Commencement

“ In the infancy of creation the human family commenced down at the bottom of the ladder, and had to make their way upward. How small and frail that commencement looks now; why it is considered almost beneath the notice of the wise of this day to talk of the intelligence of our First Parents. ”

“ No! we have only qualified ourselves in mind and heart for the commencement of that which is demanded of us in life, the single, contented, glad, immediate, and constant service of God in the state and circumstances in which He has placed us. ”

“ The cause which we have espoused possesses, probably, to-day, a greater degree of prosperity than it has ever done from its commencement. Thus may it ever be from this time henceforth and for ever! From the commencement of this work until the present time we have continually increased in power and numbers, and in blessings from the Lord our God ”

“ We tend, I think, to look upon the advice that we give to young people as something that shall disillusionize them. The cynic of forty sneers at what he terms the platitudes of commencement addresses. He knows life. ”

“ The subsequent stages of oratorical study are much plainer than the commencement. A time comes when the pupil will roam freely over the great field of oratory, modern and ancient, knowing more and more exactly what to appropriate and what to neglect. ”

“ This commencement includes not only a complete account of the creation of the first human pair, but a description of the place which God prepared for their abode, the latter being of the highest importance in relation to the self-determination of man, with its momentous consequences to both earth and heaven. ”

“ To-day we are reaching a changed condition, less apparent perhaps, in the newer regions than in the old, but sufficiently obvious to extend the commencement frame of mind from the college to the country as a whole. ”

“ When your parents do the best they can for you, sez I, you ought to try to do the best you can for yourself, sez I, which is the best return you can make them, sez I.”
“To do the best you can for them, I should think would be the first thing to think about, and, likewise, best return to make them. But now I’ll go on with my letter:
“‘The girls expect to graduate at the academic commencement, on the first of June’—graduate at the commencement! 31I thought pupils graduated at the end!—‘after which we expect to come down to Mondreer for the summer, previous to going to Europe. ”

“ From the nature of the comments, which presuppose a fair elementary training in literature, we can feel sure that only young men and not boys were admitted to the school, and there are some remarks which sound very much like introductions to the general subject of study, while others are pretty clearly addressed to those who were about to leave—constituting, in fact, an early and somewhat rudimentary variety of Commencement Address. ”

“ Now we allow that life begins with conception, because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does. ”

“ Venerable associations of the past hallow its halls. Leaders in the stirring world of to-day return at each Commencement to share the fresh life of the new class. Books, pictures, music, collections, appliances in every field, learned teachers, mirthful friends, athletics for holidays, the best words of the best men for holy days,—all are here. No wonder that men look back upon their college life as upon halcyon days, the romantic period of youth. No wonder that Dr. Holmes’s poems to his Harvard classmates find an echo in college reunions everywhere ”

“ The generation which was from fifteen to twenty years of age, at the brilliant but fleeting epoch of which I am speaking, is now between fifty-five and sixty. It will be asked whether this generation has realised the unbounded hopes which the ardent spirit of our great preceptor had conceived. ”

“ Progression, progression, always progression, has been the history of the centuries since the birth of Christ. Doubtless the century we have now entered on will be yet more fruitful of human advancement than any of its predecessors. ”

“ In a little while there are eyes full of interest and clutching hands full of purpose, smiles and frowns, the babbling beginning of expression and affections and aversions. Before the first year is out there is obedience and rebellion, choice and self-control, speech has commenced, and the struggle of the newcomer to stand on his feet in this world of men. ”

“ Call me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are unto generation and generation.
101:26. In the beginning, O Lord, thou foundedst the earth: and the heavens are the works of thy hands.
101:27. They shall perish but thou remainest: and all of them shall grow old like a garment: And as a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed.
101:28. But thou art always the selfsame, and thy years shall not fail.
101:29. The children of thy servants shall continue and their seed shall be directed for ever. ”

“ I invoke a school which shall philosophically develop all the consequences, the germ of which—neglected or ignored by superficial intellects—is contained in the word Progress considered as a new term in the great historical synthesis, the expression of the ascending advance of humanity from epoch to epoch, from religion to religion, towards a vaster conception of its own aim and its own law. ”

“ Why, work was the beginning and the end of everything. Reaching back to the beginnings of creation, extending clear until the last soul in heaven had passed on and through the training camp of the last hereafter, it was the thing that counted most. ”

“ It has been said by a Master that if we could see with the eye of the Spirit the generation of the human being, his ante-natal life, we should understand the generation of worlds, the generation of universes. ”

“ Or, as 'the Preacher' puts it, with such wailing pathos, 'One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth for ever.' This material is perishable—but yet how much more enduring than we are! ”

“ It must last for a while as a first state, because we cannot go from one stage of regeneration to another without due preparation.
Like the child at school who is promoted through earnest study from class to class, we go from light to light, from strength to strength, from one position in the kingdom of God to another ”

“ SOCRATES: My answer is, that all things instrumental, remedial, material, are given to us with a view to generation, and that each generation is relative to, or for the sake of, some being or essence, and that the whole of generation is relative to the whole of essence.
PROTARCHUS: Assuredly.
SOCRATES: Then pleasure, being a generation, must surely be for the sake of some essence? ”

“ And when the end is possible, so also is the beginning; for all things arise from a beginning. And if that which is subsequent in being or generation can come into being, so then can that which is antecedent; for instance, if a man can come into being, so can a child, for the child is antecedent; and similarly, if a child can come into being, so can a man, for the child is a beginning. ”

“ We, still in the preparatory class of God's great school, cannot yet grasp the higher forms, but those who have been moved up surely smile at our want of comprehension, and look back on this earth as the College undergraduate remembers his kindergarten; [Pg 199] for the spiritual evolution goes ever on, working always Godwards, and when the human dross falls away, the imperfect and the partial will be merged into the perfect and the eternal. ”

“ The ideas and sentiments which make possible any more advanced phase of associated life, whether in the family or in the state, imply a preceding phase by the experiences and discipline of which they were acquired ”

“ Enter Quince for the Prologue.
Prologue.
If we offend, it is with our good will.
That you should think, we come not to offend,
But with good will. To show our simple skill,
That is the true beginning of our end. ”

“ It speaks to every class, to every condition, to every grade and shade of character, to man in every rank and every clime, to every creed and every denomination, in its own clear, emphatic, sweeping style, and says, "You must be born again." ”

“ We are in a school of experience, brethren and sisters, and it will be well for us if we will wisely use and apply the blessings we receive and the experience that we are passing through, and so govern and control ourselves in the future that the experience of the past may be a light to our feet in time to come. ”

“ Generation after generation of devout and holy men have looked upon it more and more as a vehicle for the profoundest truths of their religion, and have added to it, scene by scene, speech by speech, everything which in their esteem could enhance its solemnity and make clear its teaching. ”

“ For if that which has no beginning—is the first of all created things,—its histories also are the firstborn,—for they are elder than all creatures.—Let the histories of Thee, O my Lord, yield place,—that we may tell of Thy ministers! ”

“ Initiation was a school, in which were taught the truths of primitive revelation, the existence and attributes of one God, the immortality of the Soul, rewards and punishments in a future life, the phenomena of Nature, the arts, the sciences, morality, legislation, philosophy, and philanthropy, and what we now style psychology and metaphysics, with animal magnetism, and the other occult sciences. ”

“ For the earliest formation is called ‘making’ and not ‘generation.’ For ‘making’ is the original formation at God’s hands, while ‘generation’ is the succession from each other made necessary by the sentence of death imposed on us on account of the transgression. ”

“ In this fact we find the truth of our Lord's words verified: "The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light." The word generation in this place means state or condition from which proceeds a given manner of life, and daily attention to business. ”

“ Noteworthy also, and serviceable for the progress of this same individual, wilt thou find his subdivisions into Generations. Generations are as the Days of toilsome Mankind; Death and Birth are the vesper and the matin bells, that summon Mankind to sleep, and to rise refreshed for new advancement. What the Father has made, the Son can make and enjoy ”

“ There is an order at once among the circumstances of a given generation, and among the successive sets of circumstances of successive generations. ‘If we consider the development of human faculties in its results, so far as they relate to the individuals who exist at the same time on a given space, and if we follow that development from generation to generation, then we have before us the picture of the progress of the human mind. ”

“ The second school multiplies faculties or original principles, concentrates its attention mainly upon the nature of our understanding, and asserts very strongly the initiative force both of our will and of our intellect. ”

“ The Widening Horizon.—The reign of authority in intellectual matters lasted for twelve centuries, and then gave way gradually to the reign of observation and reason. Under the influence of the new method we have been moving generation by generation into a state of clearer discernment and into an intellectual atmosphere of wider horizon. ”

“ The fall of every leaf—the opening of every grave, the subversion of kingdoms—the [Pg 14] overthrow of empires—every event transpiring around us, reads us a lesson full of deep and solemn instruction.
In the various and diversified developements of human character—whether contemplated in its rougher, or more polished state, there is a vast deal presented to view, from which an intelligent mind may gather very important elements of instruction. ”

“ And above all, a second generation, without the sobering experience of the first, was starting from where the first had reached to, and, in some instances, was rising up against their teachers' caution and patience. ”

“ The human period began—the period of a fellow-worker with God, created in God's own image. The animal existences of the previous ages formed, if I may so express myself, mere figures in the landscapes of the great garden which they inhabited. ”

“ But perhaps you say, “The generation of which you speak is an unsubstantial generation. For light does not produce substantial brightness, nor the understanding generate a substantial word, but the Son of God, it is affirmed, was generated substantially.” ”

“ Since the advice was proffered, generation after generation of mighty wits have taken counsel with the Master, and his wisdom has through them been passed out into the practice of life, the evolution of society, the development of humanity. ”

“ Then begins a journey in ten stages, which is a vivid picture of the difficulties and triumphs of the Christian life. Every trial, every difficulty, every experience of joy or sorrow, of peace or temptation, is put into the form and discourse of a living character. ”

“ These degrees are opened successively in all who become regenerate: and with the opening of each degree, the individual is introduced or born into a new and higher degree of life. The lowest or natural degree is opened by simple obedience to a low or natural form of truth—the literal sense of the Word. ”

“ There are periods and degrees of development in the minds of children to which correspond different manners of teaching and even different objects, as we make appeal to one or other of the growing faculties. The first stage is imaginative, the second calls not only upon the imagination and memory but upon the understanding, and the third, which is the beginning of a period of fruition, begins to exercise the judgment, and to give some ideas concerning principles of research and criticism. ”

“ To understand our present moral condition, to be able to give good counsel thereon, you must understand the former generation, and have potentially the spirit of the future generation; must appreciate the past, and yet belong to the future. ”

“ All these life-histories of countries and individuals stand spread out to God's eternal gaze. At each stage He sees the possibilities foreclosed or initiated; He influences development by the primal distribution in the past and by direction and inspiration in the present. ”