Princeton University - Nassau Herald Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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THE NASSAU HERALD. 25 morn till night the clink of coin and the hum of machinery rise as prayers from metallic lips, addressing the divinity of trafiic. We must not mistake the spirit of the times. Be it activity, then men must learn to harmonize with activity, to ennoble it and make it conform with the spirit of nature. Study the simplest iiower, its texture, its coloring, its bud- ding, blossoming and fruit, all demonstrate a life of action Contemplate the life of a St. Paul, its doubts, its conflicts, its activities, all culminating in that heroic, divine burst of victory, I have fought the good ight. The particles that circled in that flower disk, the soul-substance of that power- ful man, are alike forms of activity, presenting their phe- nomena through different mediums. The fossil strata of the earth show us that nature began with rudimental forms, and rose to the more complex, and that the lower perish as the higher appear. This same law holds as true in the development of man's soul as of his body. To-day we are far from the summit, there are yet clinging to us ' the fossil remains which time itself must erode, but the very fact that a higher stratum has been reached places man in a different, superior position with regard to his fellow man. The instant a ray of light pene- trates a darkened room, its nature first requires it to chase away the darkness. Light becomes an activity, the removal of the darkness its duty. Carry this law one degree higher, and let it become a formula of life. We can only attain the highest point of development, the high mark of the ideal, when We fulfill this altruistic law of nature, which alone can solve the puzzling problems of life. God, immortality, duty, said George Eliot, U The first, inconceivable 5 the second, unbelievable 5 the last, awful, with inevitable fates? In the interdependence of nature, duty is a mechanism, a self- regulated mode of action, among men, duty means that dis- order has destroyed the perfection and mechanism of the soul, Restore man this perfect law, and you give him his whole duty. The flying buttress, laden with the carved festoons of 3 .

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24 THE NASSAU HERALD. There is a striking scene in one of the old poets, where, in the gentle slope of a valley, a humble, swaying lily is repre- sented as converting the subtle sunlight into leaves of green and calices of gold. About this delicate workshop Watch the mighty forces of nature, on either side are beheld the misty forms of the haze-cradled mountains, while the winds, bearing perfume, chant their softest cadences, and the lofty, trembling trees bow their heads as if they felt the presence of angelic hosts passing to and fro 5 and even so in the work- shop of the soul of man is mysterious time transformed by divine mechanism into action, while the powers of the uni- verse regulate in awful silence the achievements of this human wonder-worker. The world has often hushed its voice and listened to the Words of man, it has stood appalled at sight of declarations of independence, emancipation proc- lamations, and trembled before the phenomena of steam and electricity. It has been said that man is unarmed and helpless, but are we not surrounded with a complexity of forces which, com- bined with the human mind, have Wrought miracles rivaling the works of nature ? The sphere-harmony that floated from the forest trees tuned the soul of Wagner 5 the morning-light that painted the pearl of the fragile shell tinted the' poems of Wordsworth and Shelley 5 the sculpture of the tin y diatom furnished the designs that beautified the columns and arches of St. l?aul's Cathedral. - Man occupies the centre of this force-universe. You saw the leaf on yon ivy wither and fall 5 internal force wrought its decayg look closer at these century-stained walls and behold miniature moss-forests forming there. With such hidden powers in operation does not the mind feel capable of world-creation, and we are not constrained to cry, with the devout Novalis, We touch heaven when we lay our hand on a human body. With such possibilities isit not natural that life should become a search after power, that the great pulse of activity should beat Within the soul! Thus from

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26 THE NASSAU HERALD. flowers and' leaves, leaping from the masonry like a thing of life, independent of the law of gravity, uncontrolled, helps to bear its share of the massive tower that rises to a dizzy height above it, and so thel most insigniicant life forms an important part in the great tissue of mankind. Therefore, let no life be Hobjectless and in vain, we are necessary links in the great chain which, from the full development of consciousness in the first man, reaches forward into eternity. This day we plant the Ivy which will perpetuate the memory of our Class. The lessons of this climbing vine are numerous 3 beauty in each leaf, activity in each growing fibre, love in its clinging to these memorable walls. Time, action, duty, call upon us to take our place in the outside world, to sever the ties which have, during four years, bound us to this institution and to one another. For us the hours of the present are golden, and we leave this tender Ivy to treasure up and perpetuate all the memories of the past. Our recollections, not we, can live on with this Ivyg ours is a life of the future, of dreams, of aspirations, of hopes. Then, upon each one of you, my classmates, I enjoin, Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Gro forth to meet the shadowy future without fear and with at manly heartf' God speed the Class of '85.