United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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20 VOX recognize that there is also a defin¬ ite call to everyone, whatever his vocation or profession, to use that vocation as a vehicle for the up¬ holding of high ideals. Your edu¬ cation and your spiritual percep¬ tions, if they have done their work in your moral make-up, have so far redeemed you from the vulgar hunt for mere profit as to send you out, chivalrous knights of a worthy crusade, to gain a Holy Land where Principle is above gain and where Honor and Purity are of more account than many pleas¬ ures. Never, if such is your ambi¬ tion, were you more needed in the world than you are today. The second word is Leadership. Our Lord uttered a warning to His followers that may be paraphrased something like this: “The men who lord it over their fellows and assume a pompous dignity have been greeted with the acclamation ‘Well done!’ You must change all that.’’ The spiritual leader is not a boss; his leadership is but the call from one who knows and does for others to share his purpose. Every best experience that has come to you has been qualifying you for such leadership and it is much in demand. Our third keyword is Vision; not the ethereal dream of an un¬ practical visionary, but the call of the coming victory, the terrific magnetism of the greater thing yet to be without which no one achieves anything. The supreme discovery of Jesus was the wonder and the triumph of the life utterly devoted to the doing of the will of God, and in Him and in His fol¬ lowers that has opened the gate¬ way into the highest. That is the light of your life; catch sight of it in your fellowship with your in¬ comparable Leader— And, e’er it vanishes Over the margin, After it, follow it, Follow the gleam.” And, once more, it all seems to be summed up in that word which is the key that unlocks the secret of the Christ life: Service. Great gifts have been lavishly poured in¬ to your life; beware what you do with them. The selfish hoarding of the gifts of life invariably atrophies the faculty to grow and achieve. It was no mere glowing metaphor that our Lord used when He said: “He that sav- eth his life loseth it”; it was rather the plain statement of an inexor¬ able law. The story of human so¬ ciety is replete with the pictures of the self-centred and grasping, who have either broken on the rocks of insatiable ambition or have at¬ tained to fame as the destroyers of all that stood in their way. The path of service, blazed by Jesus, is proving to be the only way to true greatness. Today’s life, with its acute problems and poignant suffering, presents an unparalleled challenge to selfless and consecrated leadership. Invest your trained powers in that great venture and, fascinated by its amazing returns in human welfare, you will be glad to say: We ask no other wages, When Thou shalt call us home, But to have shared the travail That makes Thy Kingdom come.” We’ve been talking over plans for our spring party.” “Oh, how nice! I know where there’s the loveliest spring.” Barney—My room-mate talks in his sleep, does yours? Maurice S.—No, it’s so annoy¬ ing—he only smiles.

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vox 19 life. Still on the ascending scale, you have been slowly learning how to apply your knowledge to actual life and make it the fuel for the fires of action. Greater yet, you have been going through a process of being trained and train¬ ing yourselves so to think that what you are carrying away with you at the end of your college life is not so much what you have studied as the power to study. Best of all, you have been developing personality. In the class-room and in the field of games, in your pri¬ vate study and in your many col¬ lege activities, in your debates and in your banquets, yes, even in the hard knocks and the rough and tumble of the thousand and one struggles through which you have passed, the most significant thing that has been happening, unless by some disastrous misunderstanding of the whole situation you have missed the real thing for which you came, is that you have been building up a broad, full-orbed, dependable personality that now is well on the way to big things. And now, if you can, try to estimate the forces and processes of spiritual religion. First, the grasp¬ ing of the great elemental facts: the initial and dominating fact of God, the illuminating fact of Christ, the staggering fact of the Cross, with all those intimate and personal facts of fellowship with the Divine and response to the incomparable moral and spiritual leadership of the Living Christ. Then comes, gradually and with accumulative force, the acceptance of a philos¬ ophy of existence and a spiritual interpretation of the universe. In¬ separably bound up with any real religion there is the application of these facts and of the new phil¬ osophy to the stern realities of life and the consequent development of character. The field here becomes too vast for us to hope to survey it, but it certainly includes that training to think in the best areas which is implied in the amazingly suggestive terms of our text: “Whoever is willing to do His will, will know,” and it at once takes the open country in the crea¬ tion of wide and noble personal¬ ities, larger spheres of influence and careers of service that make all life abundantly worth while. If that little sketch has in any way served its purpose it has estab¬ lished the identity of the highest ideals that have ever spurred you on, whether as keen students or as would-be earnest servants of Jesus Christ. Whichever way we look at it we cannot escape the convic¬ tion that when we cease to be stu¬ dents we cease to live. They used to talk about “finishing schools”: what a ghastly idea! When any of us come to the point where we have ceased to learn about the only thing that is in order is a respect¬ able funeral. With this as our necessary back¬ ground we may proceed to our second proposition, which is: II. The Greatest Things Yet To Be Await the People of Well- Trained Mind and Consecrated to the Tasks of the Kingdom of God. Four keywords suggest the lines of our recognition of this fact and of our attempt to relate it to the pressing needs of today’s life. The first is Idealism. There is a regrettable tendency to allocate the task of maintaining our idealisms to the preacher or the writer of inspirational books and articles. It need not detract in the least from our lofty conception of a call to the Christian ministry for us to

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vox 21 Valedictory Address—United Colleges , 1931 Theological Department By John D. Mackenzie, B.A. Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen— There are always certain occa¬ sions in the life-history of every individual which stand out con¬ spicuously; and which never really fade from mind. The married man, I presume, looks upon his wedding day as one of these memorable oc¬ casions—the confirmed bachelor upon the day when he abjured all such things, and we as students, will always think of the day when as very green freshmen, we first entered the University and swore allegiance to our Alma Mater—but tonight, it is with still more in¬ tense feelings that we, as the Grad¬ uating Class of ’31, bid farewell to our Alma Mater. We feel a deep regret that the time has come when we must say good-bye to our beloved colleges, Wesley and ’Toba, whose beaten walls and stuffy class-rooms have come to mean a great deal to us during the last seven years, per¬ haps seven of the happiest years of our lives. We think of the great service which these colleges has per¬ formed for this province, and in¬ deed for Canada—and we think of these pioneers who out of their very limited means, founded these institutions. They were men with a vision, they could look beyond the present, with its many unsolved problems and see a greater day for education ahead. They built that men and women might be educated not along material lines only, but that even the secular training might be permeated with the spirit and the purpose of the Master. We wish to pay our tribute to men like these, and we are glad to know that the ideals which were cherished by the founders are being fulfilled by their successors in office, our Prin¬ cipals and Professors. Nobler build¬ ings, we expect, will soon replace the weather-cracked walls of ’Toba and Wesley, but as long as we live, we will cberish fond memories of our old colleges. In saying farewell to our Pro¬ fessors tonight, we would like to thank them for the advice and guidance which they have given us in the last seven years. It is only after completing our course—and when we have a short time in which to look back and review their efforts on our behalf, that we begin to appreciate them as we should. Too often, we must admit, our attitude has been critical and narrow—and we have not under¬ stood the way that we have travel¬ led, but now, as we look back, we see that our Professors have not been a hoary-headed group of slave- drivers, who would sink us in a sea of Greek, Systematic Theology, etc.—but that they are a group who have always treated us kindly, fairly, and encouragingly. We go out feeling that we have in them friends whom we may continue to appeal for advice as we meet the problems that are yet to be faced. I am but voicing the thoughts of our class as I attempt to show our appreciation to our Faculty. . . To our fellow-students we would say only this: If you were to review the work of our class, you would find many mistakes, and at times, a strong spirit of criti¬ cism—do not repeat these mistakes -—learn by them. In saying good¬ bye to our fellow-students we are