c 
 
 M22Kb 
 
■7 u 
 
 
 i 
 
 iv^ Lc ^. ^-^ t 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/baccalaureateaddOOhark 
 
PRESIDENT HARKER 
 
 MRS. J R. HARKER 
 
BACCALAUREATE 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 Illinois Woman's College 
 1893-1918 
 
 PRESIDENT JOSEPH R. HARKER 
 
 JACKSONVILLE, ILLINOIS 
 ILLINOIS WOMAN'S COLLEGE 
 
PRESS OF 
 
 THE METHODIST EOOK CONCERN 
 
 CINCINNATI, OHIO 
 
(Co <iHg J[0tfe, tJje ffiomz anb College ^otljer: 
 
 Wfto, equally with myself, has borne the burdens and 
 cares, and enjoyed the happy privileges of our home 
 and college life; 
 
 Who, by her patience and gentleness, her unfailing 
 tact and sympathy and love, has made possible all 
 that has been accomplished for the college in these 
 twenty-five years; and 
 
 Who, by her unwearied interest and personal affection, 
 has enriched the lives of both faculty and students, 
 and inspired us all to express the best within us, 
 
 tHijts book ts affeciumaielg bebicateb. 
 
 776837 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1894 — The Best Gifts, and the More Excellent 
 
 Way, 15 
 
 1895 — The Rich Indwelling of Christ's Word, - 23 
 
 1896 — Getting Only in Order to Give, 33 
 
 1897 — You Cannot Travel Life's Journey Alone, 41 
 
 1898 — The Greatest Reward of Faithful Service 
 
 Is a More Difficult Task, - - 49 
 
 1899 — Forward Reaching for the Prize of God, 57 
 
 1900 — Whatever You Ought to Do, You Can Do, 65 
 
 1901 — Your Candle Has Been Lighted, Let It 
 
 Shine, 73 
 
 1902 — Building According to God's Plan, - - 81 
 
 1903 — Yearning for Service, .... 89 
 
 1904 — We Cannot be Our Own Masters, - - 97 
 
 I 9°5 — B E Ye Doers, Not Learners Only, - - 107 
 
 1906 — The Victory That Overcometh, Even Your 
 
 Faith, 117 
 
 1907 — The Master Key of Life, - - - - 125 
 
 1908 — The Baccalaureate Address of John the 
 
 Baptist, 133 
 
 1909 — The Things That Abide, .... 143 
 
 5 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1910 — The College Motto: Knowledge, Faith, 
 
 Service, 153 
 
 191 1 — The College a Mount of Inspiration and 
 
 Privilege, - 163 
 
 19 1 2 — God's Greatest Workmen Seldom Complete 
 
 Their Tasks, 173 
 
 19 1 3 — Educated Women — Educated, But Still and 
 
 Always Women, 183 
 
 1914 — The Most Helpful College Memories, - 191 
 
 191 5 — Faithful Stewards of the Manifold Grace 
 
 of God, 201 
 
 1916 — Scholarship, Efficiency, Service, - - - 211 
 
 19 1 7 — The Responsibilities of College Women, 221 
 
 1918— Sermon, 231 
 
 Address to Class: Christ Jesus My Lord, 255 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 These addresses are printed at the urgent re- 
 quest of many alumnae and trustees of the college. 
 The author is very sensible that they have no 
 claim to literary merit. They were spoken to each 
 graduating class as it went out, after several years 
 of most intimate association as president and 
 students, and were intended to recall in a few 
 words some simple truth which had been empha- 
 sized in the chapel services of the year. 
 
 The Illinois Woman's College has been more 
 than a college through these years; it has also been 
 a home. The relation has been closer and more 
 personal than the ordinary relation between presi- 
 dent and student — the students have come to be 
 more like daughters. The addresses are, therefore, 
 simple heart-to-heart talks, the style familiar and 
 personal, and the subjects related to life rather 
 than to academic problems. But for this very 
 reason, perhaps, they may be of more permanent 
 interest. 
 
 The date and place of each commencement 
 occasion is given, with the text, and the names of 
 the baccalaureate preacher, and the commence- 
 ment speaker. The names of the members of the 
 
 7 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 class, with their 1918 addresses, as far as known, 
 are also given. It is hoped that in this way, for 
 each of the classes, the happy memories of the 
 graduating days and friends may be vividly re- 
 called, and that the president's final words may 
 frequently again bring pleasure and inspiration. 
 
 If their publication shall help to recall to the 
 more than six hundred graduates of these happy 
 twenty-five years of service some of their college 
 hours that were most worth while, or help them 
 still to meet life's duties with more resolution and 
 pleasure; if it shall contribute to the strengthening 
 of class and college associations, and add to their 
 interest in the continued advancement of the col- 
 lege, it will be worth while. 
 
 We trust the little book will carry to each 
 member of every class a very personal message of 
 love from both Mrs. Harker and myself. We love 
 them all greatly, and one of our chief joys is in 
 recalling our happy personal relations with them. 
 Our chief reward in these later years will be the 
 knowledge of their continued esteem and affection 
 for us; but especially of their continued apprecia- 
 tion of the college, and of their increasing purpose 
 to be loyal to it, and to contribute to its adequate 
 endowment and support. 
 
 April 2, 1918. Joseph R. Harker. 
 
 8 
 
Baccalaureate Addresses 
 
1 8 9 4 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 GRACE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 1894, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. W. A. Smith, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF CENTENARY CHURCH, JACKSONVILLE, ILL. 
 Text — Luke 14. 10. "Go up higher." 
 
 COMMEMCEMENT EXERCISES AT CENTENARY CHURCH 
 TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 1 894, 2.3O P. M. 
 
Class of 1894 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Black, Effie (Mrs. George E. Baxter), 820 W. College Avenue, 
 Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Blackburn, Etta (Mrs. Charles G. Steinhart), Wilmington, 
 Illinois. 
 
 *Blackburn, Martha L. (Mrs. A. H. Glasgow). 
 
 Browning, Jessie (Mrs. Clyde E. Stone), 1140 Glen Oak 
 Avenue, Peoria, Illinois. 
 
 Bruner, Ethel V. (Mrs. James C. Thornburg), Muskegon, 
 Michigan. 
 
 Bruner, Mabelle E. (Mrs. Harry Armstrong), 4820 Dorchester 
 Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 Cox, Martha Luella (Mrs. Thomas H. Buckthorpe), R. R. 6, 
 Jacksonville. 
 
 Danely, Nellie Cole (Mrs. Leonard Thomas Mayhew), 5016 
 Aldama Street, Los Angeles, California. 
 
 De Motte, Elizabeth (Mrs. Truman Carter), 475 Lincoln 
 Avenue, Jacksonville. 
 
 Goodrick, Ailsie, 2401 West Ninth Street, Los Angeles, Cali- 
 fornia. 
 
 Gray, Lillian (Mrs. E. C. Carpenter), 137 Hardin Avenue, 
 Jacksonville. 
 
 Hamilton, Ida Evelyn (Mrs. Orvey Willamson), Barry, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Layman, Clara Myrtle (Mrs. Clyde L. Hay), 6217 Magnolia 
 Avenue, Chicago. 
 
 Lurton, Lottie Cole (Mrs. Otis Wesner), 615 East Forty- 
 fourth Street, Chicago. 
 
 McKee, Margaret V., 5403 Maryland Avenue, Chicago. 
 
 Melton, Frances V., 8 Torii Baka Azaba, Tokio, Japan. 
 
 Metzler, Sadie Catherine (Mrs. Ralph Milton Riggs), Win- 
 chester, Illinois. 
 
*Orr, Maude (Mrs. Edgar Pendleton). 
 
 Rayhill, Daisy M., 232 Westminster Street, Jacksonville, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Siebert, Edna (Mrs. Bruce Thomas), Oak Cliffe, Dallas, 
 
 Texas. 
 *Sigler, Bernice L. 
 Sigler, Gladys (Mrs. Bryant H. Henderson), Sigler Apts., 
 
 Hot Springs, Arkansas. 
 Steidley, Emma M. (Mrs. J. C. P. Tompkins), R. R. 2, Malta, 
 
 Ohio, "Shadeland Heights Farm." 
 Wright, Bessie Allard (Mrs. Thomas L. Hodgens), 2309 
 
 North Twelfth Street, Terre Haute, Indiana. 
 
 14 
 
The Best Gifts, and the More Excellent 
 Wa>> 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1894: 
 
 This is a season to which you have for a long 
 time looked forward, toward which you have 
 planned and labored, and by which you have 
 measured time. It is a turning-point in your life 
 history. 
 
 As the past years have looked forward to this 
 season, so the coming years will look back. These 
 closing days will be remembered as long as you 
 live. O that I could say to each of you the very 
 words that you need, and that some short and 
 striking and earnest motto could take possession 
 of your life as a guiding principle! I would not 
 dare to give you words of my own. 
 
 In our school work we have tried to exalt God, 
 and out of his Book, which is the only safe guide 
 for our feet, I offer you two sentences and pray 
 God's blessing upon them for you. 
 
 The first is: "Covet earnestly the best gifts." 
 By gifts are meant qualifications, talents, abil- 
 ities, eloquence, action and utterance, and the 
 power of speech to move men's hearts; exquisite 
 
 15 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 taste, executive ability, womanliness, knowledge, 
 faith, patience, kindness, are some of the best 
 gifts. Covet them earnestly, strongly desire them, 
 press on to their attainment. 
 
 These gifts are tools for the work you have to 
 do. You need the very best. Knowledge and all 
 these other gifts furnish power, and you need the 
 largest storage of such you can secure. 
 
 My second sentence completes the first: "Covet 
 earnestly the best gifts, and yet a still more ex- 
 cellent way show I unto you — the way of love." 
 
 "Though I speak with the tongues of men and 
 of angels, though I understand all mysteries and 
 all knowledge;" though I have, in all their perfec- 
 tion, the very highest abilities God can give, and 
 the very highest training of the greatest schools, 
 "if I have not love, I am nothing." 
 
 "Love never faileth," but even the best gifts 
 all fail. Eloquence and learning will cease, knowl- 
 edge shall vanish away, but love abideth for- 
 ever. 
 
 How shall we reach it? I am glad that my 
 answer can be given with all the earnestness of 
 absolute conviction: by imitation of Christ. 
 
 Above all things, have fervent love. This is 
 the truth I would leave with you to-day. It is 
 not a new lesson for you. It was the first word I 
 
 16 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 spoke to you as your president last September. 
 It was the last that you repeated at our last chapel 
 exercises of the year. 
 
 Take it unto your hearts and lives, and may you 
 know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, 
 that ye may be filled with all the fullness of God. 
 
 "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding 
 abundantly above all that we ask or think, ac- 
 cording to the power that worketh in us, unto 
 him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus through- 
 out all ages, world without end. Amen." 
 
 17 
 
1895 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 GRACE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 1 895, 10. 45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. Horace Reed, D.D. 
 
 PRESIDING ELDER OF THE WEST JACKSONVILLE DISTRICT 
 
 Text — John 4. 10. "If thou knewest the gift 
 of God, and who it is that saith to thee, 
 'Give me to drink,' thou wouldest have 
 asked of him, and he would have given 
 thee living water." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES AT CENTENARY CHURCH 
 TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1895, 2.3O P. M. 
 
Class of 1895 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Blackburn, Sarah Estelle, R. R. 7, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Boley, Louise Ruth (Mrs. William B. Jess), 1460 Lowell 
 Avenue, Springfield, Illinois. 
 
 Boston, Eleanor (Mrs. James William Putnam), 40 South 
 Ritter Avenue, Indianapolis, Indiana. 
 
 Bourne, Amelia Harriet, 846 East Routt Street, Jacksonville. 
 
 Buxton, Grace Parris (Mrs. Frederick Scott Brown), 122 
 West Pine Street, Springfield, Illinois. 
 
 Common, Jeanette A. 
 
 Crum, Edith Winifred (Mrs. Lee Skiles), Virginia, Illinois. 
 
 Davenport, Eva Magill (Mrs. W. W. Gillham), 930 West 
 State Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Graham, Cora Gordon, 637 South Hardin Avenue, Jackson- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 
 Henry, Mamie Belle (Mrs. George Curtiss), Box 205, San 
 Anselmo, California. 
 
 Jones, Mary E., 1457 South Main Street, Jacksonville. 
 
 Kuechler, lone Selma, 218 South Prairie Street, Jacksonville. 
 
 Loar, Mary Janet, 545 South Hardin Avenue, Jacksonville. 
 
 Plouer, Alice May, 868 North Church Street, Jacksonville. 
 
 Purviance, Flora Gaskill (Mrs. W. G. Cooper), Savannah, 
 Missouri. 
 
 Reed, Bertha Anna (Mrs. George R. Coffman), Missoula, 
 Montana. 
 
 Sater, Eunice Farar (Mrs. Stephen A. D. Harry), Mattoon, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Spears, Lena, Tallula, Illinois. 
 
 Townsend, Winifred A. 
 
 Ward, Grace Belle (Mrs. Fred H. H. Calhoun), Clemson Col- 
 lege, South Carolina. 
 
 Wood, Clara Fedelia (Mrs. Neil S. Duckels), 826 Second 
 Street, Santa Monica, California. 
 21 
 
Tke Rick Indwelling of Christ's Word 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1895: 
 
 I count it a great privilege, and I also recog- 
 nize it as a great responsibility, that I may speak 
 to you the last words in your college course of 
 instruction. Words are soon spoken and frequently 
 as soon forgotten. Probably much of what has 
 been said to you by your teachers will pass from 
 your memories as the busy days come and other 
 duties demand your attention. Only a very few 
 things will remain. I hope and pray that among 
 these few may be remembered the words that I 
 am now about to speak. 
 
 To this end they have the great advantage 
 that this is not the first time you have heard them. 
 They are the lessons we have tried, above all 
 others, to teach you now for two years, both by 
 precept and example; and we have labored with 
 you and for you with all the earnestness and skill 
 at our command, to make the instruction become 
 a part of your very life. 
 
 You will find the words that I thus wish to 
 impress upon you in Colossians 3. 16: "Let the 
 word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." 
 
 23 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 The word of Christ is the word of God. It 
 includes not only the words of Jesus himself, 
 though these are the center and the source of the 
 rest, but also all the words spoken under God's 
 inspiration that reveal his character and make 
 clear his spirit. 
 
 In the Old Testament as well as in the New; in 
 the history of Abraham, and Moses, and Samuel; 
 in the prophecy of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel; 
 as well as in the preaching and epistles of Paul, 
 and Peter, and John; in psalms, and hymns, and 
 spiritual songs : wherever you find words that show 
 forth the spirit and character of Christ: that is 
 the word of Christ. 
 
 This Bible, which you have been studying, 
 and which I trust you have learned to love: this 
 is the word of Christ. 
 
 Let this word dwell in you. It is not to be a 
 mere visitor with you; a casual acquaintance, com- 
 ing to see you occasionally, meeting you only on 
 the Sabbath day. It is to dwell in you, to abide 
 with you, to have a permanent lodgment in your 
 mind and heart. 
 
 One of the most impressive scenes in Old Tes- 
 tament history is that when, at the death of Moses, 
 Joshua is called to take command of the children 
 
 24 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 of Israel. It was Joshua's commencement. He 
 had been Moses's pupil up to this time. Now his 
 life work was to begin in earnest. 
 
 Hear the word of the Lord to him and through 
 him to you: "This book of the law shall not depart 
 out of thy mouth ; but thou shalt meditate therein 
 day and night, that thou mayest observe to do all 
 that is written therein; for then shalt thou make 
 thy way prosperous, and then shalt thou have 
 good success." 
 
 The word of Christ is now richer and fuller 
 than it was in Joshua's time, and may be still 
 more securely depended upon to guide aright all 
 who diligently follow its precepts. 
 
 It should dwell in you intellectually. You 
 should not only read it, but you should mark, 
 learn, and inwardly digest it. It should be in 
 your memory. Its revelation of the character of 
 God, his fatherhood, his holiness, his justice, his 
 mercy, his yearning over you; of your own dignity 
 as made in his image, and of the possibility of its 
 full realization through Jesus; the great and pre- 
 cious promises, arranged to fit every possible ex- 
 perience of all our varied lives; these are all there, 
 and ought to be so known to you that they may 
 be a part of your involuntary thought. 
 
 25 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 But beware lest you be content with a merely 
 
 intellectual knowledge of the word of Christ. It 
 
 must dwell, not only in your intellect, but in your 
 
 heart. 
 
 "It is the heart, and not the brain, 
 That to the highest doth attain. 
 
 Out of the heart are the issues of life, and the 
 word of Christ cannot dwell in you richly, in all 
 wisdom, unless it reaches down to the very depth 
 of your lives, and takes hold of the springs of all 
 your actions. 
 
 The future is all a blank before us, and what 
 will come to any one of us we cannot tell. But 
 the star of hope brightens, and dark doubts dis- 
 appear, as we know that the word of Christ dwells 
 in you richly in all wisdom. It will be a lamp unto 
 your feet, and a light to your pathway through 
 the darkest night and along the roughest road. 
 
 When you come into your fiercest conflicts, 
 wrestling not against flesh and blood, but against 
 the rulers of the darkness of this world, then 
 again we shall cease to be anxious for you in pro- 
 portion as we know you are armed with the sword 
 of the Spirit, and are expert in its use. 
 
 Let its promises fill you with a high and holy 
 aspiration to live so that you may surely inherit 
 
 them. 
 
 26 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 Make this word of Christ the guide of your 
 life, and then your pathway will certainly be, as I 
 am sure hundreds of your friends to-day join me 
 in wishing it may be, "brighter and brighter, unto 
 the perfect day." 
 
1896 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 CENTENARY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, MAY 31, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. J. E. Artz 
 
 PASTOR BROOKLYN CHURCH, JACKSONVILLE, ILL. 
 
 Text — Esther 4. 14. "And who knoweth 
 whether thou art come to the kingdom 
 for such a time as this." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES AT CENTENARY CHURCH 
 TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 1896, 2.30 P. M. 
 
Class of 1896 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Arenz, Jessica Rutledge (Mrs. Horace A. Coleman), Palmyra, 
 Illinois. 
 
 •Cantrall, Ruth Made (Mrs. Jesse Pickrell). 
 
 Crum, Edith Winifred (Mrs. Lee Skiles), Virginia, Illinois. 
 
 Downs, Urinthia May (Mrs. W. Anderson), St. Louis, Mis- 
 souri. 
 
 Harbour, Myrtle Belle (Mrs. Vincent J. Cohenour), 308 
 Union Street, Joliet, Illinois. 
 
 Melton, Frances C, 8 Torii Baka Azaba, Tokio, Japan. 
 
 Osborne, Reon E. B. (Frank Rumsey Elliott), 3200 Sheridan 
 Road, Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 Smith, Bessie Brown (Byron Gailey), 340 West State Street, 
 Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Stewart, Rachel Higley (Mrs. Earle Henry Miner), Plain 
 View, Texas. 
 
 Welch, Clara Morton (Mrs. W. A. Green), Wausau, Wis- 
 consin. 
 
 31 
 
Getting Onl;9 in Order to Gr\)e 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1896: 
 
 I trust that the noble and inspiring truths to 
 which you have just listened may be deeply and 
 permanently graven on your minds and hearts. 
 
 This is a notable occasion for you. There is 
 little danger that you will soon forget it. You 
 have for months, perhaps years, looked forward to 
 it, talked about it, planned for it. 
 
 Commencement day seems oftentimes to be 
 thought of as a day which, with mingled feelings 
 of hope and fear, we enter a new world. This is 
 not so. 
 
 Life is not cut into clearly-marked divisions. 
 Childhood, youth, middle age, and old age are 
 not separated by sharp lines, but glide insensibly 
 one into the other, just as the seasons of the year. 
 
 The passage from school life which you are 
 now making will in itself bring no great, sudden 
 change to you, or in your conditions and relations. 
 Graduating from school is not, as we sometimes 
 hear, coming to the end of a delightful journey 
 over flowery paths and launching your boats on 
 a rough and tempestuous sea. 
 
 33 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 Life is all one ocean. You boats were launched 
 on it several years ago, and commencement day 
 will not change its character of smoothness or 
 roughness. It will not even change the direction 
 of your sailing. You will sail on, steadily, grad- 
 ually, just as you have done before; or, to change 
 the figure, life is one continuous pathway, and you 
 will continue to journey on, step by step, after 
 these commencement exercises, just as you have 
 been doing before. 
 
 Do not imagine that you are now coming to a 
 door, which, when opened, will reveal a new and 
 strange and untried life. The world into which 
 you are going is the same world as that in which 
 you now live, and the life you have already 
 tried is part and parcel of the life which is yet to 
 come. 
 
 What have been the qualities that have brought 
 whatever success you have attained in the past? 
 Industry, economy of time, perseverance, close ap- 
 plication, and attention to duty, self-denial, loving 
 obedience, a high aim, a firm trust. 
 
 The same virtues will bring success in the 
 future. In the life before you, just as in the past, 
 constant ascending depends on constant climbing, 
 and just as soon as you cease earnest and well- 
 directed effort, just so soon will you cease to grow. 
 
 34 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 " Contentment with present attainment is the 
 cause of all decline." 
 
 But, while it is thus true that your future life 
 will be very much as your past, and the elements 
 of success the same as before, there is one respect 
 in which, from now on, your lives should more 
 and more completely change. Up to this time you 
 have been largely, almost wholly, recipients. All 
 good influences have flowed toward you. All who 
 have been most intimately associated with you 
 have lived for you. Your parents have almost 
 given their lives for you. They have toiled, and 
 planned, and denied themselves, that you might 
 have advantages and opportunities they never had. 
 
 Men and women of the past, self-forgetting, 
 have paid a great price for the social and political 
 systems of which you are receiving the benefits. 
 Schools have been established and maintained at 
 great cost and sacrifice for you. Your teachers 
 have many times forgotten themselves in their 
 interest over you, and their desire for your ad- 
 vancement. You have been the center toward 
 which all helpful influences, advantages, and aid, 
 material, mental, moral, and spiritual, have come 
 from every direction. "Freely you have received." 
 
 From this time on, begin to give more and 
 more. As soon as you reach your homes, begin 
 
 35 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 to give back in love and care and helpfulness to 
 your parents. Pay back to your country, in prompt 
 and ready obedience to its laws, and in usefulness 
 and patriotic devotion to all its interests, a part 
 of the great debt you owe to it. 
 
 Remember the schools that have helped to 
 develop you, and as you may be able by time or 
 money or interest and personal attention give 
 yourselves away, through them, to the generation 
 that shall follow you. 
 
 I do not mean that you shall not continue to 
 acquire. Move forward, with all your powers, to 
 the very highest and most varied acquisitions, but 
 get only in order to give. 
 
 "It is more blessed to give than to receive." 
 
 "Go, labor on, spend and be spent, 
 Your joy to do the Father's will. 
 It is the way the Master went, 
 
 Shall not the servant tread it still?" 
 
 And if this season shall be for each of. you the 
 commencement of a life of self-forgetting and of 
 devotion to the interests of others, then will it be 
 a commencement indeed. 
 
 36 
 
i8 9 7 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 GRACE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, MAY 30, 1 897, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. Chris Galeener, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF GRACE CHURCH, JACKSONVILLE, ILL. 
 
 Text — Acts 3. 10. "The beautiful gate of the 
 temple." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES AT CENTENARY CHURCH 
 WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 1897, 2.3O P. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. D. H. Moore, D.D. 
 
 EDITOR OF THE WESTERN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, CINCINNATI, O. 
 
Class of 1897 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Alexander, Catherine (Mrs. Arthur Burbank), 1012 North 
 Eighth Street, Springfield, Illinois. 
 
 Balch, Mary Margaret (Mrs. John W. Johnson), Mattoon, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Baldwin, Isabelle Cherye, 329 South Clay Avenue, Jackson- 
 ville. 
 
 Burnett, Emma, Waverly, Illinois. 
 
 Burnett, Lucinda (Mrs. Lewis J. Massie), Franklin, Illinois. 
 
 Case, Edna, Carlyle, Illinois. 
 
 *Clark, Florence Paine (Mrs. John Duer). 
 
 *Davis, Lillian. 
 
 De Motte, Amelia Graves, 242 Prospect Street, Jacksonville, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Hackman, Edith, 530 South Clay Avenue, Jacksonville, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 Hinrichsen, Anne, Alexander, Illinois. 
 
 Huckstep, Jessie Leonora (Oscar Evans Porter), 305 Kenil- 
 worth Avenue, Oak Park, Illinois. 
 
 Joy, Bertha Alice (Mrs. John Allen Schmink), 321 Jefferson 
 Avenue, Aurora, Missouri, Box 442. 
 
 Layton, Linda Boyce (Mrs. Albert R. Trapp), 1520 South 
 Sixth Street, Springfield, Illinois. 
 
 McClelland, Ila, 1401 Lowell Boulevard, Springfield, Illinois. 
 
 Paxton, Agnes Margaret, 314 North Prairie Street, Jackson- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 
 Reynolds, Fama Lora (Mrs. William Engleback), 4720 West- 
 minster Place, St. Louis, Missouri. 
 
 Whorton, Grace Edith, 348 West North Street, Jacksonville. 
 
 Whorton, Jessica M., 348 West North Street, Jacksonville. 
 
 39 
 
You Cannot Travel Life's Journey? Alone 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1897: 
 
 Every year brings to me a larger and clearer 
 view of the importance of the commencement oc- 
 casion to the class. It is a testing time for you, a 
 time to try of what materials your character has 
 been builded ; and with what strength and harmony 
 and proportion these materials have been wrought 
 together. 
 
 Hitherto your lives have been guided for you. 
 Almost every step of the way has been marked 
 out for you by loving and anxious parents. They 
 have chosen your path for you, smoothing down 
 the rough places, whenever it could be done, and 
 gently lifting you and carrying you when the road 
 could not be smoothed or when you showed any 
 signs of weariness.. 
 
 In your school life, your teachers have stood 
 in loco parentis. They have arranged your studies 
 for you, and have guided you daily and hourly 
 in all your work. But the world moves steadily 
 forward, and you have been moving with it. 
 
 Others are now demanding the world's atten- 
 tion; the classes in school are crowding forward, 
 
 41 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 the juniors of to-day become the seniors of to- 
 morrow, and you: we crown you with the berries; 
 call you "Baccalaureae," and crowd you out. 
 
 Your parents and teachers will follow you with 
 anxious thought and prayers. Others will be in- 
 different; some will oppose you; but all alike, 
 whether friendly or indifferent or hostile, think of 
 you now that you ought to begin to go in larger 
 measure alone. 
 
 This is why I said this is a testing time. Some, 
 when thus left, stand quite still for months and 
 years. The world moves over them and they are 
 soon lost to view. Some, mistaking license for 
 liberty, glad to find restraint relaxed, run swiftly 
 down forbidden paths, and are worse than lost to 
 view. But there are others. They were in Emer- 
 son's mind when he wrote 
 
 "So nigh is glory to our dust; 
 So near is God to man; 
 When duty whispers low, Thou must, 
 The youth replies, I can." 
 
 These bravely grasp the staff of life, look 
 boldly to the summit of the mountain, and taking 
 as their motto, "Viam inveniam, aut faciam" — "I 
 will either find a way or make one" — move steadily 
 forward to the accomplishment of their appointed 
 
 42 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 duty. Young women, which shall it be? We can- 
 not tell; we can only hope and pray. 
 
 I feel toward you, as a class, a peculiar interest 
 or tenderness. We entered the college together. 
 We have taken a course together. And now, to- 
 gether, we stand looking out into the future. The 
 advice that is good for you is good for me, and I 
 am now going to try to express my own deepest 
 need, and ask you to join me in my own earnest 
 prayer. 
 
 I have said that henceforth we must try to go 
 alone. But we cannot do it. Humanly we can — 
 we must. Indeed, humanly we must do more — we 
 must help others to go, as others have helped us. 
 
 But all past experience proves human inability 
 to direct itself, unless divinely aided. Christ never 
 spoke a truer word than when he said, "Without 
 me ye can do nothing." Let us not attempt to 
 begin life's duties without him. This is the secret 
 of all life's failures. 
 
 The picture that I wish to keep before me is 
 that of Moses in his tent, talking face to face with 
 God. He was engaged in a great undertaking. 
 He was beginning to realize, as he had never 
 done before, his own weakness. The thought that 
 perhaps God might not accompany him com- 
 pletely overpowers him, and he cries in agony of 
 
 43 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 soul, "If thy presence go not with us, carry us 
 not up hence." 
 
 This is my prayer for myself and you this 
 morning. That we may realize everywhere the 
 full meaning of "Immanuel — God with us." 
 
 God's presence will keep us pure. No un- 
 hallowed thought can enter if his presence fills 
 the heart. His presence will give us power. No 
 burden will be too heavy, no duty too hard, if 
 our help comes from the Lord, who made heaven 
 and earth. 
 
 In his companionship there will be peace. In 
 all life's storms his voice will be heard above the 
 raging of the tempest, saying, "Peace, be still!" 
 In his presence is fullness of joy, and at his right 
 hand are pleasures forever more, not in heaven 
 after death alone, but even here and now. 
 
 Here, then, together let us make our prayer 
 for the divine companionship: "If thy presence 
 go not with us, carry us not up hence;" "I will 
 not let Thee go, unless Thou bless me;" and may 
 the gracious answer come to all of us, "My pres- 
 ence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." 
 
 44 
 
l8(j<S 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 GRAND OPERA HOUSE, JACKSONVILLE, ILL. 
 SUNDAY, MAY 29, 1898, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. Richard G. Hobbs, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF CENTENARY CHURCH 
 
 Text — Ephesians 6. 10. "Be strong in the 
 Lord, and in the power of his might." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES AT GRAND OPERA HOUSE 
 TUESDAY, MAY 31, 1 898, 2.3O P. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. Frank Crane, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF TRINITY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, CHICAGO 
 
 ILL. 
 
Class of 1898 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Ellis, Louese (Mrs. Paul Munson Thomas), 721 N. Cedar 
 
 Street, Nevada, Missouri. 
 Everts, Emma Marsh, Virden, Illinois. 
 Gillespy, Nellie Grace (Mrs. Frank Lewis Kelsheimer), R. F. 
 
 D. 9, Paris, Illinois. 
 Gillmore, Grace Benedict (Mrs. John Edgar Ullman), 2918 
 
 Rutland Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa. 
 Harker, Maude Susie (Mrs. Albert Metcalf), Illinois Woman's 
 
 College, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Huntley, Mary Alice (Mrs. Edwin Welch), 706 West First 
 
 Street, Oil City, Pennsylvania. 
 Keating, Katherine I. (Mrs. Mike Morrisey), 508 Hardin 
 
 Avenue, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Kennedy, Helen Theresa, 340 Brent Street, Los Angeles, 
 
 California. 
 *Kenyon, Clara Mae (Mrs. A. L. Fouche). 
 Knollenberg, Clara Grace (Rolland E. Thompson), Elm 
 
 Street, Monticello, Illinois. 
 Laughney, Elsie Allen (Mrs. Arthur W. Carr), Bridgewater, 
 
 Massachusetts 
 Oakey, Mabel (Mrs. Ira Honefenger), 1104 Knox Avenue, 
 
 Spokane, Washington. 
 Pratt, Christiana Amelia (Mrs. Homer Decker), Bluff Springs, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Smith, Lela Milmine (Mrs. Thomas Lyons), 846 Douglas 
 
 Avenue, Springfield, Illinois. 
 Stevenson, Claira Staley, 1050 West College Avenue, Jack- 
 sonville, Illinois. 
 
 47 
 
Welden, Mary (Mrs. Frank S. Clarke), 21 19 Eighth Avenue, 
 
 South Nashville, Tennessee. 
 Wood, Grace Adelaide (Mrs. Robert E. Jess), 2360 West 
 
 Twenty-second Street, Los Angeles, California. 
 Winterbotham, Elizabeth Catherine (Mrs. Howard Carriel), 
 
 3538 Grand Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 48 
 
Tke Greatest Reward of Faithful Service 
 Is a More Difficult Task 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1898: 
 
 We greet you as Baccalaureae! As in the days 
 of Grecian glory, the victors in the contests were 
 crowned with laurel, receiving public honor in 
 token of triumph, so this morning we are as- 
 sembled to honor you, in recognition of the suc- 
 cessful accomplishment of your school course. 
 
 The world is full of men and women who begin 
 to do something, but there are comparatively few 
 who finish what they begin. 
 
 Of those who begin to secure an education, not 
 more than one in fifty complete such a course as 
 you have pursued. 
 
 "Many are called, but few are chosen," be- 
 cause few show themselves to be possessed of 
 those qualities of endurance and perseverance 
 which are necessary to the successful finishing of 
 work which they undertake. 
 
 Up to this point you have endured. You have 
 finished your course here. And you have a per- 
 fect right to enjoy the occasion, and to receive the 
 
 49 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 rewards and privileges which belong only to those 
 advanced to the same rank here and elsewhere. 
 "Thou hast been faithful over a few things; enter 
 thou into the joy of thy Lord." x 
 
 Your parents and friends are glad to-day; your 
 teachers have a just pride in your faithful per- 
 formance of duty; these friends are interested in 
 you because of your success. Enter with us into 
 our joy, and let your hearts exult with proper pride 
 because of the successful accomplishment of the 
 work laid out for you. 
 
 Throughout your lives you will find this one 
 of the greatest rewards of faithful service. May 
 you always so live and labor that at the close of 
 every task you will have the consciousness of 
 having done well, receive the applause of your 
 fellows, and the approving witness of the Spirit 
 of God. 
 
 But there is another reward of faithful service 
 which has possibly escaped your notice. It is a 
 higher reward than the "well done, good and faith- 
 ful servant." It is higher than the invitation to 
 enter into the Master's joy. 
 
 You have probably thought that rest is the 
 natural reward of faithful labor. And you have 
 doubtless looked forward to this occasion as a 
 time when you could rest, and enjoy a vacation 
 
 50 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 after a long and arduous task. This is right. But 
 what I want to show you is that this period of rest 
 is the smallest part of your reward. 
 
 Listen to these words: "Well done, good and 
 faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a 
 few things; I will make thee ruler over many 
 things." Here is the greatest reward of faithful 
 service — the call to the larger and more difficult 
 task. 
 
 Washington's reward for faithful service in his 
 mission to Fort Du Quesne was his appointment 
 to a small command in the French and Indian 
 War. His reward for faithful service in the French 
 and Indian War was his appointment as com- 
 mander-in-chief of the Colonial forces. His reward 
 for faithful service in this capacity was the unan- 
 imous selection as the first President of the new 
 republic. 
 
 The whole world paused a week ago, even in 
 the fierce excitement of war, to honor the memory 
 of the greatest statesman of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, William Gladstone. His reward for diligence 
 and industry in school was his election to parlia- 
 ment at the age of twenty-three; his reward here 
 for faithful attention to duty was his appointment 
 two years later to a position in the cabinet. Be- 
 fore long he was called to be chancellor of the ex- 
 
 5i 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 chequer, and then still upward to be prime min- 
 ister. 
 
 At the close of every service that he rendered 
 he received the greatest of all honors — he was 
 called to higher service. 
 
 The world needs women who can do something 
 more than has already been done. You here this 
 morning receive the first crown — the "well done" 
 of your teachers and friends. 
 
 Are you strong enough and brave enough to 
 let us put a second and larger crown upon you, 
 and send you out with the confident expectation 
 that you will not now sit down, but that you will 
 enter upon a still more difficult duty than you 
 have yet undertaken? 
 
 Highly resolve here this morning that you will 
 never allow the sound of the "well done" for the 
 completion of one service to die away before you 
 have girded yourselves in readiness to assume a 
 larger responsibility — to undertake a more difficult 
 work. 
 
 And at last, at the close of a life of constantly 
 enlarging usefulness and capability, may we all 
 hear the voice of the Master saying unto us, "Thou 
 hast been faithful over a few things, I will make 
 thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the 
 joy of thy Lord." 
 
 52 
 
1 899 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 CENTENARY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, MAY 28, 1 899, 10. 45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. S. W. Thornton, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF GRACE CHURCH 
 
 Text — Ruth 1. 14-17. Subject — "A Queenly 
 Woman's Choice." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES AT CENTENARY CHURCH 
 TUESDAY, MAY 30, 1899, 10 A. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. J. T. McFarland, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, TOPEKA, KAN. 
 
Class of 1899 
 
 (With 1 9 18 addresses) 
 
 Blackburn, Elizabeth Idella (Mrs. Edgar Martin), 283 North 
 Sandusky Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Blackburn, Frances Eliza (Mrs. J. S. Campbell), Tuscola, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Blackburn, C. Viola (Mrs. Wm. Edward Fearon), 288 East 
 B Street, Coalinga, California. 
 
 Byers, Eda Lois, Berton Manor, 4516 Magnolia Avenue, 
 Chicago. 
 
 Clark, Mary Nellie (Mrs. David Franklin Hill), 194 Waban 
 Avenue, Waban, Massachusetts. 
 
 Cleary, Mary Hester, 1325 West College Avenue, Jackson- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 
 Ewart, Anna Louise (Mrs. Samuel H. Ervin), 822 West 
 Twelfth Street, Riverside, California. 
 
 Heimlich, Laura Lucille (Mrs. Leo George Linhard), 603 
 South East Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Henion, Lora Atkins (Mrs. Arthur Howard Sutherland), 
 2242 Cambridge Street, Los Angeles, California. 
 
 *Hopper, Effie Amelia. 
 
 Kendall, May Estelle (Mrs. Wm. D. Wilhoit), Newton, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 Kent, Sophronia May, 513 West Morgan Street, Jackson- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 
 Kolp, Lucy Dimmitt (Mrs. A. J. Kolp), 831 West College 
 Avenue, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Layman, Elsie A. (Mrs. Franklin C. Sherman), 58 North 
 Forge Street, Akron, Ohio. 
 
 Lewis, Ester Ray (Mrs. Edgar L. Kendall), Bluffs, Illinois. 
 
 McCasland, Grace P. 
 
 Phillippe, Mary Ida (Mrs. Milton W. Gatch), 2600 North 
 Calvert Street, Baltimore, Maryland. 
 55 
 
Poe, Nellie Frances (Mrs. J. W. Tudor), Homer, Illinois. 
 
 Sellars, Lola May. 
 
 Shuff, Estella Mae (Mrs. James Mahon), R. R., Jacksonville, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Shuff, Helen Gertrude (Mrs. John LaFayette Waddell), Box 
 
 146, Hardin, Montana. 
 Vasey, Alcina Lavinia (Mrs. Wm. T. Richardson), R. R. 1, 
 
 Ashland, Illinois. 
 Vertrees, Sada Amelia (Mrs. Walter U. Kennedy), 4150 
 
 Carter Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri. 
 Williams, Blanche Mannette (Mrs. Willis E. Urick), 832 
 
 Windsor Street, Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 56 
 
Forward Reaching for the Prize of God 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1899: 
 
 For years you have been under our instruction, 
 daily receiving our care and suggestions. You 
 have now come to the end of the course, and I am 
 to speak to you my last words as your teacher. 
 
 The commencement occasion means much more 
 to me now than it used to do. I think of it not 
 only as a severing of ties for you, but also for me. 
 During these years I have watched your course 
 with alternating hopes and fears; I have rejoiced 
 at your successes; I have been disappointed at 
 your failures; and you have grown into my very 
 life. 
 
 Now you must pass out away from me. How 
 I yearn to be able to say just one final word that 
 will be an inspiration to you; to 
 
 "Lift your souls from the common sod, 
 To purer air and a grander view." 
 
 I cannot do better than to suggest to you the 
 motto of the apostle Paul. It is characteristic of 
 every successful life; the key by which many have 
 entered into their Master's joy and rulership over 
 
 57 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 many things ; the seed that has made fruitful many 
 an otherwise barren life. Adopt the motto as 
 your own : 
 
 "Forget the things that are behind; reach for- 
 ward to the things that are before; and press to- 
 ward the mark for the prize of the high calling of 
 God in Christ Jesus." 
 
 Forget the things that are behind. 
 
 The besetting sin of college graduates is that 
 they are satisfied with what they have already 
 done. You have done well, but the very crown 
 of your success has been that you have always 
 been leaving attainments already made for others 
 still out of reach, leaving arithmetic for algebra, 
 leaving Caesar for Cicero, leaving the less difficult 
 for the more difficult. Success in the future can 
 be reached only in the same way. 
 
 "We rise by things that are 'neath our feet, 
 By what we have mastered of good and gain." 
 
 Make stepping-stones of your present attain- 
 ments to lift yourselves up to still higher levels. 
 
 Reach forward to the things that are before: 
 things still ahead of you in knowledge, in literature, 
 science, and art. You have merely moistened your 
 lips in Shakespeare, and Emerson, and Longfellow. 
 Drink still deeper. Reach still farther forward. 
 
 58 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 Things ahead of you in character; in faith, and 
 hope, and love; in ability to resist the wrong, to 
 do the right, to overcome your lower tendencies, 
 to cultivate the higher. Let your whole life be 
 characterized by an earnest endeavor to reach a 
 still higher standard. 
 
 Do not leave the school to enter upon an aim- 
 less life; but set for yourselves a mark, a purpose, 
 a something to be reached, which shall be worthy 
 of your best endeavor, and consistent with your 
 own inherent dignity, as created in the image of 
 God; and then steadily, perseveringly, without 
 haste, but without rest, move on step by step to 
 its accomplishment. 
 
 Above all, let all your forward-reaching be for 
 a prize which is of God in Christ Jesus. Without 
 Christ in your hearts and lives, you can do nothing. 
 If God is not in your plans, they will come to 
 naught. Earthly prizes are all vanity if they are 
 not accompanied by the blessing of God. 
 
 Many prizes will present themselves to you 
 for your striving: test them all by this touchstone 
 — are they of God in Christ Jesus? Do not fear 
 that thus limited there will not be scope for all 
 your highest ambitions and the exercise of all your 
 powers. 
 
 The fields of Christian activity are large, and 
 59 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 there is large scope for all the varied powers of all 
 
 the workers. Press toward the mark for such a 
 
 prize. 
 
 " 'Tis God's all animating voice 
 That calls thee from on high, 
 'Tis His own hand presents the prize 
 To thine aspiring eye." 
 
 Forget, then, the thifigs that are behind; reach 
 forward to the things that are before; press toward 
 the mark for the prize of the high calling of God 
 in Christ Jesus; and may the Lord, the righteous 
 Judge himself, in his own good time, present to 
 you the crown of righteousness. 
 
 60 
 
1900 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 CENTENARY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, MAY 27, I9OO, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. Preston Wood, Jr. 
 
 PASTOR OF BROOKLYN CHURCH 
 
 Text — 1 Chronicles 22. 16. "Arise therefore 
 and be doing, and the Lord be with thee." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES AT CENTENARY CHURCH 
 TUESDAY, MAY 29, I9OO, 10 A. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. W. F. -McDowell, D.D. 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE METHODIST 
 EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NEW YORK 
 
Class of 1900 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Abbott, Alice Myrtle (Mrs. Frank A. McCarty), Quincy, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Batz, Lillian Wilhelmina (Mrs. Robert Stice), Cherry Apts., 
 Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Chaffee, Lura Josephine (Mrs. Frank M. McMath), 12 
 Southern Express Building, Memphis, Tennessee. 
 
 De Groot, Mabel Margaret (Mrs. Frank Deily). 
 
 Fox, Clara, R. R., Granite City, Illinois. 
 
 Frazier, Mayme Milligan (Mrs. Roy J. Seymore), Marion, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Fuller, Rachel Lee, 318 North Seventeenth Street, Omaha, 
 Nebraska. 
 
 Hardy, Caroline Gertrude. 
 
 Hopper, Anna Elizabeth, 641 South Diamond Street, Jack- 
 sonville, Illinois. 
 
 Irving, Ella Mary (Mrs. R. A. Draper), Rawlins, Wyoming. 
 
 Kinne, Edna M. (Adolph B. Hammel), Trenton, Illinois. 
 
 Larimore, E. Myrtle, 691 East State Street, Jacksonville, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Larimore, Phebe Helen (Mrs. Lloyd Snerley), 1361 West 
 Wood Street, Decatur, Illinois. 
 
 Mcllvaine, Leah Howell (Mrs. D. Harry Dobyns), 145 Cald- 
 well Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Mathers, Elizabeth Tucker (Mrs. Wm. Goebel), Duncan 
 Place, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Reese, Nelle Mae, Pana, Illinois. 
 
 Schureman, Nellie M., 605 East North Street, Jacksonville, 
 Illinois. 
 
 63 
 
*Short, Leila Perley. 
 
 Shuff, Elizabeth Mary (Mrs. Frederick D. Taylor), Berlin, 
 
 Illinois. 
 *Shuff, Nellie Marie. 
 Wright, Josephine (Mrs. G. J. Koons), 2128 Division Street, 
 
 Murphysboro, Illinois. 
 
 64 
 
Whatever You Ougkt to Do, You Can Do 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1900: 
 
 Longfellow, in his beautiful poem, "Keramos," 
 says of the potter: 
 
 "Thus mused the potter at his clay 
 
 Wrapped in his visions like the seer, 
 Whose eyes beheld not what is near, 
 But only what is far away. 
 
 Turn, turn, my wheel! what is begun 
 At daybreak must at dark be done, 
 
 Tomorrow will be another day; 
 Tomorrow the hot furnace flame 
 Will search the heart and try the frame, 
 And stamp with honor or with shame 
 
 These vessels made of clay." 
 
 You are thinking of to-day; I am thinking of 
 to-morrow. One year, ten years, fifty years from 
 now, what will the record be? The wheel of life 
 continues to turn, and what seemed to you a long 
 way off when you entered the course has come 
 around sooner than it seemed. And there will be 
 no stopping of its turning. 
 
 In truth, as the years go by, it appears to move 
 with ever-increasing velocity. What thou doest, 
 do quickly. Very soon the earnest realities of life 
 will take hold of you lo 
 
 65 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 "Search the heart and try the frame, 
 And stamp with honor or with shame 
 These vessels made of clay." 
 
 We have done what we could for you. We 
 have prayed for you ; we have planned for you ; we 
 have instructed you; we have guided you. Now, 
 as others have been sent out, we send you out, in 
 order that you, and our work for you, may be 
 tested. Our hearts go with you. 
 
 "Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
 Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
 Are all with you." 
 
 How shall you insure success? There are many 
 suggestions I would like to recall to you, but I will 
 content myself with the emphasis of one lesson 
 which I have tried to impress many times during 
 the year upon you: you must believe without a 
 shadow of question that whatever you ought to do, 
 you can do. 
 
 I like the word "can." "Can" means knowl- 
 edge. If the thing is not really known, it studies 
 patiently, earnestly, persistently, to attain it. 
 
 "Can" means skill; and, if the necessary skill 
 is not possessed, it spends years with pen, or tool, 
 or brush, or chisel; never wearying, never despair- 
 ing. 
 
 "Can" is a wedge.' Once let the word "can" 
 66 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 get complete control of a young life, and the world 
 looks on with astonishment at his remarkable 
 achievements. It is the word "king" in another 
 form. A king is merely a man who can, who is 
 able, who has power. 
 
 "Can" is preeminently a word for the young. 
 Every young man or woman can. You can. 
 Whatever you ought to be, you can be. 
 
 There is no more pitiable sight in all creation 
 than a young man or woman settling down, with 
 feeble knees and hands hanging helplessly, bewail- 
 ing his inability. 
 
 Hull could not at Detroit, and basely sur- 
 rendered the whole of Michigan into the hands of 
 the British. Harrison and Perry could, and over 
 Michigan floated the stars and stripes. 
 
 Whatever you ought to do, you can do. I 
 trust you feel this power. In your veins let the 
 spirit of ability leap joyously; let your young am- 
 bitions answer to my words; let your hearts shout 
 loud and cheerily to every impulse of your higher 
 and better nature: "I can! I can! I can!" 
 
 But remember again: you cannot alone. For 
 success you must always keep your hearts pure, 
 so that you may have the vision of God. If the 
 Lord is with you, then you can. 
 
 Do not attempt the journey of life alone. The 
 67 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 Lord be with you. How confidently we look for- 
 ward with you into the coming years, if you are 
 strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. 
 Will you not, every one of you this morning, 
 in these closing exercises of your college life, look 
 up with me with unfaltering faith, place your hand 
 in the hand of the Omnipotent, and say, "I can 
 do all things through Christ which strengtheneth 
 me?" 
 
 68 
 
1901 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 CENTENARY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, MAY 26, I9OI, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. A. L. T. Ewert 
 
 PASTOR OF CENTENARY CHURCH 
 
 Text — Philippians 3. 12-13, and Philippians 
 1. 21. Subject — "The Future's Span of 
 Life, and How to Live It." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES AT CENTENARY CHURCH 
 TUESDAY, MAY 28, I9OI, 10 A. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. Levi Gilbert, D.D. 
 
 EDITOR OF THE WESTERN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, CINCINNATI, O. 
 
Class of 1901 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Adams, Olive Etta (Mrs. E. H. Boling), Welsh, Louisiana. 
 Ball, Lucy Mary, 211 Caldwell Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Blackburn, Elizabeth Idella (Mrs. Edgar Martin), 283 North 
 
 Sandusky Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Burnett, Emma, Waverly, Illinois. 
 Curtiss, Mabel Myra (Mrs. Augustus C. Blancke), 321 Belden 
 
 Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. 
 Dickson, Isaline C, Champaign, Illinois. 
 Doying, Elizabeth A. (Mrs. Frank P. Vickery), 921 Grove 
 
 Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Elliott, Lucile (Mrs. Howard V. Elliott), 117 Wall Street, 
 
 New York. 
 Fell, Ethel G. (Mrs. G. W. Bacon), 2003 Canon Drive, Holly- 
 wood, Los Angeles, California. 
 Harlowe, Francis Guernzie. 
 Hart, Besse Geneva, Franklin, Illinois. 
 Hayes, Alice Daisy (Mrs. Alfred B. Davis), 823 East Main 
 
 Street, Belleville, Illinois. 
 Helm, Mabel Jane (Mrs. Ralph B. Holmes), 11 12 Franklin 
 
 Street, Danville, Illinois. 
 Helm, Mary Alice (Mrs. Charles Troup), 1008 Walnut 
 
 Street, Danville, Illinois. 
 Hilsabeck, Florence Feme (Mrs. Orlando Baxter), 212 East 
 
 State Street, Marshalltown, Iowa. 
 Howell, Flossie L. (Mrs. Robert Bell), Selby, California. 
 Layman, Elsie Austin (Mrs. Franklin Cole Sherman), 58 
 
 North Forge Street, Akron, Ohio. 
 *Long, Emma. 
 Loose — Edith Elizabeth (Mrs. C. Martin Wood), 432 South 
 
 Union Street, Decatur, Illinois. 
 
 7i 
 
McFillen, Elsie Edna (Mrs. George A. Dunlap), Literberry, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Marshall, Irma Edith (Mrs. J. Russell Wood), Ipava, Illinois. 
 Merrill, Vivian (Mrs. Charles Ford Mathew), Tallula, Illinois. 
 Morrison, Carrie Marion (Mrs. Fred J. Angel), 119 North 
 
 Ditman Street, Los Angeles, California. 
 Rawlings, Daisy Alice (Mrs. LeRoy Stimpson), Wichita, 
 
 Kansas. 
 Richards, Laura Frances (Mrs. Charles C. Crandall), 302 
 
 West North Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Roberts, Ethel Matilda (Mrs. Otis Osborn), 2654 Burling 
 
 Street, Chicago. 
 Rottger, Urla Beatrice (Mrs. Robert R. Bruning), Havana, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Russell, Eleanor, 159 Caldwell Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Scott, Dora (Mrs. Olen B. Cannon), 211 Kentucky Street, 
 
 Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Starr, Edith Allan (Mrs. Haines), 571 West Decatur 
 
 Street, Decatur, Illinois. 
 Thompson, Hattie Mae (Mrs. J. Clarence Lorton), 1431 
 
 Holmes Avenue, Springfield, Illinois. 
 Wehn, Susan Evalyn. 
 Wildi, Hedwig Luise (Mrs. John F. Montgomery), 1277 East 
 
 Broad Street, Columbus, Ohio. 
 Withee, Mabel Anita, 1107 South Clay Avenue, Jacksonville, 
 
 Illinois. 
 *Woody, Mary (Mrs. Edward W. Cass). 
 
 I* 
 
Your Candle Has Been Lighted, Let It 
 Shine 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1901 : 
 
 I would that you could feel this morning the 
 responsibility of your position. You are picked 
 women. In order to gather a band of thirty-four 
 women like you it is necessary to have five thousand 
 girls to select from. The average town of one 
 thousand inhabitants does not furnish more than 
 three for the special training you have had. 
 
 For every one of you there are about one hun- 
 dred and fifty of your sister women who have not 
 had the advantage you have enjoyed, and who 
 must make the race for life with less equipment 
 and a poorer preparation than you possess. 
 
 You have been exalted with high privilege. 
 You have had exceptional advantages in your 
 homes, in your companions, in your native en- 
 dowments, and in all your environments. 
 
 And let me remind you also that you occupy 
 this high vantage ground mainly by the kindness of 
 others, and that very little credit of it belongs to 
 yourselves. You are here largely because your 
 parents are industrious, and economical, and self- 
 
 73 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 denying, and have high ambitions and large hopes 
 for you. 
 
 You are here largely because of friends who 
 have encouraged you, assisted you, inspired you; 
 who have expected something from you, and who 
 have given you material aid and comfort at every 
 step of the journey. 
 
 If you had been left to yourselves, if you had 
 been less favorably surrounded, many of you 
 would, in all probability, like other young women, 
 have ceased the upward climbing before you had 
 attained this height. 
 
 Now remember that "a city set on a hill cannot 
 be hid." From women with advantages and op- 
 portunities such as you have had much more is 
 expected than of others less favorably circum- 
 stanced. 
 
 Ye are the salt of the earth. Ye are the light 
 of the world. 
 
 The special mission of the educated woman is 
 to scatter sweetness and light; to carry purity and 
 refinement, an atmosphere of gentleness and 
 strength, into all the relations of life. 
 
 Your candle has been lighted. Now let it 
 shine! "Men do not light a candle and put it 
 under a bushel." These advantages have not been 
 given you that you may now retire to your re- 
 
 74 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 spective communities and bury your abilities, but 
 that you may use them for the general good. 
 
 Men put the lighted candle on a candlestick 
 that it may give light to all that are in the house; 
 so we send you out to give more light in your 
 homes; to make parents and friends feel that 
 your presence is sunshine and that you come 
 home, not to be ministered unto, but to minister. 
 
 Go out to give more light in your community, 
 to elevate its standards, to purify its tastes, to be 
 foremost in every good work. 
 
 Go out to take your places as educated Chris- 
 tian women in the churches to which you belong, 
 showing to all that your advantages have rendered 
 you less selfish and more efficient in every depart- 
 ment of endeavor. 
 
 No greater privilege, no greater responsibility 
 ever comes to any man or woman than to have a 
 part in the development of a soul and its prepara- 
 tion for time and eternity. We thank God daily 
 that he has permitted us such an honor with 
 respect to you. 
 
 For several years we have entered into your 
 lives; we have rejoiced in your successes; we have 
 sympathized in your sorrows; we have tried to 
 assist you in your weakness and your stumbling; 
 and we have been happy at every evidence of 
 
 75 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 growing strength and womanliness, as you have 
 developed from girls to women. 
 
 We therefore speak these last words to you out 
 of a full heart. You are leaving us, and we feel 
 like parents whose children are leaving home. Our 
 hearts will follow you, and we trust that wherever 
 you are your hearts will often turn in loving re- 
 membrance to your old college home and friends. 
 
 The future is always uncertain ; but we may be 
 sure that there will be shadow as well as sunshine, 
 sorrow as well as joy, disappointment as well as 
 realization of high hopes. 
 
 But let not your hearts be troubled, for in all 
 these vicissitudes God's love is certain and will 
 never fail. 
 
 "We know not where His islands lift 
 Their fronded palms in air, 
 We only know we cannot drift 
 Beyond His love and care." 
 
 We pray that you may be conscious of His 
 presence; that your faith may never fail; that all. 
 the fruits of the Spirit may be more fully manifest 
 in your lives from year to year, and that your 
 pathway may be like that of the just, shining more 
 and more unto the perfect day. 
 
 76 
 
1902 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 (.RACE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, MAY 25, I902, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. Theodore Kemp, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF GRACE CHURCH 
 
 Text — Philippians 4. 11. "Not that I speak 
 in respect of want, for I have learned, in 
 whatsoever state I am, therewith to be 
 content." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES AT CENTENARY CHURCH 
 TUESDAY, MAY 27, I902, 2.3O P. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. Camden M. Cobern, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF ST. JAMES METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, CHICAGO, 
 
 ILL. 
 
Class of 1902 
 
 (With 1 9 1 8 addresses) 
 
 Achenbach, Jessie Margaret (Mrs. Edgar Zeno Curnutt), 
 Carrollton, Illinois. 
 
 Anderson, Hettie (Mrs. James T. Wilson), Kinderhook, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 Blackburn, Ella Garfield, R. R. 7, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 *Correll, Josephine (Mrs. Robert Fletcher). 
 
 De Frates, Rifena Edna (Mrs. J. Ross Curtis), 618 Wood- 
 land Avenue, Springfield, Illinois. 
 
 Dudley, Mary Ethel (Mrs. Paul D. Cooper), R. F. D., Ham- 
 mond, Illinois. 
 
 Dyer, Beulah Pearl, 717 South Diamond Street, Jacksonville. 
 
 Franke, Clara Belle (Mrs. H. O. Smith), Newton, Illinois. 
 
 Hale, Nina Louise (Mrs. Sidney Lee Smith), Roodhouse, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Harmon, Grace Margaret, 516 East College Avenue, Jack- 
 sonville. 
 
 Huckeby, Minnie Elma (Mrs. Arthur Frederick Ewart), 
 White Hall, Illinois. 
 
 Huckeby, Tessa Inez, 846 West State Street, Jacksonville. 
 
 Kinne, Irene Adele (Mrs. Davis), Highland, Illinois. 
 
 Mathers, Elizabeth Tucker (Mrs. Wm. Gobel), Duncan 
 Place, Jacksonville. 
 
 Moore, Maude Hoskinson (Mrs. Albert Martin), 
 
 Musgrove, Ellen Corinne, 720 Holgate Avenue, Defiance, 
 Ohio. 
 
 Onken, Fannie Marie (Mrs. S. Edgar Watkins), Tallula, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Patton, Pauline Elizabeth, Fergus, Montana. 
 
 Phillippe, Olive Elizabeth (Mrs. C. H. Strawbridge), Elm- 
 hurst, Illinois. 
 
 Read, Ethel Waive (Mrs. Thomas Emerson Kirby). 
 
 79 
 
Shuff, Estelle Mae (Mrs. James Mahon), R. F. D., Jackson- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 
 Shuff, Flora Cyron (Mrs. Edward W. Newman), 1810 South 
 Fourth Street, Springfield, Illinois. 
 
 Stevenson, Anne Luise, 1050 West College Avenue, Jackson- 
 ville. 
 
 Tanner, E vesta Gertrude (Mrs. S. W. Day), R. R. 1., Alex- 
 andria, Louisiana. 
 
 Wakely, France R., 255 Caldwell Street, Jacksonville. 
 
 80 
 
Building According to God's Plan 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1902: 
 
 These are days you will remember as long as 
 you live. You have looked forward to this time 
 for several years, and you have reached this place 
 of honor by a steady and continuous course of 
 work, pursued with patience and with persever- 
 ance. 
 
 You are of the number who have continued to 
 the end — for whom, and for whom alone, the 
 crowns are reserved. We are glad this morning 
 to greet you as worthy wearers of the laurel crown. 
 
 There are many things in the life of a president 
 of a college like this, with its many, many needs, 
 and its loads of care and responsibility, which 
 makes the position anything but enviable. 
 
 But I am ready to say that the pleasure de- 
 rived from sharing with each class the success of 
 their achievements, from watching your develop- 
 ment from girls to women, your growth in mental 
 power, in force of character, in earnestness of pur- 
 pose, in Christian thoughtfulness — the joy of these 
 developments, and of thus entering into your lives 
 for good, to me makes every burden light, and 
 
 81 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 makes me feel that I would rather be your presi- 
 dent than have any other work in the world. 
 
 My dear girls, my heart has followed you 
 through these years! I have longed, above all 
 things, for the development in you of true woman- 
 liness. You will soon forget most of your studies; 
 what you have will change with your environ- 
 ments; but what you are, what you have come to 
 be — this will remain. 
 
 I always feel that these few final words to a 
 class may be remembered by them when many 
 other words are forgotten. I, therefore, wish to 
 make them very definite, and to give a special 
 message to each class. I believe that I have such 
 a message for you that is especially appropriate. 
 
 You have been preeminently my " building 
 class." Your years in college have been coincident 
 with the most marked period of growth and de- 
 velopment in the history of the school. Your 
 freshman year witnessed the change of name to 
 Woman's College and the foundation laid of the 
 new east wing. Your sophomore year saw the 
 addition of the old Lurton property. You as- 
 sisted in digging out the "For Sale" sign, and you 
 saw the ground broken for the new west wing. 
 Your junior year saw the enlargement of the heat- 
 ing plant; and you have recently, as seniors, dec- 
 
 82 
 
T. ACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 orated with your colors the historic spade, and 
 joined in its use in breaking ground for another 
 large addition to the building. 
 
 You are my "building class." 
 
 What, then, is the motto I want you to carry 
 away with you? It is one which has been on my 
 heart all these years, and I speak these words to 
 myself as well as to you: "Except the Lord build 
 the house, they labor in vain that build it." 
 
 To be permanently successful, all our doing 
 must be begun, continued, and ended in Him. 
 It is vain for us to rise up early and sit up late, to 
 eat the bread of anxiety and care, if God is not 
 a partner with us in our work. If the Lord is not 
 building the Woman's College, we are laboring in 
 vain in its building. But the college was founded 
 in prayer and faith; its corner-stone was laid for 
 His glory; and every conception, and every effort 
 in its growth and upbuilding has been with prayer 
 for His guidance, and with unwavering faith in 
 His presence and His blessing. 
 
 Now, join me this morning in adopting this 
 motto for your individual lives. You are builders; 
 you have been laying the foundations — the future 
 will bring you the materials for the upbuilding of 
 your house; do not believe that you can build it 
 alone. Testing days will come to you all, sooner 
 
 83 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 or later ; the fire will try each of your work of what 
 sort it is; the foundations of God alone standeth 
 sure, and only the superstructure that follows his 
 plan will abide. 
 
 Unless the Lord build your house you will labor 
 in vain in its upbuilding. 
 
 It is cause for devout thanksgiving that many 
 of you have already given your lives into God's 
 keeping. If there is one who has not, will she join 
 us in this consecration this morning, so that we 
 may all make our lives God's temple, and as an 
 unbroken class unite in the prayer: 
 
 "Enter thy temple, glorious King! 
 
 And write thy name upon its shrine, 
 Thy peace to shed, thy joy to bring, 
 And seal its courts forever thine." 
 
 84 
 
1903 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 CENTENARY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, MAY 31, I903, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. H. H. O'Neal, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF GRACE CHURCH 
 
 Text — Mark 8. 35. "Whosoever will lose his 
 life for my sake shall find it." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES AT CENTENARY CHURCH 
 WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, I9O3, 2.3O P. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. Joseph F. Berry, D.D. 
 
 EDITOR OF THE EPWORTH HERALD, CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
Class of 1903 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Barlow, Mabel Sophia (Mrs. W. I. Carolus), Industry, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 *Capps, Elizabeth. 
 
 Clark, Leta. 
 
 Craig, Ethel Magdalene, Box 324, Houston Heights, Texas. 
 
 Davis, Sara Mabelle (Mrs. Henry Arthur Foreman), Pitts- 
 field, Illinois. 
 
 De Castro, Eleanor, 830 North Prairie Street, Jacksonville. 
 
 Dunlap, Nellie Fay (Mrs. Fred Beggs), 131 Webster Avenue, 
 Jacksonville. 
 
 Fackt, Amy Margaret, Simmons College, Boston, Massachu- 
 setts. Summer address, Mascoutah, Illinois. 
 
 Harker, Elizabeth Belle (Mrs. Wallace Riddle), 2578 Buena 
 Vista Way, Berkeley, California. 
 
 Joy, Edith Loraine (Mrs. Chester P. Joy), 527 Gilmore Street, 
 Peterboro, Ontario, Canada. 
 
 Lyon, Flora Eugenia, Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 McCullough, Lillian R., 310 East College Avenue, Jackson- 
 ville. 
 
 Moore, Louise Eldridge (Mrs. Menzes E. Gilbert), 603 South 
 Prairie Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Musgrove, Ellen Corinne, 720 Holgate Avenue, Defiance, 
 Ohio. 
 
 Read, Edna Pearl (Mrs. R. N. Striplin), Corinth, Mississippi. 
 
 Stevens, Delia Alice, 4940 Prairie Avenue, Chicago. 
 
 Stout, Edna May, 946 North Church Street, Jacksonville. 
 
 Thompson, Mary Ruddick (Mrs. Charles Arthur Carriel), 
 Bayfield, Wisconsin. 
 
 Triplett, Sarah Emily, 831 West Waldo Avenue, Independ- 
 ence, Missouri. 
 
 Wylder, Ethel, North Church Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 87 
 
Yearning for Service 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1903: 
 
 Another school year has rolled away, and we 
 come again to the closing hours of the year's work 
 and opportunity. For you it means not only the 
 close of a school year, but the completion of the 
 school course — the end of the work on which you 
 have been engaged for several years. You have 
 done good work, you have finished the course, and 
 now come the honors of the school, the congrat- 
 ulations of your friends, the "well done" of your 
 teachers, and your entering into our joy. 
 
 You are thinking of this occasion as the end of 
 your work, and the beginning of a rest. I think 
 of it for you as the beginning of a different and 
 larger work. To those of us who have experience 
 of life it is not strange that this apparent ending 
 should be called a "commencement." Your prob- 
 ability of success in life can be measured by this 
 test: is this occasion the end of continuous striving? 
 are you glad to have finished? and will you now 
 sit down? or have you just been getting ready, and 
 are now equipped and eager to begin some larger, 
 higher, harder service? 
 
 In saying these last words to my class each 
 89 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 year, I always have the feeling that I am talking 
 not only to them, but also to myself. I seem to 
 be one with you. It is not you ; it is we. We have 
 lived together; we have hoped together; we have 
 worked together; we have finished this task to- 
 gether. And together we look out into the future, 
 and gather strength and inspiration for the coming 
 tasks. 
 
 I believe this feeling is stronger this year than 
 in any former year; and for myself this is, in a 
 peculiar case, a completion of a given course and 
 a commencement occasion. 
 
 In agreement with the trustees, in 1893 I took 
 charge of the college for a term of ten years. This 
 is the end of that course — the completion of my 
 appointed work; and so, with you looking back 
 upon a task accomplished, I also face the future, 
 and ask for the same word of guidance for myself 
 that may seem best for you. 
 
 And I believe that the best thing I can do this 
 morning is to ask you to join me in the prayer that 
 has been on my heart during all these years. It is 
 part of the prayer of the Psalmist in the 90th 
 Psalm: "Let thy work appear unto thy servants." 
 It is the first prayer that came to the lips of the 
 apostle Paul when Christ got hold of him on the 
 way to Damascus: "Lord, what wilt thou have 
 
 90 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 me to do?" I am satisfied that we have nothing 
 to do with rest here, but only with labor. It was 
 always the spirit of the Master. His first recorded 
 utterance gave expression to this very thought: 
 "Know ye not that I must be about my Father's 
 business?" "My Father worketh hitherto, and I 
 work." 
 
 I do not desire for myself, I do not desire for 
 any of you, an easy time. We have had this period 
 of preparation that we may from now on do more 
 work and better. Lift up your eyes and see the 
 fields on every side white already to harvest. We 
 are young, and we are strong; we are willing, and 
 brave, and ready. Join me in the prayer: "Lord, 
 let thy work appear unto thy servants." May 
 God show to all of us our future work, leading us 
 to it, helping us to enter upon it with joyful energy, 
 and directing us in the doing of it! Life will be very 
 full of happiness to us if we can always be assured 
 that the work we are doing is God-appointed. 
 
 And let us not be too eager to see the results of 
 our labor. We shall be very wise if we can add to 
 our prayer: "And let thy glory appear unto their 
 children." The results of little, trivial, insignificant 
 tasks may be seen early. But O that God may 
 honor us by putting us at some work that requires 
 long years for its completion: the weaving of some 
 
 91 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 intricate pattern ; the building of some magnificent 
 temple, the work of which will engage all our 
 years; and the glory of which shall appear more 
 fully to our children for many generations! "Let 
 thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory 
 unto their children. And let the beauty of the 
 Lord our God be upon us, and establish thou the 
 work of our hands upon us. Yea, the work of our 
 hands, establish thou it." 
 
 This is my prayer for myself and you — the 
 honor of work, continuous work, increasing work, 
 work whose glory shines into the coming genera- 
 tions. The adornment of God's own beauty, the 
 beauty of holiness — clean hands, and a pure heart 
 — so that we shall ever be privileged to ascend 
 unto the hill of the Lord, and so that the vision of 
 God may never be obscured. And lastly, the seal 
 of God's everlasting approval upon our work by 
 establishing it, and making it permanent. Work 
 that we do of our own strength shall soon be swept 
 away: the fire shall devour it; the flood shall over- 
 whelm it; but, when in our work our feeble hands 
 touch the hand that is omnipotent, when He es- 
 tablishes the work of our hands, then do we know 
 we are building both for time and for eternity. 
 May the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, 
 and may all our work be forever established ! 
 
 92 
 
1904 
 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 CENTENARY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, MAY 29, I904, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. A. L. T. Ewert 
 
 PASTOR OF CENTENARY CHURCH 
 
 Text — 1 Timothy 4. 8. "But godliness is 
 profitable unto all things, having promise 
 of the life that now is, and of that which is 
 to come." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES AT CENTENARY CHURCH 
 TUESDAY, MAY 31, I904, 2.3O P. M. 
 
 Address by Bishop Charles D. Galloway, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 OF JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI 
 
Class of 1904 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 De Motte, Frances (Mrs. Albert R. Archibald), Pentecostal 
 College, North Scituate, Rhode Island. 
 
 Balcke, Flora (Mrs. Irving M. Weimer), 422 Catherine 
 Street, Pekin, Illinois. 
 
 *Ball, Ellen Gertrude (Mrs. Gasper Stockton). 
 
 Batz, Lillian (Mrs. Robert Stice), Cherry Apts., Jackson- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 
 Birch, Helen Hargrave (Mrs. Elbert Hugh Filson), West 
 Greenwood Avenue, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Briggs, Alice (Mrs. Thomas V. Hopper), 859 Grove Street, 
 Jacksonville. 
 
 Brown, Mattie Muriel (Mrs. Frank Crum Dinwiddie), Liter- 
 berry, Illinois. 
 
 Bullard, Emma M. (Mrs. Charles Clark Ellington), Buffalo, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Bullard, Jessie May (Mrs. Eugene W. Fremaux), Alexandria, 
 Louisiana. 
 
 Deatherage, Mattie Ellen, Waverly, Illinois. 
 
 Filson, Edna Justina, Concord, Illinois. 
 
 Hatch, Ethel Blanche (Mrs. Wm. S. Sanford), 1420 Fourth 
 Avenue N., Great Falls, Montana. 
 
 Kienzle, Edna Sophia (Mrs. T. H. Davis), R. R. 1, Weston, 
 Ohio. 
 
 Mathis, Olive Mae, Sidney, Illinois. 
 
 Miller, Mabel Elizabeth. 
 
 Ogram, Bertha Ethel (Mrs. Homer Potter), 112 Park Street, 
 Jacksonville. 
 
 Palmer, Winifred Martha (Mrs. Sidney Paul Jones), 1529 
 South Main Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Ross, Ella Elizabeth (Mrs. Sigurdur B. Erickson), Minneota, 
 Minnesota. 
 
 95 
 
Russell, Elizabeth Rossmund, 159 Caldwell Street, Jackson- 
 ville. 
 
 Scott, Emma Gertrude (Mrs. Robert Raper Jennings), 203 
 Spring Street, Atlanta, Georgia. 
 
 *Seymour, Mae Melinda (Mrs. J. Hardin Wheeler). 
 
 Smith, Lula Mae, 931 South East Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Stark, Hortense Quindara (Mrs. Daniel D. Roberts), Nash, 
 Oklahoma. 
 
 Stivers, Etna Hope (Mrs. W. Edward Dwyer). 
 
 Thompson, Martha Mae (Mrs. J. N. McElvain), Girard, 
 Illinois. 
 
 *Timmons, Helen Mary (Mrs. John Wetherton Dighton). 
 
 Todd, M. Bertha (Mrs. Charles E. Odell), 1204 Lafayette 
 Avenue, Mattoon, Illinois. 
 
 Turner, Bessie Roberts, Sioux City, Iowa. 
 
 Vandine, Jessie Maude (Mrs. C. E. Douglas), Newman, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Weber, Edith, Glenarm, Illinois. 
 
 White, Anne L. (Mrs. Arthur B. Meservey), Hanover, New 
 Hampshire. 
 
 Wilson, Mabel Pearl, 647 South Washington Avenue, Denver, 
 Colorado. 
 
 Young, Annie Ayers (Mrs. Percy A. Jenkinson), Apt. 4, 
 "The Kenesaw," 10 West Fourteenth Street, Min- 
 neapolis, Minnesota. 
 
 York, Gertrude Irene, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia. 
 
 96 
 
We Cannot Be Our Oxvn Masters 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1904: 
 
 Exactly what it means to graduate from a col- 
 lege is a difficult thing to say. It has a different 
 meaning in every individual case. But for each 
 of you it is probably safe to say that this com- 
 mencement occasion is one of the important epochs 
 of your lives. 
 
 Up to this time you have been controlled mainly 
 by others. For years you were directly under the 
 care of loving parents, who made for you your en- 
 vironment, showed you the path in which to walk, 
 repressed you here and encouraged you there. 
 After a few years they united with themselves 
 teachers to assist in your development and train- 
 ing. For several of these later years they have 
 honored us with more or less complete responsi- 
 bility of this work. 
 
 We have accepted the trust from them and 
 from God with grateful hearts for the privilege. 
 And the exercises of this commencement occasion 
 are our public and formal announcement that we 
 have finished the work they gave us to do, and we 
 are now returning you to them again. 
 
 97 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 It is for you, apparently, a distinct parting of 
 the ways. It doubtless, in most of your minds, 
 seems to mean the stepping out from a condition 
 of discipline and control to one of freedom. . Hith- 
 erto, as I have said, you have been under direction. 
 Others have said to you, "Go or come; do this or 
 that." Now, your teachers relinquish their author- 
 ity, and your parents, in large part, will cease to 
 command.: It looks as if henceforth you are to be 
 your own masters, throwing off the yoke and walk- 
 ing where you will. 
 
 But, before you go, I would like to say a word 
 to you, which, if not for its own weight, then per- 
 haps because of the occasion, you may remember 
 as long as you live. The word you will find in 
 Jeremiah, 10. 23: "O Lord, I know that the way 
 of man is not in himself; it is not in man that 
 walketh to direct his steps." 
 
 It is a happy day for us when we learn the 
 fundamental truth that we can never be our own 
 masters. Independence is a dream, and nothing 
 is surer than that if you insist on your own way 
 you will soon have cause to regret your folly. The 
 real truth is not that you are now to be your own 
 masters, but simply that instead of having your 
 leaders selected by parents or guardians, you 
 
 98 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 henceforth have the responsibility of choosing 
 them for yourselves. 
 
 The moment you think yourselves free, and 
 start out to walk alone, you will hear a thousand 
 voices calling in as many directions — attracting, 
 alluring, insisting, urging, almost compelling, and 
 you will stand bewildered in the babel. 
 
 Which voice shall you follow? Let me suggest. 
 There is only one name given, only one Master, 
 who is always and altogether worthy of you. At 
 every crossroad of your lives you can hear him 
 saying, sweetly, tenderly, lovingly, "Follow me!" 
 He is the way. 
 
 I thank God this morning that you know him, 
 and that I believe you can sing from the heart the 
 words of our Quaker poet: 
 
 "O Lord and Master of us all, 
 Whate'er our name or sign, 
 We own thy sway, we hear thy call, 
 To test our lives by thine." 
 
 What he is we must endeavor to become. The 
 path he trod we, too, must try to w r alk. 
 
 It is significant that he is representing the 
 threefold office of prophet, priest, and king. As 
 he came to his crown by the way of knowledge and 
 sacrifice, so we are taught the path of our king- 
 
 99 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 dom. I want you to follow him in all these rela- 
 tions. You have begun to know. By dint of 
 study for several years you have gained a little 
 entrance to the halls of learning. We want you 
 to go on. "Covet earnestly the best gifts." Be 
 diligent in reading, and ever keep your mind alert 
 to receive and retain new treasures of knowledge 
 in many directions, so that you may be ready for 
 any of the world's work you may be called upon 
 to do. 
 
 But knowledge alone never leads to the king- 
 dom. Before you can be crowned you must take 
 the second degree; you must know what it is to 
 enter into the holy of holies; coming to God in 
 priestly office, in behalf of others, and sacrificing 
 for them. The mother becomes queen of the home 
 only as she gives herself up for her children. The 
 teacher never receives his crown except as he gives 
 himself up for his pupils. Whosoever in sacrifice 
 gives up his life, the same receives the everlasting 
 crown. 
 
 The apostle Paul had sat at the feet of the 
 noted Gamaliel, and was greatly learned; but he 
 could not receive his crown until he could say, 
 " I am now ready to be offered. Moses was learned 
 in all the learning of the Egyptians, but not until 
 he could pray that God would take his life and 
 
 100 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 spare the people could he come into his kingdom. 
 It was not the brilliancy and learning of Frances 
 Willard that made her the queen of women the 
 wide world over, but the fact that she counted 
 not her life dear unto her if she could aid in any 
 way the cause of God, and home, and native land. 
 
 There is a crown for each of you. But you will 
 never come to it through learning alone, even 
 though you receive all the degrees of all the 
 universities. Do you really wish to wear it? Then 
 go home to your parents and show them that you 
 can, for them and for the others of your family, 
 forget yourselves, and live in larger measure for 
 them. Go out to your duties as teachers, and show 
 that you can give up yourselves for the advantage 
 of your pupils. Go home to your churches and 
 communities, and prove that you have received 
 the inspiration of college life, not simply to en- 
 large yourselves, or to improve and develop your 
 own lives, but so that you can more fully give 
 yourself to church or community for the enlarge- 
 ment and upbuilding of others. 
 
 This is the way the Master goes. In this path 
 of knowledge and sacrifice he walks before you 
 always. Happy will you be if you turn from us as 
 teachers and guides, and with full purpose of 
 heart, in full freedom of your own choice, you 
 
 101 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 select him henceforth as your Lord. He will lead 
 you into all truth; but, better still, he will lead 
 you into all sacrifice, and through this self-surrender 
 he will lead you into your kingdom, and will him- 
 self place the many-starred crown upon your head. 
 May God grant this happy consummation of 
 life's journey to every one of you! Amen! 
 
 1 02 
 
1905 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 CENTENARY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, MAY 28, I905, 7.45 P. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. W. H. Musgrove, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR BROOKLYN CHURCH 
 
 Text — John 8. 32. "Ye shall know the truth, 
 and the truth shall make you free." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES AT CENTENARY CHURCH 
 TUESDAY, MAY 30, I905, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. Wm. F. Anderson, D.D. 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE METHODIST 
 EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NEW YORK 
 
Class of 1905 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Berryman, Golden Ethel (Mrs. Ralph O. Von Thurn), Cali- 
 fornia Courts, Apt. "F," 143 Tenth Street, Tulsa, 
 Oklahoma. 
 
 Brady, Olive Elizabeth (Mrs. Egbert W. Fell), 397 Elm 
 Street, Elgin, Illinois. 
 
 Brown, Mary Lucile (Mrs. Don V. Buchanan), Hillsdale, 
 Michigan. 
 
 Burns, Mabel Margaret (Mrs. G. C. Rowen), Pine Village, 
 Indiana. 
 
 Carter, Cuba Minerva, Hardin, Illinois. 
 
 Clayton, Fay Sharrer (Mrs. Firman Thompson), Chicago. 
 
 Dowell, Linnie Elizabeth (Mrs. David M. Logan), Menard, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Drake, Nellie Wetmore (Mrs. John R. McCanathy), Rood- 
 house, Illinois. 
 
 Ellsberry, Leda (Mrs. J. Bowdon Bird), 2310 Poplar Avenue, 
 Kansas City, Missouri. 
 
 Glick, Olive Grace (Mrs. R. N. Miller), 11416 Forest Avenue, 
 Chicago. 
 
 Hale, Nina Louise (Mrs. Sidney Lee Smith), Roodhouse, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Huckeby, Minnie Elma (Mrs. Arthur Ewert), White Hall, 
 Illinois. 
 
 *Isaacson, Caroline C. (Mrs. Isaacson). 
 
 Lohr, Clara Louise (Mrs. Hugh Cameron), Pana, Illinois. 
 
 Luken, Carrie Louise (Mrs. J. Fred Moeller), Orleans, Illinois. 
 
 Lumsden, Olive Edna, 402 W. Williams Street, Monticello, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Marshall, Anne McDowell, Salem, Illinois. 
 
 Massey, Edith (Mrs. Wiley), Fredonia, Kansas. 
 
 105 
 
Mathers, Elizabeth Tucker (Mrs. William Goebel), Duncan 
 
 Place, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Morrison, Carrie Marion (Mrs. Fred J. Angel), 119 N. Ditman 
 
 Street, Los Angeles, California. 
 Peck, Mildred Burdell (Mrs. William Voelcker), Cerro Gordo, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Phillippe, Edith Harris, 500 W. Church Street, Champaign, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Plowman, Florence Edith (Mrs. F. E. Boston), Mayette, 
 
 Kansas. 
 Purviance, Pearl Trego (Mrs. W. E. Knox), 209 E. Capitol 
 
 Avenue, Springfield, Illinois. 
 Rebhan, Susan Mattie, 25 W. Rayen Avenue, Youngstown, 
 
 Ohio. 
 Scott, Flora Jeanette, 1521 Sixth Avenue, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 
 Shuff, Mabel Boynton (Mrs. Lester T. Pulliam), 1020 S. 
 
 Seventh Street, Springfield, Illinois. 
 Standiford, Lucy Durham, Onarga, Illinois. 
 Starkey, Edna Davis (Mrs. Otto H. Crist), 1302 E. Main 
 
 Street, Danville, Illinois. 
 Stockdale, L. Blanche (Mrs. A. E. Walters), 621 S. Walnut 
 
 Street, Springfield, Illinois. 
 Taylor, Nelle Yates, Berlin, Illinois. 
 Wadsworth, Alice Farrell (Mrs. Alpha B. Applebee), 13 15 
 
 W. College Avenue, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Wilson, Mabel Pearl, 647 South Washington Avenue, Denver, 
 
 Colorado. 
 Wood, Paula Hamilton (Mrs. Ira Curnutt), Carrollton, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Work, Merta Holmes, 845 N. Second Avenue, Phoenix, 
 
 Arizona. 
 Yarnell, Lena Seville, Bowen, Illinois. 
 
 106 
 
Be Ye Doers, Not Learners Only 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1905: 
 
 My conception of education may be expressed 
 in two words — inspiration and environment. To 
 breathe into the student a new life, a restless long- 
 ing to be more, to know more, to do more, to im- 
 part a vision of a nobler, a larger, a fuller life. 
 
 This is the first great business of the teacher 
 and the school. 
 
 And the second is to so environ the student 
 that this new life may have every chance to grow, 
 by removing every influence that would hurt or 
 retard or hinder it, and by introducing every in- 
 fluence that will foster it, and make sure that it 
 takes possession of every faculty of the entire 
 being. 
 
 These two things we have endeavored to do 
 for you in the years you have been with us — to 
 inspire you with a purer ideal and a loftier vision, 
 to make you feel the thrill of a new intellectual 
 and spiritual life, and especially to unite your lives 
 with him without whom we can do nothing. It 
 has also been our care to so arrange your environ- 
 ment that you would find it easy to live this higher 
 
 107 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 life, and be surrounded by only the most helpful 
 influences for its development. 
 
 Such a conception of education makes it clear 
 that it can never be finished. This new life that 
 has come to you should grow forever and forever. 
 But you have come to the end of that part of your 
 educational course which is environed by the 
 Woman's College, and are now to go out from us 
 to continue this education under new environ- 
 ments. 
 
 Before you go, it is my privilege to give you a 
 final charge. If ever I coveted any gift, it is the 
 ability to say what is on my mind and heart in 
 such a way that you will not forget it. 
 
 My last injunction to you is this — only three 
 words: "Be ye doers." There are so many who 
 think of many things, but never do them. There 
 are so many who dream many things, but never 
 realize them. There are so many who wish and 
 desire and hope, but they never translate these 
 longings into action. 
 
 Remember that the blessing come only to 
 those who do. "Not every one that saith, but he 
 that doeth," our Lord tells us in the Sermon on 
 the Mount. Only those that do his command- 
 ments have a right to the tree of life. Among 
 his last words in the upper room are these: "If 
 
 108 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do 
 them." 
 
 In sending you out, I have no fear that you do 
 not know; my only fear is that you will not do. 
 
 We are sending you back into your homes. 
 You know enough to fill these homes with sweet- 
 ness and light; to make the hearts of your parents, 
 and families, and friends beam with new gladness; 
 to lighten the burdens, to multiply the pleasures, 
 to share the sorrows and the responsibilities. You 
 know enough to make your home-going and your 
 home-staying the gladdest event of the family 
 history. Will you do it? 
 
 We are sending you back into your communities. 
 You know enough to make every community into 
 which you go feel the inspiration and help which 
 an educated and refined woman should always 
 bring. You know enough to be in sympathy with 
 every movement for the elevation of the intel- 
 lectual and moral life of your community, to be 
 in touch with it, to bring some measure of inspira- 
 tion to the many who have not enjoyed such ad- 
 vantages as you have had, and to secure for them, 
 where they live, a more helpful and hopeful en- 
 vironment. You know enough for this. Will you 
 do it? 
 
 We are sending you back into your home 
 109 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 churches. You know enough to make the whole 
 church membership glad that you have been to 
 college, and that you are home again. You can 
 help the prayer-meeting; you can encourage your 
 pastor, and inspire all the young people by service 
 and leadership in the Epworth League and Chris- 
 tian Endeavor. You know enough to be very 
 helpful in the Sunday school; you can help to 
 quicken and make efficient for good the social life, 
 the intellectual life, and the spiritual life of the 
 church. 
 
 Will you do these things? Or will you go home, 
 glad to be free from the limitations of school life, 
 to settle into useless inactivity, or to seek for mere 
 personal and selfish pleasure? 
 
 Remember that you are debtors. Some young 
 people think that the world owes them everything. 
 But the truth is, the balance is on the other side. 
 You are debtors to your parents for all their love 
 and care; to the church for all the blessings that 
 come through its helpful ministry; to your com- 
 munity and state for the inestimable advantages 
 of liberty and law, and social and political privilege 
 we enjoy; and to your college for the inspiration 
 you have received, the protection it has given you 
 from hurtful influences, the helpful habits it has 
 fostered in you, the delightful associations and 
 
 no 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 friendships it has made possible for you. To all of 
 these you are debtors. Go out from here resolved 
 that, by God's help, you will, to the best of your 
 ability, pay back full measure for what you have 
 received, and in the years to come leave something 
 to the credit of your account for those who may 
 come after you. 
 
 I believe that the coming year is one of the 
 most critical periods of your lives, for it will largely 
 decide how much your education has really done 
 for you. Up to this time you have improved your 
 talents, and we take pleasure in giving you this 
 public "well done." But the question is not settled 
 whether you have done it because the spirit of the 
 nobler life has taken possession of you, or because 
 of the gentle compulsion of parents and teachers, 
 and of the unusually favorable conditions they 
 have arranged for you. If the latter is true, you 
 will go home and begin to neglect the means of 
 intellectual and spiritual growth, and settle down 
 into the indifferent and unambitious life of the 
 multitude. Everybody in the community will 
 wonder what good it has done you to go to college. 
 
 But if indeed you have caught the inspiration, 
 if the higher life has taken possession of you, each 
 year will find you stronger in nobler purposes, and 
 more efficient in all kinds of helpful service, and 
 
 in 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 the advantages of the higher education will have 
 such visible illustration in your community as to 
 inspire many others to follow your example. 
 
 In this full confidence we send you forth as 
 representatives of the Woman's College, believing 
 and trusting that you will honor your parents and 
 make glad your homes, and inspire and purify 
 your communities, and strengthen and edify your 
 churches, and bring credit to your alma mater. 
 
 "And the God of peace make you perfect in 
 every good work to do his will, working in you 
 that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through 
 Jesus Christ!" Amen! 
 
 112 
 
1906 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 CENTENARY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, MAY 2J , I906, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. George L. Scrimger, D.D. 
 
 PRESIDING ELDER OF THE JACKSONVILLE DISTRICT 
 
 Text — Psalm 144. 12. "That our sons may 
 be as plants grown up in their youth; that 
 our daughters may be as corner stones, 
 polished after the similitude of a palace." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES AT CENTENARY CHURCH 
 TUESDAY, MAY 29, I906, 10 A. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. C. B. Spencer, D.D. 
 
 EDITOR OF THE CENTRAL CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, KANSAS CITY, 
 
 MO. 
 
Class of 1906 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Buckingham, Elsie Louise, 679 South West Street, Jackson- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 
 Carter, Cuba Minerva, Hardin, Illinois. 
 
 Cloyd, Lura Ethel, Loami, Illinois. 
 
 Coe, Mary Greta, Clayton, Illinois. 
 
 Coons, Amy Dora (Mrs. Wm. Christian Paul), Woodson, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Cooper, Sarah Mabel (Mrs. Edward C. Teague), Silex, Mis- 
 souri. 
 
 Fackt, Marie Louise, Mascoutah, Illinois. 
 
 Hegener, Hilda Ida, Bluff Springs, Illinois. 
 
 Hodgson, Beulah Rice, Rushville, Illinois. 
 
 Holnback, Nellie Margaret, Signal Hill Place, Edgemont 
 Station, East St. Louis, Illinois. 
 
 Hughes, Mary (Mrs. Frank Kellogg Page), Newman, Illinois. 
 
 Ives, Amy Rosella (Mrs. Earl Edwin Rhodes), Stuttgart, 
 Arkansas. 
 
 Lard, Geneva Fountain (Mrs. Louis P. Sheppard), Pawnee, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Lessel, Ruth, Perry, Iowa. 
 
 McFadden, Grace H. (Mrs. Wm. Ackerman Gerol), 3204 
 Collingwood Avenue, Toledo, Ohio. 
 
 Miller, Nellie (Mrs. Fletcher J. Blackburn), 239 Caldwell 
 Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Morgan, Mary Edith (Mrs. Edward Bromley Mayer), 933 
 West Fifty-third Street, Los Angeles, California. 
 
 Postel, Amelia Jansen (Mrs. Geo. Nicholas Sauer), Evans- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 
 Ranson, Zillah Maud (Mrs. Ray Campbell Mitchell), 1800 
 Cheyenne Avenue, Colorado Springs, Colorado. 
 
 Robison, Lora M. (Mrs. Robert Peters), Stewardson, Illinois. 
 
 115 
 
Rucker, Rosy Garratt, 102 South Pleasant Street, Independ- 
 ence, Missouri. 
 
 Scott, Mae Allison (Mrs. Arthur Van Winkle), Franklin, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Scott, Mary Frances (Mrs. Harold Huxtable), 1876 Lampson 
 Road, Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 Scrimger, Ruth E. (Mrs. J. Harry Woods), 1142 East Sixty- 
 fourth Street, Chicago. 
 
 Shuff, Klabel Boynton (Mrs. L. T. Pulliam), 1020 South 
 Seventh Street, Springfield, Illinois. 
 
 *Spitler, Mary Estelle (Mrs. Lawrence Y. Sherman). 
 
 Stevens, Maude A. f Century Lyceum Bureau, Chicago, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 Swain, Clara Pearl, Vermillion, South Dakota. 
 
 Thackwray, Gertrude (Mrs. Benjamin H. Matthews), Pitts- 
 field, Illinois. 
 
 Weber, Mabel (Mrs. Joseph M. Frazee), Glenarm, Illinois. 
 
 Woodward, Lucile M. (Mrs. W. C. Edwards), Olney, Illinois. 
 
 Yenawine, Luella H. (Mrs. J. V. Rogers), Hume, Illinois. 
 
 116 
 
The Victory That Ov^ercometh, Even Tour 
 Faith 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1906: 
 
 This is the process of education: 
 
 What you learn and recite must be transformed 
 into what you think for yourselves; what you think 
 must be assimilated into what you believe and feel, 
 and what you feel must be worked out in practical 
 life. Only then is it really yours, or rather, you. 
 "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." "Out 
 of the heart are the issues of life." 
 
 There is no privilege of the college presidency 
 that I value more highly than this of saying a 
 final word to each succeeding class. Our relations 
 have been delightful through these years, and the 
 office of president has been forgotten in the pleasure 
 of being a personal friend. I have addressed you 
 often on many subjects. I suppose you have al- 
 ready forgotten, or soon will forget, most of what 
 I have said. But I am not greatly concerned about 
 this, for I know that the things in your college life 
 that will do you most good are not the things you 
 remember most vividly. The real gain of these 
 years is the character, the culture, the life that 
 
 117 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 remains to you after all your studies and my 
 lectures are forgotten. 
 
 My final word, therefore, is one that relates, 
 not to studies, but to life. It is an appeal to you 
 to let go fear and doubt as a habit of daily life, and 
 to walk every step of your journey in the full 
 assurance of faith. 
 
 I want you in everything to be "overcomers." 
 The rewards both of this life and of the next are 
 promised only to those who overcome. "Now this 
 is the victory that overcometh, even your faith." 
 
 I wish I could make you feel and know what 
 faith is. 
 
 Faith has wonderful eyes. Nothing is ever 
 hazy or indistinct to it. It sees "him who is in- 
 visible," and therefore never doubts. It sees the 
 glory that shall be, and therefore has a supreme 
 contempt for "the suffering of this present time." 
 Moses saw the Israelites in the promised land be- 
 fore ever they crossed the Red Sea or set foot in 
 the wilderness. Cyrus Field saw the Atlantic 
 cable long, long before the first foot of wire was 
 made for it. No great or good thing has ever been 
 accomplished except as the result of faith. 
 
 Faith is not desire: it is the actual beforehand 
 realization of desire. It is not hope: it is the very 
 substance of things hoped for. Not their shadows 
 
 118 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 cast before; but, mark you, their very substance. 
 Faith is not a dream or vision merely; but, won- 
 derful paradox, faith is the actual pre-seeing of 
 things yet invisible. 
 
 Faith is not all eye, as some seem to think. It 
 has feet and hands. It is not dead, but vital. It 
 works. Its eyes are fixed on its object, and its 
 feet move irresistibly towards that object. Noth- 
 ing hinders it, nothing daunts it. It laughs at 
 impossibilities, and cries, "It shall be done." 
 
 Faith has visions, but is not visionary. It has 
 the power of imagining, but it is not imaginary. 
 With its hands it takes hold of God's almighty 
 arm. It trusts and is not afraid. Its prayers are 
 always heard. 
 
 "Faith cannot be unanswered, 
 
 Its feet are planted on the solid rock; 
 Amid the wildest storms it stands undaunted, 
 And bears unmoved the fiercest thundershock." 
 
 This vital faith I crave for you. I am not 
 talking to you only of spiritual things. Of course 
 I mean that, first of all, have saving faith in God, 
 and in our Lord; faith which enables you to re- 
 ceive him, to become children of God, heirs of God, 
 and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. I thank God 
 that so many of you are already his, and I pray 
 most of all for this for every one. 
 
 119 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 But I want you to have this faith also in daily 
 life. Let not your heart be troubled about your- 
 selves, or your work, or the outcome of your 
 ventures. There are so many that are all their 
 lives in bondage through fear. They doubt the 
 outcome of every enterprise. They are well now, 
 but they will soon be sick. The morning dawns 
 bright, but they fear it will rain before noon. They 
 have come thus far without much damage, but 
 something will surely happen before long. 
 
 Young women, it shall not be so with you. 
 Hear the Master's voice so often saying, "Why 
 are ye so fearful?" "O ye of little faith.'" Hear 
 my final word, urging you to an unfailing optimism: 
 
 "God's in His heaven, 
 All's right with the world." 
 
 Of course there are giants to be met and over- 
 come; there are lions in the way; there are walled 
 cities to be taken. But you can do it. You can go 
 up and possess the land. You are well able. 
 
 "Be strong! 
 You are not here to play, to dream, to drift, 
 You have hard work to do, and loads to lift; 
 Shun not the struggle, face it, 'tis God's gift. 
 Be strong, be strong, be strong!" 
 
 And how shall you be strong? 
 It shall be unto you "according to your faith." 
 120 
 
1907 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 CENTENNARY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, MAY 26, I907, 7.3O P. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. Merle N. English 
 
 PASTOR OF CENTENARY CHURCH 
 
 Text — 1 Corinthians 3. 9. "Ye are God's 
 building." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES IN THE NEW COLLEGE CHAPEL IN 
 
 MUSIC HALL 
 
 WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, I907 
 
 Address by Rev. T. P. Frost, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF THE FIRST METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 EVANSTON, ILL. 
 
Class of 1907 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Ainsworth, Olive, Watseka, Illinois. 
 
 Asplund, Esther Marie (Mrs. Frank Rucker), 819 North Lib- 
 erty Street, Independence, Missouri. 
 
 Campbell, Hortense Eubanks (Mrs. Wm. A. Gore), 450 Fair- 
 view Avenue, Webster Grove, Missouri. 
 
 Fuller, Mabel B., Easton, Illinois. 
 
 Hopper, Eunice, 641 South Diamond Street, Jacksonville, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Huckeby, Tessa Inez, 846 West State Street, Jacksonville, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Huss, Olive Grace, 520 North West Street, Jacksonville, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 Larimore, L. Myrtle, 691 East State Street, Jacksonville, 
 Illinois. 
 
 McCune, Clara Ethel (Mrs. Arnold B. Korb), 716 West 
 Armstrong Street, Peoria, Illinois. 
 
 Miller, Mabel Elizabeth. 
 
 Morgan, Besse C. 
 
 Sidell, Rosalie, Sidell, Illinois. 
 
 Thackwray, Gertrude (Mrs. Benjamin H. Matthews), Pitts- 
 field, Illinois. 
 
 23 
 
The Master Key of Life 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1907: 
 
 After the inspiring sermon to which you have 
 just listened, it is not necessary that I should 
 make you a long address. But I always rejoice in 
 the privilege of the final word, as each class comes 
 up to the commencement occasion, and I always 
 endeavor to improve the opportunity, not by 
 teaching a new lesson, but by enforcing and em- 
 phasizing some vital principle which it has been 
 our aim to impart to you throughout your college 
 life. 
 
 It always seems strange, on first thought, that 
 the closing of your college life should be called 
 your "commencement." But there is really a 
 great propriety in the word, and a deep philosophy 
 underlying its use in this connection. 
 
 There is as yet, indeed there never will be, a 
 final end of anything. We come to the ends of 
 days, or of periods; we reach the end of a school 
 year, or of a school course; or of an enterprise on 
 which our hearts are set. But in truth, the end of 
 any such day, or period, or year, or course, is at 
 the same time the beginning of another. And the 
 
 125 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 most important fact is not that of the ending, but 
 that of the beginning. 
 
 The whole philosophy of a noble life is involved 
 in this truth. To see only the ending in any event 
 or period in your lives means to cease action, to 
 smother inspiration, and to be satisfied with present 
 attainment. Nearly all the failures of college 
 graduates come because, for them, their commence- 
 ment was not, as it ought to be, a " beginning." 
 They thanked God that they had now reached the 
 "ending," and they settled down to enjoyment of 
 the past, as though the whole matter were com- 
 pleted. 
 
 But for you, young women, let it not be so. 
 Look upon this ending of your college course as 
 in reality the beginning of a life of larger oppor- 
 tunity. You have been faithful over a few things, 
 let the Master now be free to make you ruler over 
 more. Face the front. 
 
 "Seek the things before you, not a look behind." 
 
 "Set your whole heart to endeavor, 
 Turn your soul to yon bright star." 
 
 It surely is no mere coincidence that the first 
 words of the Bible are: 
 
 "In the beginning, God." 
 
 These are the words I want to impress on you. 
 126 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 This is a great beginning for you. You will count 
 most of the events of your life from this date. In 
 this beginning be sure, above all other things, that 
 he is with you. You are rightly counting on many 
 factors for success in life. You have youth, and 
 health, and trained ability. You have friends. 
 You have ambition and determination and per- 
 severance. All good, very good. These are, each 
 of them, a key that will unlock many doors of life's 
 great buildings. But let me tell you, young women, 
 there is one Master Key of life that of itself will 
 unlock every door that you will ever need to open, 
 and that Master Key is the conscious presence of 
 God himself in every detail of your daily life. 
 
 As this is the first truth uttered in God's rev- 
 elation to us, so it is the central truth illustrated 
 on every page, from Genesis to Revelation. You 
 have just been reading the story of Joseph. What 
 was the secret of his success? Again and again the 
 answer comes, "The Lord was with Joseph." And 
 so he has been with all whose lives have been worthy 
 in all the generations. And when our Saviour 
 sends out his disciples with the great commission 
 to go into all the world and open every door of 
 opportunity for the complete salvation of every 
 creature, he puts into their hands this same Master 
 Key: "Lo, I am with you always!" 
 
 127 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 This is the greatest truth of human life. With- 
 out God you can do nothing. "Except the Lord 
 build the house, they labor in vain that build it." 
 But with him, like Paul, you can do all things. 
 
 And the lesson of all others we have been trying 
 to teach you in your years at the Illinois Woman's 
 College is this wonderful truth that God's conscious 
 personal presence in your daily life is your pos- 
 sibility and privilege. You can have this Master 
 Key for the asking. 
 
 Let us all, here and now, both you and me to- 
 gether, commit our way unto him, and ask him 
 to walk with us every step of the whole journey. 
 
 128 
 
1908 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 COLLEGE CHAPEL IN MUSIC HALL 
 SUNDAY, MAY 31, I908, 3 P. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. Joseph C. Nate, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF GRACE CHURCH 
 
 Text — Joshua 5. 12. "And the manna ceased 
 on the morrow after they had eaten of the 
 old corn of the land; neither had the chil- 
 dren of Israel manna any more; but they 
 did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan 
 that year." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES IN COLLEGE CHAPEL 
 TUESDAY, JUNE 2, I908, 9.3O A. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. E. B. Crawford, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF WOODLAWN AVENUE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
Class of 1908 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Buchholz, Ada Lorana, 4304 North Lincoln Street, Chicago, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Colean, Helen Louise (Mrs. Isaac Sherwood Powers), "The 
 Walden," Apt. 5, Terre Haute, Indiana. 
 
 Conley, Edith Alice, Newport, Indiana. 
 
 *Corbett, Hortense (Mrs. Frank B. Sanders). 
 
 Crum, Rena Frances (Mrs. Harry Watson Sinclair), Virginia, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Doht, Sadie Elizabeth (Mrs. N. Gust Hartburg), Marinette, 
 Wisconsin. 
 
 Everhart, Louise (Mrs. Paul B. Brewer), 907 East Sixty- 
 first Street, Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 Forwell, Lida (Mrs. John Rule Porter), 407 South Evans 
 Street, Bloomington. 
 
 Graff, Lulu Fairee, 285 Sandusky Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Harker, Jennie May (Mrs. George R. Atherton), 4303 Col- 
 fax Avenue, South, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 
 
 Hutchinson, Katherine P., Mineral Point, Wisconsin. 
 
 Kimbel, Ethel, 134 Prospect Street, Jacksonville. 
 
 Lattner, Emma (Mrs. Richard H. Helber), 195 Rose Street, 
 Dubuque, Iowa. 
 
 Maine, Gladys Lee (Mrs. Chester Arthur Shafer), 908 Third 
 Avenue, Hibbing, Minnesota. 
 
 Marshall, Eugenia Jackson (Mrs. Warren R. Rainey), Salem, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Mason, Bertha Genevieve, Clearwater, Texas. 
 
 Metcalf, Georgia Osborne (Mrs. James Millhite Bristow), 
 2834 Botanical Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri. 
 
 Mitchell, Dessie Leona (Mrs. Arthur Lester Cash), 601 Van 
 Buren Street, Gary, Indiana. 
 131 
 
Proudfit, Inez Vera (Mrs. Edward D. Canatsey), 606 North 
 Church Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Rhodes, Jessie B. (Mrs. Carlyle Pemberton), Oakland, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 Ross, Hazel Maurine (Mrs. Chas. J. Southerland), Pinon, 
 Colorado. 
 
 Ross, Vera Pearl (Mrs. Edwin B. Righter), 1854 Colonnade, 
 Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 Rottger, Jess Carlyle, 357 East State Street, Jacksonville, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Ryan, Ruby R. (Mrs. Fred Copper), New Holland, Illinois. 
 
 Short, Myrtle Edna (Mrs. J. W. Lester), 941 East Forty- 
 seventh Street, Chicago. 
 
 Sidell, Zelda Luella, 830 Michigan Avenue, Chicago. 
 
 Virgin, Dorothy E., Virginia, Illinois. 
 
 Widenham, Ruth M., 6751 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles 
 California. 
 
 Wiley, Neva Beryl, Ogden, Illinois. 
 
 132 
 
The Baccalaureate Address of John the 
 Baptist 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1908: 
 
 For several weeks, whenever I have thought of 
 this commencement occasion, my mind has always 
 gone back to the first commencement of which I 
 ever read. In the early days, you know, classes 
 were not taught within college walls, but out of 
 doors, the students sitting under the shade of the 
 trees, or walking side by side with their instructors. 
 
 The college I have thought of was that of John 
 the Baptist, nearly two thousand years ago, on 
 the banks of the River Jordan. His eloquence and 
 his fiery earnestness had attracted thousands of 
 eager listeners, and his new message had secured 
 many who attached themselves to him as his per- 
 sonal pupils. For months he had instructed them, 
 filling their hearts and minds with expectation and 
 enthusiasm for the coming of a great master, who 
 should draw all men unto him, and prove to be the 
 desire of all nations. 
 
 And one day, an eventful day, he came. 
 
 And John knew that the course of study of the 
 disciples under himself was finished, and that the 
 
 i33 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 Commencement Day of his school had come. 
 Calling his disciples around him, he pointed to the 
 new-come Master, and cried, "Behold, the Lamb 
 of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!" 
 
 They were slow to understand that it meant 
 the closing of the school. They loved their teacher, 
 and they could not comprehend that this was his 
 baccalaureate address, and that the time had come 
 when they must leave him. But the next day, as 
 he stood with two of his disciples, he repeated his 
 message in such a way that they could no longer 
 misunderstand. And the simple record reads: 
 "The two disciples heard him speak, and they 
 followed Jesus." 
 
 This baccalaureate address of John the Baptist 
 is also mine to you. You have been with us for 
 years, and we have learned to love one another. 
 In many ways we are loth to sever these delightful 
 relations. But you have been faithful, and you 
 have finished the respective courses of study on 
 which you entered years ago. We honor you for 
 the faithful work you have done, and for the suc- 
 cessful completion of the curriculum so far assigned. 
 
 And now face the future. This is really your 
 commencement: when you enter upon what ought 
 to be a larger, fuller life. As teachers, we take 
 leave of you. But you will still and always need a 
 
 i34 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 Teacher and a Master. And as John to his dis- 
 ciples, so let me to you, point you to One who has 
 been my Teacher and Saviour, and let me urge 
 you to exalt him to be your Saviour, and your 
 Teacher, too. Do you also, here and now, hear 
 me speak, and follow Jesus. 
 
 If you follow him, he will lead you to the 
 highest personal purity. Purity of life and purity 
 of heart are our individual greatest need. And 
 you cannot walk near to Jesus; you cannot bring 
 him into your life, and give him control of your 
 desires, without experiencing such a cleansing of 
 all the issues of your lives that your eyes may 
 have the clear vision of God, your ears may always 
 hear his voice, and your hearts always be his 
 temple. Nothing nerves the arm, and makes firm 
 and sure the step, as purity of life does. You 
 remember Sir Gallahad — 
 
 "Whose strength was as the strength of ten, 
 Because his heart was pure." 
 
 If you will follow Jesus, he will make you 
 strong for all the duties and all the trials of life. 
 It has been our aim to make you stronger in body, 
 to increase your vigor of mind and of will during 
 your college course. But, if you are to be effective 
 in life's battle, you will need to know where to go 
 
 i35 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 for constant and unfailing renewal of strength. 
 All experience shows that nowhere can you find it 
 as in Jesus. Those who live near him "out of 
 weakness are made strong." Hear the testimony 
 of Paul: "I can do all things through Christ, which 
 strengtheneth me." 
 
 But if you are to realize our ambitions for you 
 of being and of doing, in addition to beauty, and 
 purity, and strength of character, you will need 
 a heart overflowing with sympathy and love. 
 Strength and purity are your equipment; love and 
 sympathy are what the world needs. Your beauty 
 and strength will not minister to the needs of your 
 fellows unless you come close to them, and you 
 come close to them through love. Here is the great 
 preeminence of Jesus. He is easily the chief in 
 all departments of life, but his love overshadows 
 so that we can think of little else. We do not want 
 you to stand apart from the need of the world 
 about you. Get down into it, and where this need 
 is greatest there let us find you. And if so, you will 
 be following him very close. 
 
 And finally, we want you to follow Jesus so 
 that your life may be filled with an earnest purpose 
 that will be effective. There are thousands of 
 college graduates every year, who are fairly 
 equipped with purity, and strength, and sympathy, 
 
 136 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 but whose lives fail because of the lack of a definite 
 purpose full of power. I know of no compelling 
 and propelling power equal to Jesus in the life. 
 He is crying to all the world, and especially to you, 
 young women, "Come unto me!" He will give 
 you sympathy, and love, and strength, and the 
 beauty of purity, if you answer his loving call and 
 "come." But his next word to every one who comes 
 is "go." And with his command to go is added 
 his assurance of all power and of his own never- 
 failing and eternal presence. 
 
 I like people who do things. And who ought 
 to do things more than college graduates? Let 
 Jesus "work in you, to will and to do" some of his 
 great purposes, and your lives cannot fail to be 
 effective in the highest measure. 
 
 I do not know how I can express the deepest 
 desire of my heart for you better than in these 
 closing words: 
 
 I would account it the highest praise of my life 
 work as a teacher if it may be truthfully written 
 as my epitaph: "And his disciples heard him speak, 
 and they followed Jesus." 
 
 i37 
 
1909 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 COLLEGE CHAPEL IN MUSIC HALL 
 SUNDAY, MAY 31, I909, 7.3O P. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. John C. Willits, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, DECATUR, ILL 
 
 Text — Matthew 26. 13. "Wheresoever this 
 gospel shall be preached in the whole 
 world, there shall also this, that this woman 
 hath done, be told for a memorial of her." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES IN COLLEGE CHAPEL 
 TUESDAY, JUNE I, I909, 9.3O A. M. 
 
 Address by Bishop Henry Spellmeyer, D.D. 
 
 OF ST. LOUIS 
 BISHOP OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
Class of 1909 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Davis, Elizabeth Hamilton, A. B., State Agricultural College, 
 
 Manhattan, Kansas. 
 Wiley, Neva Beryl, A. B., Ogden, Illinois. 
 
 Diplomas and Certificates 
 
 Baldwin, Isabelle Cherye, 329 South Clay Avenue, Jackson- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 
 Bullard, Marguerite Fallis, Mechanicsburg, Illinois. 
 
 Eppert, Mary (Mrs. M. J. Fishback), 1918 North Tenth 
 Street, Terre Haute, Indiana. 
 
 Fackt, Elizabeth Lenore, Mascoutah, Illinois. 
 
 Harper, Florence, Farmington, Illinois. 
 
 Kehoe, Nellie (Mrs. W. T. Siston). 
 
 Knollenberg, Caroline, 233 East College Avenue, Jacksonville. 
 
 Lambert, Helen (Mrs. John C. F. Tillson), Fort Apache, 
 Arizona. 
 
 Lewis, Helen (Mrs. Alvin Searles Keys), 1209 South Seventh 
 Street, Springfield, Illinois. 
 
 McCollister, Florence M. (Mrs. Lee Orville Freeh), White 
 Hall, Illinois. 
 
 Mathis, Alice, 121 Diamond Court, Jacksonville. 
 
 Mcrkle, Jeanette. 
 
 Metcalf, Mary Elizabeth (Mrs. K. Taliaferro Smith), Green- 
 field, Illinois. 
 
 Phillips, William B. (Miss Alice Borgelt), Lake Forest, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 Potts, Edith Margaret, 209 Eighth Street, LaGrangc, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 Reed, Bessie Beatrice (Mrs. George H. McKean), Woodson, 
 Illinois. 
 
 141 
 
Sauvage, Dicie Emma, Tolono, Illinois. 
 
 Scofield, Grace R. (Mrs. Murray F. Merritt), Wellington, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Smith, Nellie (Mrs. Herbert H. Harris), Beardstown, Illinois. 
 Stephens, Hazel Kirke, Robinson, Illinois. 
 Turner, Nina (Mrs. W. R. Green), Sumner, Illinois. 
 Virgin, Norma, Virginia, Illinois. 
 Wagner, Ninah Dunlap (Mrs. O. M. Sherman), 3419 Paseo, 
 
 Kansas City, Missouri. 
 
 142 
 
The Things That Abide 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1909: 
 
 I trust that the sermon to which we have just 
 listened, so full of truth, exactly suited to you, and 
 delivered on an occasion of so much personal in- 
 terest, will long be remembered and cherished. 
 And may you be not hearers only, but doers of 
 the word. 
 
 I would not presume to add anything to the 
 lessons already taught, were it not for two consid- 
 erations. The first is that for fifteen years past I 
 have said the last words to my graduating classes 
 and have come to enjoy the privilege and count it 
 one of my highest honors. The second is that I 
 believe I have a message for you, one that I want 
 you never to forget; and I give it to you on an 
 occasion which I know will be remembered as one 
 of the greatest events of your life in the hope that 
 the occasion and the message may be remembered 
 together. 
 
 From all appearances, it would seem that the 
 acquisition of knowledge is the great aim and end 
 of school and college life. We build and equip 
 libraries that you may know ; we equip laboratories 
 
 i43 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 that you may test knowledge and increase it; you 
 study the textbooks in order to know, and the 
 teacher hears your lessons to see whether you 
 know. If you do not know, you fail, and are 
 dropped from the roll. If you know thoroughly 
 and well, you are passed with honor. You are 
 here to-night because you have learned and have 
 known the subjects over which your several courses 
 have led you. It would seem, I repeat, that the 
 schools and colleges believe that knowledge is 
 pretty near the whole thing. 
 
 Now what I want to tell you to-night, and to 
 impress upon you, is that this is not at all true. 
 Knowledge, instead of being the great thing, is 
 really a comparatively small thing. The objection 
 to knowledge is that it is so transient. It does not 
 last. "If there be knowledge, it shall vanish 
 away." Half of what you have learned in college 
 you have already forgotten, and part of what you 
 have learned and still remember is not now true. 
 In a few years you will have forgotten nearly 
 everything that you have learned during your 
 school and college course. If knowledge were all 
 the outcome, it were not worth while for conse- 
 crated men and women to give their lives for the 
 founding of colleges, nor for you to spend so many 
 years in study and self-denial. 
 
 144 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 In order to be worth while, there must be some- 
 thing, as a result of college life and work, that re- 
 mains after the lessons have been forgotten. For 
 each of you, the question of most concern to me 
 now is not, "What do you know?" but, "What 
 have you secured in college that will abide?" 
 
 Has there been, deep graven on your hearts, 
 an ideal of possibilities of life and character toward 
 which you will now constantly strive, so that your 
 life path will grow brighter and brighter unto the 
 perfect day? 
 
 Have you caught a vision of things which are 
 not subjects of ordinary knowledge, things "to 
 flesh and sense unknown," which "eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, nor heart conceived," but which 
 are revealed to every sincere soul; a vision which, 
 if you keep it in your life, will, for the joy that it 
 sets before you, enable you to bear with patience 
 any lot which life may have in store for you? 
 
 Have you begun to learn how much better it 
 is to give than to receive; to minister than to be 
 ministered unto; and has there come to you any 
 longing and any resolution to give your lives to 
 service rather than to selfishness? They are call- 
 ing for you in the home, and in your church, and 
 in your local community. They need your edu- 
 cated ability, your trained talent, your cultivated 
 
 i45 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 womanliness. Your smile can make the days 
 brighter for many hearts, your hands can make 
 burdens lighter for many now carrying loads. 
 They need you greatly somewhere, and they will 
 call for you. Your college education must prove 
 itself by your willingness to hear these calls, and 
 by your ability to render the service which they 
 need. 
 
 Covet most earnestly, then, the things that 
 will remain. Knowledge is good, but character is 
 better. Some day you will forget the things you 
 know; in fact, there will be no need for you to 
 remember them. But your faith will ever be an 
 anchor to your soul, sure and steadfast; and your 
 life, if all surrendered in love and unselfish devo- 
 tion to the call of duty, will find itself forever. 
 
 When Jesus met his disciples for the last time 
 before his ascension, on the shore of the Sea of 
 Galilee, his anxious thought about Peter was not 
 whether Peter remembered all the lessons that 
 Jesus had taught during the three years of the 
 apostle's college life, but the yearning of the 
 Saviour's heart is seen in his thrice-repeated ques- 
 tion, "Peter, do you love me?" With a loyal 
 heart of love assured, he could send Peter out to 
 service for young and old ; to a life of consecration 
 
 146 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 to be crowned by a death of sacrifice, like that of 
 the Master himself. 
 
 So, young women, this is our prayer for you. 
 Knowledge, as a beginning only; but a faith that 
 endures; and a life of service, prompted by hearts 
 rooted and grounded in that love from which 
 "neither life nor death, nor things present nor 
 things to come, shall ever separate you." 
 
 i47 
 
1910 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 COLLEGE CHAPEL IN MUSIC HALL 
 SUNDAY, MAY 29, I9IO, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. F. A. McCarty, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF CENTENARY CHURCH 
 
 Text — Ephesians 5. 17. "Wherefore be ye not 
 unwise, but understanding what the will 
 of the Lord is." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES IN COLLEGE CHAPEL 
 TUESDAY, MAY 31, I9IO, 9.3O A. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. W. S. Lewis, D.D. 
 
 OF CHINA 
 BISHOP OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
Class of 1910 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Harshbarger, Frances, A. B., Ivesdale, Illinois. 
 
 Mitchell, Dessie Leona, A. B. (Mrs. Arthur Lester Cash), 
 601 Van Buren Street, Gary, Indiana. 
 
 Powell, Jeanette Chilton, A. B., Hockenhull Building, Jack- 
 sonville. 
 
 Diplomas and Certificates 
 
 Ash, Helen Hazel (Mrs. Claire E. Ferris), 1336 Date Street, 
 San Diego, California. 
 
 Booth, Alma, 3353 South Park Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 Fuller, Mrs. Iva Mae (Mrs. Loren D wight Cannon), Green- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 
 Helm, Henrietta Sarah, 1507 North Lake Avenue, Pasadena, 
 California. 
 
 Hopper, Eunice, 641 South Diamond Street, Jacksonville, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Jennings, Pearl Louise (Mrs. Grover C. Stockmann), Du 
 Quoin, Illinois. 
 
 Jones, Laura Marianne (Mrs. H. A. Simon), Saybrook, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 La Teer, Mary (Mrs. Charles T. Alexander), 904 West Hill 
 Street, Champaign, Illinois. 
 
 Long, Hazel Belle, 310 West College Avenue, Jacksonville. 
 
 McCutcheon, Illileo A. (Mrs. Paul P. Thompson), Mound 
 Avenue, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Richards, Pearl, Wolverine, Michigan. 
 
 Skiles, Florence Margaret (Mrs. Donald Riley), 631 Laurel 
 Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 Sparkes, Winnie, Pontiac, Illinois. 
 
 Taylor, Florence Leah, 1040 West College Avenue, Jackson- 
 ville. 
 
 Todd, Elizabeth A., 6030 Greenwood Avenue, Chicago, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 151 
 
Tke College Motto: Knowledge, Faith, 
 Service 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1910: 
 
 You have finished a college course; and, be- 
 cause of this, your friends and the friends of the 
 college are gathering to do you and the college 
 honor. I have thought that both for you and for 
 us it may not be without profit if we inquire at 
 this time just what your college graduation may 
 fairly be assumed to mean, both for you and for 
 the college. 
 
 What is a college, and what should be the out- 
 come of a college course in you? We are earnestly 
 seeking to build here a college that shall be in 
 every way adequate to the higher education of 
 young women. Hundreds of devoted men and 
 women have laid here the foundations; and we are 
 everywhere seeking other friends and urging them 
 to a consecration of money for buildings, and equip- 
 ment, and endowment; to make a college a place, 
 as Dr. Jowett defines it, "of learning, of society, 
 and of religion." Pray that we may be guided to 
 find them. We are greatly desiring the means to 
 provide libraries, laboratories, and gymnasium, and 
 
 153 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 the best teachers, thoroughly prepared, and full of 
 inspiration. 
 
 But we are not seeking these things just to 
 have college buildings, and equipment, and endow- 
 ment. We are seeking them for you, and for those 
 that shall come after you, as a means to a worthy 
 end. A college means to us an environment that 
 will foster every good capacity in you, and that 
 will inspire you and furnish you with a motive, 
 adequate for every duty, and worthy of the best 
 that is in you. A college is a means — a means by 
 which the highest and soundest culture, the noblest 
 companionships, the most compelling inspirations, 
 the purest religion of one generation is best trans- 
 mitted to the ablest and choicest youths of the 
 next. To put my thought of what a college is, 
 and what I want this college to be for every young 
 woman who comes here, into the briefest form: it 
 is a place where the best possible opportunity is 
 given to develop your highest and noblest capacity 
 into actual powers. Education is development of 
 capacity into actual power. 
 
 And now, very briefly, what have we a right 
 to expect the college has done for you, and will do 
 for others who take your places? We have a right 
 to expect that the college has increased your 
 knowledge — your capacity for power to know. If 
 
 i54 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 you fail in this you have wasted your time, and 
 you will dishonor your college. Ninety-nine women 
 out of every hundred have not had the opportunity 
 that you have had of seeking and intermeddling 
 with knowledge, and correspondingly you ought 
 to be better informed than they. The fields of 
 science and of literature, of history, of music, and 
 of art ought to be familiar haunts to you. What 
 men have discovered, what men have done, or 
 thought, or felt, or dreamed, you ought to know — 
 at least in large degree. Of course, you do not 
 know everything. But a college education ought 
 to have given you the keys to enter any of these 
 halls of human learning; and entering, you ought 
 to have the power to appreciate the richness and 
 the beauty of the inheritance that is within. 
 
 In nature you ought to be able to think God's 
 thoughts after him; and in history, and literature, 
 and music, and art, you ought to be able to enter 
 into the thoughts, and feelings, and deeds of all 
 your fellows. Knowledge makes us kingly. "It 
 is the knowing ones that rule," says Carlyle. The 
 king is the man that kens. We have a right to 
 expect, young women, that having been through 
 college you know something. 
 
 But, beyond this, we also have a right to expect 
 that your college course has given you a stronger, 
 
 i55 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 a more virile faith. Knowledge makes you know 
 the past and present. But the future is just as 
 certain and secure as the present. God has 
 crowned us with glory and honor in setting our 
 faces forward and upward. We have capacity for 
 knowledge, which makes us not afraid of the past 
 or the present. But we also have a capacity for 
 faith, which makes us not afraid of the future. 
 By our knowledge we are masters of the present; 
 by our faith we have the greater victory of " things 
 to come." Knowledge gives us the key to things 
 seen and temporal; faith is the key to things un- 
 seen and eternal. The college has been false to 
 you if it has made you more ready to doubt than 
 to believe. But you have not so learned here. 
 
 Do not talk of the unknowable. There is no 
 such thing. "What I do thou knowest not now, 
 but thou shalt know hereafter." Do not talk of 
 the impossible. "All things are possible to him 
 who has faith." I hate the doctrine of agnos- 
 ticism. I pity the agnostic. Poor, blind mole. 
 Come up into the sunshine of faith. Even in your 
 greatest perplexity, cry out, "-I believe! I believe! 
 Lord, help my unbelief!" Believe that God's in 
 his heaven, and all's right with the world. Believe 
 in men and women, and the ultimate triumph of 
 the best in human nature and in society. Believe 
 
 156 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 in yourselves, and in your unquestioned ability to 
 work out in your own lives whatever vision he 
 shows you "in the mount." Wherever knowledge 
 gives you even a small arc, faith can complete the 
 circle. 
 
 Young women, prove that the Woman's Col- 
 lege has been true to you by adding to your knowl- 
 edge a living, unconquerable faith. Greet every 
 morning with an unfailing optimism. 
 
 And lastly, to what end or purpose has the 
 college developed in you this capacity for knowl- 
 edge and for faith? Not alone that you may know 
 and believe. Not for the sense of power and satis- 
 faction that comes because knowing the past and 
 present you can rule, and seeing the future you 
 can lead and guide. Not that it may set you, as 
 it does, in a noble aristocracy. "Not to be min- 
 istered unto, but to minister." 
 
 "Freely you have received." Your college 
 course has been possible because men and women 
 have freely given their wealth for you. These 
 college buildings, this equipment, these advantages 
 represent money, and love, and life, freely given 
 to you. You can never know the love, and devo- 
 tion, and service of parents and teachers to make 
 possible your present development of power in 
 knowledge and faith. Freely you have received: 
 
 157 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 now freely give. Here will be the glory of your 
 alma mater — in your devotion and consecration of 
 the powers she has helped you develop in a noble 
 service. 
 
 And permit me just a final word. Do not be 
 ambitious for what the world calls exalted service. 
 How our Lord exalts and glorifies what we call 
 mean service! "Inasmuch as ye did it unto the 
 least of one of these," he says. Young women, it 
 is the glory of womanhood to walk in the quiet 
 paths, to do obscure service, to minister to the 
 little and weak, to be unknown, and little noticed, 
 to decrease that others may increase. If he calls 
 you to some public service you will do it faithfully 
 and well; but he honors you more than he honors 
 us men by calling you more frequently to service 
 that is vastly more difficult because more humble 
 and obscure. With your consecrated college pow- 
 ers, let your prayer be — 
 
 "O Master let me walk with Thee 
 In lowly paths of service free." 
 
 Our college motto is, "Knowledge, Faith, Serv- 
 ice." Illustrate the motto by an intelligent, tri- 
 umphant, and unselfish life. 
 
 158 
 
I9ii 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 CENTENARY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, MAY 28, I9II, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. A. C. Piersol, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF FIRST METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, ILL. 
 
 Text — John 11. 28. "The Master is come, and 
 calleth for thee." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES IN COLLEGE CHAPEL 
 WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, I9II, 9.3O A. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. Charles M. Stuart, D.D. 
 
 EVANSTON, ILL. 
 EDITOR OF THE NORTHWESTERN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE 
 
Class of 1911 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Henson, Gladys, A. B., Villa Grove, Illinois. 
 
 Kennedy, Jessie, A. B., Waverly, Illinois. 
 
 Leavell, Gladys, A. B., 5557 University Avenue, Chicago, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Wagner, Ninah D., A. B. (Mrs. O. M. Sherman), 3419 Paseo, 
 
 Kansas City, Missouri. 
 West, Mildred Georgia, A. B., 810 Fulton Street, Keokuk, 
 
 Iowa. 
 
 Diplomas and Certificates 
 
 Breckon, Bess (Mrs. Robert Storey Crawford), University 
 
 Club, Madison, Wisconsin. 
 Brown, Mildred Jane, 305 North Prairie Street, Jacksonville, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Foucht, Edna Leona, Rutland, Illinois. 
 
 Gamble, Marjorie (Mrs. Harry Knudson), Greenfield, Illinois. 
 Hogan, Lila, McLeansboro, Illinois. 
 Jenkins, Anna L., Ottawa, Ohio. 
 Miller, Louise, Wathena, Kansas. 
 
 Mink, Rachel (Mrs. Kyle Dunham), New Salem, Illinois. 
 Moore, Clara Catherine, 856 West State Street, Jacksonville, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Parks, Hazel, LeRoy, Illinois. 
 Patterson, Ruth (Mrs. Fred Hopper), 607 South Prairie 
 
 Street, Jacksonville. 
 Reaugh, Nelle (Mrs. John W. Larson), 918 West College 
 
 Avenue, Jacksonville. 
 Ring, Margaret, 819 Goltra Avenue, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Robinson, Edith, 537 South Diamond Street, Jacksonville, 
 
 Illinois. 
 
 161 
 
Rowe, Millicent, 1152 West State Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Sheppard, Edna, 284 Sandusky Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Sieber, Geraldine, 1019 Grove Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Wainright, Katherine, Winchester, Illinois. 
 Walker, Harriet L., R. R. 1, Webb City, Missouri. 
 Waters, Mr* Irl. (In the army.) 
 Worcester, Irene, Roodhouse, Illinois. 
 
 162 
 
Tke College a Mount of Inspiration and 
 Privilege 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1911 : 
 
 You have been with us for several years in 
 training for womanhood. It has been our delight- 
 ful task to endeavor to show you the highest ideals, 
 and to inspire you to a personal acceptance of 
 them. We have been helping you to lay founda- 
 tions, and to make plans for the life structure 
 which you will raise on these foundations. For, 
 though you have finished your college education, 
 these exercises are properly called " commence- 
 ment," since it is the beginning of the years in 
 which you will, each one for herself, now without 
 the direct and personal instruction of others, build 
 your life structure of whatever strength, and 
 beauty, and symmetry may be possible for you. 
 
 We watch your going out with much interest, 
 and with some anxiety. Our hearts go with you, 
 and we follow you, as we have followed and are 
 following hundreds of others of our college chil- 
 dren, and pray that God may help you build a 
 life that will be noble and serviceable, and that 
 will stand in the day of supremest testing. 
 
 163 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 As you go, carry with you this last word from 
 your alma mater, your dear college mother, as 
 representing the deepest prayer of your president 
 and the faculty, "See that you make all things 
 according to the pattern shown to you in the 
 mount." These were the words spoken to Moses 
 on Mount Sinai, relative to the building of the 
 tabernacle in which should be the holy of holies 
 for the presence of God himself. And we want 
 you to adopt them as your own in the building of 
 your life character. 
 
 The college is a place of ideals. "Do not stop 
 here," we are always saying. "Lift up your eyes 
 to the hills." 
 
 "Set your whole heart to endeavor, 
 Fix your eyes on yon bright star." 
 
 As in "Pilgrim's Progress" the Evangelist said 
 to Christian, "Do you see yonder shining light 
 afar off?" And Christian said, "I think I do." 
 And Evangelist said, "Keep that light in your eye, 
 move steadily toward it, and you will come to the 
 Celestial City." So we in the college have taken 
 you to hilltops of advantage, and have shown you 
 ideals of excellence in knowing, and doing, and in 
 being; in learning, and character, and service, and 
 life; and have urged you forward to their attain- 
 ment. 
 
 164 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 We know very well that all college life is not 
 lived "in the mount." There is much plodding in 
 the valley, many days of darkness, much lowering 
 of ideals. Even your best and most helpful teacher 
 is not always inspiring. Perhaps, let us acknowl- 
 edge it, though with shame, there are some college 
 influences which drag downward. But, in these 
 final words, I want you to forget all these, and to 
 fix your attention on the college hours when you 
 heard voices calling you to more difficult achieve- 
 ment, and a nobler and better life, when you had 
 a vision of something more you could know, and 
 something more worthy you could do, and some- 
 thing better you could be — voices and a vision that 
 got hold of you for a while, and made you feel that 
 what you ought and could you would. 
 
 Recall some of the hours in the class-room with 
 a teacher whose heart was in her work, and who 
 showed you a possible attainment of which you 
 had never before been conscious; some of the best 
 hours with some of your choicest college friends, 
 both teachers and students, in which you had a 
 revelation of a higher womanliness possible to you ; 
 some of the hours of Christian fellowship in which 
 visions of a deeper Christian experience and of 
 Christian service seemed to beckon you; some of 
 the hours in the college chapel when you heard 
 
 165 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 Jesus call your name, and ask you personally if 
 you loved him, and bade you follow him, and you 
 called him Lord and Master; some of the quiet 
 hours, when you were on the mount with Jesus 
 alone, and he stirred a great longing in your hearts 
 to be and to do at least something worthy of him — 
 recall such hours and influences as these in your 
 college days as times when you were "in the 
 mount," and see that you make all things in your 
 after-college life according to the patterns shown 
 you in these hours of exaltation. 
 
 You will not fail to note that Moses could not 
 build the tabernacle while he stayed "in the 
 mount." We all have to come down into the valley 
 to do our work. We feel like Peter when we are 
 privileged to be on some mount of transfiguration, 
 that it is good for us to be there. But the greatest 
 thing in life is the ability to carry the glory and in- 
 spiration of the mount down into the valleys; to 
 make our common life resplendent, and to meet the 
 needs of the great multitudes who are there waiting 
 our sympathy and our help. You go out from 
 college to common daily tasks and the continual 
 round of the ordinary daily life. 
 
 Phillips Brooks says that we find this the 
 hardest work all our lives — to keep our highest 
 ideals and our commonest occupations in constant 
 
 166 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 and healthy contact with each other. Prove that 
 your college life has been worth while, and that 
 the degrees and diplomas you will presently receive 
 have been rightly bestowed, by showing that you 
 can work out every task of daily life according to 
 the pattern shown you in the mount of your col- 
 lege privilege. 
 
 I am pleading that you forget the things in 
 your college life that were unworthy and low and 
 disappointing, and that you fix and recall as often 
 as possible "whatsoever things were true, whatso- 
 ever things were honest, whatsoever things were 
 just, whatsoever things were pure, whatsoever 
 things were lovely, and whatsoever things were of 
 good report." Think over again frequently the 
 college experiences of virtue and praise, and see 
 that you make all things according to the pattern 
 shown you in the mount. 
 
 "And may the peace of God which passeth all 
 understanding, keep your hearts and minds in 
 Christ Jesus!" Amen! 
 
 167 
 
1912 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 GRACE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 1912, 7.3O P. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. John W. Miller, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF GRACE CHURCH 
 Subject — "Living for Things that Count." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES IN COLLEGE CHAPEL 
 
 Address by Bishop Wm. A. Quayle, D.D. 
 
 ST. PAUL 
 BISHOP OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
Class of 1912 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Asplund, Esther Marie, A. B. (Mrs. Frank Rucker), 819 
 
 North Liberty Street, Independence, Missouri. 
 Gates, Catherine Louise, A. B., 1036 West Lafayette Avenue, 
 
 Jacksonville. 
 Heflin, May, A. B., Wenona, Illinois. 
 Mclntyre, Belle, A. B. (Mrs. Irwin A. Madden), 307 Vernon 
 
 Avenue, Normal, Illinois. 
 Rearick, Annette Peam, A. B. (Mrs. Harry Joseph Lohman), 
 
 Ashland, Illinois. 
 Rose, Ethel Marion, A. B., Virginia, Illinois. 
 
 Diplomas and Certificates 
 
 Allison, Edna, Mt. Sterling, Illinois. 
 
 Allison, Jennie Mayme, 600 West Jordan Street, Jacksonville, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Allison, Sarah Lucille, 600 West Jordan Street, Jacksonville, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Curdie, Rhea Marguerite, 401 Alby Street, Alton, Illinois. 
 
 English, Frances, 717 College Street, Jacksonville. 
 
 Fox, Sue Myrtle (Mrs. LeRoy Potter), 307 W 7 oodland Place, 
 Jacksonville. 
 
 Garland, Clarissa H. (Mrs. C. E. Hudgens), 414 East State 
 Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Hopper, Lena Mae, 301 North Diamond, Jacksonville, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 Newcomb, Sidney Rose (Mrs. Hampton J. Bloom), Gilman, 
 Montana. 
 
 Newman, Ella Marguerite, 809 East State Street, Jackson- 
 ville. 
 
 Richter, Elsa Freda, 113 East Main Street, Trinidad, Colo- 
 rado. 
 
 171 
 
Schlosser, Pearl, Mayville, North Dakota. 
 
 Severns, Mary Anderson (Mrs. Lynn Stanforth), 405 West 
 
 Fourth Street, Ironton, Missouri. 
 Shuff, Stella Mae (Mrs. James Mahon), R. R., Jacksonville, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Stimpson, Ruth M. (Mrs. Earnest Yingling), Eldorado, 
 
 Kansas. 
 Taylor, Jeanette McCluee (Mrs. Chester A. Hemphill), 1040 
 
 West College Avenue, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Vickery, Beryl, Dwight, Illinois. 
 Walker, Myrtle S., R. F. D. 1, Webb City, Missouri. 
 Watson, Mary Clifford (Mrs. Roy Lawrence Scott), Sauk 
 
 Center, Minnesota. 
 Widenham, Ruth M., 6751 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, 
 
 California. 
 
 I/- 
 
God's Greatest Workmen Seldom Com- 
 plete Their Tasks 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1912: 
 
 You are experiencing now a kind of enjoyment 
 that comes to comparatively few in life. You 
 have completed your college course, and have 
 finished the task set before you; and there now 
 comes to you the joy of achievement, the "well 
 done" of your teachers, and the honorable recog- 
 nition which the world delights to give to all who 
 have succeeded. We welcome you into the ranks 
 of Woman's College Alumnae, a most honorable 
 band, now numbering more than a thousand; and 
 we give you credentials which will admit you to 
 all the rights and privileges of those advanced to 
 the same rank here and everywhere. We congratu- 
 late you, and rejoice with you. 
 
 But as you thus stand on the threshold of the 
 college, to go out into the more general and larger 
 life of the world, let me remind you that what is 
 happening here now is not the rule of life, but 
 rather its exception. The rule of life is not the 
 course completed, not the task finished, not the 
 journey ended. There is a glory in the completed 
 
 173 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 course; but, rightly seen, there is a greater glory 
 still reserved in some course which God marks out 
 for us — so comprehensive that its completion 
 reaches away beyond our years, however prolonged, 
 into the unseen vista of eternity. 
 
 This must be so or life would hardly be worth 
 living. Our time is so short here, our strength so 
 small, that any tasks we can complete, must be 
 little tasks; any ideal we can here attain must be 
 a comparatively low ideal; any course we can 
 wholly master must be very limited indeed. And 
 God, who orders our lives, and all lives, has greater 
 tasks whose completion requires the co-operation 
 of thousands of his noblest. He sets us at our part, 
 and we labor on, and fall at our post, the task still 
 uncompleted. Other workmen take up our tools, 
 but God's great work goes on to its accomplish- 
 ment. 
 
 The greater truth is: that God's greatest work- 
 men seldom complete their work; God's greatest 
 heroes seldom see the victory in their wars. Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob never found the city which 
 they sought; Moses never entered Canaan; Joshua 
 did not conquer the Canaanitish tribes. In the 
 eleventh chapter of Hebrews, where the roll of 
 honor of Old Testament heroes is called, the record 
 is that every one died in faith, not having received 
 
 i74 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 the promise. Not one of them seemed to finish 
 his task, or to receive his reward; but labored and 
 strove to the very end, and then laid down his 
 work unfinished, in disappointment and apparent 
 defeat, for some one else to take up and complete. 
 
 And the same is true for all God's New Testa- 
 ment heroes, even up to the nineteenth and twenti- 
 eth centuries. The men and women who built 
 this Woman's College had the vision; theirs was 
 the duty, and the toil, and the sacrifice; but they, 
 too, died, not having realized the promise. God 
 gives to a father and a mother the ideal of the 
 family, and they begin their home in the joy and 
 enthusiasm of youth and love; but the years go by, 
 and at the end, with broken hearts, they bend in 
 tears over the graves of all their hopes. He calls 
 his heroes into the battle for righteousness in city, 
 and state, and nation; and they enter into it 
 bravely, and fight a good fight manfully, but they 
 die fighting, and do not receive here a victor's 
 crown. They, too, die in faith, not having realized 
 the promises. 
 
 Let us not think, then, that the laurel wreath, 
 or the victor's crown, or the applause of friends, 
 are the signs of life's successes. God's greatest 
 tasks are the unfinished tasks; his greatest heroes 
 are the uncrowned heroes. Let us not be elated 
 
 i75 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 if he calls us to short courses that are easily com- 
 pleted; or to little tasks that are over and done in 
 a few brief years. Let us rather rejoice if he calls 
 us to be laborers together with him in some plan 
 which reaches beyond both our vision and our 
 years. Let us be glad now if we may be done with 
 things about which we clap our hands to-morrow 
 that they are completed. But let us rather ask 
 him to try us with something worth while in life 
 and character for the generations that are to 
 follow us — something that will keep us ever grow- 
 ing to keep up with its growth, and something that 
 will reach over into all the coming years. 
 
 Let us pray that we may be counted worthy to 
 dig wells out of which we may not drink, and to 
 plant orchards of whose fruit we may not eat. 
 O that we might rise to the sublime height of the 
 Psalmist when he prays that God's work may 
 appear unto him, and that the glory of the work 
 may be reserved for his children ! 
 
 Young women, my heart's desire for you and 
 for myself to-night is that, with such a vision of 
 life's work before us, we may take up its daily 
 round of duty, and labor on in patience to the end, 
 with courage unabated, with zeal undiminished, 
 having our joy in the work itself, not thinking 
 overmuch about life's baccalaureates. 
 
 176 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 Happy will it be for us if we are counted worthy 
 to labor and to wait; happy even, if need be, to 
 die in faith, not having realized the promises; and 
 perfectly content to wait for our reward until we 
 see him face to face; provided only that we are 
 faithful to his daily grace, and diligently active in 
 fulfilling every duty which he assigns. 
 
 177 
 
1913 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 GRACE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, JUNE I, I913, 10. 45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. Robert Mclntyre, D.D. 
 
 OF OKLAHOMA 
 BISHOP OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
 Text — Luke 22. 36. "He that hath no sword, 
 let him sell his garment and buy one." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES IN COLLEGE CHAPEL 
 WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, I913, 9.3O A. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. Thomas Nicholson, D.D. 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE METHODIST 
 EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NEW YORK 
 
Class of 1913 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Allan, Emily Jane, A. B. (Mrs. Wm. A. Fay), 930 West 
 North Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Berryman, Golden Ethel, A. B. (Mrs. Ralph 0. von Thurn), 
 California Courts, Apt. F, 143 Tenth Street, Tulsa, 
 Oklahoma. 
 
 Campbell, Jessie, B. S. (Mrs. Edw. Wilson Davis), 707 Ave- 
 nue 8, S. E., Minneapolis, Minnesota. 
 
 Coultas, Lois, A. B., Winchester, Illinois. 
 
 Dunbar, Elizabeth E., A. B. (Mrs. Regford DeThompkins), 
 Griggsville, Illinois. 
 
 Marshall, Anne, A. B., Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. 
 
 Moore, Helen, A. B. (Mrs. Harry T. Scherer), Apt. 323 East 
 Twenty-second Street, Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 Tendick, Elizabeth, A. B., Canton, Illinois. 
 
 Diplomas and Certificates 
 
 Balcke, Ella (Mrs. R. W. Imel), 130 Chauncey Avenue, West 
 Lafayette, Indiana. 
 
 Brucker, Faye, Monticello, Indiana. 
 
 Dahman, Edith, 271 Sandusky Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Dickie, Mary Louise (Mrs. J. C. Moore), Clearwater, Florida. 
 
 Freeman, Frances (Mrs. DeWitt T. Hartwell), Marion, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 Geitz, Bessie H., 3203 a. St. Louis Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri. 
 
 Gernhart, Lucile Marie, 6030 Greenwood Avenue, Chicago, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Heist, Anne, Fayette, Missouri. 
 
 Ingalls, Helen (Mrs. H. M. Buland), 1301 Twenty-third 
 Street, Parkersburg, West Virginia. 
 
 Irle, Ruth (Mrs. Sylverns T. Sager), Chatfield, Minnesota. 
 
 181 
 
Kelly, Clara, 20 South Pacific Street, Cape Girardeau, Mis- 
 souri. 
 
 McLaird, Goldie, Chatfield, Minnesota. 
 
 Powell, Jeanette, Hockenhull Building, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Rogerson, Agnes, 327 Lockwood Place, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Ross, Josephine, 226 Pine Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Stoltz, Mabel (Mrs. Bernard C. Mooney), 1820 Maple Ave- 
 nue, Bakersfield, California. 
 
 Taggart, Florence, 209 Bronson Street, South Bend, Indiana. 
 
 Taylor, Ruth, 1040 West College Avenue, Jacksonville, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 Tomlin, Vera, R. R. 6, Mechanicsburg, Illinois. 
 
 Vail, Ruth, Passavant Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 
 
 182 
 
Educated Women — Educated, But Still and 
 Always Women 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1913: 
 
 The college tasks are all over and done, and I 
 
 come at the close for a few words, not by any means 
 
 new, but by way of reminder. 
 
 We are about to give you baccalaureate honors 
 
 — the seal, the stamp of educated womanhood. 
 
 We have been testing you — assaying you, so to 
 
 speak; and, having found that you are genuine 
 
 metal, we are now stamping you and issuing you 
 
 as current coin of the college commonwealth. 
 
 First of all, let me remind you that the college 
 
 degree is not the most important thing. It is 
 
 merely an outward and visible sign of an inward 
 
 intellectual and spiritual grace. You cannot make 
 
 a gold eagle out of a piece of lead simply by gilding 
 
 it and passing it through the mint. It remains 
 
 true for all time, to quote and adapt Burns' famous 
 
 lines: 
 
 "The degree is but the college stamp — 
 The Woman's the gowd for a' that." 
 
 College honors will gradually wear off. O young 
 women, be always, and everywhere, and in every - 
 
 r*3 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 thing true, genuine, pure; and, being true, you will 
 then ring true in all the tests that life may bring. 
 
 And secondly, let me remind you that you are 
 educated women — educated, trained to see, to 
 know, to hear, to understand, to think, to plan, to 
 execute — educated, but still and always women. 
 Your college education has been misguided if it 
 has not made you more ready, more willing, better 
 able for every womanly duty; more anxious and 
 more capable for every womanly relation, more 
 nearly approaching in all its noblest elements the 
 ideal of a perfect womanhood. 
 
 And without controversy, for there is altogether 
 too much controversy these days, let us keep to 
 the old and sure foundations, and never forget 
 what some of these noblest elements are. It is the 
 great honor of a woman to be pure, and sweet, and 
 beautiful, and strangely and strongly gentle and 
 patient. And wherever else a woman may go (and 
 they are surely foolish who would close any gate- 
 way to her when she wills to enter), wherever else 
 she may go or be, we know we can always find her 
 at the center and source of all human interest and 
 good — the family home; and in those other centers 
 which are merely enlarged and extended homes — 
 the church, the school, and the social community. 
 
 These centers of all the most potent factors in 
 184 
 
BA( '\ LAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 the world's redemption and uplift are unthinkable 
 without woman; and perfect womanhood is equally 
 unthinkable outside of, or apart from, these centers. 
 The old question, "What is home without a 
 mother?" is equally pathetic in its converse, 
 "What is a mother without a home? " Let the men 
 do their own work. Do not seek to enter into com- 
 petition with them along their own lines. There 
 is enough for all to do. Let the men make the 
 living. You can do that if you need to, but yours 
 is the greater honor and the greater service. It 
 is yours to make all life greatly worth while. 
 
 It is yours to make the home a holy and happy 
 place, the birthplace of noble life; it is yours to 
 have charge of the training of the children in the 
 homes and in the schools, inspiring them to highest 
 ideals, and insuring a strong and pure manhood 
 and womanhood in the coming generations; it is 
 yours to make the church home the center of all 
 that is most beautiful and elevating in the spiritual 
 life, both of the individual and the community; 
 and it is yours in every social community to put 
 away the evil and the sin and the ugliness, and to 
 make that "city beautiful," for which we have all 
 been so long praying. 
 
 Carry, then, your educated ability, your ed- 
 ucated purity, your educated sweetness, your ed- 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 ucated beauty, and gentleness, and patience — in 
 short, your educated womanliness — carry this into 
 every home, and church, and school, and com- 
 munity; making the dark places bright, and the 
 sad homes happy, and foul places clean; filling the 
 world with healthy children, and making their 
 childhood happy; teaching men to be patient and 
 to love, and sustaining them in their tasks; making 
 all of life worth while — O young women, what a 
 noble and holy privilege is educated, consecrated 
 womanhood ! 
 
 Bear a lily in thy hand — 
 Gates of brass cannot withstand 
 One touch of that magic wand. 
 
 Bear through sorrow, wrong, and truth. 
 In thy heart the dew of youth, 
 On thy lips the smile of truth. 
 
 O that dew, like balm, shall steal 
 Into wounds that cannot heal, 
 Even as sleep our eyes doth seal; 
 
 And that smile, like sunshine, dart 
 Into many a sunless heart; 
 For a smile of God thou art. 
 
 186 
 
1914 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 CENTENARY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, MAY 31, I914, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. James C. Baker, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF TRINITY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
 URBANA, ILL. 
 
 Text — 1 Corinthians 3. 21. "For all things are 
 yours." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES IN COLLEGE CHAPEL 
 TUESDAY, JUNE 2, I914, 9.3O A. M. 
 
 Address by Dr. Nathaniel C. Butler 
 
 OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
 
Class of 1914 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Clem, Hallie, A. B. (Mrs. Carlton E. Fortney), Du Quoin, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Elliott, Erma Lytle, A. B. (Mrs. L. E. Johnston), Grace 
 Simpson Apt., Chillicothe, Missouri. 
 
 Irwin, Letta, A. B., Tuscola, Illinois. 
 
 Peavoy, Abigail S., A. B. (Mrs. Bion James Reynolds), Red 
 Falls, Minnesota. 
 
 Geneva Upp, A. B., Nashwauk, Minnesota. Summer: Jack- 
 sonville, Illinois. 
 
 Kelly, Clara, B. S., 20 South Pacific Street, Cape Girardeau, 
 Missouri. 
 
 Watson, Mary Clifford, B. S. (Mrs. Roy Lawrence Scott), 
 Sauk Center, Minnesota. 
 
 Diplomas and Certificates 
 
 Colton, Edith (Mrs. William Schofield), Murrayville, Illi- 
 nois, R. R. 1. 
 
 Fenton, Freda Madeline, Mt. Vernon, Missouri. 
 
 Gillfillan, Louise, Watseka, Illinois. 
 
 Haller, Florence A., Michigan City, Indiana. 
 
 Hamilton, Hazel, Beardstown, Illinois. 
 
 Harrison, Helen R., Carthage, Missouri. 
 
 Hartsuck, Fern, Albia, Iowa. 
 
 Heit, Edith, Fort Wayne, Indiana. 
 
 Hopper, Lena, 301 North Diamond Street, Jacksonville, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Hughes, Alice Louise, Jewell, Kansas. 
 
 Husted, Abbie (Mrs. Ralph Wayne Bear), Monticello, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 Jones, Helen A., Marionville College, Marionville, Missouri. 
 
 189 
 
Mathis, Alice, 121 Diamond Court, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Obermeyer, Dorothy Dean, 214 North Church Street, Jack- 
 sonville, Illinois. 
 
 Olinger, Lucile, Franklin, Illinois. 
 
 Phillips, Alice, 351 South Diamond Street, Jacksonville, Illi- 
 nois. 
 
 Schirz, Barbara, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Seaman, Mildred (Mrs. Edward James Wiley), 319 Weirick 
 Apts., Sioux City, Iowa. 
 
 Shastid, Mary, Pittsfield, Illinois. 
 
 Slaten, Nina, 1520 South Sixth Street, Springfield, Illinois. 
 
 Wells, Annis, Paw Paw, Illinois. 
 
 Williams, Elizabeth, Marion, Indiana. 
 
 190 
 
The Most Helpful College Memories 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1914: 
 
 For many years college has had a large place 
 in your lives. First, there were college anticipa- 
 tions, more or less doubtful and indefinite. These 
 anticipations developed into actual college experi- 
 ences, and now those experiences will pass into 
 memories. The experiences have doubtless been 
 different in many ways from the anticipations; but 
 the memories will in the long run quite faithfully 
 reproduce the actual college life. May the mem- 
 ories of these college days prove for all of you an 
 increasing benediction and delight! 
 
 Many things in college are temporary, transient, 
 of passing importance merely, but frequently these 
 temporary things attract most attention. Some 
 things in your college experiences are fundamental 
 and abiding, and sometimes these are so quiet that 
 they are little realized at the time. There are col- 
 lege women who confess, with regret, that only 
 after many years have they come to appreciate the 
 really essential and most helpful influences of the 
 college life. 
 
 I have the privilege of speaking the last per- 
 191 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 sonal message that the college will give you, and I 
 wish I could in a few brief words set in clear out- 
 line the most important factors of your college 
 experiences. What is the best and most lasting 
 benefit that your college days have brought? 
 
 For sixty-eight years the college has been re- 
 ceiving and investing for you. Through two gen- 
 erations many friends have brought their gifts 
 here, and have generously consecrated them for 
 your advantage. College buildings, the best that 
 they could put up; equipment, the best that they 
 could get; courses of study, planned to the best of 
 their ability to meet your needs; teachers with the 
 best experience and preparation that the college 
 could command ; laboratories and library, books and 
 apparatus, literature and science, music and art — 
 all these, accumulated for many years, have been 
 at your service, making your college days rich in 
 opportunity for development into a better and 
 more capable womanhood. 
 
 In your memories of college days, these things 
 will occupy a large place. The class-rooms, the 
 recitations, the laboratories, the experiments and 
 lectures, the library, the chapel, the society halls — 
 these were daily experiences, with their exacting 
 demands for time and attention, and their constant 
 insistence on high standards and faithful work. 
 
 192 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 Your presence here this morning proves that you 
 have been faithful to these demands, and have 
 met these standards in a satisfactory way. 
 
 But these are not the real college, after all, nor 
 will these remain as your most permanent college 
 memories. These are only the material body of 
 the college, the tools and instruments with which 
 its work is done. In these, and behind and beyond 
 these, there has been, there must be, life and per- 
 sonality, to animate and vivify your college ex- 
 periences, and make them really worth while. If 
 the Woman's College has permanently helped you, 
 it will be because here your life has been touched 
 by other life, stronger, and richer, and purer, and 
 better than your own; and by this actual personal 
 contact, inspiration, and purpose, and strength 
 have come to you. Only personality can affect 
 personality. 
 
 We must have college buildings, and better 
 equipped laboratories, and a larger library, and 
 teachers who are thoroughly furnished for the 
 most helpful instruction, and we are praying and 
 watching for friends to make all this an early 
 realization : but we do not forget that all these can 
 never make a real Woman's College. All this 
 equipment may make scholars, but we are making 
 women first — women who are also scholars; and 
 
 i93 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 our greatest concern for you in all your college 
 years has been that you should here find not only 
 equipment, but a human personality, and an en- 
 vironment of character that would make your life 
 grow into its highest possibilities. 
 
 Through all its years this has been the glory 
 of the college. The young women who have come 
 here have found personal inspiration and helpful 
 lives. They have had the privilege of personal 
 contact with men and women whose lives have 
 been devoted, true, and pure; and by this contact 
 their lives have been permanently enriched and 
 ennobled. 
 
 Our most conscious concern for you through 
 all your college days has been this very thing. We 
 hope that your most permanent benefit and your 
 most lasting college memory will be that here you 
 saw a vision of a larger, purer, nobler life, and that 
 here you received inspiration and strength to 
 make this vision real. For your sakes we have 
 sanctified ourselves that you might also be sancti- 
 fied for others. 
 
 But my greatest satisfaction this morning, as 
 I think of what will be your most helpful and 
 blessed college memory, is this: I know that here 
 at the Woman's College you have come to know 
 Him who is the greatest Personality in the world. 
 
 194 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 This has been his college through all the years, 
 and we have been only his representatives. From 
 the first day you came you have been pointed to 
 him. You have heard and seen how every day we 
 have recognized him as "Lord and Master of us 
 all." You have known our unvarying testimony 
 that whatever there has been in any of us that has 
 been "true, and honest, and just, and pure" has 
 been not of ourselves, but his life reflected in us. 
 
 The greatest day in our life, as in that of Paul, 
 and of every other man or woman whose life has 
 been worth while, was when Jesus Christ "took 
 hold of us." And I have watched with keenest 
 joy the evidence that he has also taken hold of 
 you while you have been students here. He has 
 already begun a good work in you of developing a 
 nobler, purer womanhood; and of making you 
 anxious to serve, wherever and however he may 
 show you. Our influence and personality, as it 
 affects you, must now grow less as the years go by. 
 But he goes with you, and his life will increase in 
 you. 
 
 Let him keep hold of you through all the com- 
 ing years; and then we shall be certain that your 
 memories of college days will grow sweeter and 
 sweeter, and we shall always thank God that he 
 brought us together in these dear old college halls. 
 
 i95 
 
1915 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 GRACE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, MAY 30, I915, 10. 45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. Thomas Ewing, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF FIRST METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SPRINGFIELD, ILL. 
 
 Text — 1 Corinthians 3. 11. "For other foun- 
 dation can no man lay than that is laid, 
 which is Jesus Christ." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES IN COLLEGE CHAPEL 
 TUESDAY, JUNE I, 1915, 9.3O A. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. C. B. Spencer, D.D. 
 
 EDITOR OF CENTRAL CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, KANSAS CITY, MO. 
 
Class of 1 9 15 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Berryman, Audrey G., A. B., R. R. 5, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Crum, Irene Dorothy, A. B., High School, Ogden, Utah. 
 Dinsmore, Helen Priscilla, A. B., 303 West College Avenue, 
 
 Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Harries, Emily Louise, A. B., 1308 Richmond Avenue, 
 
 Mattoon, Illinois. 
 Hess, Feril, A. B., High School, Ogden, Utah. 
 Munson, Helena, A. B., Rushville, Illinois. 
 Powell, Mary Louise, A. B., 281 North Sandusky Street, 
 
 Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Reinbach, Lucille, A. B., Wyanett, Illinois. 
 Burmeister, Winifred, B. S., Redwood Falls, Minnesota. 
 Ross, Josephine, B. S., 226 North Pine, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Theobald, Effie M., B. S., 214 Bissell Street, Jacksonville, 
 
 Illinois. 
 
 Diplomas and Certificates 
 
 Berryman, I ma Carmen (Mrs. David O. Kime), Newman, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Birch, Margaret Alice, Griggsville, Illinois. 
 Brown, Marjorie, Kewanee, Illinois. 
 Cannon, Iva Mae, Greenville, Illinois. 
 Cox, Wylma Percy, DeWitt, Iowa. 
 Godlove, Dulcie Farron, Idaville, Indiana. 
 Harper, Ruth, Delphi, Indiana. 
 
 Heller, Grace (Mrs. V. S. Mullen), Columbia City, Indiana. 
 Hughes, Corinne, Waverly, Illinois. 
 Mills, Celesta Irene, North Vernon, Indiana. 
 Moss, Margaret, Centerville, Iowa. 
 Newlin, Marion, Robinson, Illinois. 
 
 199 
 
Robison, Winifred Eleanor (Mrs. Robert Strawn), Timewell, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Royse, Lucy Ellen, 1336 Lafayette Avenue, Jacksonville, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Schroll, Mrs. Catherine C, 31 15 Chippewa Avenue, St. 
 
 Louis, Missouri. 
 Slaughter, Elizabeth J., 221 East College Street, Jacksonville, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Stevens, Dorothy Abigail, Rock Island, Illinois. 
 
Faithful Stewards of the Manifold Grace of 
 
 God 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1915: 
 
 For twenty-two years I have called the grad- 
 uating class of the college in this way, and have 
 tried in few words to express to them some vital 
 truth which they might remember as a parting, 
 personal, college message. 
 
 Your college days have been happy days, but 
 it should not be true that they will be your happiest. 
 The coming days, filled as they ought to be with 
 life's responsibilities, should be also increasingly 
 happy; and not the least factor in that happiness 
 will be the memory of these college days with their 
 splendid opportunities and their wealth of helpful 
 friendships and associations. 
 
 Let me begin my final word by again reminding 
 you how much has been given to you. Good 
 measure, pressed down, heaped up, and running 
 over, has been your share. You are great debtors. 
 
 A country, the freest, the noblest, the worthiest 
 that the sun shines upon, is yours; its institutions, 
 founded at the cost of life and devotion impossible 
 to measure, are yours. Yours has been and still 
 
 201 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 is the love and sacrifice of father and mother, who 
 have lived for you through all the years. Your 
 home communities have contributed freely and gen- 
 erously for your earlier education. The founders 
 of the college planned and labored and sacrificed 
 for you that still greater opportunities might be 
 yours than those afforded by the public schools. 
 
 Only a comparatively few young women have 
 the advantages of sixteen years of school and 
 college instruction and training which you have 
 had. Teachers and school officers in all these 
 years have given themselves to you in faithful 
 service. All the permanent treasures of the past 
 are yours. You have youth and strength and 
 hope and friends. You have God-given abilities 
 and trained minds. You have not bought these 
 things; they cannot be bought; not gotten with 
 gold — they have been given to you. They repre- 
 sent "the manifold grace of God." "Freely ye 
 have received." 
 
 In view of all this, at the end of your college 
 course, what do we hope for you, and what do we 
 expect of you? 
 
 One thing above all others — that you will be 
 faithful stewards of the manifold gifts which God 
 has so bountifully bestowed on you. The grace I 
 am .urging upon you is faithfulness. Paul says: 
 
 202 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 "It is required in a steward that a man be found 
 faithful." Be faithful to the love of parents which 
 has followed you with such solicitude all these 
 days. Be faithful to the interest and devotion of 
 teachers who have given themselves in patience 
 for your development. Be faithful to the college 
 which has watched over you through these years, 
 guiding you out of girlhood into womanhood, mak- 
 ing you strong for life's service, and inspiring and 
 encouraging to the loftiest ideals of womanliness. 
 Be faithful to the institutions and ideals of your 
 country. Be faithful to the manifold grace of God. 
 I have said that I hope you will be happy in the 
 coming days, happier even than you have yet been. 
 But this is not at all certain, nor is it indispensable. 
 
 "Not enjoyment and not sorrow, 
 Is our destined end or way." 
 
 It pleased God to make even the Captain of 
 our salvation perfect through suffering, and you 
 may be called to travel a rough and thorny road. 
 Your skies may be clouded, your experiences may 
 be sad and disappointing. That is not yours to 
 determine. Yours is only to be faithful, to be 
 loyal, to be true. 
 
 As we say good-by to you as you leave the 
 college halls, we all hope your lives will be suc- 
 
 203 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 cessful. You have lofty ideals and noble purposes 
 and high hopes and plans for the coming days. 
 We sincerely hope these plans will reach a suc- 
 cessful realization. But even this is not all yours 
 to say, nor is it finally necessary or indispensable. 
 The heroes of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews 
 were none of them wholly successful. They died 
 before realizing their ideals and ambitions. It is 
 not necessary that you succeed, but it is necessary 
 that you should be faithful. 
 
 "Be thou faithful unto death," and then, 
 whether your life has been happy or sad, a success 
 or a failure, whether you have served in the front 
 rank, or in some obscure corner, or whether indeed 
 you have had "only to stand and wait" — "be thou 
 faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown 
 of life." 
 
 It will not matter so much in the final account- 
 ing whether you have gained ten pounds, or five 
 pounds, or one pound, if only your Lord can say, 
 "Well done, good servant, thou has been faithful." 
 It is faithfulness, not happiness; faithfulness, not 
 success; faithfulness, not even in some great thing, 
 but faithfulness to whatever grace is given you, 
 that will open the door for you into the joy of 
 your Lord. 
 
 You will recall that often, as we have sung for 
 204 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 our evening prayer that beautiful hymn, "Just 
 for to-day," I have specially called your attention 
 to the last line of the second stanza: 
 
 "Let me be faithful to thy grace 
 Just for today." 
 
 Faithful stewards of the manifold grace of God. 
 
 Young women, this is a great hope I have, but 
 it is also a great confidence. You will not disap- 
 point us. To the faithfulness of parents and homes, 
 of the church and of the state, of your friends and 
 of your teachers, to all that has been done for you 
 and given to you, your young hearts will respond 
 nobly in a fit loyalty. To this Jesus himself calls 
 you, and he also promises power to all who follow 
 him. "Faithful is he who calleth you, and he 
 also will bring it to pass." 
 
 "O that each from your Lord may receive the glad word, 
 
 Well and faithfully done, 
 Enter into my joy, and sit down on my throne!" 
 
 205 
 
K)i6 
 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 ( ENTENARY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
 SUNDAY, JUNE 4, I916, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. Jesse S. Dancey, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR OF THE FIRST METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
 AT ENGLEWOOD, CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
 Text — Luke 16. 19, 20. "The rich man and 
 Lazarus." Subject — "The Social Rela- 
 tions of Christianity." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES IN COLLEGE CHAPEL 
 WEDNESDAY, JUNE J, I916, 9.3O A. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. Wilson S. Lewis, D.D. 
 
 OF CHINA 
 
 BISHOP OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
Class of 1 9 1 6 
 
 (With i 9 i 8 addresses) 
 
 Allison, Jennie Mayme, B. S., 6oo Jordan Street, Jackson- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 
 Baldridge, Mary, A. B., 502 North Pearl Street, Joplin, Mis- 
 souri. 
 
 Bigger, May, A. B. (Mrs. J. Frank Beasley), Walnut Ridge, 
 Arkansas. 
 
 Blackburn, May Lucile, A. B., 637 East Peru Street, Prince- 
 ton, Illinois. 
 
 Coultas, Margaret Frost, A. B., Winchester, Illinois. 
 
 Glaspie, Ethel, A. B., Oxford, Indiana. 
 
 Goldsmith, Margaret Lola, A. B., 723 Nineteenth Street, 
 N. W., Washington, D. C. 
 
 Harmel, Alma T., A. B., Pekin, Illinois. 
 
 Hughes, Corinne Sharp, A. B., Waverly, Illinois. 
 
 Kinnear, Hazel Belle, B. S., Rushville, Illinois. 
 
 McGhee, Helen, A. B., Murrayville, Illinois. 
 
 Main, Edna Ruth, A. B., Albion, Nebraska. 
 
 Merrill, Irene, A. B., West College Avenue, Jacksonville, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Patton, Ruth, A. B., Clarence, Illinois. 
 
 Ranson, Rose Estelle, Mound Avenue, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Rexroat, Lucille, A. B., Virginia, Illinois. 
 
 Robb, Edna Mae, A. B., Hopkins, Missouri. 
 
 Stoltz, Mabel, B. S. (Mrs. Bernard C. Mooney), 1820 Maple 
 Avenue, Bakersfield, California. 
 
 Taylor, Ruth Pallett, B. S., 1040 West College Avenue, Jack- 
 sonville, Illinois. 
 
 Want, Ruth, A. B. (Mrs. Charles Leslie Stewart), 1002 South 
 Busey Street, Urbana, Illinois. 
 
 Wendel, Ola Rachel, A. B., Newman, Illinois. 
 
 209 
 
Diplomas and Certificates 
 
 Applebee, Ruth Mildred, 505 West State Street, Jacksonville, 
 
 Illinois. 
 Herrman, Pauline, Tell City, Indiana. 
 Jefferson, Mary Amelia, Winchester, Illinois. 
 Kimbel, Ermel E. (Mrs. Floyd J. Heckel), 134 Prospect 
 
 Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Larson, Mabel, 706 South Washington Street, Paxton, Illinois. 
 Lux, Ola, Wolcott, Indiana. 
 May, Sarah Anne, Stevensville, Indiana. 
 Ost, Helen M., Hoopeston, Illinois. 
 Parrott, Feme, Winamac, Indiana. 
 Patterson, Irma L., Fowler, Indiana. 
 
 Pires, Margaret, 569 Sandusky Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Sawyer, Edith F. (Mrs. Edward Gray), Benton, Illinois. 
 Shouse, Alma Coots, Weston, Missouri. 
 Stice, Kathleen, Berlin, Illinois. 
 Violett, Mary, Beardstown, Illinois. 
 
 210 
 
Scholarship, Efficiency, Service 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1916: 
 
 I prize very highly the privilege of saying the 
 last words to you in your college course, and yet 
 I believe that each year brings to me a deeper 
 sense of the responsibility which this privilege in- 
 volves. The last words are likely to be the words 
 most frequently and longest remembered: They 
 should therefore be most carefully chosen, and 
 should express our deepest convictions and our 
 highest aspirations. 
 
 In the choice of what I shall say to you this 
 morning, I have asked myself this question: If 
 these young women should ask you to tell them in 
 a few brief sentences your chief concern for them, 
 and your highest hopes for their life and conduct 
 in the days to come, what would you say? 
 
 I would admit that deep in my heart I some- 
 times fear that, in the stress of college life, in the 
 many courses of study, the urgency of high scholar- 
 ship, the increasing organizations, the exacting 
 demands of multiplying duties, we may seem to 
 put the main emphasis on things that are not, 
 after all, of the supremest importance. We mag- 
 
 211 
 
, BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 nify scholarship. We insist, and rightly, too, on 
 knowing that your elementary education, and your 
 work in the grades has been faithfully done. We 
 examine with care the work of your high school or 
 academy course, and demand evidence of four 
 years of faithful work, showing unquestioned 
 ability. All this in order to be even admitted to 
 college. And then for four years more, we magnify 
 scholarship, intellectual ability, urging you for- 
 ward, beckoning you higher, and seeking in every 
 way to enable you to enter with appreciation and 
 enjoyment into every department of human in- 
 terest. We honor high scholarship, and we magnify 
 and exalt high intellectual attainments. 
 
 And yet, speaking to you my sincerest word at 
 the end of your college course, I must tell you that 
 the attainment of the highest scholarship is not 
 our highest hope for you. 
 
 The college has constantly emphasized effi- 
 ciency. We have sought to train you to do things; 
 to cultivate energy, a ready and prompt response 
 to duty. We have tried to develop that rare and 
 high-priced quality which we call initiative. Every 
 day we have sought to discover in you, and to 
 cause to grow, whatever we could find of vision, 
 the ability to see what needs to be done; and of 
 attack, and of persistence, and of leadership. And 
 
 212 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 it is a great satisfaction for us to know how well 
 we have succeeded. You are able to do things, to 
 attack problems, ready and able and anxious, as 
 I like to think, to do any womanly thing anywhere. 
 
 And yet, when I come as I do here, to say my 
 last word to you, I must tell you also that initiative, 
 and ability, and efficiency do not express our highest 
 desire for you. Scholarship, literary appreciation 
 and taste, great learning, scientific understanding, 
 ability to think clearly, vision, initiative, energy, 
 efficiency, genius for leadership, and success in 
 doing things — these are all great gifts, and greatly 
 worth all the time and cost of college training. 
 But these are not, and must not be, your ultimate 
 aim. 
 
 No, no. You may speak with the tongues of 
 men and of angels, you may understand all mys- 
 teries and all knowledge, you may lead in the 
 greatest reforms of history, you may have the 
 ability to do many wonderful works, and yet you 
 may be sounding brass, tinkling cymbals; it may 
 profit you nothing; you may be — nothing. 
 
 These best gifts you have coveted earnestly, 
 and secured. But you know it is no new word 
 when I tell you that beyond all "gifts" is that 
 "love divine" which fills our lives, takes possession 
 of them, transforming them, and which makes all 
 
 213 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 gifts and graces effective. To crown your scholar- 
 ship and your increasing efficiency, you will bear 
 me witness that we have never failed, through all 
 your college course, to seek, more earnestly than 
 anything else, that you might comprehend with 
 all saints the length, and breadth, and height; and 
 that you might know the love of Christ, which far 
 exceeds all knowledge and all efficiency. 
 
 This is God's greatest gift. And this is our 
 highest hope, that your educated faculties and 
 your trained abilities may be vitalized and con- 
 trolled by that love of which Christ is not only the 
 supreme illustration, but the source; that love 
 which "seeketh not her own," and which " never 
 faileth." 
 
 Just one word more. How can you express this 
 love? Only by sacrifice of self. Take the alabaster 
 box of precious ointment, your educated woman- 
 hood and your trained abilities, and break it in 
 utter abandon of self, in absolute forgetfulness of 
 self-interest, so that its blessed fragrance may fill 
 all the house or all the community wherever you 
 may be. We send you now from the college back 
 into the home, and into your social circle, your 
 church, and your community. They are wonder- 
 ing what college has done for you. Make them 
 understand that it is greatly worth while for a 
 
 214 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 woman to go to college, not only in that it makes 
 her a scholar, and an efficient worker, but more 
 because it enlarges her sympathies, fills her with 
 the Christian motive, and increases her ability 
 and willingness to serve. Let them all see that you 
 have come back, not to demand what you can get, 
 but only to ask what and where you can give. 
 
 You are looking anxiously into the future. I 
 am not a prophet, and cannot tell you what is to 
 be your future lot or work. But I can tell you this 
 on the highest authority: 
 
 "Those that will be great among you will be 
 those that hold themselves as servants; and the 
 one that will be the greatest among you will be 
 the bond slave of everybody." 
 
 Your highest success will always be in closest 
 imitation of Him who came "not to be served, but 
 to serve, and to sell himself for the redemption of 
 others." 
 
 215 
 
1917 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 GRACE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 1917, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by Rev. Merle N. English, D.D. 
 
 DECATUR, ILL. 
 DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT OF THE DECATUR DISTRICT 
 
 Text — Acts 26. 19. "I was not disobedient 
 unto the heavenly vision." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES IN COLLEGE CHAPEL 
 TUESDAY, JUNE 5, I917, 9.3O A. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. Harris Franklin Rail, Ph. D. 
 
 PROFESSOR IN GARRETT BIBLICAL INSTITUTE, EVANSTON, ILL 
 
Class of 1917 
 
 (With 1 9 1 8 addresses) 
 
 Anderson, Miriam, A. B., Springfield, Minnesota. 
 
 Benner, Vera M., A. B., Abingdon, Illinois. 
 
 Brewer, Martha Elizabeth, Carlinville, Illinois. 
 
 Floreth, Anne Loring, A. B., 523 West College Avenue, Jack- 
 sonville, Illinois. 
 
 Harrison, Mary C, A. B., Columbia City, Indiana. 
 
 Houck, Hazel Katherine, A. B., St. Joseph, Illinois. 
 
 Houck, Opal Fern, A. B., St. Joseph, Illinois. 
 
 Humberd, Georgia, A. B. (Mrs. Henry Kamp), 507 South 
 Sixth Street, Champaign, Illinois. 
 
 Irwin, Irene lies, B. S., Tuscola, Illinois. 
 
 Miles, Nancy Grace, B. S., Virginia, Illinois. 
 
 Onken, Johanna, A. B., Chapin, Illinois. 
 
 Patrick, La Vone, A. B., West Ridge, Illinois. 
 
 Pawling, Mabel A., A. B., Terre Haute, Indiana. 
 
 Perbix, Norma Anna, A. B., Markham, Illinois. 
 
 Theobald, Ora Mary, A. B., 214 Biddle Street, Jacksonville, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Throckmorton, Esther Florence, B. S., Battle Ground, In- 
 diana. 
 
 Wilkinson, Phyllis, A. B., St. Joseph, Michigan. 
 
 Diplomas and Certificates 
 Applebee, Ruth Mildred, 505 West State Street, Jackson- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 Clark, Lettie Mae, Rensselaer, Indiana. 
 Davis, Veronica, New Holland, Illinois. 
 Falkenstein, Kathlyn M., Astoria, Illinois. 
 Henry, Helen (Mrs. Wilson Smith), Waverly, Illinois. 
 Horner, Helen Louise, Kewanee, Illinois. 
 Ingram, Hazel, Mt. Sterling, Illinois. 
 McCloud, Florence Jane, Williamsport, Indiana. 
 Sale, Winifred, Watseka, Illinois. 
 
 219 
 
Tke Responsibilities of College Women 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1917: 
 
 These are stirring times, times in which the 
 souls of men and women are tested as by fire. 
 Great principles are at stake. Personal needs are 
 lost sight of in the presence of great national needs, 
 and even national needs are giving place to still 
 greater international and world needs. 
 
 God is marching on. His purposes are ripen- 
 ing fast — unfolding every hour. The visions and 
 dreams of prophets and reformers, hitherto appar- 
 ently dreams and visions only, are now rapidly 
 realized. The day of the Lord is come. The king- 
 dom of heaven is at hand. A great era in the 
 world's history is here. 
 
 Especially it is a great day for women. We can 
 now begin to understand why the last hundred 
 years have been years of woman's awakening, 
 years of preparation and training for larger tasks 
 than ever before. Everywhere for women the 
 gates of opportunity, of privilege, of responsibility, 
 of power, are opening wide. Nobody now ques- 
 tions, as they used to do, either the right, or the 
 
 22 1 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 possibility, or the need for women of the highest 
 education and training for service. In the home, 
 in the local community, for the larger service of 
 the state and the nation — nay, even national lines 
 are fading; and the cry is a world-wide cry — every- 
 where there is world need for strong, and ready, 
 and devoted women. 
 
 One day a young man came to Jesus with the 
 greatest of all life questions, "How to enter the 
 kingdom of heaven." He went away sorrowful, 
 for he had great possessions; and our Lord was 
 moved to say, "How hardly shall those who have 
 great possessions enter into the kingdom of heaven." 
 We are accustomed to make the application only 
 to those who are rich in material wealth. But if 
 our Lord were speaking to you, in answer to the 
 same eager question in your hearts, he would say, 
 "How hardly shall those who are college graduates 
 enter the kingdom of heaven." You, too, have 
 great possessions. You, too, have been exalted to 
 an eminence of privilege. Our Lord never con- 
 demned great possessions, or great power, or priv- 
 ilege, but he always emphasized its great peril and 
 great responsibility. 
 
 You have inherited great possessions. For a 
 century the world has been making ready for you. 
 By struggles and sacrifices such as you can never 
 
 222 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 fully know barriers have been broken down, preju- 
 dices have been removed, limitations have been 
 forced aside, that you might be free. Blessed are 
 your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they 
 hear the things that your grandmothers only 
 dreamed about and prayed for. 
 
 For more than seventy years the college has 
 been building for you. For you has been con- 
 tributed the accumulated service and savings of 
 hundreds of devoted men and women. For you 
 has been built up, year after year, by patience and 
 persistence, a college plant of hundreds of thou- 
 sands of dollars. For you, through these years of 
 college life, we have all given, without measure, 
 the best service we could render. All that country, 
 and home, and school, and college could do; all 
 that love, and foresight, and sacrifice could devise, 
 have been poured out for you, that you might be 
 free, and that you might be ready. 
 
 You have great possessions and you have great 
 opportunity. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. 
 Will you enter it? What will you do with what 
 you have? Will you use it for yourself, your own 
 ends, your own pleasure, your own ease, your own 
 gain, or will you follow him who came not to be 
 ministered unto, but to minister, and with him 
 enter the Kingdom? 
 
 223 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 Has it been worth while, at such cost, and 
 persistence, and patience, to build these colleges for 
 women? The college can justify itself only by its 
 outcome in the lives of its graduates and students. 
 Are those who go out from the Illinois Woman's 
 College better women because they have been 
 here? Are they more capable, more efficient? Do 
 they become better teachers, better wives, more 
 intelligent mothers? Do they render more helpful 
 service in their communities, in society, and in the 
 church? 
 
 If the Woman's College graduates are among 
 the best teachers, if they make happy and honored 
 homes, if they prove themselves efficient leaders 
 in their communities, most helpful in their churches, 
 most ready and capable for any womanly service, 
 most responsive to every call of duty, then will 
 the college be its own ample justification. Its halls 
 will be filled to overflowing with the best type of 
 young women, and it will not lack friends who will 
 feel it a high privilege to invest some of the wealth 
 of which God has made them stewards in its more 
 adequate equipment and endowment. 
 
 Our joy and rejoicing is that the college has 
 thus justified itself in many hundreds of its daugh- 
 ters. Our prayer is that every year it may more 
 
 224 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 fully realize these high purposes, and send out still 
 more women who shall render still more efficient 
 service. And for you, beloved class of 1917, our 
 confident expectation and hope is that, both for 
 loyalty to your alma mater and for faithful and 
 effective service wherever you may be, you will 
 lift still higher the banner of the college. Let the 
 college itself, in gratitude and love, have your 
 hearty co-operation and your constant gifts. She 
 needs you. She cannot live without the gifts and 
 affection of her own children. Do not forget her. 
 If she can thus secure the affection of her own 
 daughters, the coming Diamond Jubilee will wit- 
 ness the million-dollar mark overpassed; and 
 every year she would be equipped for still larger 
 service. 
 
 See to it, then, that in every relation the col- 
 lege will always be justified in you. Prove by 
 your enlarged womanliness, your increased faith- 
 fulness and efficiency, that the college has been 
 worth while. 
 
 For the college's sake, for your country's sake, 
 for humanity's sake, for your own sake, we expect 
 you not only to enter the kingdom of heaven, but 
 to have "an abundant entrance." 
 
 Especially in this time of national and inter- 
 225 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 national emergency, the Illinois Woman's College 
 expects every daughter to do her duty. 
 
 "Not once, nor twice, in our fair nation's story, 
 The path of duty was the way to glory. 
 He who, ever following her commands, 
 On, with toil of head and heart and hands, 
 Through the long gorge to the far light has won 
 His path upward, and prevailed — 
 He shall find the topmost crags of duty scaled — 
 Are close upon those shining table-lands 
 To which our God himself is moon and sun." 
 
 226 
 
1918 
 Baccalaureate Service 
 
 GRACE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 SUNDAY, JUNE 2, I918, IO.45 A. M. 
 
 Sermon by President Harker 
 
 Text — Philippians 3. 8. "The excellency of 
 the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." 
 
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES IN COLLEGE CHAPEL 
 WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, I918, 9.3O A. M. 
 
 Address by Rev. Thomas Nicholson, D.D. 
 
 BISHOP OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
Class of 1918 
 
 (With 1918 addresses) 
 
 Armstrong, Marceline, A. B., 708 West College Avenue, 
 Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Bruner, Lois, A. B., 1216 Twenty-second Street, Rock Island, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Clearwater, Lillian, A. B., 427 East College Avenue, Jackson- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 
 Gerrick, Olive, B. S., Goodland, Indiana. 
 
 Henerhoff, Gladys, A. B., Ursa, Illinois. 
 
 Jones, Lavina, A. B., Ida Grove, Iowa. 
 
 Kline, Ellen, B. S., LeRoy, Illinois. 
 
 Keplinger, Vivian, A. B., 326 East Timber Street, Pontiac, 
 Illinois. 
 
 Madden, Katherine, A. B., 739 West State Street, Jackson- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 
 Moore, Laura A., B. S., R. R. 1, Otterbein, Indiana. 
 
 Pires, Margaret, B. S., 569 North Sandusky Street, Jackson- 
 ville, Illinois. 
 
 Towle, Marie, A. B., West State Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Whitehead, Lora, A. B., Easton, Illinois. 
 
 Diplomas and Certificates 
 
 Reed, Louise, 510 South Guthrie Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma. 
 Pinkston, Dorothy, 1202 South Thirtieth Street, St. Joseph, 
 
 Missouri. 
 Westphal, Dorothy, 212 Bluff Street, Joliet, Illinois. 
 Engel, Olive, East State Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 Sale, Winifred, Watseka, Illinois. 
 
 229 
 
Hillerby, Edith, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
 
 Molz, Bernice, Pana, Illinois. 
 
 Scrimger, Margaret, Hillsboro, Illinois. 
 
 Kensil, Edith, Shelbyville, Illinois. 
 
 Norris, Helen, 524 Thorn Place, Marion, Illinois. 
 
 Pursell, Helen, 212 South Tremont Street, Kewanee, Illinois. 
 
 Janes, Pauline, R. F. D., Kewanee, Illinois. 
 
 230 
 
Baccalaureate Sermon 
 
 "The Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ 
 Jesus, my Lord." — Philippians 3. 8. 
 
 The apostle here calls us to a challenge as to 
 the comparative value or excellency of certain 
 kinds of knowledge. Such a challenge is of interest 
 to every thoughtful man or woman, but it is of 
 especial interest to those who live in college halls, 
 and whose particular business it is to deal with 
 every department of learning. 
 
 A college is a place where the most accurate 
 knowledge, the soundest learning, the highest cul- 
 ture, the noblest companionships, the loftiest ideals, 
 the most compelling inspirations, and the purest 
 religion of one generation are transmitted to the 
 choicest, most earnest, and most capable youth of 
 the coming generation. Here, having separated 
 ourselves, we seek and intermeddle with all wisdom. 
 
 It is, therefore, of the supremest importance 
 that we give diligent heed to the question, "What 
 knowledge is of most worth?" 
 
 The history of all human life is the story of 
 increasing and advancing knowledge. Each indi- 
 
 231 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 vidual life is an unfolding of capabilities, faculties, 
 and powers, 
 
 "By which the manikin feels his way, 
 Out from the shores of the great unknown, 
 Blind and groping and alone, 
 Into the light of day." 
 
 The aim and ideal of every system of education 
 is the best possible preparation of the youth to 
 understand themselves and their environment. To 
 make the youth aware of himself, his powers, his 
 possibilities, his needs, his duties; to make him 
 understand his relations — to himself, to God, and 
 to all his fellows; his relations to all his environ- 
 ment in space and in time, not to the present only, 
 but also to the past and the future; to so inform 
 him and equip him that he will know what to do 
 and how to do it; to train him so that he will be 
 capable for doing; and to inspire him with an 
 earnest purpose and a resolute will to meet every 
 demand and every obligation vigorously and faith- 
 fully — this is the aim and ideal of all the schools, 
 and of all plans for the education of youth. 
 
 Every kind of knowledge that will contribute 
 to these ends is excellent and necessary. A knowl- 
 edge of the body and its needs, of its laws of growth 
 and development, of food, of exercise, of sleep and 
 rest; knowledge of whatever will make the body 
 
 232 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 strong and capable. Knowledge of these things, 
 not only for the individual, but also for the family, 
 and for the community and the state, so that 
 homes may be happy and healthy; communities 
 clean, and comfortable, and sanitary, and beauti- 
 ful; so that both individually and collectively, for 
 the citizen and the community, health and strength 
 and efficiency may be secured and conserved. 
 
 Similarly, a knowledge of the mind and its 
 needs, of its laws of growth and development; a 
 knowledge of the development of right desires, and 
 emotions, and passions, and of the right training of 
 the will, this also is essential and excellent. 
 
 A knowledge of the universe outside of us, of 
 all the sciences; of the earth, with its minerals and 
 rocks, its mountains and valleys, its oceans and 
 rivers; of its plants and flowers and fruits, of its 
 birds and beasts and fish, and all its myriad life; of 
 the air and the sky, its calm and storm, its wind and 
 rain; of the infinite hosts of the heavens, declaring 
 God's glory, and satisfying the soul's desire for 
 beauty ; of the marvelous miracles of geology, and as- 
 tronomy, and chemistry, and physics, and botany, 
 and zoology. The infinite reach of mathematics, 
 with its useful and interesting calculations and 
 applications; of history, with its wonderful stories 
 of the development of men and nations; of all the 
 
 233 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 languages, with their fascinating methods and 
 possibilities of expression; of literature, with its 
 limitless treasures of the best thought of men and 
 women in all ages and nations; of the social sci- 
 ences, how men have tried to solve the problems 
 of living together; of philosophy, how men have 
 tried to solve the meaning of the universe and to 
 explain life's riddle; of religion, how man has 
 groped after God, if, haply, he might find ultimate 
 satisfaction in a knowledge of him. And, besides 
 these, the inspiring reaches of music and of art, 
 opening the ears and eyes of the soul to all the 
 harmony and beauty which God has inwoven into 
 his creation. 
 
 All these departments of knowledge, with their 
 rapidly-multiplying divisions and complex ramifi- 
 cations are the natural outcome of the increasing 
 study of man's needs and of his environment. 
 They are all necessary and good. To make these 
 studies possible, schools have been established and 
 colleges founded. 
 
 That women might have an equal opportunity 
 with men in the investigation and knowledge of 
 every department of human learning, the Woman's 
 College was founded over seventy years ago. 
 Courage and sacrifice beyond what we usually 
 think, the best thought and work of hundreds of 
 
 234 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 men and women, have been given without measure 
 through these decades, that there might be here 
 adequate laboratories, and libraries, and buildings, 
 and equipment, so that young women might secure 
 in good measure the accumulated knowledge of 
 the race in preparation for their own more efficient 
 living. 
 
 It is manifestly impossible now for any one 
 person to compass the entire round of human 
 knowledge. The range is too great, the sum of 
 human learning has reached too vast an aggregate. 
 It is necessary for each now to select some par- 
 ticular department of which to make himself a 
 special student, so as to make his knowledge and 
 his life-work more effective. But many of us still 
 think that it is both possible and desirable for the 
 youth to secure a good general knowledge of the 
 entire field before selecting his particular field of 
 special investigation. This we like to believe is 
 the peculiar province and place of the college as 
 distinguished from the special or technical school. 
 
 We take youth by the hand and lead them to 
 the top of a hill, from which they may see all the fair 
 and inviting fields of every department of human 
 learning. We give them some little conception at 
 least of the great wealth of treasure and enjoy- 
 ment awaiting any diligent explorer of any one 
 
 235 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 
 of these fields. The ideal I have always before 
 me for a graduate of the Illinois Woman's College 
 is a woman who is able to enter with appreciation 
 into any of the great departments of human learn- 
 ing, one to whom nothing that is human is foreign 
 or uninteresting; one who is ready, and capable, 
 and willing, and eager to render any womanly 
 service anywhere. 
 
 The colleges stand as the repositories of the 
 most accurate knowledge, the soundest learning, 
 the highest culture gathered in the experience of 
 the race. To the colleges come the choicest youth 
 of the coming generation. I like to think of myself 
 as the president of the college, taking these choice, 
 and earnest, and capable young women by the 
 hand, leading them to the top of some hill, where 
 they can look upon the many fields of human 
 learning, and inspiring them with a still deeper 
 desire to make themselves fit, and with a determina- 
 tion to explore and to serve in some one at least 
 these inviting fields. The statue that I most ad- 
 mire as expressive of my high privilege is that of 
 the teacher standing behind the young student, 
 pointing her forward, and urging her upward. Her 
 eyes are fixed on the future with intelligent appre- 
 ciation of its possibilities, the whole face and figure 
 expressive of intense longing to reach the ideal 
 
 236 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 suggested, and of unalterable determination both to 
 be and to do. There can be no higher glory for 
 any man or woman than thus to inspire and direct 
 capable youth. 
 
 Into the college, with its body of choice, and 
 earnest, and capable young people, with its trained 
 faculty representing every department of human 
 learning, and with its equipment and laboratories 
 and libraries gathered to illustrate every science, 
 and to make them interesting, and attractive, and 
 profitable, comes the apostle Paul. He insists on 
 being heard above every member of the faculty, 
 and claims preeminence above every department, 
 boldly asserting "The excellency of the knowledge 
 of Christ Jesus, his Lord." 
 
 He does not. mean that these college depart- 
 ments are not useful, or that they are not necessary. 
 I do not understand him as belittling accurate 
 knowledge, and sound learning, and high culture; 
 indeed, he was himself a most outstanding repre- 
 sentative of these very things. But, having him- 
 self secured the best college education of his time, 
 having himself sat at the feet of one of the world's 
 best teachers, being himself an illustration of the 
 advantage of the culture and efficiency of the col- 
 leges, he asserts that there is a knowledge "better 
 still than that of the schools." "Covet earnestly," 
 
 237 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 he says, "the learning and the training of the col- 
 leges and universities; by all means equip your- 
 selves for the running of life's race with the best 
 possible outfit for knowledge and efficiency from 
 all these sources, but ... I show unto you a 
 more excellent knowledge still — the knowledge of 
 Christ Jesus, my Lord." 
 
 As we have said, Paul was a great scholar, a 
 college and university man. He did not hesitate 
 to address the council of the world's greatest 
 scholars, the university senate of his time, as we 
 might call it, which met on Mars Hill in Athens. 
 He was recognized as a great leader among his 
 own sect in Jerusalem. But from the day that he 
 met Jesus Christ on the way to Damascus, he 
 counted it his highest honor to sign himself in all 
 his letters, "the bondslave of Jesus Christ." In 
 the chapter from which the text is taken he re- 
 counts the honors and recognitions which were his 
 by birth, and nationality, and education, and priv- 
 ilege, and then adds that he counted all these 
 things as pure loss, as matters of no account what- 
 ever, compared with the excellency of the knowl- 
 edge of Christ, "the priceless privilege of knowing 
 Jesus his Lord." 
 
 What Paul here says has been the unanimous 
 testimony of every scholar that has come to know 
 
 238 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 Jesus from Paul's time to the present day. When 
 Jesus said to his disciples in the upper room, "Ye 
 call me Master and Lord, and ye do well, for so I 
 am," he was not talking to fishermen and un- 
 learned men alone. He was speaking as well to 
 the graduates of the schools. And, what is more, 
 his claim has never been questioned. If it has ever 
 happened, as has occasionally been true, that some 
 great scholar has not recognized Christ as Lord, it 
 has been because the scholar has never known 
 Jesus. 
 
 It is related of Charles Lamb that on one occa- 
 sion, in company with other literary men, they 
 were speaking of how fine it would be, and what 
 they would do, if some of the world's great scholars 
 and artists and leaders should suddenly come into 
 the room. They mentioned Moses, and Homer, 
 and Virgil, and Dante, and Caesar, and Chaucer, 
 and Shakespeare, and others. And then some one 
 mentioned the name of Jesus. "O," said Lamb, 
 "that would be different. If Shakespeare should 
 come into the room, we would all stand, but if 
 Jesus Christ should come into the room, we would 
 all kneel." There is no controversy on this matter; 
 the unanimous testimony of all scholarship is to 
 "the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus 
 our Lord." 
 
 239 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 This is not a new lesson I am endeavoring to 
 express. You will bear witness to the fact that 
 from the first day you entered college you have 
 been pointed to Him. I have often said that I 
 would count it as the greatest honor possible to 
 me if it can be written as my epitaph, as it was 
 said of John the Baptist, "And his disciples heard 
 him speak, and they followed Jesus." It was the 
 first lesson we tried to teach you ; it has been many 
 times repeated and emphasized; let it be the last 
 word you hear from your alma mater — the excel- 
 lency, the outstanding preeminence over all other 
 kinds of knowledge, "the excellency of the knowl- 
 edge of Christ Jesus, my Lord," "the priceless 
 privilege of knowing him." 
 
 Let me endeavor in a few minutes to make 
 clear just what Paul means. 
 
 First. He does not mean the knowledge of 
 Christ historically. 
 
 This is easy to learn. No figure of history has 
 had greater prominence than he. Although he 
 never wrote a line, so far as we know, except once, 
 when he is said to have written a brief word in 
 the sand as he was teaching a most wonderful 
 lesson, there have been more books written about 
 him than about any other man. We know some- 
 thing of his birth, his parents, his home, his early 
 
 240 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 life. After he began his ministry, we know where 
 he went, what he did, what he said, how he lived, 
 how he suffered, how he died, how he rose 
 again, and the remarkable record of the few days 
 after his resurrection. But the knowledge of 
 Christ's life on the earth is, as pure biography, no 
 more "excellent" than the knowledge of the life 
 of Moses, or of David, or of Peter, or of Paul. It 
 is possible to have an intimate knowledge of Jesus 
 historically, and yet not to know him. Some of 
 the books on the life of Christ have themselves 
 been written by men who personally had never 
 met him. A historical knowledge of Jesus is not 
 the "excellent" knowledge of which Paul speaks. 
 
 Second. He does not mean the knowledge of 
 Christ doctrinally, or as an article of a formal creed. 
 
 The knowledge of the second paragraph of the 
 Apostles' Creed, or even of the more detailed Creed 
 of Saint Athanasius, and its vigorous acceptance 
 and promulgation, even at the point of the sword 
 in doctrinal zeal, is not the "excellent knowledge" 
 of which Paul is speaking. All the many doctrines 
 and beliefs of the church through the centuries, 
 involving questions as to his birth, his human and 
 divine natures, his relation to the Trinity of the 
 God-head, all the doctrines involved in his death, 
 resurrection, ascension, his present place in heaven, 
 
 241 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 the time, and place, and manner of his coming 
 again; all the controversies which have divided 
 the church, and have hindered men and women 
 from knowing him; the most intimate and ex- 
 haustive knowledge of all these questions and con- 
 troversies, so that one could be without challenge 
 the most learned dean of the most learned theo- 
 logical faculty in the world: all this would not be 
 any more "excellent knowledge" than would a 
 similar intimate and exhaustive knowledge of any 
 other branch of human learning, or of historical 
 or philosophical speculation. 
 
 Third. He does not mean the knowledge of 
 Christ obtained from reading the Bible or from 
 any theory of biblical interpretation. 
 
 I do not want to be misunderstood here; in- 
 deed, I am speaking plainly for the very purpose 
 of making Paul's meaning unmistakably clear. 
 "The excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, 
 my Lord," does not consist in any theory of in- 
 spiration of the Bible, or in any determination of 
 the genuineness or authenticity or authorship or 
 purpose of any of the books of the Bible. All 
 knowledge of the Bible, of its history, its author- 
 ship, its dates, its literary forms, whether historical, 
 or allegorical; its absolutely correct interpretation, 
 whether, as the eunuch said to Philip as he read 
 
 242 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 from the roll of Isaiah, the prophet was speaking 
 of himself or of some other man; all questions of 
 the explanation of Bible passages as looking for- 
 ward to Christ or as referring only to matters of 
 current and contemporary history; questions re- 
 lating to the explanation or fulfillment of Bible 
 prophecies: none of these come within the scope 
 of Paul's "excellence of knowledge." These are 
 all equally questions of the schools, like all other 
 matters of historical and literary and scientific in- 
 terest; important and necessary problems of hu- 
 man learning, but no more excellent than any 
 other questions and problems arising in other de- 
 partments of human knowledge, in mathematics, 
 or science, or history, or literature, or philosophy, 
 or music, or art. 
 
 Let us not misunderstand Paul, and let us not 
 repeat the vital mistake of the Jews, to whom our 
 Lord said: "Ye search the Scriptures, because ye 
 think that in them ye have eternal life. And yet 
 ye will not come to me." It has happened not 
 once nor twice, but unhappily in multiplied in- 
 stances, that a knowledge of the Bible and of 
 questions of Biblical theory and interpretation has 
 been the very means of preventing that "knowl- 
 edge of Christ Jesus our Lord" which Paul insists 
 is "excellent." 
 
 243 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 No, no, Paul is not speaking of the excellency 
 of the knowledge of things relating to Christ, of 
 problems of history, or biography, or literary in- 
 terpretation, or doctrine, or creed, or sect, or sac- 
 rament, or name, or sign, or profession. He is 
 speaking of the "excellency of the knowledge of 
 Christ Jesus my Lord" or, as a still clearer transla- 
 tion of his words would express it, he is speaking 
 of ' ' the priceless privilege of knowing Christ Jesus 
 my Lord." He is speaking not of a literary or 
 theoretical or doctrinal knowledge about Jesus, but 
 of an intimate, vital, personal acquaintance with 
 him. 
 
 Here again let me try to make it clear by some 
 detail. 
 
 First. He means knowledge of a living Christ. 
 
 As long as Paul thought of Christ as dead, he 
 was not greatly interested. He could not call a 
 dead man his "Lord." He vigorously objected to 
 the claims of Christ's deluded followers as blas- 
 phemous, pursuing them to strange cities, and 
 reddening his hands with their blood. But when 
 the living Christ met Paul, then "trembling and 
 astonished" he knew his Lord. Thomas could not 
 worship a Christ whom he believed to have been 
 buried in the tomb, but when the living Christ 
 appeared to him, with unmistakable evidences of 
 
 244 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 his identity and personality, then indeed even 
 doubting Thomas must cry oat in absolute sur- 
 render, "My Lord and my God." 
 
 Second. He means knowledge of a Personal 
 Christ. 
 
 Not an idea which had taken possession of 
 Paul. Not some hidden or mysterious power or 
 influence under whose spell Paul had come. Paul 
 had met a real person, a living, thinking, loving, 
 acting person, one with whom he could converse, 
 who knew him, and whom he could personally 
 know, as he had known his teacher Gamaliel, or 
 as he had known his own father and mother. He 
 had met one who, though absent most of the time, 
 could be, and sometimes was, actually present with 
 him; one with whom he could at any time com- 
 mune in spirit. He had met one who was his 
 superior, who was a master of life; one who had 
 conquered death, one who had brought to light 
 "immortality and eternal life." 
 
 He had met one who could do for him "exceed- 
 ing abundantly above all that Paul could ask or 
 think." He had met one who could not only con- 
 trol him and direct him, so that Paul was willing 
 to submit himself without reserve to Christ's 
 guidance, giving up his own will for Christ's will, 
 and gladly counting himself as Christ's slave; but 
 
 245 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 he had now met one who could also empower him, 
 making him able to do all things that Christ di- 
 rected. He had met one who could and did deliver 
 him from the "body of death" that had hitherto 
 held him captive, one who had given him the vic- 
 tory over sin and condemnation and death. Look- 
 ing at all life's problems, he had met one of whom 
 he could say, "I know whom I have believed, and 
 am persuaded that He is able to keep that which 
 I have committed unto him against that day." 
 "That day" was Paul's expression for the day of 
 life's supremest testing, whenever and wherever 
 and however it might come. 
 
 Third. He means, to know Christ as a Saviour 
 from sin. 
 
 The fact of sin in the world, nay, the fact of 
 sin in each individual life, is universally recognized. 
 In every soul there is an unspeakable burden of 
 guilt, a knowledge of broken law, a recognition of 
 deserved penalty. The world-cry is a cry for de- 
 liverance. In savage as well as in civilized states, 
 the human heart groans and travails, everywhere 
 crying out for salvation from sin. Before the 
 awful consciousness of sin, the soul is utterly help- 
 less, and the more earnestly the soul desires to be 
 pure, the greater the burden of shame and guilt 
 becomes. Man cannot save himself. Everywhere 
 
 246 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 he looked, but there was no eye to pity, no arm 
 to save. 
 
 Into this world need, this universal helplessness, 
 Jesus came. His coming was with the blessed an- 
 nouncement, "He shall save his people from their 
 sins." When John the Baptist revealed Christ to 
 his disciples, it was with the words, "Behold the 
 Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the 
 world." 
 
 Christ's method is not to cover up sin, but to 
 reveal it, to forgive it, and to deliver from its 
 power. His very presence always made people 
 still more sin-conscious. When Peter first really 
 recognized Jesus, he also first utterly abhorred him- 
 self, and cried out, "Depart from me, for I am a 
 sinful man, O Lord." But to every heart stricken 
 with a consciousness of sin, and sinking under the 
 burden of guilt, Jesus speaks the wonderful words, 
 "Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace." The 
 Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, 
 and there is no longer condemnation to them that 
 are in Christ Jesus. He is able to save to the utter- 
 most all that come unto God by him. 
 
 Paul knew Jesus as a Saviour from sin. Al- 
 though he had been brought up under the strictest 
 discipline of the law, and had lived a strictly moral 
 life, he was no exception to the universal fact, he 
 
 247 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 knew himself to be a sinner. In one of his letters 
 he tells of his agony of soul, and of his bitter strug- 
 gles to deliver himself. But he could not break 
 the shackles of sin, and in agony of despair he 
 cries out, "Who shall deliver me from this body 
 of death?" And one day, one eventful day, he 
 met Jesus. As he looked on Jesus and saw his 
 purity, and recognized his power, he loathed his 
 sinful soul all the more, and said, "Lord, if thou 
 wilt, thou canst make me clean." And Jesus 
 touched the sinful, leprous Paul, and said with 
 loving sympathy and with mighty power, "I will; 
 be thou clean." 
 
 From that day forward, Paul shouted and sang 
 his song of deliverance and thanksgiving: "Thanks 
 be to God, which giveth us the victory, through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ." It was not a theory; he 
 knew he was saved from sin — saved from sin, from 
 the guilt of sin, from the condemnation for sin, 
 from the power of sin. And he knew that Jesus 
 Christ had saved him. 
 
 As he did for Paul, so Jesus has proved himself 
 to be the Power of God unto salvation to everyone 
 that has accepted him. We do not know how or 
 why. There is no use to argue about it. If any 
 desire to do this, let them do so as an academic 
 question, like any of the other problems of the 
 
 248 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 schools, to be decided according to the best evi- 
 dence and light. But do not let the discussion 
 about the how or the why of the forgiveness of sin 
 obscure the fact that the soul that knows Jesus 
 also knows that its sins are forgiven, and, knowing, 
 rejoices in the liberty and peace of a new-found 
 child of God. 
 
 Surely this is a knowledge all other knowledge 
 excelling, the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord 
 as my personal Saviour from sin. And this Saviour 
 is a world Saviour, my Saviour, your Saviour, "able 
 to save to the uttermost all that come." 
 
 "He breaks the power of canceled sin, 
 He sets the prisoner free, 
 His blood can make the foulest clean, 
 His blood avails for me." 
 
 Fourth. He means, to know Christ as his 
 Lord. 
 
 "The excellence of the knowledge of Christ 
 Jesus, my Lord." 
 
 Paul had arranged his own life plan. First, 
 he would be thoroughly educated. So he had all 
 the education he could secure in his own home, in 
 the local synagogue service, and in his home town. 
 Then he sought out the most noted teacher of his 
 nation, and came to Jerusalem and sat for years 
 at the feet of the great Gamaliel. This was his 
 
 249 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 university, reminding us of President Garfield's 
 definition of a university: "An earnest, capable, 
 enquiring youth, and a capable and inspiring 
 teacher, sitting on a log together." Inspiration and 
 environment! And surely Paul had both with 
 Gamaliel and Jerusalem. And after he had thor- 
 oughly prepared himself, then he would take his 
 place among the leaders of his people. What 
 honors might not be his. Already at the stoning 
 of Stephen, if not a member of the Sanhedrin, he 
 was present and actively participating. He would 
 be a ruler of the Jews, a member of the Sanhedrin, 
 a noted rabbi, a man of great influence and power. 
 Into this young life of great power and promise 
 Jesus came. And at once Paul recognized one 
 greater than himself, a master's Master. There 
 was no long battle, there was immediate and un- 
 conditional surrender. "Who art thou, Lord?' 1 
 and, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" And 
 from that day Paul put his life, his plans, his am- 
 bitions, his whole self wholly at the service of 
 Jesus. He counted all his high hopes of prefer- 
 ment as loss, compared with the priceless privilege 
 of knowing Jesus as his Lord. Each morning he 
 asked for orders for the day from Headquarters, and 
 each evening reported to his Lord what he had 
 done. Several times he changed his plans entirely 
 
 250 
 
B \CCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 at Jesus' suggestion. And so through life in labors 
 more abundant, in disappointment and defeat, in 
 sufferings and scourgings and imprisonments, and 
 finally to death, he followed in simple obedience, 
 happy, as he expresses is, "with joy unspeakable 
 and full of glory," so he could be the "bondslave 
 of Jesus Christ." 
 
 This, then, is what Paul means by the knowl- 
 edge of Christ Jesus, my Lord — a vital, intimate 
 acquaintance with Jesus Christ as a living per- 
 sonality, as his Saviour, a recognition of him as his 
 Lord, a loving and trusting confidence and rest in 
 him, and an absolute surrender to him as the guide 
 and controller of his life. 
 
 In this same passage in Philippians, a few verses 
 further on, there is a striking phrase which illus- 
 trates Paul's relation to Christ. He is still speak- 
 ing of knowing Christ, and he says, "Not that I 
 have already attained, or yet know him perfectly; 
 but I follow after, if by any means I may yet 
 find out in all its meaning, why Jesus Christ took 
 hold of me." (Phil. 3. 12.) 
 
 Surely that was a great day in Paul's life when 
 Jesus Christ took hold of him. It was Paul's life- 
 long wonder, why did Jesus choose him? It was 
 not chiefly from any motive of what Paul could do 
 for Christ, great as that service might prove to 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 be. It was for some purpose in Paul's life and 
 character, something that Paul was not able to 
 accomplish for himself. 
 
 And so Paul was discovering. He had found 
 pardon for sin through Jesus Christ, and freedom 
 from condemnation ; he had found in him the peace 
 of God which far surpassed all human understand- 
 ing and knowledge; he had found a faith which 
 made him more than conqueror in all life's battles; 
 he had found that perfect love which never f aileth ; 
 he had found life, abundant, perfect, eternal life. 
 Christ had become to him all and in all. 
 
 And yet, much as Christ had already accom- 
 plished for him, Paul still felt sure that he had not 
 yet attained or knew Jesus perfectly; and he was 
 earnestly following after, sure that something more 
 was to be revealed in him, exceeding abundantly 
 above all that he could think. Is it any wonder 
 that Paul felt that to know Jesus Christ was a 
 "priceless privilege," and that the knowledge of 
 Jesus Christ his Lord far excelled all other knowl- 
 edge gained at the feet of Gamaliel or in any other 
 schools of life's association and experience? 
 
 The knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord far 
 excels all other knowledge of life or of human ex- 
 perience or of the colleges and universities, because 
 
 252 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 a knowledge of him solves directly and personally 
 all life's problems. He gives a knowledge not about 
 life, but of life. Personal acquaintance with him, 
 acceptance of him as Lord, gives to us all, as it 
 gave to Paul, pardon from sin, freedom from con- 
 demnation, rest in life's perplexities, peace in sor- 
 row, an overcoming faith in times of deepest 
 doubts; giving us the victory, power to become the 
 children of God, power to become all that he reveals 
 as possible; in short, he does not teach us about 
 life, as other teachers do: he gives life, and gives 
 it more abundantly. 
 
 The knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord is not 
 alone more excellent for the individual life, but 
 for the social life, the life of the community, and 
 the life of the nations. If all had the knowledge 
 of him, all community problems would be solved. 
 There would be no sin, he saves from sin; there 
 would be no social unrest, no exploiting of one 
 class by another; the strong would help to bear 
 the burdens of the weak; each would live for all, 
 and all for each; there would be nothing to hurt 
 or destroy in all the community. If the excellent 
 knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord was universal, 
 if all should know him, from the least to the great- 
 est, then the "war drum would throb no longer, 
 
 253 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 and the battle flags would be furled;" the terror of 
 the war lord would be replaced by the blessed and 
 beneficent reign of the Prince of Peace. 
 
 Shall we not devoutly pray and earnestly labor 
 to bring in the glad day when this knowledge of 
 him, far excelling all other forms of knowledge, 
 shall cover the earth as the waters cover the deep? 
 
 254 
 
Christ Jesus, M$ Lord 
 
 Young Women of the Class of 1918: 
 
 This is our chiefest yearning and anxiety for 
 you: that you may know Him in an intimate, 
 vital, personal relationship and acquaintance. All 
 other knowledge is changing and transient; it will 
 vanish away. This knowledge is abiding and per- 
 manent. Other forms of knowledge relate to 
 problems about life, to know Christ is life itself. 
 
 You will go out from college into your homes 
 and your communities, and there, by your knowl- 
 edge and skill acquired in college, we trust you will 
 gladden and brighten every corner, making the 
 hearts of your parents and friends happy, and se- 
 curing for your communities a more sanitary, help- 
 ful, and hopeful environment. But remember that 
 you will do more for your homes and your com- 
 munities by taking Jesus Christ with you, repre- 
 senting him, carrying his Spirit, illustrating his 
 life. All these other necessary problems will solve 
 themselves if, first, there is a personal, vital, saving 
 knowledge of him. 
 
 I wish to add my personal testimony to that 
 of Paul as to the outstanding preeminence over all 
 
 255 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 other forms of knowledge of a personal acquaint- 
 ance with Jesus Christ. It was a great day for 
 me, as it was for Paul, when Jesus Christ took hold 
 of me. I can consciously connect all of life's 
 greatest satisfactions, all of life's best work, to that 
 event. I do not yet know much of why he took 
 hold of me; I know I have not been altogether 
 worthy. But he has made me a better man; has 
 touched the strings of my life to sweeter music. 
 He has given courage where else I would have 
 fainted; he has caused me to see visions of duty 
 and of privilege; has given power to become some- 
 thing nearer the ideal he has himself inspired. It 
 has been indeed a most priceless privilege to 
 know him. 
 
 Let him also "take hold of you." Let him 
 come into your lives as your Master and Lord. 
 Ask him to take the direction of your lives. Let 
 him purify your hearts. Let your prayer ever be, 
 "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Let your 
 lives henceforth be not yours, but Christ living in 
 you. Let your deepest yearning be to be like him. 
 Set his spirit and life before you as your ideal, so 
 that, every day, beholding as in a glass his gracious 
 character, you may be changed from one degree of 
 likeness to another, until some blessed day, you 
 shall be like him. Then will you carry sweetness 
 
 256 
 
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 and light and beauty and strength wherever you 
 go; then will you illustrate the excellency of the 
 knowledge of Christ Jesus your Lord. 
 
 "Christ Jesus, my Lord." This is the final 
 word. O that you may all join me in it! "The 
 bondslave of Jesus Christ." Not vainly striving 
 any longer to direct my own steps, to supply my 
 own energy, to be the captain of my own boat. No, 
 no, but leaving it all to him, trusting in him for 
 guidance, for power, and for final victory, let us 
 take him into the ship. Thank God for the price- 
 less privilege of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord ! 
 
 "My bark is wafted to the strand, 
 
 By breath divine; 
 And on its helm there rests a hand, 
 Other than mine. 
 
 One who was known in storms to sail, 
 
 I have on board; 
 Above the roaring of the gale, 
 
 I hear my Lord. 
 
 Safe to the land! Safe to the land! 
 
 The end is this; 
 And then with Him go hand in hand, 
 
 Far into bliss." 
 
 257 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 r M22 KH C001 
 
 Baccalaureate addresses Illinois Woman 
 
 3 0112089378241