William Smith College - Pine Yearbook (Geneva, NY)

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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

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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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if D D , A I l ' man to fear, that the possibilities of life here and hereafter in beauty and in service are infinite' Whatever his faith, at any rate Doctor Silver always seemed to me the truest Stoic that I have known, whether or not he was a con- scious follower of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus. And next to being a good Christian, far better than being a poor Christian, it is to be a good Stoic,-no easy task for the human spirit, imprisoned as it is in this poor body with its weaknesses, its pangs and fears, its needs, and imperious desires. Much of the best that is in Christian- ity has come to us from the Stoics, who indeed carried moral philoso- phy and purely natural religion as far as they could go, till they were kindled into emotion and vital spiritual power by the transcendant light shed upon them by that Teacher who truly was of God and spake as man never spake. Death has come very close to us all, and no philosophy of life can be worth much that does not take account of death as well. It is not a morbid View that I would urge upon you: live your lives as fully and largely and joyously as you can, getting all you can out of the infinitely varied spectacle of this rich world in which we live for so brief a space at most, exerting every power to the utmost and missing no happiness or profit that life can bring, but do not neglect to look at life also under the aspect of eternity- sub specie aeternitatis, in Spinoza's memorable phrase. Those eternal aspects we End in the outer universe with its indestructible matter and its inexhaustible beauty ever combining in infinite variations and in that inner cosmos of the human soul, with its infinite yearnings, its hardly yet explored capacities for beauty and goodness and power-those two things, the starry heaven above and the moral law within, which so impressed the mind of Aristotle, greatest of ancient philosophers, as they did that of Kant, the greatest of the moderns. Only when we look on life as an infinite process, and on all lives as emanating from the infinite Source of Life and partaking in greater or less degree of its very nature, ever growing in its quest .of beauty and goodness and truth upward toward the Divine, only then shall we see this short stretch 84