Ursinus College - Ruby Yearbook (Collegeville, PA)

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GkokCk L. Omwake. LL. D.. P«l. D.; President 2 5F

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President’s Message T(N certain important respects Zwingli and Ursinus lived in a period not unlike 'S that in which we live. Theirs was a time of transition. Life required many readjustments. Social problems of immense importance had to be solved. Science and invention were transforming the ways of life. It was an age of opportunity. Contemporary with them we find an exceptionally large number of names on the world’s roll of fame. Men should ever be alive to the opportunities offered by such an era. From these heroes of the Reformation are handed down certain virtues which the youth of our day may well accept. First, was their desire to know the truth. Both were indefatigable students. They improved their opportunities as university men. They went to the sources of knowledge and became authorities in whom their contemporaries and their successors had confidence. They wrote and spoke as men who knew. A second trait revealed in these men is unreserved consecration. They were devoted souls. In Zwingli. especially, we see the spirit of the ancient Hebrew prophet. He made a single ideal of love for God and love for country. In him. patriotism and religion were closely bound together. Service to his country had in it the same quality of sincerity that was inherent in his service to God. He died on the field of battle, but in his death was the essence of martyrdom. While Zwingli was a parish preacher and civic leader. Ursinus was a university professor. As such he is of special interest to college students. His very face, imperfectly depicted on the seal of Ursinus College, reflects keen intelligence and refined feeling. In a large, closely printed volume full of marginal notes and references. D. Henrie Parrie presented in Fnglish in 1611. the lectures delivered in Latin at 1 leidelberg by Zacharias Ursinus on the Catechism. To this volume Parrie gave the title. “The Summe of Christian Religion. The work is a monument to the ability and patience of the translator, but pre-eminently so to the painstaking research, the depth of understanding, and the logical mental processes of the author. I he purpose of the translator, however, as expressed in his preface, was not to reveal or to demonstrate scholarship, but to present to the clergy of England a type of religion which would pul to shame the secular and immoral life of English churchmen. We have exemplified here a third ideal that of contagious piety. from these great leaders there comes down across the centuries to us the message that we. in the spirit of genuine scholarship, seek the truth with unreserved consecration and that we make it effective among present and future generations by reason of that vital, evangelizing piety which is the natural fruit of the Christian religion. George L. Omwake ■(24).

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James M. S. Isenih.ro. D. D.: Vice-President Died January ii, 19.10