A sermon preached to the thirteenth graduating class of the Rice Institute, by the Reverend Samuel Atkins Eliot, D.D., Pastor of the Arlington Street Church, Boston

Eliot, Samuel A. (Samuel Atkins), 1862-1950

DSpace at Rice University

I THE V E N T U R E S  OF F A I T H 1  Isaiah XL,  3-I‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” OME one asked me not long ago which one of the so- S called Christian virtues I was disposed to  rank the highest, You remember how St. Paul rounded up a fine catalogue of the virtues :-diligence, patience, gentleness, compassion, brotherly kindness. “If these things are yours,” he says, “and abound, they make you to  be not idle nor  unfruitful.” But all through the Bible books there is another note which finds clearer echo in my temperament ; something that  underlies and fortifies all these other things. It’s fore- most in the word of the prophets, it rings through the teach- ing of Jesus, i t  is incarnate in the work of the apostles. It’s a characteristic emphasis which no one can accurately define but of which every one of us is conscious-a certain gallant way of looking at  life and taking life’s chances and changes, a confidence in the possibilities of this human nature of ours and of its divine destiny so strong as  to  inspire one to  defy the hard facts of existence. W h a t  shall we call i t ?  Why, it’s -“looking up and lifting up”-it’s courage and confidence, it’s the cheerful tenacity with which one follows the things that  seem best worth while-it’s a loyalty that  cannot be broken, an ardor  which will not admit defeat;  it’s “the sub- stance of things hoped for,  the evidence of things not seen”. ‘Baccalaureate sermon of the thirteenth anuual commencement of the Rice Institute, preached by the Reverend Samuel Atkins Eliot, D.D., Pastor of the Arlington Street Church, Boston, in the academic court, at nine o’clock Sunday morning, June 3, 1928. 147 1 48 A Baccalaureate Sermon Whatever we may call it, never, I am sure, is the Chris- tian life set forth in terms more remote from its original import than when it is interpreted as a safe and easy experience. “There is no promise that I can find in the Christian teaching,” said the most invigorating of our con- temporary philosophers, “of a time when religion will be accommodated to  the general demand for  smooth-flowing enjoyment . . . Religion in the Bible is presented . . . as a challenge addressed to  the valiant Soul, and which none but he can successfully meet.” Oh!  of course a timid soul may seek religion as  a kind of refuge, or  a tired life may cry out for  rest, but when we think of the characteristic spirit of modern American youth -well, perhaps, we see why some of them are not much interested in religion. It is not that  religion puts up to  them condition and requirements that are too hard-it is that it too often makes things too easy. Life is no soft experience, but a hazardous occupation. The  real reason why Christian- ity fails in these days to  win a deeper loyalty is, I repeat, that  it makes too slight an appeal to  heroism. I t  is too often a soft and invertebrate sentimentalism. T h e  young Americans I know do not want immunity from danger; they do not want to  lie a t  anchor in the quiet harbor, they want the risk and conflict of the open sea. Success, you may be sure, does not come to  the drifter or  the dawdler, but to  the worker, the creator, the winner over odds. T h e  life that  knows no outward resistance soon de- velops an inward inertia. Character is always something in the making-it is life in motion. I t  is not immunity from trouble, but experience of it, that promotes self-control. I t  is not the mind that has never doubted that is most secure in its conviction, but the mind that has thought things through and faced perplexities and problems, and found the solu- The Ventures of Faith 149 tions. I t  is not the people who do not know what pain is who are brave and strong, but those who have wrestled with the dark angel and subdued him. Why, even among the animal creation we acknowledge a kind of aristocracy of courage. Do we rank the lion and the jackal together? And among men-why, we salute courage, do we not, even in our enemies? A manly foe is worthier of our respect than a timid and spiritless friend. I t  is the gallant spirit that I rank so high among the virtues, that levels youth with age, equalizes all so-called classes, disre- gards all outward distinctions. It is the protector and de- fender of all the other virtues. “A man is great,” I read the other day, “not because he has adventures, but because he is the cause of adventures-to meet him, is, itself, an ad- venture, and makes a change in those who experience it.” T h e  people who possess that valiant spirit are the kind of folk by whom God gets things done in this world. They  are the people who are expectant of good, audacious in their joyful anticipations. They  are the people who have the happy feeling that it is very likely that, a t  any corner o r  turning of the common dusty road on which they plod, they may come face to  face with God, that in his world anything may happen-and that the best is the likeliest to  happen. Oh, there are not many of those bright souls! Most of us are comparatively listless and apathetic, and our hopes are small and thin. W e  take things as they are and rather assume that so they must be to  the end. W e  are disposed to jog along in rather a tame and unheroic way; content so long as things are reasonably smooth and comfortable. T h e  idea that  we have a right to  an easy time, that life ought not to be difficult, and that, so f a r  as it is difficult we have something of a grievance against the Creator,-that is dreadfully prevalent nowadays. 150 A Baccalaureate Sermon I confess to  you that it sometimes seems to  me that there is really only one great and essential difference in people- just their possession o r  their lack of the initiative, the per- sistence, the chivalric spirit, that I feel like extolling to-day. Most  people are not creators, but absorbers. They just run in the grooves of custom, or drift with the currents of ac- cepted opinions o r  fashions. Here,  on the other hand, are the men and women who are original, real, genuine, who have character behind their words and actions-who have power by mere presence o r  practice to  touch, to  move, t o  satisfy. They  have definite thoughts, motives, purposes. They count as living spirits in a living world. They  “pre- pare the way of the Lord”. They  make straight in the desert a highway for our God. I like the symbolism of the figure, it appeals to  the imagi- nation. Highways echo the call of the f a r  horizons. T h e  sea has its highways like the land and now adventurous spirits are plotting highways in the air. And what a record of road building is behind us! T h e  whole history of man- kind is the story of difficulties conquered, obstacles removed, impassable rivers crossed, insurmountable heights scaled. More  and more I come to  feel that  human life is not so much a creation as a migration. Every step in advance that man has made has taxed his resources to  the uttermost. To detach himself from his brute ancestry, to  invent his earliest tools, to learn the primitive arts, t o  lay the rough foundation of the highway of civilization and then to  carry on that road-why, these are titanic achievements which only a race of heroic fibre could have accomplished. And that spirit is not overpast. I encounter it again and again. Thank God, I know many people who cannot content themselves with easy acquiescence with things as they are, or with idle looking on!  They are filled with eager discon- The Ventures of Faith 151 tent and with the expectation that allures to pursuit. They  are the trailmakers and roadbuilders. They  are in revolt against monotony and neutrality. Monotony-well, you young people may not have sensed it yet, but the rest of us have. Upstairs and downstairs- out and back-that is the law of the threshold. T h e  same situations continually repeat themselves-recurring routines seem to imprison us-the ways we walk are worn deep by by our own feet. Why, even this flying and spinning world comes round again on the same old orbit. One of my col- leagues told me of going to  see a dying man, a man who had spent practically all his life in one sedentary and confining employment-a humdrum drudgery faithfully performed, but out of which he had never risen. “You need not talk to  me of death,” he said with a grim smil?, “Why, sir, I have been dead for thirty years. I don’t know what is com- ing to  me now, but a t  least it will be something new.” Oh, how common that is in a modern world, where everything is more and more reduced to  mechanical terms! Our  mass production, our factory methods-how they tend to  make machines of us all-just parts of a great system in which men become things rather than persons, hands rather than living souls. F o r  the most favored of us how much there is of repetition-in the household, the classroom, the shop, the office! It is the same worn path, the same furrow to  follow, the same dishes to  wash, the same burdens to  bear. But to  the man of the gallant spirit-the builder of the highway in the desert, life never gets monotonous-no, it is an inexhaustible inheritance, a limitless allurement, A thou- sand voices call to the jocund march. There  are so many things one wants to see-let’s go  and see them! There  are so many things one wants to do-let’s go and do  them! 152 A Baccalaureate Sermon There are heights to  climb, valleys to  cross, plains to  tra- verse-discovering the best routes, staking out the course, marking the grades, bringing up the material for roadbed and bridges, preparing the way-making straight the high- way. The  promise of difficulty is just the stimulus to  new endeavor; it is a challenge rather than a discouragement. Why, how tame life would be without a hill to breast, with- out the canyon to  span, without the flood to  circumvent. Those are the tingling anticipations that rouse and stay the gallant trailmakers. No torpid stagnation for  such folks, no stunted and wasted life. One goes out to  meet the cynic years with elation. And then I observe an incentive for  those who would pre- pare the way of the Lord in the revolt from neutrality. Neutrality is usually a hopelessly futile attitude. No more spice in it than in the white of an egg! I n  small matters, indeed, we sometimes just cannot take the time to  get interested, but in big issues every one has to  be counted and the lukewarm people just have to  be added to  the opposi- tion. T h e  man who would like to be counted on both sides is always counted on the wrong side. There are  lots of well- intentioned or  well-disposed people in the world, but you do not get much real help from a man who says of some good cause you are  trying to  promote, “I wish you well with it”. H e  is not going to  oppose you, but he is not going to  lend a hand-probably he is not going to  think anything more about it. I t  is one thing to vote (‘Aye” in favor of a resolution, and another thing to  go to work to  make that  resolution effective in practical affairs. Well-wishing takes nothing out of you, requires no effort, and may be a rather cheap way of getting credit. Why, we might clear out the whole tribe of well-wishers and what cause would be the loser ? I can’t help feeling that the “live-and-Iet-live” policy, The Ventures of Faith 153 tha t  is agreeable to  everybody, smiles on everything, con- demns nothing, insists on nothing, lets the devil alone to  do  what he wants-that is one of the serious perils of our time. Or even more irritating are the patronizing neutrals- “ M y  dear sir,” they say, “no doubt yours is a good cause, that  road would be worth building, it’s a beautiful dream- but you must remember that it is a dream, and that by and by you will wake up and find that desert just as lonely and barren and those defiles as impassable as  they really are.” Yes, and they speak rather loftily as if  experience had brought them wisdom and disillusionment-as if our ideals were just pretty tales for  the nursery; and to  pursue them-well, it is a bit immature and rather silly. There  is an  annoying way of wagging one’s head and saying rather superciliously-“Yes, in my time I came through all that,” as if generous enthusiasm were a kind of childish ailment that  grown-up people no longer suffer from. Against all that  kind of thing the eager soul revolts. W h o  wants to  linger in the gray and dusty ashes of a burnt out life, o r  in the smoke of a merely smoldering fire? No, let us have the glowing flame. W h o  wants a climate that is always neither hot nor cold? No, I value the zeal that  has color and mo- tion, even if it does sometimes seem to  lack sense. T h e  spirit that is neither hot nor cold, the life that  is looking for  the broad and easy way-well, all I can say is that  the New Testament seems to  condemn that sort of thing in a very downright fashion. No,  fasten to  some big idea, some great truth, some nobEe cause, and it will send you forward with energy, and stead- fastness and confidence. Make  life an opportunity not only fo r  enjoying something, but for  becomiqg something. T h a t  is what Emerson meant when he said “Hitch your wagon to  a star.” Let’s get into that inspiring company. Then  154 A Baccalaureate Sermon though we fall, yet onward moves the highway-and our souls go marching with it, for  y e  are part  of it, we have built ourselves into it. W e  do not ask for completeness of achievement. W e  know that this narrow span of life is quite inadequate for  any great accomplishment; but each brave and self-effacing service of the present world pre- pares, through the wilderness of to-day, the way fo r  the marching armies of the Kingdom of God and makes straighter the path of Justice and Liberty and Truth.  SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 

The ventures of faith

https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/1911/8429/5/article_RI153147.pdf

The ventures of faith

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

DSpace at Rice University