Mornings in the College Chapel Part 1

Mornings in the College Chapel.

by Francis Greenwood Peabody.

_In the conduct of morning prayers at Harvard University, the Preachers to the University usually say a few plain words to interpret or enforce the Bible lesson which has been read. The entire service is but fifteen minutes long, so that this little address must occupy not more than two or three minutes, and can at the best indicate only a single wholesome thought with which a young man may begin his day. It has been suggested to me that some of these informal and brief addresses, if printed, may continue to be of interest to those who heard them, or may perhaps be of use to other young people in like conditions of life; and I have therefore tried to recall some of these mornings in the College Chapel._

_It is now ten years since it was determined that religion in our University should be regarded no longer as a part of College discipline, but as a natural and rational opportunity offering itself to the life of youth. It was a momentous transition, undertaken with the profoundest sense of its seriousness and significance. It was an act of faith,--of faith in religion and of faith in young men. The University announced the belief that religion, rationally presented, will always have for healthy-minded young men a commanding interest.

This faith has been abundantly justified. There has become familiar among us, through the devotion of successive staffs of Preachers, a clearer sense of the simplicity and reality of religion, which, for many young men, has enriched the meaning of University life. No one who has had the slightest part in administering such a work can sum up its present issues without feeling on the one hand a deep sense of personal insufficiency, and on the other hand a large and solemn hope._

_I have indicated such sources of suggestion for these addresses as I noted at the time of their delivery, but it may well be that some such indebtedness remains, against my will, unacknowledged._

CAMBRIDGE, October, 1896.

Mornings in a College Chapel

I

THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES

_Hebrews_ xii. 1.

(FIRST DAY OF COLLEGE TERM)

No one can look for the first time into the faces of a congregation like this without thinking, first of all, of the great mult.i.tude of other lives whose love and sacrifice are represented here. Almost every single life which enters our chapel is the focus of interest for a whole domestic circle, whose prayers and anxieties, whose hopes and ambitions, are turning toward this place from every region of this land. Out from behind our congregation stands in the background a cloud of witnesses in whose presence we meet. There are the fathers, earning and saving, that the sons may have a {2} better chance than they; there are the mothers with their prayers and sacrifices; there are the rich parents, trembling lest wealth may be a snare to their sons; and the humble homes with their daily deeds of self-denial for the sake of the boys who come to us here. When we meet in this chapel we are never alone. We are the centre of a great company of observant hearts. And then, behind us all, there is the still larger fellows.h.i.+p of the past, the historic traditions of the university, the men who have adorned it, the inheritances into which we freely enter, the witnesses of a long and honorable a.s.sociated life.

Now this great company of witnesses does two things for us. On the one hand, it brings responsibility. The apostle says in this pa.s.sage, "that apart from us they should not be made perfect." Every work of the past is incomplete unless the present sustains it. We are responsible for this rich tradition. We inherit the gift to use or to mar. But, on the other hand, the cloud of witnesses is what contributes courage. It sustains you to know that you represent so much confidence and trust. It is strengthening to enter into this rich inheritance. You do not have to begin things {3} here. You only have to keep them moving. It is a great blessing to be taken up thus out of solitude into the companions.h.i.+p of generous souls. Let us begin the year soberly but bravely. Surrounded by this cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which most easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is immediately set before us in the swiftly pa.s.sing days of this college year.

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II

"NOT TO BE MINISTERED UNTO, BUT TO MINISTER"

_Mark_ x. 35-45.

The disciples in this pa.s.sage were looking at their faith to see what they could get out of it. They wanted to be a.s.sured of a prize before they took a risk. They came to Jesus saying: "We would that Thou shouldest do for us whatever we ask." But Jesus bids them to consider rather what they can do for their faith. "Whosoever," He says, "would be first, is to be the servant for all, for even the Son of man comes not to be ministered unto, but to minister." I suppose that when a man faces a new year of college life, his first thought is of what it can do for him. He has studied the college programme, asking himself: "What can I get out of this?" and now he looks into the year, with all its unknown chances, and asks of it: "O unknown year, what happiness and friends.h.i.+p and instruction may I get from you? Will you not bring to {5} pa.s.s what I desire? I would that thou shouldest do for me whatever I ask." Then the spirit of Jesus Christ meets him here and turns his question round: "What are you going to do for the college during this coming year? Are you going to help us in our morals, in our intellectual life, in our religion? Are you going to contribute to the higher life of the university? For what do you come here,--to be ministered unto, or to minister?"

Of course a man may answer that this is an impossible test; that there is nothing that he can give to a great place like this, and everything he can receive. But he little knows how the college from year to year gets marked for good or evil by a cla.s.s, or a group within a cla.s.s, or sometimes a few persons, as they pa.s.s in and out of our gates.

Sometimes a group of young men live for a few years among us and leave behind them a positively malarial influence; and some times a few quiet lives, simply and modestly lived among us, actually sweeten and purify our climate for years together. And so in the quiet of our prayers we give ourselves, not to be ministered unto, but to minister. {6} Nowhere in the world is it more true that we are members one of another, and that the whole vast inst.i.tutional life is affected by each slightest individual. Nowhere in this world is there a better chance to purify the spirit and tone, either of work or of sport, and nowhere can a man discover more immediately the happiness of being of use. The recreation and the religion, the study and the play, of our a.s.sociated life, are waiting for the dedication of una.s.suming Christian men to a life which offers itself, not to be ministered unto, but to minister.

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III

THE TRANSMISSION OF POWER

_John_ xvii. 22.

This was the glory which Jesus Christ claimed for himself--to take the glory of G.o.d and glorify with it the life of man. "The glory that thou hast given me I have given them." It was not a glory of possession, but a glory of transmission. It was not his capacity to receive which glorified him, it was his capacity to give. In most of the great pictures of the glorified Christ there is a halo of light encircling and illuminating his face. That is the fict.i.tious glory, the glory of possession. In a few such paintings the light streams from the Master's face to illuminate the other figures of the scene. That is the real glory, the glory of transmission.

And such is the only glory in life. A man looks at learning or power or refinement or wealth and says: "This is glory; this is success; this is the pride of life." But there is really nothing glorious about possession. It may be most inglorious and mean,--as {8} mean when the possession is brains or power as when it is bonds or wheat. Indeed, there is rarely much that is glorious or great about so slight or evanescent a thing as a human life. The glory of it lies in its being able to say, "The glory that thou hast given me I give to them." The worth of life is in its transmissive capacity. In the wonderful system of the telephone with its miracle of intercommunication there is, as you know, at each instrument that little film of metal which we call the transmitter, into which the message is delivered, and whose vibrations are repeated scores of miles away. Each human life is a transmitter. Take it away from its transmissive purpose, and what a poor insignificant film a human life may be. But set it where it belongs, in the great system where it has its part, and that insignificant film is dignified with a new significance. It is as if it said to its G.o.d: "The message which Thou givest me I give to them,"

and every word of G.o.d that is spoken into it is delivered through it to the lives that are wearily waiting for the message as though it were far away.

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IV

LET YOUR LIGHT s.h.i.+NE

_Matthew_ v. 16.

At the first reading there certainly seems to be something of self-a.s.sertion and self-display about this pa.s.sage, as if it said: "Let your light so s.h.i.+ne that people may see how much good you do." But, of course, nothing could be farther than this from the spirit of Jesus.

Indeed, his meaning is the precise opposite of this. For he is speaking not of a light which is to illuminate you, but of a light which is to s.h.i.+ne from you upon your works; so that they, and not you, are seen, and the glory is given, not to you, but to G.o.d. Such a light will hide you rather than exhibit you, as when one holds a lantern before him on some dark road, so that while the bearer of the lantern is in the darkness, the path before him is thrown into the light. The pa.s.sage, then, which seems to suggest a doctrine of self-display, is really a teaching of self-effacement. Here is a railway-train thundering along some evening {10} toward a broken bridge, and the track-walker rushes toward it with his swinging lantern, as though he had heard the great command, "Let your light s.h.i.+ne before men;" and the train comes to a stop and the pa.s.sengers stream out and see the peril that they have just escaped, and give thanks to their Father which is in heaven. And this is the reward of the plain, unnoticed man as he trudges home in the dark,--that he has done his duty well that night.

He has not been seen or praised; he has been in the shadow; but he has been permitted to let his little light s.h.i.+ne and save; and he too gives thanks to his Father in heaven.

Here, again, is a lighthouse-keeper on the coast. The sailor in the darkness cannot see the keeper, unless indeed the shadow of the keeper obscures for a moment the light. What the sailor sees is the light; and he thanks, not the keeper, but the power that put the light on that dangerous rock. So the light-keeper tends his light in the dark, and a very lonely and obscure life it is. No one mounts the rock to praise him. The vessels pa.s.s in the night with never a word of cheer. But the life of the keeper gets its dignity, not {11} because he s.h.i.+nes, but because his light guides other lives; and many a weary captain greets that twinkling light across the sea, and seeing its good work gives thanks to his Father which is in heaven.

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V

THE CENTURION

_Matthew_ viii. 5-11.

One of the most interesting things to observe in the New Testament is the series of persons who just come into sight for a moment through their relation to the life of Jesus Christ, and are, as it were, illuminated by that relations.h.i.+p, and then, as they pa.s.s out of the light again, disappear into obscurity. They are like some western-fronting window on which the slanting sun s.h.i.+nes for a moment, so that we see the reflection miles away. Then, with the same suddenness, the angle of reflection changes, and the window grows dark and insignificant once more. This centurion was such a person. Jesus perhaps never met him before, and we never hear of him again, and yet, in the single phrase, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel," Jesus stamps him with a special character and welcomes him with a peculiar confidence. How is it that there is given to him this abrupt {13} commendation? Why does Jesus say that he shows more faith than Israel itself? It was, of course, because of the man's att.i.tude of mind. He comes to Jesus just as a soldier comes to his superior officer. He has been disciplined to obedience, and that habit of obedience to his own superiors is what gives him in his turn authority.

He obeys, and he expects to be obeyed. He is under authority, and so he has authority over his own troops, and says to one soldier Go, and to another Come, and they obey. Now Jesus sees in an instant that this is just what he wants of his disciples. What discipline is to a soldier, faith is to a Christian. A religious man is a man who is under authority. He goes to his commander and gets orders for the day.

He does not pretend to know everything about his commander's plans. It is not for him to arrange the great campaign. It is for him only to obey in his own place, and to take his own part in the great design.

Perhaps in the little skirmish in which he is involved there may be defeat, but perhaps that defeat is to count in the victory for the larger plan. Thus the religious man does not serve on his own account.

He is in the hands of a general, who overlooks {14} the whole field.

And that sense of being under authority is what gives the religious man authority in his turn. He is not the slave of his circ.u.mstances; he is the master of them. He takes command of his own detachment of life, because he has received command from the Master of all life. He says to his pa.s.sions, Go; and to his virtues, Come; and to his duty, Do this; and the whole little company of his own ambitions and desires fall into line behind him, because he is himself a man under authority.

That is a soldier's discipline, and that is a Christian's faith.