William Smith College - Pine Yearbook (Geneva, NY)

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turous spirit goes on forever exploring those immeasurable, unchart- ed seas that lie beyond our human horizons. Of such a spirit as Dr. Silver's we feel instinctively, with a faith that is stronger than all reason, because it has its roots in instinct and emotion, far more potent forces in life than all our boasted intellect, that it lives on, because it has entered so deeply into other lives, because by stern self-discipline, by fearless following of the truth as he saw it, by un- flinching fortitude and serene resignation and self-forgetting good- will he had indeed laid hold on life, the only true life, the life ever- lasting. Moreover, heretic though he may be called-and what thinking man is not a heretic?--Doctor Silver remained a loyal son of the Church. Though he might not glibly repeat the Creeds, he prized the rich treasury of her liturgy, and his attendance on her services was probably not surpassed by that of any layman in this com- munity. No member either of faculty or of student-body was so faithful and so interested a Worshiper in our college chapel. It was fitting that for him should be said in this chapel the last and most beautiful of all the Church's services, that Burial Office which is perhaps the most sublime composition in all English prose. Finally, I feel that in the life of the spirit as well as that of the intellect and that of man among men, Doctor Silver was a growing man. The very last real talk that I had with him was something of a revelation to me. I-Ie spoke with approval of some brief and simple printed words, expressing a sort of religious creed, or at any rate a philosophy of life. I said to him: 'You would yourself en- dorse that much of a creed, wouldn't you?' and he replied, 'Yes, I think that I might, except perhaps the belief in immortalityf A few days after that came the sudden shock of his death. Now he knows, as we all shall know in due time. The words of that little confession of faith were as follows: I quote them to show how far from an infidel our friend was, how real a religious feeling he had after all: 'I have learned to esteem Truth above all things, to believe that this is a spiritual universe, that faith in God and in man always justifies itselfg that good-will is the bond which binds man to man, 82

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'Co be found with him was his lack of religious faith. To me there Seems to be misunderstanding here. He had been trained for the ministry of the Church, but had never entered upon that work be- cause of his honest conviction that it was not the work for him, and because of his honest doubt of many of the things that a minister of the church is supposed to believe. 'There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.' Anything like hypoc- risy or even compromise was impossible to him. Intellectual integ- rity is the first requisite for any real religious faith: that first step he had firmly taken, and his sincerity would allow him to take no further steps until he could see the way clearly. Such integrity and sincerity, I may add, have far more moral value--yes, and spiritual value too,-than the easy acquiescences of many so-called believers, Or the narrow-minded dogmatism of many teachers of religion, and one of the reasons for the ineffectiveness of the Church is that it has too many preachers who preach what they only think they believe, what in truth they have never done any real thinking about at all. I believe then that even in his destructive criticism Doctor Silver's teaching was an influence for good, helping at least to clear the air, to broaden the outlook, and to establish the elementary essentials of honesty and clear thinking. He was perhaps an agnostic: who is not? Who is there that in the face of the eternal problems of an infinite universe must not bow his head in utter humility and say, 'I do not know'? He was of course a skeptic: what else would any one wish to be? The skeptic is merely the man who keeps ever alive the spirit of inquiry-that intellectual curiosity in which, as Aris- ' - ' l k t f totle says, all philosophy begins, -who is always on the oo ou or new truth, always growing mentally, .always following the gleam that lures us on the fascinating but baffling quest, the' endless voyage of discovery into 'that untraveled world whose margin fades forever ' th d 1' t and forever when we move. Move we must, as long as e e ica e machinery of the brain holds out-and why not longer? Is the hu- man s irit completely dependent upon the frail vessel in which it P sails on this brief voyage of its earthly life? No, though the ship surel his adven- goes down, though the Voyager is lost to our eyes, y 81

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and man to Godg that man may be co-Worker with God in bringing cosmos out of chaosg that the humblest service may be infinitely Worth Whileg that the beauty of the visible world and all that is fine rqgf ,t o r X R. if 1 nn. Y' . 'v , uf sl L L ,QM . H - , . Tw and high in our inner life are proof of the Divine and the Immortalg that clear thinking and right action give man a sufficient and self- rewarding task, and earn him a place in the universe: that neither this World nor the World to come has anything for the right-minded 33