rising sun,
And in the setting thou art fair.
= But, Oh for words of equal measure
to interpret his voice in the mighty
deeds of men who have made the world
to declare his goings in the souls of the
vast multitude of brave spirits whC
have fought their fight and kept the
: faith. All history is the inspired book
of God. Every human achievement il
His word. Think of the progress Of
humanity from savagery to now, thu
creations of beauty and of thought
= Resistlessly truth has risen above error
cruelty has given way before mercy
. and oppression has yielded to justice
Throb! throb! throb! the heart of thu
all-beneficent has pulsed its healthfu
= life into the spirit of the world. w,
+ look back, not upon a few patriarchs
but upon the rise of humanity, anc
from that rise we hear the resstess
4 call to faith. The accomplishment OF
: Gods work is the indubitable testmo n.
of the reality of God.
Members of the graduation class
Three days more and you will enter tn
succession of those who for one hundred
S and twelve years have gone forth from
the halls of Middlebury college. 1t i
not as though you were the first T.
leave our alma mater There have pre-
n coded you those who have lived lives o
= no table usefulness and power. Tn
world has felt the worth of their spiri
and has been en-nobl ed and enriched b,
= their toll. You are summoned, no
n merely to be worthy of them and tt
honor the name they have made TO
:. you as graduates of this college, but t
live by the faith their lives have demon
: strated, and in that faith to achiev,
y your share in the new victories wit
;. which God shall bless the world. Yo
have not to prove that Middebury me
can stand strong against the world
e evil and for God S right. That has bee
g proved sufficiently. 1t is for you, O.
6 the basis of that demonstration, to Civ
new application to the spirit of achieve
ment that has always characterized tn
o men OF our college. Their lives hav
e proved the reality of God, the justic
= of his commandments, and the wisdor
of his law. Build on the foundatio
= thew have laid Won have a ripht I
It assume the truth of the principle.
which have made them men of worth
r Steep yourselves in the spirit of the me
- who have believed great truths am
y accomplished great deeds. AS you d
If not doubt the worth of the fathers. d
l. not doubt the God by whom the
e achieved their worth.
You will be the last class to have ha
II the influence throughout your course O
y the man who appreciated perhaps wit
, keener justice than any of us the valu