Show t I A LIBERAL SOUL r J It- It Itt t BACCALAUREATE SERMON DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY GRADUATES GRADUATES i f J BY BY REV DR CLARENCE T. T BROWN IN THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH SUNDAY EVENING JUNE 17 17 1900 1 My subject tonight is A A Liberal Soul and at the beginning al allow allow allow al- al low me to read what I 1 consider the most satisfactory confession of faith for a liberal soul which I have been able to find in many days days days- the declaration of Auguste Sabatier He said saidI said said- I I am religious because I am a man and do not desire to be less than human and because humanity in me and my race commences and completes itself in religion and by religion I am Christian because because because be be- cause I cannot be religious in any other way and because Christianity is the perfect and supreme form of religion n in this world Lastly I Iam Iam Iam am Protestant because in it I can be a Christian without placing my conscience under an any external yoke and because I can fortify myself in communion with and in adoration of an immanent Deity by consecrating consecrating consecrating con con- to him the activity of my intellect and natural affections of my heart and find in this moral consecration the free expansion and development of my whole being My text to-night to is the word of St. St Paul found in the thirteenth nth verse of the fifth chapter of Galatians II Brethren ye have been called unto liberty It has been my privilege to attend many commencement exercises and to t listen with great profit to many commencement orations and essays and again and again as I have listened to those of the young people I have been constrained to feel that the prophecy r of Joel had been fulfilled when the young men and the young women should prophecy If I were to judge from commencement speeches I should say that the colle colleges es were producing a great company of preachers preach preach- ers and poets reformers and radicals There is no moral postulate r which they will not declare with more emphasis than the most venerable venerable venerable vener vener- able theologian there is no no reform that they will not paint in more glowing colors than any reformer out in the thick of the fight there is no radical who will declare his principles with greater boldness than these young youn people The criticism is often made of commencement commencement commence commence- ment orations that they deal dear largely with glittering generalities but hut L 4 mark you those glittering generalities are the immortal postulates of the human soul So nigh is grandeur to our dust So near to God is man When duty whispers lo 10 thou must The youth replies I can And so to-night to young ladies and gentlemen I shall not make any apology for a trite theme II A A Liberal Soul II The most real thing for every man if he is a man is his own soul A soul says Emerson Emer Emer- son knows only the soul the web of events is the flowing robe in which she is clothed This robe of events Ah how often is the splendid soul entangled in the very richness and largeness of this robe The soul is the most real thing but there are other real things the soul is imperial you imperial you all believe it but it-but but the soul sometimes finds itself in bondage You have lived already long enough to know that the soul ha has always to wage battle with the body Each emotion of the soul seems to have its physical counterpart and each physical motion of the body has its touch and force upon the soul the body body- is the best of servants the worst of masters A liberal soul must ever keep mastery of the body I do not mean to take the time tonight of you who have read the story of the past to tell of the awful ruin in palace and hovel where the body has been allowed to lead and the soul take second place I do not believe in ghosts but if I did I should not believe in inthe inthe inthe the kind of ghosts that have been most in vogue The ghosts that people people people peo peo- have feared as I understand it are disembodied spirits The miser in Dickens' Dickens II Christmas Carol thought sure that he had seen the ghost of h his s dead partner when he was able to look right through his stomach and see the buttons on the back of his coat If I were going to look for a ghost I should look for other signs as evidence of his identity Why should we be afraid of a being that has vitality enough to live without a body Ah the ghost to fear is the being that still retaining the semblance of a man the body the face the tongue and the eyes of a man and yet so separated from the rule of reason and righteousness so turned from the eternal law of the natural affections that being in the form of a man he liveth as a beast that beast that is the ghost to be afraid of There is a philosophy in our day fortunately a waning philosophy philosophy philosophy phil phil- which holds mans personality in slight esteem as rooted not in the soul but in aggregated atoms Very few of those who hold it have the courage of the ultimate logic and issue of that phil phil- Very few with Buchner would say that The liThe end of man manis manis manis is conversion into carbonic acid water and ammonia It is not for such a liberation as that that we seek There are nV other enemies and tyrannies of the soul Strange as it may sound to you young people with your high ideals there are some folks that you will meet out in the world who actually place money above the soul You will find people who in their hearts would rather be a Vanderbilt than to be a Plato or a Tennyson I remember ber reading of a curious epitaph on a grave beside a highway II Here lies beneath a buried soul II Thousands Thousand of people passed that epitaph and said to themselves II Some crazy soul has inscribed that epitaph f But bye and bye a curious traveler prospecting perhaps dug dugdown dugdown dugdown down beneath the tombstone and there with the coffin he found a great pile of gold and a manuscript which explained frankly that the theman thet t man whose body lay there had believed that this pile of gold was wa his very soul But that was a rare exception You will find many people who see seem to be giving their souls for money you will find very few who believe that money is the soul of life I have read many quaint and curious epitaphs but I never saw on the mausoleum of a rich man an j. j excerpt from his bank account in all the curious curious s of the tombs I never saw the dollar sign There are very few people who have the courage of their convictions in this matter they may live for money but they do not believe that the soul of life is money A liberal liberal liberal lib lib- eral soul will believe that a great man is the man who is riches not the man who has riches in short that a man is worth only what he is The chief value as you have nave heard a thousand times of a liberal education is a liberal soul As Bacon said a university is II not not a workshop for gain and merchandise but a rich armory for the glory of the Creator and the ennoblement of life As you go out from your alma mater allow me the of speaking once more of the noblest theme The Soul The Liberal Soul Our souls are made or unmade by our loves and out hates Our souls are colored and shaped by our pleasures Our wants very largely determine determine determine de de- termine our pleasures and our wants are very largely determined by our habits Sow an act and you reap a habit sow a habit and you reap a character sow a character and you reap a destiny Our best tastes and our worst Vorst are our cultivated tastes and tastes for which we weare weare weare are ourselves responsible and you will find that there have been no noble harvests of fine and glorious sentiment except before it have gone goner r the plow and the seed He who has not sown in knowledge can never reap in noble sentiment A man only by the supremacy of his soul can claim citizenship in inthe inthe J the ages To him alone immortality c comes mes No one ought to know this better than the scholar Not only will wil the Judgment day reveal every mans man's w work rk ot of what sort it is but history has already tried and andI I y revealed quite clearly enough for our teaching every mans man's work of 16 what sort it is What are the immortal names and the immortal works Not those of marble or words or Only the immortal I 1 monuments and names are those that are built out of soul In old T Jerusalem of the men most popular in their day we do donot not even know their their na names s the men who were great in ceremonies the men men great in In ecclesiastical honors the the men great in the brief V Yr authorities of office their names have died But her poets and her prophets her Moses and Isaiah and Paul their names are written in inthe t the imperishable achievements of their great souls 5 Liberty is the native air of the human soul The souls soul's pursuits 1 and pleasures are the royal pursuits and the immortal pleasure of liber liber- ty Men too often have used their superiority to call their fellowmen 1 into slavery The Lord God of hosts eternal omnipotent has used His superiority always to call men into liberty the liberty of the soul from the slavery of the body by making the angel in the heart from the tyranny of selfishness by His divine sacrifice from the t tyranny of ignorance by the vast premium he has always placed upon wisdom from the tyranny of the letter and the instructions by Himself Himself Himself Him Him- self given unto the soul from the tyranny of time by lifting the gates of the eternal from the awful slavery and fear of death by His own eternal life given unto men Of all the heralds and ch champions of religious liberty there is none the Lord Christ than His Paul greater except disciple Through him more than through any other man Europe was differentiated from j jAsia Asia through him more than through any other man the Saxon Anglo race has learned its lessons of liberty The most casual student of history history his his- f tory knows that the chief actor in the vast movement for liberty in the seventeenth century was the Puritan and the Puritan was the child of St. St Paul who believed that the soul was king the the- soul with immediate immedi immedi- i- i ate access unto God with no priest to intervene with St. St Paul who believed believed believed be be- F that institutions were made for man and not man for institutions that the church was for man and not man for the church Let us glance at the circumstances of our text Brethren ye have been called unto liberty These words were addressed unto the Galatians They were not Jews they were pagans They never had been within the circle of holy church Paul went down to the GalatIans Galatians Galatians Gala Gala- and he preached righteousness like a flame of fire burning to white heat and under that flame mens men's hearts burned and they became ashamed of their sins He preached the Cross of Christ and the sacrifice sacrifice sacrifice sac sac- not of man to God but of God for man No doubt he told t often the story of the prodigal the bitter tears and the breaking heart returning to his fathers father's home and the father running out upon the road to meet him And these pagans listened with great joy joy- and I they said We V e would be followers of Christ we would love God we would serve Him II and they became free men in Christ j Jesus esus And all went well until until untila a committee came down from Jerusalem a committee of Christians so But they were not free Christians they were Jewish Christians They believed that Christs Christ's work was effectual if it was wrought within the circle of the Jewish church beyond that it was not effectual That committee r would take a young Galatian convert and would say Are you a af f Christian and he would say II 0 yes indeed II II How about the saving ordinances of the Jewish church Why I know nothing I about those Oh dont don't you know that Dont Don't you know that Christianity is effectual only within the circle of that one institution Why no I never heard that II he would say But they would say that is true This man Paul has been teaching you a stran strange e doc doc- trine II And they came down with all the authority and dignity of Jerusalem upon their shoulders and some of those young converts were very much frightened They began to be shaken with doubts and grave fears lest they were omitting something that was essential to their souls soul's salvation Then it was that Paul wrote his letter to tos s the Galatians and he said II Brethren ye have been called unto lib lib- erty These men of Jerusalem say to you that the work of Christ is effectual only within certain limits I say to you that if you are saved by the power of Jesus Christ there is no limit If you are saved by Christ you are not saved by anything else Brethren he said II you you have been called unto liberty a Paul had tried the Jerusalem system and he tried it to the bitter end He had tried to find satisfaction for his soul in all the rites rite's and t. t ceremonies but in vain Not until he had found freedom in the love and sacrifice of God for him and found the testimony of it written in his own heart by the Holy Spirit that no other man knew not until w then was he a free man and then he was ready to preach the gospel of liberty unto the whole world Pauls Paul's idea of liberty it seems to me was worthy of God was worthy of the soul Paul taught that liberty was not the gift of any man to another man that liberty was a divine birthright directly from God to any child that received it Liberty has its origin in God and its royal seat in the individual soul Some men hate liberty because they love power Some men mistrust liberty because they have a poor estimate of the soul and a still poorer estimate of Go God Some men nen think that they must help God out lest He might fail There are others who fear liberty because of the abuse of liberty Many men fear liberty because liberty has been spelled license Many a man calling himself a free man is the kind of a a man that would come up to a locomotive all groomed and trim and ready for forthe forthe forthe the trip on the shining rails and he would say You poor locomotive you think you are free tree Why you cannot do a thing without those rails Why dont don't you tear yourself off those rails and assert your liberty That kind of a man would come to a fish fash disporting itself in the great sea and would say Why you think you are a free fish If you are free why dont don't you jump out of the water and fly in the sky like an eagle That kind of a man would come up to a soul feeling the divine compulsion and glorious obedience of the Kingdom of God and say Why you think you are a free man why you are a slave Not so did Paul believe not so did Washington believe It was wasa a different t kind of liberty they inculcated The only cure for the evils of liberty is more liberty There is no use in being free from the outer law unless a mans man's manhood has felt the royal force of the inner and the divine law It is a very poor service to set a mans man's feet free from the chains and then to offer him no path and no goal Real liberty consists in getting free from the artificial relations and finding the divine relations and moving therein Here is an eagle with all his life kept in a cage I I hate to see an eagle in a cage there is something so incongruous and mean about t it One day a man comes and lets th the eagle out Gut of his cage and in ina a way that eagle is free he is half free But he has been kept in the cage all his life his wings are untrained and he is not fully free until he has found his wings He is not fully free until he moves in his native medium the blue bue empyrean the child of the sun The soul is only half free when it has been released from its cage Not until it finds its wings in its own sky is it wholly free And there is its home The |