Chautauqua Institution

“ His doxy was the only orthodoxy, and his doxy rejected Christmas as popish and owning the mark of the scarlet woman. We all know the joylessness, the somberness of those early days, in which human struggle was the only aim; never human delight or human pleasure in anything God had made. And we know as well, beyond any need of outline here, the sharp reaction from such numbing relief, and the conviction coming more and more surely to the surface, that enjoyment is as much our destiny as struggle, and that strength for the one comes in full acceptance of all legitimate forms of the other. ”

“ But for the great majority of those who, year by year are passing from school into the practical avenues of life, the multitude who can not go to college, we rear an altar by the fireside, on which we kindle the fires of truth, by whose light they shall see clearly to read the mysteries of that world of knowledge into which their more fortunate companions have gone ”

“ When we are found true in our vocation and calling, then have we reaped honor sufficient, though not on this earth, yet in that to come; there we shall be crowned with the unchangeable crown of honor “which is laid up for us.” Here on earth we must seek for no honor, for it is written, “Woe unto you when men shall bless you.” We belong not to this life, but to another far better. The world loves that which is its own; we must content ourselves with that which it bestows upon us, scoffing, flouting, contempt. ”

“ There may be no time for any elaborate church service, to which a morning must be given, but evening if not morning should hold some assembling together, and in a neighborhood where many poor, or workers in factories or mills are to be found, a simple entertainment—play, charade, light concert, or stereopticon might well have its opening word, thoughtful and tender, of the Christ-child; his love for every weary and toiling child of earth, and his joy in their joy. Where there is no such population there is no less need of a general as well as a special assembling. ”

“ This is what each man has to believe of himself. From all eternity God determined to create me, not simply a fresh man, not simply the son of my parents, a new inhabitant of my native country, an additional soul to do the work of the nineteenth century. But he resolved to create me such as I am, the me by which I am myself, the me by which other people know me, a different me from any that have ever been created hitherto, and from any that will be created hereafter. ”

“ An injury almost as deplorable is the encouragement this limitation gives to the widespread social evil of “sets.” “Our set” is the bane of church union; it breaks up the harmony of Sabbath-schools; it divides our towns into a vast number of petty, jealous cliques. This spirit is contrary to the fundamental principles of our work, yet we encourage, rather than hinder it by narrowing our borders in the local circle.
Unless we do open our lines we suffer, ourselves. We lose the greatest aid which the C. L. S. C. has to offer—the inspiration which comes from working for a good cause. ”

“ It is also conceivable that as the result of an election the laboring classes might be reduced to distress, and all of us along with them, by the establishment of free competition between our workmen and the men in blouses, and the women in wooden shoes, on the other side of the ocean. It is possible, too, that a new interpretation of the constitution which would seriously impair private rights might grow from the results of an election. Nor can we forget that the spirit of our public life is powerfully affected by the discussions and the management of political campaigns. ”

“ October is the month of political parades in the political almanac. This year the display at some points was magnificent. Broadway, New York, with from thirty to sixty thousand men in line, in the picturesque costumes of contemporary politics, is the most imposing sight in the world. And our sober-sided people seem to like and enjoy this single form of public theatrical effects.
Now and then a good man is plentifully advertised as “a man with a conscience.” Would it not be easier and more wholesome to morals to confine this kind of advertising to the men who are without consciences? ”

“ Suppose there were a ball of sand, as large as the globe of earth; suppose a grain of this sand were to be annihilated, reduced to nothing, in a thousand years; yet that whole space of duration, wherein this ball would be annihilating at the rate of one grain in a thousand years, would bear infinitely less proportion to eternity, duration without end, than a single grain would bear to all the mass! ”

“ A dollar’s worth of books will thus impart a brilliancy which nothing else emulates, while the pendant Christmas greens seem the richer by contrast. A few large Chinese lanterns hung from the ceiling, wreathed with simple vines, like princess pine, about the bottom, in addition, will convert the plainest room into a kind of bower, peculiarly fitting it for the festivities of the season. The uttermost parts of the earth must yield up a tithe of all their glory, to aid in illuminating the natal day of the Prince of Peace. ”

“ The local circle keeps warm and vigorous through the year the spirit of the summer assemblies. Indeed, to the local circles we believe we are indebted for much of the enthusiasm of the summer meetings. Their students garner rich harvests of thought and feeling in the long months of study, and the assemblies are but the meeting places to compare work, rest weary brains, gather fresh zeal and plan new undertakings. They are becoming necessary elements in the work. Students are feeling we must have an assembly. ”

“ Imagine all the Athenian watch-fire pillars, huddled into a corner of the Hall of Philosophy, like a shame-faced group of oriental women. Think of the Point, the docks, as absolutely silent; the lake without a sail, or even a row boat, save that of some solitary fisherman, drifting. Think of gathering nuts by the quart among the rustling leaves of the old Auditorium; of seeing the cottages stripped of their hand-painted decorations, ‘Boarding and Rooms.’ Two daily excitements still remain: the meatman’s bell each morning rings, and the stage brings the one bag of mail at noon. ”

“ It is safe then to believe that the mass of common sense people need only to consider the bearings of the Christmas craze in its present workings to decide that a change must come, and to take active measures toward such change.
Necessarily, only women can bring about such change, for it is on them that the chief burden of Christmas work has fallen and will continue to fall. For each woman there must be a pause and a well-considered determination as to both amount and degree of effort and expenditure. Where there is little money personal effort is the only substitute. ”

“ It gives high ambitions. It makes conversation with rational and cultivated people more agreeable than frivolous amusements which have neither ideas nor useful inspiration in them. It quickens conscience. It gives dignity to life. It makes usefulness more desirable than self-gratification. It supplements Sunday aspiration by week-day effort, and increases the power—intellectual, social and spiritual—of every life and of every home into which it comes. All this our ministers should feel. If they knew they would feel. Then cause them to know. By talk and by circulars stir them up. ”

“ To this two-elemented language, a language composed of two stocks so different as the Gothic and the Latin, and yet strangely spoken by a people wholly Gothic and largely Scandinavian in blood, there came now, or began to come, an addition which was destined to affect its character greatly, and without which it would not be the matchless language that it is. This addition was not an addition of substance, but of spirit, not of matter but of manner. It came to the English language because of the bold and independent spirit of the English race in politics and in religion. ”

“ But for those who can not, the young, gifted, anxious, who are longing to stand beside their former companions, but can not; for those also who could not, the mature, with vigorous powers, who by earnest labor and economic care have escaped the environments of early days, and are able now to give a leisure hour to study; for those, too, who would not, and who to-day regret and would atone for the mistake of by-gone days; for all these we raise the standard of the Chautauqua University, and bid them range themselves beneath it. ”

“ Consumption stimulates the love of life: a self-deluding hope of recovery characterizes the advanced stage of the disease as invariably as the hectic flush that simulates the color of health. Hasheesh excites combativeness. Alcohol first excites and gradually impairs self-reliance, and thus undermines the basis of truthfulness, of private and social enterprise, of manly courage and generosity. Moral cowardice, the chief reproach of our generation, has more to do with the tyranny of the poison vice than with the despotism of social prejudices. ”

“ So much for gifts and home decorations, the list of which might be indefinitely extended. The Christmas dinner is always a matter of study—to the young housekeeper sometimes despair. Let it be remembered that on that day everyone from the children to the grandmother has nibbled at candies and nuts, and all tempting Christmas sweets, and that, even if the richest of mince pies and plum puddings seem none too good for the occasion, a simpler dessert of delicate blanc-manges or jellies will leave the eater a clearer head than the heavier mixtures. ”

“ Is it that this is true, or that we have made him such by our own election, refusing him his rightful place, and forcing him ourselves to the shoulders that need have borne no such burden? We stagger under the responsibilities of this time that should mean only the purest pleasure. We grow feverish and anxious in paying a debt when free will offering alone has any part in the real Christmas. Children count their presents and are sad or sulky if tree or stocking hold one less than those of the child across the way. ”

“ And therefore it is a happy result of our political system as our fathers gave it to us, that the people interest themselves in elections, discourage great changes in our laws, impose a conservative policy upon parties, demand respect for the sanctities of the family and of society, and frown upon corrupt practices in handling the national ballot-boxes or influencing the nation’s voters by bribes and unlawful promises.
We have for the twenty-fifth time chosen a President. The office has grown in its burdens, but it has not grown in its constitutional powers. ”

“ Let us hope that the conservative genius of our people will not fail in these new fields of political activity; and that the buoyant hope of this growing people may continue to lift us out of the dangers of the failure of self-confidence. It is our happiness that we feel able to govern ourselves, equal to our problems, superior to our perils. ”

“ Responsibility is the definition of life. It is the inseparable characteristic of my position as a creature. I am constantly moving, constantly acting. I move impulsively and I work negligently. What, then, becomes of my special place and of my special work? From this point of view life looks very serious. Surely we must trust God with a huge confidence, or we shall be frightened into going and burying our talent in the earth! ”

“ Wherever the harmony of creation has not been wilfully disturbed the trees are as tall as of yore, the fruits as sweet and the flowers as fragrant. The eagle soars as high as ever, the song-thrush has not forgotten her anthems, nor the swallow her swift flight, the ostrich still scorneth the horse and his rider, it still requires a Samson to rend a young lion. ”

“ The two facts, that the English language is the vehicle and the medium of a literature unequaled by that produced in any other known tongue, and that it is becoming the common intermediary and most widely diffused speech of the world, show that it possesses in the highest degree the two essential elements of a great and complete language—adaptation to man’s highest and to his homeliest needs in expression. ”

“ In Siberia, in Polynesia, and among the aborigines of our own continent, the alcohol plague has raged with the destructiveness of the black death; [2] wigwams, villages, nay, entire districts have been depopulated in the course of a single generation. Among the Caucasian [3] nations, where the vice has gradually progressed from half-fermented must to brandy, its baneful effects are less sudden, but not less certain. From age to age the form created in the image of God has decayed, has shrunk like a building collapsing under the progress of a devouring fire. ”