Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1917-06-28

..4
ness may antagonist. II will surely do
that II It DO purely artificial and in the
last analysis, II will achieve nothing of
permanent value.
Members of the Glass of Nineteen Hun
dred Seventeen II you are to Justify your
existence as educated men and women
you must not make your selfish interests
paramount. Self-respect can come only
from the testimony Of good conscience.
That testimony will be given when you
shall have developed the stability Of pur-
pose which makes genuine righteousness
the fibre of manhood or womanhood
that holds you to the same conduct and
restraint In London or Paris or New York
as In your little home town. Plain unas-
Stunning goodness will be your best insur-
ance policy Of personal satisfaction and
popular confidence.
| The Victories of life are always won in
advance Of the actual conflicts. He who
postpones preparation for battle until the
hour of fighting is foredoomed to de-
feat. II you would win in the moral con-
tests which await you I exhort you to
get ready by the Indispensable prelimin-
airy establishment of character that will
withstand the shock Of combat.
The Savior Of the world made impress
sive exhibition of His fearlessness in the
discharge Of public duty when he over
threw the tables Of the money changers
with those that sold doves in the Temple
and drove out the mercenary re.sgionists
with scourge of cords Yet His great
ness reached its sublime climax on Mount
Calvary when in agony Of torture on the
cross He rose above all hatred for His
enemies IN the prayer Father forgive
them for they know not what they do"
and followed It in the supreme moment
of imminent death with His expression Of
unfaltering faith Father into Thy hands
1 commend my spirit"
! Has It ever occurred to you, though,
that the triumph Of Calvary would have
been impossible without the previous
agony in Gethsemane? Doctor Van Dyke
has summed It up in saying that Jesus
met the spirit of despair in the Garden Of
Gethsemane; and after that meeting the
cross had no terrors for Him, because
He had already endured them; the grave
no fear, because He had already con-
quered it,
INTERNATIONAL CONDITIONS.
am not unmindful Of the extraordin-
airy international conditions confronting
those of you who tomorrow will receive
your degrees from this ancient and hon.
orable institution. The United States of
America has entered world wide war
that has turned civilization upside down.
Those Of us who hoped earnestly the
catastrophe might be averted are now one
with those who felt we were facing inevi-
table conflict. The die is cast and all Of
us who put love Of country and the welfare
OF mankind above the egotism Of personal
opinion have entered into patriotic COM
pact with our loyal countrymen to give
the. last full measure Of devotion in a
cause to which the nation is irrevocably
committed. Here and now. then, beloved,
members of the Glass of Nineteen Hun
dred Seventeen. 1 call upon you to join
with me in offering our bodies. our pro-
perty and all our powers Of thought and
will and love and service to promote the
speedy an complete triumph of American
arms on land aid sea. We have no place
in these halls or on our alumni rolls for
those who are unwilling to make this dedi-
cation final and absolute.
Let me remind you that college bred
men and women have ever been in the
vanguard Of all movements for human
advancement. 1t was William wilber-
force Of Cambridge University, who first
put the silver trumpet to his lips to sound
the blast which called upon England to
abolish tho slave trade and human slavery
lery Charming and Henry Ward Beecher
and Wendell Phillip. all products of Amer.
lean colleges who spared not themselves
in the fight for the abolition of African
slavery from the United States and, with
the cutting strokes of fearless anathema
they blazed the way for Abraham Lincoln
and his Emancipation Proclamation.
I charge you. young women. to remem.
Der that it was Florence Nightingale who
left the comforts Of home for the Crimea
to inaugurate the greatest movement In
the history Of human conflicts for the al
deviation OF suferings entailed by war
1t was Clara Barton who emulated hel
noble example on the battlefields of the
South, in the Franco-Prussian and other
wars and became the founder Of oul
great philanthropy known as the Ameri.
can Red Cross. Though neither Of these
splendid women were college bred they
had both enjoyed unusual educational ad.
vantages under private tutelage. They es
tablished presidents which the patriotic
womaHhood of all the warning countrie.
are following today and when the his
, torian of the future comes to write the
story of the war extending from 1914 to-
God knows how long there will be no NOR,
thrilling or inspiring chapters than thos,
which shall recount the heroic deeds o.
women who sacrificed all that woman
, hood holds dear to minister to the com
fort Of the men who fought.
Young ladies you are to be congratulatet
D upon the opportunities for special worl
| at home and in the field that this wa
, will bring to you. The college women O
, America are ready for a service no les
l important than that to be rendered b,
3 their brothers and sweethearts.
4 Today the college and university mel
Of the world are giving the best Of brazil
and Drawn in vindication Of their con
\ ceptions OF duty The colleges and uni
: versities of Belgium and Germany ant
n France are decimated. The flower O
9 the Dominion of Canada has gone to tn
battle front from the college halls O
o Saskatchewan and Toronto and McGil
and Dalhousie: 1.-The Spires of Oxford,
o (seen from a train). written by William
Y Let's as a tribute to the heroism Of Eng
n lish university men. Is one Of the movinl
t poems inspired by the present war.
o II saw the spires c. Oxford
= AS I was passing by.
s The grey spires of Oxford
Q Against a pearl-grey sky;
: My heart was with the Oxford men
h Who went abroad to die.
d "The years 60 fast in Oxford.
}. The golden years and gay;
t The hoary colleges look down
d ION careless boys at play.
But when the bugles sounded-war!
= They put their games away.