Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1922-06-16

Have this mind IN you which was also
in Christ Jesus" The Presidents ser
mon is printed below
At the Fork of the Roads
1t is recorded of a young man many
years ago that on the completion of his
preparation, before actively entering
upon his career 20 which he felt him
self called, he withdrew for a period of
some six weeks into the wilds, there to
adjust himself to his outlook and to
commune with his own heart and with
his God
He left no record or memoirs in writ
ing but he impressed himself so deeply
upon his followers and he told them
the story of his mental processes in
those six weeks so in detail, that we
may enter into them with him.
He was i'll an unusual degree CON
sciouS of power and strength and his
subsequent career, brief, brilliant, but
world moving, proved that he was
more than justified in his consciousness
With a deeply religious nature, he was
above his fellows conscious of God and
consumed with a desire to fashion him
self on the plans and purposes of God
There grew within him in those days
the realization that he had a special
work to do and that the ability to do
this work would come by the exercise
of strong will, by the assertion of
himself by taking matters, as it were,
into his own hands, by grasping that
leadership among men for which he
was so eminently equipped, but like
all great minds that see clearly he
was aware of what he could do and
aware of secondary results, and he
felt that this plan of procedure was
one which he could not follow He
refused to take his own way, to assert
himself He would exercise no tyranny
benevolent though that tyranny might
be
No sooner had he come to this deci-
sion, made as it were to all the strength
and power of his nature, when the APP
peal suddenly shifted The question
arose i'll his mind, if he was not to
take his own way, why not adopt the
passive attitude, toward life, to trust
God and in trusting Him completely
so completely that all the natural
functions of his mind should be handed
over Following as this did upon the
first appeal it cannot fail to have Of
fered strong attraction for him. If
life was not to be Self-assertive, mas
terful dominant, why should it not be
quiescent, passive, free from response
bilitv of decision or choice
STL,-a as. -,,rI ,,r,,rbn 1no,, bara no
libertine once awakened is quite apt
to become the ascetic the spendthrift
develop into the miser "A great sin
ner, a great saint is based upon
profound view of human nature, for
man is made to run to extremes. The
boy wrestling early discovers that +
may destroy the equilibrium OF his
antagonist by suddenly yielding as
completely as he had formerly resisted,
thus winning the contest.
But of this mental struggle OF which
we are speaking, the wrestler turned |
from this second suggestion. He was
a man not pawn, with a will of his |
own If he could not enforce this will
upon others, equally he could not ell
trelv abdicate, he could never be rid
OF the necessity of making decisions
and affirming choice.
This would be struggle enough, we
would think but we are told that there
was a third phase of this questioning,
arising out of the realization of the |
completely of life 1t was the invita- /
ton to take a middle course, to steer
between the two, Scf-assertion on the |
one hand, and complete abdication on
the other 1t is a commonplace of all |
experience that we often decide on neu-
trail ground because we do not know
whether to turn to the right or to
the left So the question arose for
him, if he was rot to exert his will |
over circumstances, and carve life, to
his liking, but on the other hand was
not to he swayed by existing circum-
stances and governed by conditions,
why not accept life in the spirit of
compromise? What else was there to ,
do?
You have, of course, long ere this,
seen that we are talking about no 9th
er than Jesus Christ, and Of his temp
tation of the wilderness, for we must
realize that since He was alone all
that the disciples knew Of that expert
ence through which He passed was
what He Himself told them. And re-
membering alike their naive stupidity
and need of utmost simplicity of speech
and His own propensity for casting His
crystal clear thoughts into parallels, we
see that He told them of the struggle
through which He had passed in the
form they could most readily grasp
and understand the parallels. For
surely we must 50 consider the story of
the temptation in the wilderness
Treated as bald liberalism, it becomes
unreal, theatrical, uncOnvinCing Treat
ed as the drama of the soul it becomes
what it was in reality-part of the
experience of mankind, convincing,
COnviCting.
Think of Satan in visible form, or of
bodies flashing through the air, to the
nonresident pinnacle, of distant tenn
ples-and the story is one with the
Carpet of Bagdad If one has ever
truly felt the power of the clam pro-
phet of Nazareth, can one really ina
CINE that he was ever tempted to turn
boulders to wheat or graham bread, or
create a scene by hurting himself down
from the ledge of the temple, and the