Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1915-06-25
BACCALAUREATE SERVICE.
A Strong Sermon by President
Thomas

ment of Middlebury College was held
Sunday morning in the Congregational
church with a large gathering that
filled every available inch of space in
the auditorium.
Invocation was offered by Rev. A. A.
Lancaster, pastor of the church, while
the scripture lesson was read by Rev.
d. H. Corkran. Rev. r. Z. Whittemore
offered prayer. President Thomas
preached a sermon masterful and schol
arly. The text chosen was Mark 3:21-
And when his friends heard it, they
went out to lay hold on him: for they
said, he is beside himself -, and the
following extracts will Indicate the
quality of the utterance and the drift of
its thought
Our Master is not the only benefac
tor who has undergone suspicion as to
perfect sanity and balance of judgment.
Many of the worlds most gifted men
have been thought insane, and some of
them have gone through life without
gaining their friends confidence as to
their perfect control of mind.
Indeed it has been the common re-
ward of the worlds prophets, the great
inventors and the discoveries, the
mighty leaders in thought and action,
to be suspected as unbalanced, to be
called "beside themselves" by their
friends, and possessed of devil' by
their enemies
Yet it is true that the best men
must be exceptional men. The high
est, noblest life is not ordinary and
common. Far-seeing wisdom, deep in
sight into the inner realities of life, is
trife rare, and the possessor of it lifts
himself, by his very attainment of it,
into a unique and lonely position. In
sight and the power of discovery utter
devotion to noble benevolence, are not
so frequent but they separate men
from their fellows.
When God has open, free field in
mans heart, He develops his individu-
aiities, his idiosycratic tendencies, SO as
to make him most highly effective in
some one work. Development isolates.
There was but one soul in all the world
for Dante. A bestia man can find
companion to his liking on any street.
Be your best, lie what you ought to
be, and may be, be what God wants you
to be, and will help you to be, and you
will be thought queer: people will hold
you a little aoof, and the time may
come when your own brothers will
stand without desiring to speak with
you.
doubt not but that the call of duty
to the young men and women of today
is call to get little bit "beside
themselves" to do something that will
make them thought peculiar, and make
others sympathize with them as vic
tins of a delusion. God wants eXcep-
tional men, exceptional not only in
ability, but in the quality of their am
btions and in the lofty heroism of
their ideals, in their unconquerable
perseverance toward aims, the dull, un-
believing world calls impossible Of
achievement Every advance the old
world has made has come through men
who dared to be unique, almost if not
quite fanatic. 1t was by man beside
himself that the fishers of Galilee were
taught the God who redeems the world;
it was by a man beside himself that
| the religion of the Nazarene chal-
lenged the empire of the Caesars; it
was by a man beside himself that in the
10th century freedom was born for the
modern world; 1t was by men beside
themselves that commonwealth
founded on the fear of God was planted
in the forests of New England; it was
again by men beside themselves that a
nation conceived in liberty was made
| free from sea to sea- The history of
progress is the biography of the fools
and fanatics of their contemporaries.
The world of our own day fingers in
old time vices and poverty and hope
lessness blight fair portions of the
earth, and the smallest fraction of
earth's millions attain true manhood,
cleanliness and strength of body, clear
ness and vigor of mind, and purity and
largeness of spirit manhood as the
noble and the great have demonstrated
1t may bet smallest fraction of our
brothers attain it for lack of leaders
and masters to show them the way.
The problems of humanity are soluble.
Diseases can be conquered and put
away Ignorance may be taught the
truth and any child can learn sufficient
for worthy and joyous life. Communi-
ties need not abide in soddenness and
iniquity. In the forests of Africa, in
the frozen fields beside the Arctic seas
man hoKra lived ,rbo bara cbaDcroJ bo,