Boston University - HUB Yearbook (Boston, MA)

Page 24 text:

i 22 BOSTON UA'lI'Eli'Sl7'l' l E.-Ui' HOOK. -On this point rollicking Robert Burns is as unflattering as john Knox : O wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us. But sight, of any kind, depends not solely on the seer. The -eye indeed is human, but the light which brings it vision is cer- tainly not human. Wise and beautiful, therefore, are the words of a nobler poet, who sang: Since Nature fails us in no needful thing, Why lack I means my inward self to see? Which sight the knowledge of myself might bring, Which to true knowledge is the first degree. But as the sharpest eye diseerneth naught Except the sunheams in the air do shine, So the best soul with her reflecting thought Sees not herself without some light divine, -Sir Yohn 1Jrw1?':. Happily this light divine is ever shining. It irradiates the divine nature as marvellously as it does the human. It compasses our infant feet to show us pathway and goal. Our birthright blind- ness, therefore, is no just reason why our young souls should walk in darkness. Rather is it best of reasons why in the first glimmering dawn of spiritual consciousness, in the first faint real- ization of our native helplessness and bewilderment, we should lift our groping hands and murmur, Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom Lead Thou me ong The night is dark, and I am far from home, Lead Thou me on. Whoever in sincerity does this, walks a path which is as the .shining light that shinetli more and more unto the perfect day. But our theme of meditation suggests a further ground for gloom and fear. And certainly nothing can he more true to nature and to life than is our poet's pitiful picture of his fruitless struggle to transform his nature. Nevertheless, defeat is not the normal issue of this struggle in the life of man. To stop in this despair, to lie down in the Slough of Despond and die, is to miss the whole purpose and profit of that life-and-death contention. Out of the depths of this despair of self should spring a desper-

Page 23 text:

THE CRY OF THE SOUL. 21 Anon I heard the sweet Voice again, and beginning with the last word of the poet's wail, it said : 'Bli1icl? '- If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. Again there was silence deep as the Sabbaths of Heaven. By and by the same sweet accents were heard once more : 'f 'Hard ?' 'hard to understand what way of peace may be for men born blind? ' It is not hard, Thomas, if the men born blind are only born anew -- reborn with sight. But being as you say born blind, marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. Once more silence ensued-a hush that seemed to me a sec- tion of the hour before creation's morning. Then, in accents of unutterable yearning, there came from the Voice the touching in- vitation, Come unto me thou struggling, heavy-laden spirit, I will give thee rest. The Voice ceased, and I knew the vision was ended. More- over, I knew it had not been given me without a purpose. I per- ceived that I had been commissioned to declare it, to proclaim it this day from this academic house-top. Is then this cry of a bewildered and hopeless soul the fittest subject I can bring you this glad day? Surely it would not be if my purpose were barely to intone dismal variations upon a theme so infinitely pathetic. But such is not my task. Rather is it to forestall such notes in each young life yet in the making-to give, if I may, reminders of that Amphion music of the Spirit, where- by human hearts, however heavy, however indurate and petrified, may yet be charged with life and set in life's eternal harmonies. In plainer speech, I am here to say that despite our universal heritage of blindness, despite the need our natures have of change, despite the nights of terror, days of tears, in which we fight the foes that assail our souls--despite all inward and out- ward forces that work defeat, destruction and despair, there exist for every man the possibility and the promise of a life sane and peaceful, luminous and hopeful, victorious and divine. True indeed is the sad confession of our poet that we are men born blind. No connoisseur in the higher anthropology, such as poets are, has ever ventured to deny this declaration. Self- knowledge is the first degree of wisdom, but even this is lacking.

Page 25 text:

TIIE CRY OF Tllli SOUL. 23 :ate, uttermost surrender to the overself, acceptance of a higher will, appropriation of a higher energy. Only let desperation work its perfect work and it shall lead the despairing into ecsta- cies of perfect victory. A year ago last month, in one of the great cities of the Old World, I joined in solemn services commemorative of the Hfteen hundredth anniversary of a world-historic event. What was it? What event could possibly be worthy to move a mighty multitude to acts of public praise and gratulation after a thousand and half a thousand years had passed away? The worshipper of mindless law could never guess it. .Some of you could sooner solve the question. You have learned that the highest of God's mir- acles are his miracles in man, and that the new-born man is ever the mightiest of contributions towards the needful regeneration of humanity. The event we celebrated was the new birth of a blind-born son of Africa, the illustrious Augus- tine of Hippo. In the magnificent Church of San Agostino in Rome, amid immortal pictures and adornments by such hands as Raphael's, in the midst of sacred illuminations seldom if ever equalled even in Italy, hard by the hallowed shrine where rests the body of holy Monica, we commemorated the spiritual trans- formation of a man who once floundered in all the abysmal ex- periences of a baffied and defeated spirit-a man who in his bit- terness could also say, When I seek Strength from the cross, it drives me mad To feel that I have no more claim Than Cain for mercy- a man who in the language of his own immortal Confessions, bore about a shattered and bleeding soul -- yet a man who through these throes of agony came to peace, and came to be so great and precious a teacher of the way of peace, that at the remembrance of the transformation, a mighty multitude, represent- ing all earth's continents, were moved to public prayer and praise and gratulation even after a thousand and half a thousand years had passed away. Here is an instance where self-despair, culmi- nating in self-surrender, wrought its perfect work, and where it turned to world-transforming strength and light and gladness.