DR. VINCENT: It makes the bookseller keep the books at a lower figure.
A VOICE: It develops the habit of systematic thought and work.
A VOICE: It discovers people to themselves, showing themselves their
natural bent and power.
A VOICE: It breaks down the deep seated denominational prejudices.
DR. VINCENT: Without in the slightest degree diminishing our loyalty to
them.
A VOICE: It fits the mind for its eternal mission and home.
A VOICE: It makes one see what a wonderful thing a book is.
A VOICE: It puts the divine idea into all the study: “We study the words
and works of God,” and this promotes unity of scientific and religious
pursuits.
A VOICE: It selects a course of reading that we would not ourselves
select.
A VOICE: It teaches us the value of time.
A VOICE: It teaches us to recognize God in everything.
A VOICE: It furnishes a good channel for the expenditure of money in
connection with young people.
DR. VINCENT: We ought to say in connection with that, it builds up an
individual library that acquires an individual preciousness; when a man
looks at it he is rich, for he owns books bought himself. The square
yards of books are not worth much. The books that are mine are worth much
to me.
A VOICE: It makes it plain that the world is going forward and not back.
A VOICE: It helps the world to go forward, and helps others to acquire
knowledge.
A VOICE: It gives us a hint as to the powers and possibilities of the
mind.
A VOICE: It teaches me how very little I know myself.
A VOICE: I think it teaches old and young to appreciate art in its
different forms.
DR. VINCENT: It enables people to distinguish between good preaching and
poor preaching.
A VOICE: It teaches that faithful labor, though in a very limited degree,
will be rewarded here and hereafter.
A VOICE: And that it will accomplish a great deal of good in addition to
the reward.
A VOICE: It awakens latent energies in the mind.
A VOICE: It makes the common people better critics.
DR. VINCENT: It makes what they would call where caste prevails “common
people” better critics. We have no common people in this country. We are
all kings.
A VOICE: It makes us understand better the Chautauqua Idea.
A VOICE: It makes us patient in weakness and suffering.
A VOICE: It helps us bear the burdens of life.
DR. VINCENT: In many places there is no social enjoyment for those who do
not dance. The C. L. S. C. gives us congenial society. I have known many
people where the habit of dancing and card playing prevailed, to justify
these indulgencies on the ground that there was nothing else to do. In a
few such places the C. L. S. C. has turned the dance and the card table
out of doors. Of course some of you do not look at that matter as I do.
There may be some of you who dance or allow your children to attend
dancing school, and some of you allow your children to play cards. I have
avoided dogmatism on all subjects where the Word of God does not come in
as the final authority. I never like to dogmatize about these things. But
I do believe that such is the condition of society to-day, and such are
the unseen perils of the day—perils always present—that the family that
can enjoy itself thoroughly in an intellectual way, so as not to create
a taste for the stimulating power of the dance and the card table and of
the theater is a safer, and in the long run, a happier family than the
family otherwise controlled by so-called worldly tastes. [Applause.] It
becomes us to be very free from dogmatism about these things, because we
do not want to lay down laws that have not been laid down for us; but if
we can, let us substitute the influences of the C. L. S. C. for these
things.
WRITTEN PAPER: The C. L. S. C. gives new hope and courage to those who
have thought that the days for personal improvement had gone by.
DR. VINCENT: Dr. Wilkinson, in his address the other day, made reference
to the fact that I myself had never enjoyed college opportunities. I did
enjoy the very best academic opportunities up to the time that I should
have entered college, but circumstances, which seemed very much like
Providence, interposed at that crisis in my life, where the question was
settled by three contingencies. I suffered from a bronchial affection,
and my friends regarded me in great peril physically. I submitted three
questions to three men after serious thought and earnest prayer, and
resolved to be governed by the decision of the three men if they should
decide in the same line. To one, an able scholar and a most efficient
preacher, and a man occupying a high position in the church, I submitted
the question of my intellectual fitness, and gave him a long account
of my intellectual history. To another man, my father, I submitted the
financial part of the business. That was a question that he alone could
settle. To a distinguished physician, one of the ablest in New York
City, I submitted the question of my physical health. Now, said I, if
these three men combine in their decision, I shall consider the question
settled in that way. If they differ, I shall consider it still open. The
decision of all three was quite in a given line, and I entered very soon
into the active ministry.
The fact that I lacked the _prestige_ of the college was humiliating to
me to the last degree. It made me morbid for years. I was too honest to
impose on people, and therefore too likely to betray myself where no
good could come of it, and where there was no necessity of it. But my
humiliation led me to do this thing: To turn my theological studies and
the preparation of sermons into means of mental discipline; to acquire
the habit of laying hold of a subject, and of holding on to it, and
persisting in holding on to it until I could master it, so that if I did
not have more than a smattering (and I did have a smattering of Greek and
Latin and Hebrew to begin with), I would have the discipline of thinking
on subjects and of tearing them open on my own account. I tried to do
that through all the years of my active ministry.
I drew up for myself a sort of C. L. S. C. thirty years ago, and took
glimpses of all that the boy examines in college, so that the C. L. S.
C. of to-day developed out of it, and different as it may be, it is
the result of bitter experience and immense effort, so far as I was
personally concerned.
I really ought not to have mentioned these things to you. I have never
done so anywhere except to a limited circle of friends. When I watch boys
in college, their pleasures and struggles; when I look at the buildings,
at the bronze statue of the first president of Yale, the libraries,
the art department, the scientific department; when I hear that old
bell ring from day to day, when I look on the _campus_ and see the boys
marching or lounging, singing the college songs; when I see them striving
for preëminence in the athletic arena; when I remember that certain
prerogatives depend upon victory on this side or the other; when I see
old men who were students fifty or sixty years ago, the oldest that are
left, and see the joy that comes from the inspiration of such memories,
then I see that it is a great thing to be able to give old people and
every-day people a touch of the joy and hope and memory that colleges
alone can give, and no one unless identified with such an institution can
feel.
It is for that purpose that we have the “Hall in the Grove,” and the
“Arches,” the “Memorial Days,” the “Badges,” the “Diplomas,” etc.
Privileges heretofore limited to college life are thus and now guaranteed
to the old and the young. This is another benefit that comes from the C.
L. S. C. [Applause.] I should have taken a shorter time to tell it, but I
could not.
WRITTEN PAPER: In accordance with your request for the members of the
Circle to remember each other at the throne of grace each Sabbath
afternoon, would it not be well to have a set hour, say five o’clock,
Sunday afternoon?
DR. VINCENT: The suggestion is a good one. We will call five o’clock
Sunday afternoon “Our Sacred Hour.” Mr. Bridge, make an item for the
columns of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, that it may reach all the members of the
Circle.
As I said the other night, we are not all of the same way of thinking,
but we may all think upward, and whatever the degree of our thought and
the kind of our faith, if the look be upward, there will be an uplift. If
with sincere desire we pray for others and seek God’s glory, he will lead
us into all truth. Let us appoint with your approval five o’clock Sabbath
afternoon for the uplook in order to uplift. Those who approve lift your
hands.
My friends, while the formal worship—the going aside and kneeling down,
and observing the form of worship—is very useful, the idea of prayer is
not limited to the place or particular mode, or to the words you speak.
Prayer is sometimes the mightiest that leaps without words out of the
inmost heart to the highest heaven. Let us think a prayer wherever we
may be. Sometimes when people are too busy with their hands and under
the pressure of every-day labor to retire, and have not words or place
for the specific act of prayer, the uplift of the soul, the upreach, is
prayer that brings down abundant blessings. Let it be so with us. Let us
not be bound too much by times and circumstances and words. Let us have
the heart, and let forms and words come as they will, and let us not
neglect times and forms and words.