The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1923-06-06
Graduates Attend
Wesley N. E. Church
Inspiring Sermon Preached to the
Senior Class Sunday Morning
By Rev. Walter L. Shaw.

The Senior Glass of the Pleasant
vile High School attended divine ser
vice on Sunday morning at Wesley NJ
E. Church, where the pastor, Rev.
Walter L. Shaw, delivered a forceful
sermon full of advice and counsel TO
the graduates. In part he said:
picture a hunter who has put forth
the usual necessary mental and phys
ical energy of the sportsman, gone
forth to the hunt and returned with
the reward of his effort. But because
of his slothfulness fails to roast what
he has taken and carelessly allows II
to spoil.
"There is evidence and example OF
similar slothfulness and misdirected
energy among many of the young folk
of to-day. In their failure to take adj
vantage of the opportunities given
them by the home, the church, the
School, they manifest the spirit of the
hunter.
THE world is sporting and pleasure
mad. The sporting extra" of the
evening paper has a larger daily sale
than would an extra" giving the lat
est doings of Congress. We do not
disparage recreational sports but ra-
Their recommend them as relaxing the
mind as well as developing the body.
But they are not intended to take up
the larger part of your young lives.
You can doubtless look back upon
a long line of good religious ancestors
who have handed down to you the
truths of life and hidden you follow
them. Have you taken them as price
less gifts upon which you can further
build? Or have you failed to roast
what you have received and allowed
them to waste and become useless in
your lives? If the latter, then, you
have disappointed and grieved them,
if you haven't even put them to an
open shame.
You may be inclined to test your
own understanding of life and heed
not the warnings they have given you.
Our advice to you is to accept their
teachings; for neXt to God, your par
ents are your best teachers and you
may we'll accept their experience as
your guide.
1.-THE mastering of the books of the
High School course and receiving the
certificate of graduation but ushers
YOU into a life as yet unknown to you
anu NulCu dS StL hOCSA / hAOA SOu,
Your knowledge of life has just begun.
And your present measure of educa-
ton is but a fair working knowledge
of how to live and how to learn. Your
teachers in love and patience have
sought to place before you the noblest
ideals, and sought to teach you that
eternal self-improvement alone brings
manhood and womanhood to compile
ton.
Practice the power of self-control,
and develop that power by every pos
sible means. You have not come TO
your present years and not learned
there are evil tendencies in your very
nature and that environment often ap-
peals to passion and lures to laziness.
The passions that surge within you are
meant to be mastered-and that can
be done now better than later. There
is also good in you, and benevolent inn
pulses, And it is for you to master
the evil and give reins to the good.
Choose the good life and fight that
life to live. The Christian life is a life
that calls only for the ceasing of evil
and the pursuit of good.
Meet your discouragements brave
ly. Many a young person, with no
greater advantages than you have had
followed them up with continued eff
fort at self-improyementi and, tho
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