Part 15

My love, Mr. President, for this college was inherited. I drew it in with my mother’s milk, and was taught it at my father’s knees. He was one of its first trustees, proposed its first president, and sold the lands the proceeds of which, after almost interminable delays, built Massachusetts Hall. Judge Freeman of the trustees, a most excellent and influential man and ardently attached to the college, was naturally very cautious, and that trait was now much increased by age; it seemed on account of his influence as if a building would never be erected. It was at length moved at a meeting of the Boards that my father be appointed and empowered to sell the college lands. He accepted the trust on condition that they would put Judge Parker of Massachusetts with him to draw the writings. This being done, he said, “Gentleman, these lands will all be sold within a year.” Judge Freeman, stroking his face, as was his habit when excited, exclaimed: “They will ruin us. They will ruin us.” “I,” observed another of the trustees, “want to be ruined; I had rather die at once than moulder away by dry rot.” The lands were sold within the specified time, a building was then erected, and President McKeen inaugurated. Seldom has the hand of Divine Providence been more clearly manifested than in the origin and growth of this college. From its inception it secured in its presidents, professors, trustees, and overseers men who had the interests of morality and sound learning more at heart than their own ease or emolument. The abilities of its teachers and their reputation would have at any time procured for them more eligible positions if ease, compensation, and reputation had alone been consulted. They were self-denying men; they loved the college and labored and denied themselves for its good.

I was absent from college but three years when I returned and settled at Harpswell. I had a great deal to do with the college, was in intimate relations with the professors and their families, and had opportunity to appreciate their real worth. They were not merely residents of the community, but useful citizens and a public blessing. The high school owes its origin in a great degree to Professor Smyth. All the neighboring ministers were under more or less obligation to them. They attended funerals, supplied destitute churches, and in the weekly religious meetings of the village were a power for good. I have worked weeks with Professor Smyth, setting out trees on the campus which he bought and paid for. Professor Upham gave the greater part of his property to the college. He for two years supplied the pulpit of the Congregational church at Harpswell, and but for his efforts it would not have been in existence now. In the last term of my senior year he came to Andover and told me if I did not go to Harpswell, God would curse me as long as I lived. I do not know what the Lord would have done, but I have found that obedience is sweet and not servitude.

Those worthy men inspired the students with like sentiments. Every class made great sacrifices to purchase valuable standard works for their society libraries. The literary spirit was by no means in abeyance in those days. The best minds in college took as much interest in preparing themselves for debates and other parts in the two societies as they did for a Junior and Senior Exhibition. The students dammed the glen at Paradise Spring and made a pond. They also terraced the sides of the glen and constructed seats of turf, and addresses and poems were delivered there to most appreciative audiences. Sam Silsbee flung Albion Andrew into Paradise Pond, and he was so fat that he floated like a bladder. Sam was not aware that he was laying sacrilegious hands upon the future governor of Massachusetts any more than I was aware that Melville Fuller would be Chief Justice of the United States, when with care on his young brow and the fire of a great purpose in his eye, I marked him laying the foundation of future renown. Were there not poets in those days who possessed the vision and the faculty divine? Did not President Allen have a hat that was woven of grass that grew on Mount Parnassus? Did not John B. Soule compose a Latin ode upon a moth that flew into a candle which in the opinion of the class compared favorably with those of Horace? And has he not since that time by more elaborate efforts proved that the child is father of the man? How can I ignore a most pathetic effusion, on the death of an unfortunate cat that was crushed beneath a woodpile, written in the style of President Allen?

“Poor puss, and wast thou to death squeezed Beneath the weighty pile? How must thy life have been outsneezed The agonizing while! And, pussy, didst thou found it hard To part from kittens young? For if thou’dst not a feeling heart, Thou hadst a feline one. Now, pussy, since thou art up-used, From door thee I’ll outthrow, Thy body from thy mind unscrewed, To bleach beneath the snow. By hill and valley, dale and stream, The rats shall frisk and frolic, Crying ’Hurrah, we’ll lick the cream Since pussy’s got the colic.’”

During the latter part of President Allen’s administration discipline was lax; intemperance prevailed to a fearful extent in college as it did in the community. There were no railroads, and people came to Commencement and remained in Brunswick till the close. It was then customary for the graduating class to set tables in the rooms in which were liquors and other refreshments, and entertain their relatives and friends. At one time there was a room in North College in which a table was set with liquors and other refreshments, and straw was put upon the floor, and over the door a sign bearing the inscription, “Entertainment for Man and Beast.” But even at that time there was a body of students composing the college church or Praying Circle, as it was termed, the greater number of whom were persons of the most decided religious character. They held meetings and taught Sabbath-schools in different parts of the town, and were in sympathy with every good work; but between them and the majority of the other students there was a line of demarcation. Each party travelled their own road, and they had little to do with one another. But after 1838 there was a change; a deep religious interest began and continued, the herald of a better day. Since that day Christian associations have exerted a salutary influence, and, like the Gulf Stream sending its warm current through the cold waters of the Atlantic, have imparted a more genial tone to the intercourse of the students. Athletic exercises have likewise laid a strong hand upon much of the time formerly devoted to more questionable recreations. Although the present furor in these sports has its dangers and the matter is liable to abuse, yet they fill the bill as nothing else ever did, and when pruned of their excrescences will become a power for good. Young men of real stamina, however full of blue veins and vitriol and however enamoured of baseball, football, and boating, and hurried to extremes for the moment, will yet recall and heed the words of Cicero who represents Milo of Crotona, the greatest athlete of ancient times, who could kill an ox with a blow of his fist, shedding idiotic tears as in his old age he looked upon his flabby skin and shrunken muscles, and wept because he could no longer contend and conquer in the Olympic games. Milo had muscle and nothing else. May it never be said of Bowdoin students that they have muscle and nothing else, and certainly not that they are destitute of it.

Great was the change when President Woods succeeded President Allen. Never will the upper classes of that year forget the day of his inauguration. When he took his stand upon the platform to deliver his address, he laid upon the table before him a manuscript as thick as a three-inch plank. A riband was passed through it, dividing it into equal parts. But he never looked at it from the beginning to the close, except that, when halfway through, he opened at the riband but made no use of it. For more than two hours, without the hesitation of a moment or the lapse of a word, he held that audience spellbound. I have never known the man who could produce the impression--and a permanent one--upon a wild boy that he could. There are many living, distinguished and beloved, and many here present who will never forget their obligations to Leonard Woods.

For a poor boy smitten with the love of knowledge to work his way through college was once a formidable task. The only methods of doing it were keeping school in the long winter vacation, manual labor as they went along, or hiring money with the result of being burdened with debt at graduation. The Education Society could do but little, and there were no scholarships as at present. I walked seventy-five miles over the frozen ground after Christmas to the Penobscot to keep school, and back again through the mud in March, because I was too poor to ride; and I had to hire a watch in Brunswick to keep school with.

The commonwealth justly expects much from the students and alumni who enjoy the advantages both literary and pecuniary now accorded.

“Ye are marked men, ye men of Dalecarlia.”

The associations of this day come home with peculiar force to the minds of those who have been familiar with the history and watched the progress of this college from the day it was a mere shrub, with bare shade sufficient to cover its own roots, to this glad hour when they rejoice that they are permitted to look upon it as a massive tree, on whose broad foliage the sunlight loves to linger and the dew lieth all night on its branches. Withered hands are lifted in benediction: the tremulous accents of age join the universal jubilee. They will depart cheered by the assurance that when the dial plate shall be taken off from this great clockwork of the universe, and in eternity we behold its secret wheels and springs, it will be found that those who, at this seat of science, have separated themselves that they might intermeddle with all knowledge, its officers and its benefactors, have lived, labored, endured, not for themselves, but for their country and their God.

LOVE

[Delivered at “Donation Party,” Harpswell, September 18, 1894]

Love, my friends and neighbors, is something that defies definition and resents analysis. It is not possible to communicate the perception of it to one who has never experienced it. It must be felt in order to be known. It is likewise the most permanent of all the qualities of the mind. Anger, however violent, expires with the occasion that called it forth. Grief, however bitter and heart-rending, time will remove, and it will blunt the sting of sorrow. But love is inexhaustible and grows by what it feeds upon. Here is the father of a young family. He is returning at night from his work. As he approaches the door, a little one who can just go alone espies him. With cries of delight he runs to meet his parent, till, out of breath and strength, he falls exhausted into his father’s outstretched arms. The happy parent raises the little one and kisses him. When he has kissed that child a dozen times, does he not want to kiss him a dozen times more? Thus affection grows by what it feeds upon and is inexhaustible. It will do or endure more for the welfare of its object than any other faculty. You may hire a man to labor for you, you may force him to obey you, but not to love you. No power on earth can do that. On the other hand, does he love you, that love will cause him to do more for you than all other motives put together, and the more he does the more will he delight to do, because love tells nothing is lost that a good friend gets.

There are people before me to-night whom I began to love forty years ago. Do I love them less? Is the affection worn out? No; it is worn in. Then it was in the bark, but now it has got into the heart of the tree.

Here, also, are the children and grandchildren of those who are not, for God has taken them, and the affection I bore their parents clings to the children. It is not worn out, because love is stronger than death. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. Or if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. It is love that makes home, love that makes friends in the world, love that makes heaven, for God is love.

What has brought all these friends together to-night? They did not come to get, but to give, not with their hands shut up, but with both hearts and hands wide open. They have come to gratify their feelings of neighborly friendship and affection; for if they did not thus gratify those feelings, they would not enjoy what they had left. Ought I not to be grateful to be the recipient of so much good-will, kindness, and neighborly affection? I trust it will be an encouragement to render me more faithful to your souls’ best interests, to work for you and seek your good; to pray that God, who loves the cheerful giver, will reward and bless you.

There were never two persons in this world who loved each other but wanted and loved to eat together, and there were never two enemies who did. There were never two persons who loved each other, loved God, but who loved and wanted to pray together. We have eaten together; we have enjoyed each other’s society; recalled the feelings of other and happier days, before toil had stiffened our limbs, sorrow entered our hearts, or tears trembled on our eyelids; now let us pray together before we separate.

THE DELUDED HERMIT

[Delivered at “Donation Party,” October 1, 1895]

In the ancient days, after the early Christian fathers who succeeded the Apostles had departed, religion degenerated into superstition. There arose under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church a class of hermits, anchorites, and devotees who thought that heaven and holiness were to be obtained by torturing and denying the flesh; that by secluding themselves from society, by fastings and watchings, they might escape temptation and sin and live nearer to God and merit the divine favor.

In the North Sea are a group of islands belonging to Denmark, sixteen in number, called the Färöe Isles, some of which are of considerable size and inhabited, others mere patches of rocks and turf. Upon one of these, which is a mere sand spit flung up by the sea, a hermit had taken up his residence. His dwelling was built of the stones of the place, and the entrance was so low that he went in and came out on his knees. When the door was closed, it was lighted by an opening in the top which permitted a view of the sky, of the sun when far advanced in the heavens, of the moon and the stars, but not of the earth. Here this pious but deluded saint passed his days in prayer, meditation, frequent fasting, and reading the Bible. His food was brought to him by the inhabitants of the neighboring islands who greatly revered him for his holiness and sought his prayers for themselves and their household. He imagined that if he could see only the heavens, he should become less earthly; that by cutting himself off from the sins, the cares, and the labors of worldly and sinful men and being alone with God, he should make great advance in holiness. Poor deluded man! If, when he looked upon the heavens, the sun, the moon, and the stars, he had only taken a reasonable and scriptural view of the purpose for which they were created, he would have perceived that it was for the good of others they were created, to declare the glory of God to a universe, to cause grass to grow for cattle, and herbs for the use of man; that for six thousand years they had been holding to all the nations of the earth their high and perpetual discourse of the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, who openeth His liberal hand and satisfieth the desire of every living thing. Such reflections would have taught him that if, instead of spending his life and energies, and consuming soul and body, in prayers and meditations that began and ended in themselves, he had taken a portion of his time to keep the fire burning on his own hearthstone, and then gone forth among those islanders and told them of God and Christ and the duties they owed, given them the benefit of and shared with them his wisdom and holiness, and taught them to love God and each other, it would have been more acceptable to God, and in blessing he would have been blessed. This mistaken man imagined he was crucifying sin when he was only crucifying the natural affections and sympathies God had given him to be gratified for his own good and that of others. Man was not made to live in a state of isolation, but in fellowship with his kind. The human heart craves sympathy just as naturally as the vine stretches its tendrils to clasp some friendly prop, and, failing to reach it, droops and withers and bears no fruit. He, who is the centre of many loving hearts, whose interests, joys, and sorrows are his and his theirs, is stronger and happier than he who treads the brier-planted path of life alone, with no one to lean upon and share the burden or the conflict with him. We were made to find our happiness in the happiness of others. When is a gift valuable? When it is a part of the heart of him who bestows it. That which makes the gifts I receive upon occasions like this of priceless value to me is that they come from those with whom I have lived in love and sympathy so long that they have become part of myself. The Saviour has said it is more blessed to give than to receive. It is more blessed to give than to receive. It is more gratifying to be able to bestow favors than to be obliged to receive them. It is more like our Maker. He never receives anything, for all things are His. He is the universal giver.... May He who gives us all things reward you in your persons and in your households, and grant you that which He sees is best for your happiness both here and hereafter.

HOME

[Delivered at “Donation Party,” October 19, 1897]

The sweetest word that ever trembled on human lips is the word “home.” It embraces and concentrates in itself the germs of a thousand forces of happiness, power, and progress yet to be developed from it. So long as man wanders, and, like the savage, merely gathers what grows of itself from the soil, or captures the fish of the streams, the birds of the air, and the beasts that roam the forests, he makes no progress; he bestows no labor upon, and therefore takes no interest in, that abode which he is to abandon to-morrow. It is only when he has a permanent dwelling and produces something from the earth that progress, happiness, and the home relation begin. Home is the place where character is built, where sacrifices to contribute to the happiness of others are made, and where love has taken up its abode. Love is the strongest passion of our natures and finds its happiness in sacrificing for its object; the parent for the child, the child for the parent, the sister for the brother. In this relation they are in the best possible position for moral and intellectual development; they stimulate and call out each other’s powers, energies, and affections.

Infinite wisdom has declared, “It is not good for man to be alone.” There is not a more unsightly or unprofitable tree than a white pine growing alone. It is a mass of knots, knobs, short-jointed, crooked, and wind-shaken,--in short, a scrub. The lumbermen in contempt call it a bull pine. But put a thousand of them together as near as they can grow. What a change! As you enter that majestic cathedral no sunbeam can pierce, and look up at those heights,--trees straight as an arrow seventy feet to a limb,--you almost feel like uncovering in reverence. Thus with the family relation. The happiest homes are those the members of which are frequently called to sacrifice something or to deny themselves something for the others’ comforts and happiness. It is this that sweetens home. It is those who bear the burdens of life together, relying upon and trusting in each other, who get the most out of life, bear its trials without being soured by them, and rear children who arise and call them blessed--children that have real manhood--who can look danger in the eye without quailing and grapple to severe tasks without wilting, and are nobody’s servants.

It is evident that home is not mere locality, that it is not defined by metes and bounds. From Gibraltar to Archangel, from Calcutta to the frozen seas, there are homes. One principle, one fruit-bud produces them all. Home is not a thing that can be bought or sold in the market. You may buy a homestead or a house, you may perhaps buy a wife, but you cannot buy a woman’s love. Costly furniture, rich dresses, retinues of servants, and luxurious dishes do not make homes. It is not the residence but the affection of the occupants that constitutes the home. Those who are united in the bonds of a true affection behold themselves reflected in each other, and each is to the other as another self. In the confidence of love there is repose.

My friends and neighbors, this assembly is made up of those who have been reared and have reared others in homes where parental love and filial affection were the mainsprings of action and the foundation of charitable and friendly acts. The desire to share with others the gifts a kindly Providence bestows on ourselves is bred in the atmosphere of home. All the sweet charities of life are but the overflow of these feelings and sympathies born and bred at the domestic hearthstone.

I thank you, my friends and neighbors, for the gifts of affection bestowed this night, and may the blessing of God rest upon yourselves, your children, and your homes.

SERMONS

THE PRODIGAL’S RETURN

Text: Luke xv. 18, 20. “_I will arise and go to my father._” “_But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him._”

The Saviour, by a beautiful and affecting story, illustrates the natural and inevitable result of a sinful course, a course of ingratitude and disobedience to God. We have placed before us the life of a Hebrew patriarch. In that land now so barren beneath the curse of God and the curse of a despotic government, but once so full of beauty and blossoming, when the Chosen People clothed its now barren mountain peaks with clambering vines and its valleys with waving grass and grain, dwelt a Hebrew, a righteous man among the kindred of his people, to whom God had given goodly land, and flocks and herds in abundance, whose tents stretched far over the plains, and who had servants born in his house. This man had two sons, one of whom was much older than the other. It was a pleasant household; the father was kind and affectionate to his servants and to the poor,--a just man, fearing God and tenderly attached to his children.