_My Fellow-Citizens_:
Here near the seat of the summer school for young men founded by
Dwight L. Moody, I naturally speak on a subject suggested to me by the
life of Mr. Moody and by the aims sought for through the establishment
of the summer school.
In such a school—a school which is to equip young men to do good in
the world—to show both the desire for the rule of righteousness and
the practical power to give actual effect to that desire—it seems
to me there are two texts specially worthy of emphasis: One is, “Be
ye doers of the word and not hearers only”; and the other is, “Not
slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” A republic
of freemen is pre-eminently a community in which there is need for
the actual exercise and practical application of both the milder
and the stronger virtues. Every good quality—every virtue and every
grace—has its place and is of use in the great scheme of creation;
but it is of course a mere truism to say that at certain times and in
certain places there is pre-eminent need for a given set of virtues.
In our own country, with its many-sided, hurrying, practical life, the
place for cloistered virtue is far smaller than is the place for that
essential manliness which, without losing its fine and lofty side, can
yet hold its own in the rough struggle with the forces of the world
round about us. It would be a very bad thing for this country if it
happened that the men of righteous living tended to lose the robust,
virile qualities of heart, mind and body, and if, on the other hand,
the men best fitted practically to achieve results lost the guidance
of the moral law. No one-sided development can produce really good
citizenship—as good citizenship is needed in the America of to-day. If
a man has not in him the root of righteousness—if he does not believe
in, and practice, honesty—if he is not truthful and upright, clean and
high-minded, fair in his dealings both at home and abroad—then the
stronger he is, the abler and more energetic he is, the more dangerous
he is to the body politic. Wisdom untempered by devotion to an ideal
usually means only that dangerous cunning which is far more fatal in
its ultimate effects to the community than open violence itself. It is
inexcusable in an honest people to deify mere success without regard
to the qualities by which that success is achieved. Indeed there is a
revolting injustice, intolerable to just minds, in punishing the weak
scoundrel who fails, and bowing down to and making life easy for the
far more dangerous scoundrel who succeeds. A wicked man who is wicked
on a large scale, whether in business or in politics, of course does
many times more evil to the community than the man who only ventures
to be wicked furtively and in lesser ways. If possible, the success
of such a man should be prevented by law, and in any event he ought
to be made to feel that there is no condonation of his offences by
the public. There is no more unpleasant manifestation of public
feeling than the deification of mere “smartness,” as it is termed—of
mere successful cunning unhampered by scruple or generosity or right
feeling. If a man is not decent, is not square and honest, then the
possession of ability only serves to render him more dangerous to
the community; as a wild beast grows more dangerous the stronger and
fiercer he is.
But virtue by itself is not enough, or anything like enough. Strength
must be added to it, and the determination to use that strength. The
good man who is ineffective is not able to make his goodness of much
account to the people as a whole. No matter how much a man hears
the word, small is the credit attached to him if he fails to be a
doer also; and in serving the Lord he must remember that he needs
to avoid sloth in his business as well as to cultivate fervency of
spirit. All around us there are great evils to combat, and they are
not to be combated with success by men who pride themselves on their
superiority in taste and in virtue, and draw aside from the world’s
life. It matters not whether they thus draw aside because they fear
their fellows or because they despise them. Each feeling—the fear no
less than the contempt—is shameful and unworthy. A man to be a good
American must be straight, and he must also be strong. He must have
in him the conscience which will teach him to see the right, and he
must also have the vigor, the courage, and the practical, hard-headed
common-sense which will enable him to make his seeing right result in
some benefit to his fellows.