24
THE B4TTALI0N.
to be a man in the true sense one
cannot be a loose-jointed puppet, per
forming all sorts of unlooked-for an
tics as some one else pulls a string.
To be an intelligent agent we cannot
have one part of us wool-gathering on
the prairie, hunting, Ashing, ball-play
ing, visiting, whilst another part of us
is supposed to be working a problem,
demonstrating a mechanical theorem,
developing a chemical formula, trans
lating a dead language into living
thought, in this class room. I tell you
nay; it will not work
To be “here” to duty of any kind is
something like this: High up on a
pedestal or throne of honor sits Con
science with open ear and eye Axed
upon every spring and joint of the
lower man. Ranged about him in due
rank are the; members of his cabinet—
Reason, Judgment, Will; within easy
summons stand his prime ministers—
Attention, Imagination, Memory. A
little lower down are his sheriffs and
under ofAcers—the senses, the emo
tions, the passions, the desires, the
appetites. Still lower, but in Armer
grasp as the distance is greater, stand
in waiting, Brain Muscle, Nerve, with
all the machinery of activity, all the
bodily members and functions. It is
an empire of the sternest require
ments, that manhood of yours, young
man, or I prefer to think, a Republic
of the most harmonious agencies; foi
the happiest and freest being in God’s
universe is at least the creature who
has all functions simultaneously at
work for a common aim and that a
moral one. Now notice this, the most
important asertion I have made this
morning. If we are here as students
at college, with only partial, little, sel-
Ash, mercenary aims; if we are here
for ends which will not make us work
and sweat and tire ourselves in every
corner and nook of this our entire be
ing, for ends which will not call out
and drill our souls, our hearts our in
tellect, our bodies, we are like the
cadet who stands out yonder and delib
erately answers “here” to his name,
when he—the man—is not there in
heart and mind and full determina
tion. When you sign your names on
those matriculation blanks at the
opening of the year, your President,
your Commandant, we all have a right
to believe that it is unreservedly done.
We trust you as we trust the man who
endorses our personal check. There
ought to be nothing between the lines.
It is a contract as binding on us and
you as if we went before a magis
trate and swore to our good faith. We
contract to encourage and, so far as
we can, to give you the opportunity
to exercise, all the manhood that is in
you. You contract to put all that man
hood at our disposal. When I speak
of manhood I am not discounting the
fun and frolic which make a part of
youth.
“A man’s a man for a’ that.”
A manly youth is the masterpiece of
creation, God’s own preferred, called
protege and agent, for when he an
swers “here” to his name there are in-
Anite possibilities ahead of him. Let
him be endowed, as an integral part
of his manliness, with the youth’s
faith—God rules—and the youth’s
highest law—God shall rule in me and
through me. Let him be educated to
use his opportunities to advantage,
and we have a creature without paral
lel in the universe.
I read you as a lesson God’s reveille
call to young Samuel. His answer,
you will remember was: “Here am I,
for surely thou didst call me,’’and if
you will read his life you will And
that in that reply there was the nas-