LD
3362
A 579509
1887
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS,
DELIVERED IN THE
ASSEMBLY HALL,
T
THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
BY
President Cyrus Northrop,
SUNDAY, MAY 22 897.
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.:
W. T. COLE & CO., ROOM I, UNIVERSITY.
1887.

ARTES
1837
SCIENTIA
LIBRARY
VERITAS
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
E-PLURIBUS UNUM
SI-QUAERIS PENINSULAM AMOENAM
CIRCUMSPICE


BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS,
LI
3362
1887
DELIVERED IN THE
ASSEMBLY HALL,
ΑΤ
THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA.
BY
President Cyrus Northrop,
SUNDAY, MAY 22, 1887.
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.:
W. T. COLE & CO., ROOM I, UNIVERSITY.
1887.
573
Dagy tal
The Human Life of Jesus.
Matthew xxii, 42. "What think ye of Christ?"
The life of Jesus Christ has had a greater influence upon
the intellectual, moral, and religious life of the world than that
of any other man who has ever lived. I desire this afternoon
to present some thoughts respecting the human life of Jesus, and
to emphasize especially the human side of his character. I hope
thus to establish a more perfect sympathy with him as the Son
of Man, and at the same time to inspire a more complete confi-
dence in his mercy and love as the Son of God. In order to do
this I shall examine some few prominent incidents in his career
and shall endeavor to draw from them legitimate conclusions
respecting the conditions of his earthly life. For Jesus Christ is
an historical character whose life and words and deeds may all
be studied and concerning whom as a man we may form as defi-
nite an opinion as concerning any other historical character.
Let us then try to examine impartially the facts as recorded in
the sacred narrative. Let us try to lay aside all preconceptions
we may have formed, all antecedent probabilities that may have
been created by prophecy; let us close for the time the volume
of the old dispensation, and as the voices of the angels singing
"Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good-will
toward men,” are lost in the distance, as, with their mission ful-
filled, they wing their flight to their heavenly home, let us, with
the shepherds, "now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing
which has come to pass, which the Lord has made known unto
us."
It is apparently no distinguished person whom we are to
201250
}
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visit. Very poor and very humble must be the family that can-
not for love or money secure a room in the inn of Bethlehem for
this young mother and very humble indeed must be the family
that cannot, even in the crowded days of the feast, secure better
accommodations than a stable or a better cradle for their infant
than a manger. Yet here in the manger of a stable lies the
infant whose coming angels have proclaimed. Here in the
manger of Bethlehem, we first see Jesus.
There is nothing more wonderful in the appearance of this
babe than in that of multitudes of other babes that have been
born into the world and have been admired and loved. There
is no halo of glory about its head. It is a common enough thing
-a babe in a poor family, brought into the world under rather
more unfavorable circumstances than are common even to the
poor. Respecting this babe indeed a wonderful prophecy hast
been made to the mother, and a wonderful story has been told
her by the shepherds, which are treasured in her memory
though their import is only partly understood; but even she sees
nothing more in the face of her child, than mothers always see
in the faces of their babes, a vision of beauty and of love, over
which, alas! too often there soon creep the ugly shadows of
depravity and sin. Yet this child, so unremarkable to the eye,
and on whose face no special image of divinity seems to rest, is
that same Jesus whose doctrines now permeate the globe, and
who is destined to reign
"Where'er the sun
Doth his successive journeys run."
It is no continuous and connected account of the life of Jesus
which is given us in the sacred narrative. As a writer has
said: “All it tells us is for our use and nothing is for our curi-
osity. * * It gives glimpses but holds up no broad light
reaching from the beginning to the end. It crosses gulfs and
leaves the path unknown. *
When it has done with us,
more unsolved and insoluble problems arise than before, for as
it leads us up from nature to God, it shows us outlines of great
mysteries which baffle our reason. So, then, when it hides the
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Baccalaureate Address.
5
Lord Jesus from us for a large part of his life in the world, it
is consistent with itself and unlike the works of man."
All that we know of Jesus from his infancy till he was
twelve years old is that "The child grew and waxed strong in
spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon
him." Only one distinct view of him is given us from his in-
fancy to the time when as a mature man of thirty Fe entered
upon his great work. The story of his parents taking him when
he was twelve years old to the feast at Jerusalem, of his tarry-
ing behind them after they set out to return home, of their three
days' search for him, of their finding him at last in the temple,
sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking
them questions, so that all that heard him were astonished at
his understanding and answers, is at once most important and in-
structive. We must not conceive of Jesus at this time as a for-
ward and conceited child, preternaturally endowed with know-
ledge which had cost him nothing, and endeavoring to perplex
and confound the theologians of the temple, either in the inter-
est of truth or for his own intellectual pleasure; nor must we
conceive of him as God with an understanding of all things;
but rather he is to be regarded as an ingenuous youth, engaged
as was proper and customary for youth, in asking questions
with a sincere desire to learn-and, therefore, in asking questions,
the answers to which he did not already know. The fact that
all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and
answers is not inconsistent with this view; while his answer to
the gentle chiding of his mother cannot be explained on any
other supposition. He says: "How is it that ye sought me?
Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business?" He
is surprised, not because they sought him, but because they did
not know where to seek him-because they had not come at
once to the temple, where he was engaged in studying his
father's business, instead of spending three days in searching
elsewhere. If he had tarried merely to display his powers, to
gratify his taste for debate, to confound the learned doctors, his
conduct would have been unfilial and inexcusable. But with a
developing realization of his own nature and destiny and with
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the assumption that his parents must know that his work was
not and was not to be like other children's, he asks them "Why
is it that ye did not know where to find me. Did ye not know
that I (whatever may be true of other children) must be en-
gaged in studying my father's business, and that here in the
temple was the place where I could study it and where there-
fore I could be found?" It is but a momentary glimpse we
have here of the workings of the child's soul, but it is a glimpse
at a moment of most transcendent importance, when the con-
sciousness of his own real nature was thoroughly stirred within
him, and when longings were felt to know and understand the
work for which he had come into the world. But not yet, not
yet for long years, is either his consciousness of his own nature
or his eagerness to be engaged in his appointed work to be per-
mitted to come to fruition. What even his mother could not
understand, the world was not yet ready for. And so Jesus
goes down with his parents to Nazareth and is subject unto
them, his high aspirations and purposes merged for the time in
simple obedience to them. But as the years go on and he is
merely discharging humble and ordinary duties, we are told
that he increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God
and man.
In other words Jesus was developing-growing in
mind and soul and body. It may be that this statement of the
development of Jesus will strike some with surprise, since they
have been accustomed to regard Jesus as God manifest in the
flesh, and since Ġod is always perfect in all His attributes and
therefore incapable of growth or development, they think Jesus
must have been so from the first. But this is a most unworthy
view of the case. Jesus' life on earth was not a dramatic repre-
sentation, every scene prepared expressly for artistic effect. It
was a real life-a real human life. "For verily he took not on
him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abra-
ham. Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like
unto his brethren." And thus we see him with human limita-
tions-limitations in knowledge, in power, and with a capacity
for both suffering and sin. Any other view, any view which
regards Jesus as from first to last God in a human form, with-
Baccalaureate Address.
7
out human limitations, would make the whole career of Jesus a
sham. But on this point I cannot do better than to quote the
words of President Woolsey in reference to those who do not
believe in the normal development of the Lord Jesus. "To such
persons," he says, "Jesus is a simple miracle of existence; one
who knew when a child whatever he knew when a man; one
in whom there was no growth nor advance; always and equally
full of God; and by consequence hiding His knowledge from
the first until the occasion came for making use of it. But this
is a very false and unscriptural view. It is inconsistent with the
statement that Jesus increased in wisdom and in favor with God.
It would, in fact, make the man Jesus a mere appearance, a
vehicle for conccaling omniscience. It thus presents him to us,
no longer as growing and rising according to the law of in-
corrupt manhood, but as a prodigy, having nothing in common
with man in the movements of his intellect, and therefore in-
capable of exercising the feelings of a human finite soul. That
thus in fact the human in Christ must be destroyed is apparent.
Such a view of him gets no support from the Gospel, nor from
ancient faith."
If now you ask me how this can be; how it was possible for
God to become subject to human limitations and gradually to
develop in knowledge and wisdom and power, as Jesus cer-
tainly did, I answer frankly I cannot tell, nor can anyone tell.
All I can say is what Paul says in the Epistle to Timothy:
"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness;
God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of
angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, re-
ceived up into glory." These facts are no less real because there
is a great mystery in them. The whole universe of God is full
of mystery-life itself is a mystery--but we do not reject well
attested facts because we cannot explain them. So the union of
the human and the divine in Jesus Christ, utterly inexplicable as
to its nature and utterly unaccountable except as a product of
the Omnipotent will, is not to be rejected by us because of its
mystery, but must be accepted by us if we place any reliance
whatever upon the revelation of Jesus Christ. Nor need we be
8
University of Minnesota,
surprised that even the divine man-God manifest in the flesh—
should be at last the result of development and growth rather
than the instantaneous product of the creative will. For such is
seen everywhere to be God's method of working. Whether it
be plants or men, or worlds, that are to be made, the record is not
that God speaks and it is done; but that God speaks and it is be-
gun. Henceforth the work goes on-months, years, ages, as the
case may be, passing away before the creation is complete as it was
first planned to be. What wonder then that even a divine man
should be perfected according to the laws of change and growth
which are seen to prevail everywhere in the government of God
so far as we have any knowledge of it. What wonder that even
in Him we should be able to trace the relation of effect to cause
just as we do in every thing else. Doubtless God might make
men happy without any relation to the development of their
moral natures-but He does not. Doubtless He might make
men wise and learned without the intervention of study and dis-
cipline, but he does not. In the character and power of every
man whom we thoroughly know we see the effects of causes
operating all along the course of his past life or the life of his
ancestors. The same thing is truc of Jesus Christ. Why was
he born in a manger? Why did he lead the humble life of a
carpenter at Nazareth? Why was his whole career one of
humility and sorrow? Was it all a pretence, a make-believe of
experiences not genuine, in order to awaken human sympathy,
or was it a real discipline with its legitimate influence upon his
own development? Was he or was he not better fitted to appre-
ciate the sorrows of the poor from his own experience? Was he
or was he not after suffering from temptation, "better able to
succor them that are temped?" These questions carry their own
answers. The discipline of Jesus, like the discipline of any other
man, was intended to fit him for his work. Observe how patient
he is under this discipline. At twelve years of age he had begun
to appreciate the nature of his life's work and to long for clearer
vision of his Father's business-but at thirty he is still engaged
in humble worldly industries, having done nothing towards the
accomplishment of his life's work, except to get ready for it.
Baccalaureate Address.
9
Mark the greatness of this exception. He had done nothing
towards finishing his work except to get ready for it. He had
taken time to get ready. He had spent thirty years in prepara-
tion. He was to spend three years in work. What a waste of
time cries the uneducated Zealot, who is zaxious to preach the
Gospel before he has any Gospel to preach. But Jesus knew
what so many forget, that God will always let a man live long
enough to do the work which he desires him to do, and that no
great work can be done without proper preparation. T'he
counsels of God are often slow in their execution, but they are
not less certain. Thousands of years elapsed after the promise
of the Messiah before he came. Hundreds of years elapsed af-
ter prophets in vision saw the coming Redeemer before he came.
But he came at last. And if God could wait so long before he
fulfilled his promise to the fallen Adam, if he could wait till the
fullness of time had come before he sent forth his Son, shall we
wonder that Jesus could wait thirty years before he entered
upon his work.
his work. There was no hurry even in making the atone-
The human race like individual men had to be devel-
oped by discipline to be made ready. And it was only when
all things were ready that men were invited to come to the
Great Supper. Even now when the feast is spread, when the
invitations have been given to all without exception, when the
Great Head of the feast has declared his purpose that the feast
shall be furnished with guests there is no universal exercise of
omnipotence in compelling them to come in; even now the
Spirit is not given in such overwhelming power as to hasten
with pentecostal speed the conversion of the world. Slowly
yet surely as in the development of the natural world the conti-
nents of righteousness are lifted out of the surrounding deep
waters of evil, centuries rather than years marking the progress
of the race.
If then we serve God, we must remember that we
serve a Master to whom a thousand years are as one day and
one day as a thousand years; and while doing our utmost for
his cause we must be prepared to say not merely "Thy will, O
God, be done," but "Thy will be done and in thine own good
time." I do not expect that everything will be done in our
ment.
1
10
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day; but I think that God will be here after we are gone and
that he will take care of his own kingdom. And so when I
consider the deliberation and freedom from hurry with which
the counsels of God both in the natural and the spiritual world
have been carried out, I cannot refrain from saying, what may
have a very wide application, that God does not call us to work
for him till we are fitted to do his work. And if perchance ·
after years of patient study and preparation for his work, we
are called away by death ere we have been able to do anything
which we have been so carefully preparing to do, we may know
assuredly that for the trained intellect and purified soul, God
will provide abundant employment in that other world where
the earnest energies of redeemed spirits will find endless work
to do for the Government of God is not a wasteful govern-
ment. And "whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap"
-if not here, then in the world to come. No man is to be
cheated out of his own harvest.
The first public act of Jesus as a preliminary to his ministry
was to go to John the Baptist and be baptized. And when he
had been baptized, the Spirit of God descended like a dove and
lighted upon him. And a voice from heaven said: "This is my
beloved son in whom I am well pleased." Surely now the dis-
cipline of Jesus is complete. Surely now when thus specially
endowed with the Spirit of God, and thus plainly recognized by
the divine voice as the Son of God, he is ready for his work.
No, his discipline is not ended. Strange to say the Son of
God is to be subjected to the temptation of the devil, and that
too in accordance with the divine will. Jesus is led up of the
Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. "God does
not tempt men, but he sometimes brings them into temptation.”
And so our Lord taught us to pray, “Lead us not into tempta-
tion." In no way perhaps are men disciplined better than by
temptation. An untried virtue is not the most robust virtuc.
Men grow strong by resisting. But alas, if they yield, how
weak they become under the dominion of sin. Thus Adam
stood in the Garden of Eden sinless; but yielding to temptation.
he became subject to death--and while it is not true, in any
Baccalaureate Address.
11
proper sense, that "in Adam's fall we sinned all," it has come
to about the same thing; since we have all made haste to sin for
ourselves about as soon as we could, in full accordance with the
principles of heredity. But what a contrast between the temp-
tation of Adam and that of Jesus. That of Adam hardly rises.
to the dignity of a temptation. He disobeyed God simply be-
cause he was asked to, without any special incitement thereto.
He had not gone through any discipline to make him strong.
Created sinless he was like a sinless baby that is pretty sure to
sin as soon as it gets a chance. I do not overlook the fact that
he was tempted of the devil, but in his case the devil had to
employ very few arts and make very few promises. But very
different is the temptations of Jesus. Not in an Eden, but in a
wilderness—not in the company of a loved one, but in soli-
tude and alone, not in the midst of plenty with every appetite
gratified but in an hour of terrible craving for food after forty
days fasting, not to the one man on earth and therefore without
ambition or the possibility of fame, but to a man among men
with his carcer undetermined and his future to make, did the
temptation come to Jesus, assailing the citadel of his virtue at
every point, first through his appetite, next through the love of
fame, and next the love of power. There was a temptation to
which the strongest human virtue might yield. What if Jesus
should yield? He might have done so. It were no temptation
if he could not have yielded. But if he had: there could have
been no joyous proclamation for humanity, "As in Adam all
die, so in Christ shall all be made alive;" there could have been
no joyous Easter morning with its "Christ is risen," "Christ is
risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that
slept." Well might Milton make the temptation of Jesus the
turning point of all in his Paradise Regained. Take whatever
view you please of the temptation of Jesus, I insist that this at
least shall be admitted. Herc was a real temptation of terrible
power addressed by the Prince of Evil to a pure soul standing
alone in accordance with God's counsels as the representative of
the human race. It was a contest involving alike the glory of
God and the salvation of man. In the triumph of Jesus over
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evil both were secured; and by his perfect obedience in this
hour of fiery trial, he was fitted in good degree for what was
to come, and Gethsemane and Calvary were made not only
possible but inevitable. Yet how much lay between the temp-
tation and Calvary? How much of groping in darkness on
the part of the disciples? How much of real discipline and
preparation on the part of Jesus even? Three years were not
needed to work the miracles that should demonstrate his power.
Three years were not needed to teach that body of Christian
doctrine which has come down to us in the works of the evan-
gelists. Three years were not needed even to exhibit Jesus to
the world as a kind and gentle and sympathizing being, with a
love touched with divine tenderness. But three years were
needed to prepare him for the great work of atonement; and
until that preparation was complete, his "hour had not yet
come."
A while after his temptation and early in his Galilean
ministry Jesus delivered his memorable Sermon on the Mount.
It is a discourse full of sweet and comforting thought, full of
wisdom, full of apt illustrations. But it is a discourse more re-
markable under the circumstances for what it does not contain
than for what it does contain; and even the comfort which its
words have never failed to give to mcek and lowly and sorrow-
ing souls, has come mainly because the intense light from
Calvary reflected back upon them has revealed depths of mean-
ing which those who heard the words when first spoken never
discovered. This discourse is not one of special originality of
thought. It gathers up and places in their truc light so as to
be rightly understood the best things in the old religion. It in-
troduces no new religious system. There is nothing said about
himself as having any special relation to humanity. The great
doctrines of the Christian system are not even alluded to. “Not
a word is said about his Messiahship, his sufferings and death,
his future mediation, the doctrine of repentance and the new
birth," not a word about faith and the Holy Spirit. He might,
for anything that appears in this sermon, be a truly reverent
and pious rabbi of the Jewish Church, who had studied care
Baccalaureate Address.
13
fully and devoutly the Old Testament and now with great
simplicity and love reproduces the jewels he has found. Is it
an accident that none of the great doctrines of distinctive Christ-
ianity appear in the sermon on the mount? Was Jesus at this
time generally preaching the doctrines that make up the Christ-
ian "scheme of salvation," and has the evangelist by chance or
divine guidance reported a single sermon that contained no
allusion to these doctrines? I cannot think so. Did Jesus
when he preached the beatitudes on the Galilean mount have
as complete a view of his mission as he had when he bowed in
agony in the garden of Gethsemane? Pardon me, if with
great boldness but without irreverence, I go one step farther, and
ask: Is it not possible that the Son who in the counsels of the
Father had said, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God," and who
had now come to do that will and had assumed complete human-
ity in which to do it, is it not possible that He like other men who
are to do the will of God had been left to find out somewhat by
experience what that will is-had been left in darkness some-
what as to the future, and had been permitted to gain a clear
view of the end only as he approached it—in short is it not possi-
ble that he had come into the world in the spirit of perfect obe-
dience to do the will of God whatever that will might he, leaving
it to God to reveal that will in its fulness in his own good time?
I do not forget that Jesus, though very man, differs in one
respect so greatly from all other men as to render all reasoning
by analogy dangerous. He was without sin. What vision of
the future may be revealed to a sinless human soul only God
knows. But to sinful men God's will is revealed only as we
meet it in the way. And it seems to me that it must have been
so to some extent in the case of Jesus. Otherwise his sinless
soul must have suffered agonies of torture every moment of his
existence and his heart must have broken long before he came to
Calvary and the Cross. We mourn for our dead, but not every
moment of our lives with equal intensity. If we did, we should
die. So Jesus bore the burden of our sins, but not, I hope, with
an unvarying sense of the dreadful load, and never, never, never
before, with such awful, overpowering agony as he experienced
>
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on Calvary when he cried "My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?" and his heart broke. Did he know, could he
have known during all the years of his ministry that at the last
in the hour of his surest need, God would forsake him? Or was
that a part of the will of God which he like other men was to
know only by experience, and to find all the harder to bear
because it was unexpected? I cannot tell-we know by Jesus's
own words that one thing at least was not known to him but to
the Father only; and if the hiding of God's face from him in
the hour when Jesus made atonement for the sins of the whole
world was also unknown to Jesus as a coming event, our con-
ception of his suffering becomes much larger and our love and
reverence are vastly augmented, "Surely he hath borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God and afflicted." "It pleased the Lord to bruise him;
he hath put him to grief." And the picture which the prophet
draws of one led as a lamb to the slaughter, and of one opening
not his mouth at the thick-coming calamities even as a sheep is
dumb before her shearers, is a picture of one who is finding out
by experience what the will of God is and who has to bear not
merely evils but unexpected evils. I do not suppose that any
one will claim that the babe in the manger at Bethlehem under-
stood the full nature and import of the life before it; and if this
be so, what more natural than that the understanding of these
things should have come to him gradually, but with rapidly
increasing ratio towards the last?
There is a well known fact in reference to all living beings
and plants which is expressed by the scientific world as the
principle of reversion to type. Animals that have been speci-
ally cared for and have acquired special marks of beauty degen-
erate if neglected and revert to the old time homeliness of their
race, either themselves directly or in their descendants. So cul-
tivated plants if neglected revert to the simple forms of their
uncultivated ancestors. So cultivated man, kept up to his
present excellence by surrounding intellectual and spiritual in-
fluences, tends the moment these influences are withdrawn to
degenerate and to revert to the original type of savageness or
animalism.
Baccalaureate ddress.
15
But in Jesus there were two types to which rever-
sion was possible-the lower, man; the higher, God-and with
from
him the tendency to revert to the higher type, to mount up
manhood to God, is constant and strong; and at the last of his
earthly career even our dull eyes can see what progress has
been made, how far the reversion to the higher type has pro-
Even the unbe-
gressed, how much like God he has become.
liever Rosseau was forced to exclaim that Socrates died like a
And if the death of
philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God.
Jesus could thus impress an unbeliever, surely we who believe
cannot fail to be as deeply impressed with the God-like char-
Nor
acter exhibited in his life even more than in his death.
can we be surprised to find Jesus as his end draws near assert-
ing with more and more clearness and distinctness his own one-
ness with the Father, in counsel and purpose and being, as
when he says, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,"
"As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father," "I
and my Father are one.”
66
Of
But these and kindred expressions of Jesus in which he states
eternal facts respecting his relations to the Father do not mili-
tate against the views of his carthly pilgrimage which I have
tried to present. Jesus was in the beginning with God; and,
again, "when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down
on the right hand of the Majesty on high." But there was a
time between these two, when Jesus's condition was entirely
different from that authority and power represented by his
making all things, and sitting at the right hand of God.
this time of humiliation and service and how Jesus entered into
it, we gain a clear idea from the 6th verse of the 2d chapter of
"Who
Phillipians. In the new version it reads as follows:
being originally in the form of God, counted it not a prize (or
a thing to be eagerly grasped at) to be on an equality with
God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." It is
here distinctly said that Jesus gave up the being on an equality
with God and emptied himself. A thing that is emptied does
not contain the same as a thing that is full. After Jesus has
relinquished the prize of being equal with God, and has emptied
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himself, and has taken the form of a servant, to fulfil the whole
law as a man, he is certainly not to be regarded as still having
all power, knowledge and everything else which he had before
the transformation. Otherwise his appearance in human form
would be a mere show. It would be like a rich man soliciting
pity and sympathy for his poverty, because he had chosen to
put on a ragged coat, while all the time his pockets were filled
with gold and his deposits at the bank were without limit.
There is no one characteristic of humanity more universal
than dependence on God. This Jesus accepted as a part of his
human condition. And so he prays: prays when he is baptized,
prays all night in the lonely mountains, prays in the solitary
place, in the desert, wherever he can find a chance to be alone;
tells his disciples after casting out a devil which they could not
cast out that this kind goeth not out but by prayer, showing
that he had been praying; prays in the garden of Gethsemane,
prays in great agony; and though having power on earth to
forgive sins, he prays on the cross to the Father to forgive his
murderers; and who shall say, who can say, that every miracle
wrought by him was not in answer to prayer to God? If sin-
ners like Peter and John and Paul, could by faith in Jesus,
their risen Lord, work miracles without being gods, why may
not Jesus, the perfect sinless man, have prevailed with God by
prayer, without necessitating in him during his earthly ministry
the constant exercise of divine power in virtue of his divine ori-
gin. Even sinners who have come near to God know how
ready he is to answer prayer.
to answer prayer. What limit then would there be
to the answers given by the Father to the prayers of the be-
loved Son who had never failed in his obedience? And it is in
perfect accordance with this thought that Jesus after he was
apprehended and just before the crucifixion, tells his disciples,
not indeed that he could immediately summon heavenly forces
to protect him, but "thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to
my Father and He shall presently give me more than twelve
legions of angels?" And indeed, the whole argument cannot
be better closed than with the words of Jesus himself: “I can
of mine own self do nothing. *** I seek not mine own will
but the will of the Father which hath sent me."
Baccalaureate Address.
17
Jesus said to his disciples: "If ye have faith as a grain of
mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain 'Remove hence
into yonder place,' and it shall remove; and nothing shall be
impossible unto you." If such be the power of faith what limit
can we place to the power of Jesus, even as a man? for of all
men who have lived he best could prevail with God, because his
faith in God was not dimmed by sin and not clouded by doubt.
I believe then it is possible to explain even Jesus's wonderful
exhibitions of power in the working of miracles without attrib-
uting them to the divine nature inherent in him by reason of
his personal divinity. The readiness of God to answer the
prayer of faith and the unfailing faith which Jesus had in the
Father, are themselves sufficient to explain why God's power
was ever responsive to the call of Jesus, "who," as the writer of
the epistle to the Hebrews declares, "in the days of his flesh,
having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying
and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and
having been heard for his godly fear, though he was a Son, yet
learned obedience by the things he suffered; and having been
made perfect, he became unto all them that obey him the author
of eternal salvation." Truly "we have not a high priest who
cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one
that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without
sin." (Jesus has lived our life; he knows our sorrows, our trials,
our temptations. He has shown that it is possible amid all the
evil of the world to lead a life of integrity, that it is possible
though full of sorrow and acquainted with grief, by faith to
walk with God, and that though assailed by the basest human
ingratitude and the most hollow religious hypocrisy, it is possi-
ble to exhibit a sweetness, a tenderness, a love, befitting the Son
of God who himself is Love.
But what if this were all? What if he had merely lived as
an example, and we looking at his perfect life, were invited to
follow him and like him earn Heaven? How many would try?
How many would keep on trying? How many would succeed?
Alas, not one of us would ever see "the King in his beauty or
behold the land that is very far off."
18
University of Minnesota,
We have followed Jesus through the days of his discipline
and sorrow; we have followed him to Gethsemane and Cal-
vary. And if at the point we have now reached, a cloud had
reccived him out of our sight, that cloud would forever be be-
tween him and us, and we should walk in darkness and with-
out hope.
But it is because Jesus persevered in his great work, until he was
able to exclaim, "It is finished," because "he was once offered
to bear the sins of many;" because he is "a propitiation for
our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole
world;" because he "needeth not daily to offer up sacrifices for
the sins of the people, for this he did once when he offered up
himself;" because he is now "able and willing to save to the
uttermost them who come unto God by him, seeing he ever
liveth to make intercession for them "it is for these reasons
that we are able to live in hope of the mercy of God—“for
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever-
lasting life."
STUDENTS OF THE GRADUATING CLASS.
Your record as
upon
which
The end of your college life draws near.
students is already made up and the foundations
you are to build, so far as your intellectual life is concerned,
are already laid. In a few days you will be numbered among
the graduates of the University, and we shall be compelled, re-
luctantly, to say good-bye. There is always something sad in
doing for the last time any thing which we have been ac-
customed to do, even though it be not in itself especially pleas-
ant; there is a double sadness which comes to us at the end of
what has been both pleasant and profitable. While I cannot
but regret the parting which must soon take place, I do not
think that the sadness incident thereto is the proper thought for
the hour. You have done good work as students during these
past years, and we shall think of you hopefully as those from
whom much good work may be expected in the years to come.
I do not doubt that all of you will find your proper place for
}
Baccalaureate Address.
19
work, in due time; I beg you not to be discouraged if you do
not find it at once. Keep up your habits of study and add as
much as possible to your attainments. The lower grades of
labor may be unpleasantly affected by competition; but there is
plenty of room for all who can do the highest kind of work.
Whenever you can do any useful work better than any one
else, you will be sure of finding employment. For the world
is seeking that kind of men and women all the time.
Whatever may be your vocation in life, do not forget that
you are citizens of a republic, and that therefore you have a
part to act in forming the policy of the state and nation. Do
not forget that the country is sadly in need of statesmen, while
it has an unlimited supply of politicians; that it needs men who
can see what public sentiment ought to be and who will try to
create a right public sentiment, while it has an abundance of
men who are carefully studying what public sentiment is, and
are doing their best to trim their sails to the popular breeze.
To seek popularity and office for their own sake, to stifle honest
convictions under the fear of popular disfavor, or, for the sake
of popular favor, to do what one knows to be injurious to the
best interests of the state, is a degradation of both culture and
character. It is of little importance to you whether or not you
occupy the high political stations; but it is of vital importance
that you be trustworthy, known to be the supporters of what
is right and the opponents of what is wrong, and that you
make your whole influence felt in determining what kind of
men shall make the laws. You will find that the surest path
to leadership is doing good to the people by wise counsels
rather than asking good of the people in the form of office.
is more blessed to give than to receive, even in politics.
It
I cannot give you specific directions for every occupation in
which you may engage; but I can give you advice which will
be of service, no matter what may be your occupation. I have
spoken to you to-day of one whose life was perfect.
If you
follow him you can make no mistakes. But it is not enough
even that you seek to live according to the law of unselfishness
by which Jesus lived. He must be to you more than an ex-
1
20
University of Minnesota,
ample. He is your Savior, if you will accept him. He is your
King, if you will own him.
you choose him or not.
should lead by faith in the Son of God. It is not only right
that you have faith in Christ; it is wrong not to have such
faith. While then I wish you all the fullest prosperity in life
compatible with your highest interests, I desire for you most
of all, that you may so live that when your life is ended you
may be able to say of your work, as truly as Jesus said of his,
"It is finished,”—and “so an entrance shall be ministered unto
you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ."
He is to be your Judge, whether
The life that you are to lead, you
Sal,

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