Valparaiso University - Beacon / Record Yearbook (Valparaiso, IN)

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7 it His eye in a fine frenzy rolling? sinking himself in myriad types; in Webster, in' his reply to Hayne, for as he said, tt All that he had ever read, heard, or seen seemed floating before him in one vast panorama? and he had to but reach up, grasp a thunderbolt and hurl it at him. Only by grappling with a, mighty thought can one learn What lies Within his power. He must be floated out of the shallows of self 011 the tide of broad and beneficent impulse. In the future new opening to us, if our highest, linest possibilities are to be realized, if we are to know the glory of fully matured powers in the Swing of their utmost achievement, then must be this lifting out of self into that higher exaltation of devotion, that which makes possible the sublime self-forgetfulness 0f the patriot and martyr, and without which the poets inspiration itself is but an idle pleasure. It is this which made Martin Luther the moral colossus that he was, while Erasmus, his 00114 temporary, hearing the same call, sank back into the littleness of his scholastic ease. It is this which alone can save us from the barrenness of pride or self distrust of indolenee, from the unhappiness 0f strife and discontent and bear us into heights of character and achievement to which no man can struggle in unaided strength, from which all selfish purpose must eternally drag him down. The religion of humanity forgets the powerful and sublime discipline which for nineteen centuries has been developing the God in man which it would now enthrone. It plueks the fruits of Christianity and denies the tree. Whatever, my classmates, has been said of the duty of service for which we are prepared, has appealed to us because of that pure and generous atmos- phere in which consciously or unconsciously every lady and gentleman has been reared and which is itself the direct product of this discipline of the centuries. In the spirit of Him who tteame not to be ministered unto, but to min- isteiw may we grow as did Tennysons vanished friend, HNot alone in power And knowledge, but by year and hour In reverence and in charity.

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to the Victim of our great mines and sweat shops, to him Whose opportunities have not been on a par With our own '1? Has the prestige given us dissolved the bond between us and our less fortunate brother or has it sealed the bonds of sympathy and gratitude Within us? concerns themselves alone. Such have entered during these years into 110 higher realm of hope and action and finally When the end comes they have but a finer incense to offer to their former idols. They have never caught the meaning of a liberal education. If our aspirations be the highest our sympathy Will be bread. The proper pursuit of place or fortune is most laudable; it is the ideal in View that gives character to the man and to his work; if place and fortune do not sway him, if they are made the means of Wider service they themselves become holy most dreadful curse t0 the self. Our earliest ideal is that of power; acquisition seems greater than self- denial, strife greater than love. This is all very well for a timefwe are yet in the period of infancy. Development is but working out its destiny. Some- one has said: tt Egoism is the armour of growth. True this may be, but woe unto him to Whom this protecting shell becomes a prison. It must be destroyed. T0 every strong spirit there comes a time When it must burst from the servitude of self; must rise into the realm of devotion. It is the evolution of true greatness and from that moment conquest Withers into Nor is the reward of service a thing of the past entirely. Its highest recompense is here in the living present. Every worthy ambition is sane- tioned by a generous purpose. Aye more, it is heightened and intensified. The feeling pervading all great work is the feeling of utter forgetfulness of self. Never has a great masterpiece been produced With a prevailing self- eonseious feeling. It is that same sublime losing of self in the higher Which we iind in all lofty efforts whether of art or oratory, literature or life; in Raphael, 7tis the Transfiguration light shining upon him; in Shakespeare,

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C. W. HOCKENBERY Classic and Professional Vultus animijanua et tabula Agitcms 0737'ch quaestiones ac pugnas cle verbis EDWARD A. ANDERSO Classic