/o,z.j. 
 
 RARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINAR 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 Presented by 
 
 L Widow of G^eor^e Duo'^n, ^^ 
 
 BV 4541 .G86 1899 
 Gunsaulus, Frank Wakeley, 
 
 1856-1921. 
 Young men in history 
 
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YOUNG MEN IN HISTORY 
 
The Quiet Hour Series 
 
 iSmOy decorated cloth^ each 2^ cents 
 
 How the Inner Light Failed 
 
 By Newell Dwight Hillis, author of" A Man's Value 
 to Society," etc. 
 
 The Man Who Wanted to Help 
 
 By Rev, J, G. K. McClure, D.D. author of " Possi- 
 bilities." 
 
 Young Men By Rev. F. W. Gunsaulus, D.D. 
 
 The Autobiography of St. Paul 
 
 Faith Building By Rev. Wm. P. Merrill, D.D. 
 
 The Dearest Psalm 
 
 And The Model Prayer. By Henry Ostrom, D.D. 
 The Life Beyond 
 
 By Mrs. Alfred Gatty, author of " Parables from 
 Nature." 
 
 Mountain Tops with Jesus 
 
 By Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D. 
 A Life for a Life 
 
 And other Addresses. By Prof. Henry Drummond. 
 With Portrait. 
 
 Peace, Perfect Peace 
 
 A Portion for the Sorrowing. By Rev. F. B. Meyer, 
 B.A. 
 
 Money 
 
 Thoughts for God's Stewards. By Rev. Andrew 
 Murray. 
 
 Jesus Himself 
 
 By Rev. Andrew Murray, With Portrait of the 
 Author. 
 
 Love Made Perfect By Rev. Andrew Murray. 
 
 The Ivory Palaces of the King 
 
 By Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. 
 Christ Reflected in Creation. 
 
 By D. C. McMillan. 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 CHICAGO NEW YORK TORONTO 
 
(■ 
 
 Young Men in History 
 
 / 
 
 Frank W. Gunsaulus, D.D. 
 
 Chicago New York Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 mdcccxcix 
 
Copyright, 1898 
 By Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 Nothing is more certain than that 
 the Bible is the young man's book, 
 and its greatest story is the story of 
 a young man. The scene in that 
 story which would most affect young 
 men, if they were to read the Bible 
 as they would read Homer or Virgil, 
 and especially if they were to read 
 the Bible as they read any history of 
 a great nation, such as was Israel, is 
 the baptism of Jesus of Nazareth by 
 his young friend and cousin, John. 
 
 A life so organic and influential 
 as that of Jesus of Galilee is sure to 
 have the center of its forcefulncss at 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 such an epoch-making point as this. 
 At that baptism scene the heavens 
 truly opened upon the spirit and life 
 of Christ. At that time, in His 
 mighty growth, the dove descended 
 from out the bosom of eternity. 
 That dignity which in earlier days 
 had said with innocent grandeur, 
 " Wist ye not that I must be about 
 My Father's business?" now real- 
 ized itself, and became conscious 
 through the objective responses of 
 infinity unto Him as He received His 
 baptism, saw the open heavens, and 
 felt the footfalls of a divine destiny 
 upon His uncovered head. 
 
 So while every human being has 
 a profound interest in this episode 
 in Jesus' life, because His conscious 
 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 life-center seemed to have been first 
 touched at that point, every young 
 man must realize that there lies the 
 most sublime scene unto him in all 
 the picture gallery of the mighty 
 past, a scene of such special signifi- 
 cance in the history of our Master 
 as to have invested every young 
 man's life with an undreamed gran- 
 deur and an unforeseen dignity. It 
 must and shall stand as the most 
 characteristic scene which has been 
 left us as the heritage of young men 
 of all time. For whatever else Jesus 
 was, and there were altitudes and 
 latitudes of being in Him of which 
 we have only the feeblest apprehen- 
 sion, He stands here as the typical 
 young man. No speculation or 
 
 7 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 denial can take Him from our own 
 ranks, my brothers. No heresies 
 have been so profound, no literalism 
 of any orthodoxy has been so heart- 
 less, as to dethrone our hero and our 
 saint. We claim Him to-day as our 
 champion and our representative, 
 even though, by being so near. He is 
 also our Savior and our propitiation. 
 To students and professors of di- 
 dactics we say: "Exalt Him! Crown 
 Him Lord of all ! Cover Him with 
 names that we cannot understand! 
 Add all the metaphysical lore you 
 have dreamed unto all the research 
 you have made, and decorate it with 
 nomenclature so perplexing as to 
 distance all the past! Nevertheless, 
 Jesus is still the young man's own 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 brother and the most splendid and 
 greatest name on God's roll call of 
 young men." 
 
 When the roll call which men 
 have written is read, it will be found 
 that the young men have ruled the 
 world. The oldest literatures have 
 this record. The patriarchs un- 
 folded the careers of boys into the 
 conquests of old age. Kingdom and 
 empire rode upon shoulders of young 
 men, and their voices of enthusiasm 
 and hope have sounded through 
 many a black-breasted midnight and 
 trumpeted the dawn through skies of 
 thickest darkness. To causes that 
 drooped they have come and added 
 the raptures of hope; to enterprises 
 that were sickening and faint, they 
 9 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 have brought the bounding power of 
 new enthusiasm. To the dead they 
 have brought life. Everything from 
 the foundation of the world has been 
 crying for "young blood," and the 
 armies of the advance have gained 
 the day at the arrival of " recruits," 
 whose hope and earnestness have 
 never been defeated. Age and ex- 
 perience put themselves upon dying 
 pillows m.ade by young hands ; into 
 young palms and upon young ears 
 falls the meaning of all the past; and 
 thus God has written the natural 
 dignity of the young man's life in 
 the eternal statute book of the uni- 
 verse. It makes the young ever- 
 more the custodian of the old, and 
 grants discharges to the old that the 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 young may seize their fallen muskets 
 and push on to universal triumph. 
 
 The reins of the future have been 
 caught and held by young hands. At 
 fifteen, Victor Hugo presented a 
 poem to the academy; at sixteen, 
 Bossuet dazzled all who heard him 
 by his eloquence, and Leigh Hunt 
 was a prolific writer of verses. At 
 seventeen, Michael Angelo had room 
 in the palace of Lorenzo de Medici, 
 Mozart had entranced the courts of 
 Germany, Chateaubriand had a com- 
 mission, Alexander Hamilton com- 
 manded the attention of his country, 
 Washington Irving delighted the 
 readers of the Morning Chronicle. At 
 eighteen Charles Spurgeon was pas- 
 tor of a congregation ; Zwingli had 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 read the New Testament so well as 
 to doubt the authority of the church ; 
 Grotius had published an edition of 
 " Marcianus Capella." At nineteen 
 Bach was organist at Armstadt; 
 George Washington was a major ; 
 Webster had understood Espinasse j 
 Bryant had written "Thanatopsis; " 
 George Stephenson was carrying in 
 his brain an improved steam engine ; 
 Galileo was awake to the secret of 
 the vibrations of the bronze lamp of 
 Pisa cathedral. At twenty Robert 
 Hall had an enthusiastic audience ; 
 Alexander mounted the throne ; 
 Weber was producing symphonies; 
 Schelling had grappled with the phi- 
 losophy of Kant ; Wallace had made 
 assault against the arbitrary domi- 
 
 12 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 nance of Edward I. At twenty-one 
 Beethoven had added a great name 
 to music ; Kirke White had left his 
 tremulous lyre ; William Wilber- 
 force was in Parliament ; Mazzini 
 was a prisoner in the citadel of Sa- 
 vona. At twenty-two Alfred began 
 one of the most magnificent reigns 
 which England has ever seen ; his 
 commander had made Wallenstein 
 captain of the conquered fortress of 
 Grau ; Hampden was in Parliament ; 
 Savonarola was robed with a splendid 
 name ; Algernon Sydney had antago- 
 nized Cromwell ; Rossini had ex- 
 cited an enthusiasm unequaled in the 
 world of music ; Schiller's " Rob- 
 bers" had been written; Richelieu 
 was a Bishop ; Sir Phillip Sydney had 
 13 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 been sent to complete the alliance of 
 Protestantism. 
 
 At twenty-three Servetus had found 
 the intolerance of fanaticism ; Spi- 
 noza was excommunicated; Rubens 
 had " compounded from the splendor 
 of Paul Veronese and the glory of 
 Tinteretto, that florid system of 
 mannered magnificence which is the 
 element of his art and the principle 
 of his school ; " Browning had writ- 
 ten " Paracelsus ; " Sir Henry Vane 
 had filled Boston with enthusiasm ; 
 Richard Wagner carried with him 
 the music of " Lohengrin ; " White- 
 field was preaching in the Tower 
 Chapel at London ; Bailey had writ- 
 ten " Festus ; " Emmet had thrilled 
 Ireland with pathetic patriotism ; 
 H 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 Arthur Hallam had furnished Ten- 
 nyson with his greatest poem ; Hume 
 had composed his treatise on " Hu- 
 man Nature." At twenty-four Bis- 
 marck was captain of King's Cav- 
 alry; Alexander had taken Thebes 
 and had crossed the Hellespont; 
 Ariosto had made his muse support a 
 family; Dante was a distinguished 
 soldier and poet ; Ruskin had written 
 '^ Modern Painters ; " Santa Ana had 
 expelled the Royalist from Vera 
 Cruz ; Rutledge was the orator for 
 the colonies ; Scipio had commanded 
 the armies of Rome ; Sheridan had 
 written " The Rivals ; " Rienzi had 
 come forth as the second Brutus ; 
 Richter had charmed Herder. At 
 twenty-five Bernard had changed 
 15 • 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 "The Valley of Wormwood" into 
 Clairvaux ; i^schylus was the great- 
 est tragic poet of Greece ; Xavier 
 lectured on Aristotle ; Coleridge had 
 written "The Ancient Mariner;" 
 Huss had become a flaming herald 
 for truth ; Southey had burned more 
 verses than he published during life. 
 At twenty-six Robespierre defended 
 the work of Franklin against igno- 
 rance ; Franklin, himself, wrote the 
 wisdom of " Poor Richard ; " Roger 
 Williams had aroused all the intoler- 
 ance of New England; Turner was 
 a member of the Royal Academy ; 
 Mark Antony was the hero of Rome. 
 At twenty-seven Oberlin had a par- 
 ish of 9,000 acres of rocky soil ; 
 Daniel O'Connell had begun his 
 '16 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 career as an agitator; Correggio had 
 the commission to execute the fres- 
 coes on the cupola of San Giovanni 
 in Parma. 
 
 At twenty-eight, Wordsworth was 
 joint author with Coleridge ; War- 
 wick was a distinguished soldier on 
 the Scottish border ; Hannibal took 
 Saguntum while Rome deliberated on 
 its rescue ; Bacon was counsel ex- 
 traordinary for the Queen ; Napo- 
 leon had revolutionized Europe. At 
 twenty-nine Robert South's elo- 
 quence had moved British royalty ; 
 Lord John Russell was a reformer 
 in Parliament ; Milton was the au- 
 thor of " Comus ; '* Arminius had 
 liberated Germany ; Cromwell had 
 begun his work. At thirty, Rey- 
 17 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 nolds was the greatest portrait painter 
 in England ; Da Vinci had said : " I 
 will undertake any work in sculpture, 
 in marble, in bronze, or in terra- 
 cotta — likewise in painting I can do 
 as well as any man, be he who he 
 may." 
 
 All these, with the thousands of 
 others, are only some of the young 
 men who have ruled the world. Their 
 life work had been begun and its in- 
 spiration had been gained. John 
 Keats, Pitt, Summerfield, and Ma- 
 caulayare only some of our fair names. 
 Yet, my brothers, no one of these 
 can stand as our perfect representa- 
 tive. No scene in any life I have 
 mentioned can be called a character- 
 istic scene for that ideal young man 
 i8 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 of which we dream. There, at the 
 banks of Jordan stand the ages to 
 look, beyond all heroism and all con- 
 quest, upon that face rising out of 
 that hour of consecration with the 
 youth of his career all aglow with the 
 splendor of God — the young Jesus 
 beginning His mighty manhood with 
 God. 
 
 Jesus avoided no law of growth, 
 no statute of the world, or order of 
 nature, no sacrament of society or of 
 God. He came upon the unspoken 
 tendencies of the past, to speak them 
 properly and truly. He came upon 
 the bosom of the unfulfilled to fulfill 
 it. To do that. He walked through 
 our life. He came not to break it 
 and to say: "It is nothing." He 
 19 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 came to complete it, and to say : " It 
 is everything, because divine." So 
 human life was reconstituted, be- 
 cause reorganized, by His having 
 passed through it divinely. And the 
 old law was again illustrated — a man 
 leaves himself in what he does or 
 touches truly. Human existence has 
 been larger since Jesus took it up, 
 kissed it in His life, and laid it down, 
 lovingly in His death. It is a greater 
 thing to have been a lawyer since 
 PufFendorf, Selden, Otis, and Cock- 
 burn. They have enlarged the defi- 
 nition of lawyer. It is much more 
 to be a good or great preacher since 
 Robertson, Brooks, Beecher. They 
 have added dignity to the work. It 
 is more to be an artist since Meis- 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 sonier and Corot ; more to be a 
 singer since Jenny Lind ; more to be 
 a hero since Havelock and Gordon ; 
 more to be a man since any true soul 
 has enlarged and enriched the idea of 
 manhood, in himself. This, in a 
 divine way, is the effect of Jesus' 
 career upon all human life. And 
 this enlarging of its significance, the 
 improving of its dignity, is what Jesus 
 did with the consecrating of His life 
 to righteousness and duty in that 
 glorious baptismal scene. 
 
 Some method of consecration to 
 life's great duties has made a place in 
 all religions and in their ceremonies. 
 And the various sacraments are a 
 proof that, in all ages and places, 
 within the consciousness of the race, 
 
 21 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 there is a peculiar recognition of the 
 special fitness of youth for the serv- 
 ices of God and the offices of hu- 
 manity. There is no more charming 
 study than the following up through 
 all kinds of literature of the evolu- 
 tion of the confessed dignity of a 
 young man's life through these many 
 forms. For, even before Jesus came, 
 in every young Pericles, there pulsed 
 the same distinctive elements which 
 fit young men for the dignified busi- 
 ness of opening new futures, and 
 standing, in a sublime present, as the 
 guardian of a hard-won past. These 
 two, which we feel so keenly — a 
 fullness of life which we call " en- 
 thusiasm," and an affection for 
 dreams of the future, which, roughly, 
 
 22 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 we call " hope," are constitutional 
 in young men; and, added to those 
 common faculties which are the race's 
 being, they make the young man what 
 he is. So that, in and of himself, 
 there is a peculiar dignity in every 
 young man here to-day. The capital 
 of the race has not been computed 
 and rightly estimated, if there has not 
 been put among the greatest the fact 
 that in every one of us it finds that 
 peculiar love for the new and strik- 
 ing, which has espoused enterprises 
 and builded convoys unto it ; that 
 ardent admiration of heroism which 
 has turned the defeats of a great cause 
 into victories ; that burning and 
 abounding vitality which has rushed 
 up the altar steps of the untried and 
 23 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 the unknown and made its edifice 
 beyond the clouds ; that architectural 
 passion which swung air castle after 
 air castle into the void, rebuilded 
 it again and again from fallen 
 pieces and flat ruins, and builds yet, 
 on foundations which no man saw, 
 unto heights whereto no flood has 
 swept. In these efforts alone do 
 we see the eternal colors and forms 
 which the buoyant soul of a young 
 man takes on. 
 
 Surveying calmly what distin- 
 guishes a young man from one of 
 riper years, we revolt as we look at 
 that philosophy of a young man's life, 
 born in the atmosphere of hopeless- 
 ness and faithlessness, which proposes 
 to keep a young man safe by " hold- 
 24 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 ing him down " until he gets " old 
 enough to know better;" by repress- 
 ing all his buoyancy and idealism 
 until it grows sane and quiet; by 
 fastening him to an old man's body 
 of ideas until he shall be "broken 
 in " to the serenity of a calmer life. 
 That philosophy has been tried, and 
 its ruins are everywhere. It is just 
 about as sure to leave a man in ruins 
 as all growth is to leave in ruins that 
 which impedes it. If youth cannot 
 air itself and go out in expression, 
 it will explode and lay waste the 
 premises. To avoid explosion, don't 
 shut It up and drive nails into the 
 doors, for the pounding will strike 
 the explosive, and you will not live 
 to look at the ruin. It is absurd; it 
 25 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 always was wicked faithlessness to 
 God to think that you must suppress 
 and kill a boy to make anything out 
 of him. If you hitch the body of 
 some old man's theories to him, you 
 will hear him crying: " Who shall 
 deliver me from the body of this 
 death? " And he will die or be de- 
 livered. Deliverance is better than 
 death. For the ideal young of many 
 of our Sunday-school books and some 
 men's minds is a dead boy. He has 
 not vitality enough to be tempted. 
 He is a boy of no opinions. He is 
 supposed to "be still while other 
 people talk" — no difference what 
 fool is talking, or how much more 
 he may know. His value seems to 
 lie in his being an echo, not a voice. 
 26 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 Above all things, he must not do this 
 and do that; and heaven only knows 
 what he can and may do safely. 
 Well, he is a dead weight and a 
 stumbling block when he gets "of 
 age." He is supposed to know 
 nothing until he has been informed, 
 and then he has information enough 
 given to him to submerge a conti- 
 nent. Take a hundred such men 
 and you can pile them up like stacks 
 of sawdust or like rails. This is the 
 result of the philosophy of repression. 
 Standing by this baptism scene, I 
 discern the outlines of another phi- 
 losophy of a young man's life. It is 
 the philosophy of consecration and 
 expression. Instead of repression, 
 holding down, pushing into a corner 
 27 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 all the tumultuous forces of life, 
 Jesus would carry it to the stream 
 of divine glory, bury it in its current, 
 and lift it out, to be a new power in 
 the world, sent out like an evangel, 
 in the freedom of universal atmos- 
 phere, in the liberty of God's sky, to 
 express this tumult in sweetest mu- 
 sic, to body forth this, which, my 
 brother, you and 1 have to express, 
 or to kill, or to explode, into forms 
 of philanthropy, devoted work for 
 man and God. And that is why 
 this scene is a part of our capital, 
 one of the spots where a young man 
 sees what he is, v/ho he is, why he 
 is so full of enthusiasm and hope, 
 and what he is to do with it. 
 
 What an enigma is a true young 
 28 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 man to himself! He dreams more 
 than Oriental dreams. He builds 
 higher than Aladdin's palace. He 
 wonders what to do with all his rush 
 of life. People tell him to " be 
 quiet." Nothing can convince him 
 that he may attempt too much. To 
 his mind, everything depends upon 
 his getting to work now, and his 
 working all the time. Put him un- 
 der a quiet, somnolent sky, let him 
 calmly think it over, and what a 
 waste he is, in all the universe, if he 
 has no special outlook into the eter- 
 nal, no avenue for himself into the 
 realms above him, around him, be- 
 fore him. This baptism scene is the 
 brave and triumphant solution of the 
 problem. It is the sketch, made in 
 29 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 the far past, for all time to come, of 
 young manhood consecrated. Be- 
 hold, the heavens open, the dove 
 descends, the temporal is lying like 
 a babe in the lap of the eternal; the 
 young man's heart is with God, 
 while the drops, shot through and 
 through with the life and light of 
 Jehovah, fall tremulously from His 
 forehead, and the ripples of His bap- 
 tism die away along the newly 
 fretted shore. 
 
 I therefore take the expression in 
 all its simple grandeur, that, when 
 this young Jew was thus consecrat- 
 ing Himself unto the service of God 
 and man, by the hands of another, 
 the heavens of the ideal God's pur- 
 pose and plan opened — the illimit- 
 30 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 able was seen overspanning all that 
 had been limited; the infinitude of 
 His hitherto finite life was made 
 manifest, and the heavenwardness 
 and Godwardncss of consecrated 
 human life were forever made evi- 
 dent. And that, my brother, is what 
 is always happening to any of us 
 who will not begin our life work 
 until we feel that over us have rolled 
 the waves of some sacred influence, 
 and within us has been born the 
 ideal life. We want the opening 
 of the heavens ; we want the de- 
 scending dove. That scene in the 
 life of Jesus was the discovery of 
 life's importance. 
 
 We feel enough of the earthliness 
 of life. It is not very hard to find 
 31 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 out that a man has a body. Hunger 
 will make that revelation. It takes 
 no royal teacher to make us believe 
 in our hands, and feet, and ears, and 
 eyes. A little "cold snap" or a 
 heavily loaded table vi^ill open up 
 all these facts, and most people un- 
 derstand the importance of them. 
 What we need is a revelation of the 
 heavenliness of life. Thanks be 
 unto God, to give our life in glad 
 self surrender unto Him is to find 
 heights in life that no kite of our 
 thought ever could have discovered, 
 and to bring to our notice great stars 
 which we may civilize, which no 
 telescope can reveal. The idea — 
 nay, rather the /act — of an immor- 
 tal destiny takes the iron mask from 
 32 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 the eyes and forehead of any soul. 
 There is no firmament above one, 
 after that discovery in God's love, 
 but the infinite. 
 
 This dome of bone, which we 
 name our skull, at once becomes as 
 large as the very heaven. Its 
 edges touch the verge of all things. 
 Its zenith strikes the high center of 
 eternity. Under it move life currents 
 which mirror back the stars of God. 
 That is just the help of Christ's re- 
 ligion to every other young man. 
 Nothing can be ordinary in its at- 
 mosphere. The heavens are opened 
 above everything. No duty is small, 
 because life itself is so great. Every 
 due thing is due to God, who is all- 
 loving, from man, whose possible 
 33 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 destiny is so great. That makes 
 duty. Nothing is so strange as that 
 men should talk about making a 
 young man moral without making 
 him religious. Suppose that we do 
 not believe religiously, affectionately, 
 in a divine destiny for us. What 
 heart would we have for the stern 
 moralities that shall make men of 
 us? Why, if we shall not be al- 
 lowed to rise into lofty and loftier 
 manhood forever, why shall we be- 
 gin the business at all ? It must end 
 in failure. Above all such weari- 
 some doubt, which the hope and en- 
 thusiasm of a young man heartily 
 despise, there is a ruling idea of a 
 great future under the great God 
 who aims at the greatness of man 
 34 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 and his consequent glory. Every 
 line in life becomes sacred for the 
 sake of the picture it helps to make; 
 every string in the woof is dear for 
 the sake of the dear figure it will 
 hold when the Divine One is done 
 weaving. 
 
 Nothing but such a sentiment as 
 this can answer to all this abounding 
 enthusiasm and burning hope in you 
 and me. They are the mute and 
 tumultuous activity of our powers to 
 be men after the heart of God. 
 They are the rumbling fires, which, 
 when let out of the caves, shall 
 smelt the ore of the world for an- 
 chors of civilization, for ironclads 
 of progress ; for iron orators to 
 speak revolutions in flame and can- 
 35 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 non balls, for fine strings in which 
 reside celestial melodies, for threads 
 of thought to tie up the world into 
 unity, and fasten continent to conti- 
 nent under the seas. 
 
 Let none of us, my brothers, call 
 our full and uncontrollable life a 
 curse. This life, in vein and mus- 
 cle, in nerve and bone, which you 
 have to " keep down," is only your 
 unused capital. It docs not need 
 repression, but consecration and ex- 
 pression. It must not be pressed 
 down else it will become infer- 
 nal. It must be lifted up, then 
 it will become supernal. The more 
 you have of it, the greater are 
 your possibilities. It is capital, bet- 
 ter than bank stock. It must be the 
 36 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 elixir of life that you shall draw 
 upon in old age. Gladstone and 
 Bismarck drew from a youth they 
 could once hardly control, and such 
 people never get old nor fall behind 
 the times. 
 
 And the theory of Jesus, so far 
 as we may find it, is that the more 
 earnestness and hope one has, the 
 more need he has of finding fit ave- 
 nues for its expression. This bap- 
 tism is the discovery of these ave- 
 nues. I point you to Jesus as our 
 representative, not only in the right 
 use of these forces, but in the fact 
 that He possessed them also. Oh, 
 what enthusiasm had He ! It mounted 
 beyond that of all others of the 
 world's great men. 
 37 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 The baptism came. His enthu- 
 siasm rose out of that consecration 
 to bear on its mighty front the 
 bleeding hearts of men, the suffer- 
 ings of untold millions, the woes of 
 the children of Adam, the cares of 
 the ages, the defeats of all time. It 
 rose to lead all the diversities of 
 men, all the armies of humanity, all 
 the devotion of mankind — it rose 
 to lead them into the land of palms 
 and laurels, whose vast territory is 
 held in fee simple by redeemed hu- 
 manity. His hope was the infinite 
 dream of Plato enlarged into infinite 
 proportions. It was the fancy sketch 
 of the greatest made a fact and suf- 
 fused with the life of the Son of 
 God. That was what He became 
 38 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 after His consecration — did He not 
 feel in His divine way, what are so 
 earthly and human in us ? 
 
 In that baptism Jesus realized 
 man's place in the plan of the uni- 
 verse. In our consecrated life we 
 must realize our relations to God's 
 life. You go out to-morrow into 
 your clerkship, into your employer's 
 bank, into your own business. I 
 charge you, so give yourself in glad 
 consecration to God to-day, that it 
 shall seem as though the waves of 
 the ideal life have touched you, and 
 that wherever you stand, henceforth, 
 you stand for the eternal God. Yon- 
 der in Galilee is our ideal, my broth- 
 ers ! He stands for God, wherever 
 He is. He has the ellipse of God's 
 39 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 life passing through His soul ; and 
 such is His calm of spirit and 
 strength of feeling that He cries : " I 
 and the Feather are one." I adore 
 His divinity, but I cannot fail to see 
 that wherever a young man stands 
 for justice, truth, honor, purity, and 
 holds that corner of the universe 
 against all intruders, he may say with 
 a holy enthusiasm and a reverent 
 ardor : " I and the Father are 
 one;" one as to the importance 
 of this great battle of principles, 
 one in the thought of who shall 
 succeed, one in the joy of the vic- 
 tory. Brothers, let us claim no 
 other young man as our champion 
 and ideal. I see Him breasting every- 
 thing and conquering everything, 
 40 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 because the heavens of His life had 
 been opened at that baptism. 
 
 Under the open heavens, in the 
 fact of life's heavenwardness, I dis- 
 cern also the rising consciousness of 
 a young man's relation unto His race. 
 Such a sky has His mind become 
 that He sees the horizon-rim taking 
 every man in. He feels that into 
 His life pour the interests of His age. 
 
 Like a forester with a newly 
 sharpened ax he walks on, over 
 fallen trees, and feels as he goes on, 
 and the chips fly: " Behind me is 
 a race wanting to get through these 
 thickets ; I chop and chop away ; 1 
 chop for them ; 1 chop for every- 
 body that ever shall walk this road; 
 they are coming behind me, and I go 
 41 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 on and on." Like Arnold Wlnkel- 
 ried he feels that it is not simply his 
 getting through, but it is the princi- 
 ple which he champions which be- 
 longs to humanity ; a single poor 
 soldier, with the audacity of his 
 principle, cries not, " Make way for 
 Arnold Winkelried," but " Make 
 way for liberty!" The open heav- 
 ens are so vast that a man cannot be 
 small. Under them he sees a race, 
 and feels that when he conquers or 
 himself at his best, he conquers also 
 for humanity. 
 
 But the poorest young man can- 
 not feel his own dignity until he re- 
 alizes how all the past makes him 
 its heir and custodian. The past Is al- 
 ways dying. It is always saying — 
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Young Men in History 
 
 when it feels the great canopy of 
 eternity over it — " In the name of 
 God, Amen," and forthwith, in such 
 sacred air as this, it is giving its 
 treasures into our hands. We are 
 born heirs of the years and ages, 
 with their results. And upon us 
 also is saddled the work of the execu- 
 tor of the will and the administra- 
 tors of the estate. We ought to be 
 wonderfully honest with past, pres- 
 ent and future to do all this. And 
 for my part, I see nothing but the 
 consecration of our life to God, that 
 shall make us fit to do this great 
 work and fill this great office. 
 " Heir, executor of the last will and 
 testament, and the administrator of 
 the past." 
 
 43 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 That Is our dignified business, to 
 settle with the p;reat future the busi- 
 ness of the great beneficiary, to ad- 
 minister in truth and equity this 
 great legacy. You carry it all with 
 you ; with it you succeed or fail. 
 Will you dare to load it on your 
 back without the dove upon your 
 forehead and the heavens all open 
 under the throne of Jehovah ! It 
 will break you down if you try to 
 carry it alone. 
 
 Only in the waves of such a con- 
 secration as this can a young man 
 have a safe and true idea of con- 
 duct. To the music of that bap- 
 tism, what a wretched and devilish 
 discord is sin. Under the heavens 
 opened up, so that you may see who 
 
 44 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 God is and what our life ought to 
 be, what an infernal thing it is to 
 soil our manhood, crush our possi- 
 bilities, and ruin our souls. Every 
 smallest duty has an infinite scope. 
 
 All through the life that now is, 
 flow out the land of the life to come 
 rivers of Jordan, whose waters have 
 divided the land which some Moses 
 of the past had left, from that into 
 which some Joshua had entered — 
 great streams which have rolled be- 
 tween the real and the ideal. Into 
 one of these Jesus went, saying : 
 " Suffer it to be so now." All the 
 streams of the earth felt the break 
 of Jordan's current by His baptism. 
 Onward to the sea and gathered into 
 the clouds, this baptism went into 
 45 
 
Young Men in History 
 
 the dew and rain, and at last fell 
 again into the seas which refresh our 
 planet. Its ripples still play along 
 the coast as its significance has 
 broken against the shores of eter- 
 nity. It has revivified the conti- 
 nents of mankind. It has passed 
 through the shores into the center 
 of the human soul. Its rhythm has 
 come from coast to coast and begun 
 a new^ music. Its flash, under God, 
 has revealed nev^ forces in light, and 
 its broad ripple has become a wave 
 which tells of the depth of the wa- 
 ter of life. To-day, let us ask some 
 John if he will help us to " fulfill 
 all righteousness," and let us seek in 
 this baptism the opened heavens and 
 the descending dove. 
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