Newspaper Page Text
10 (992) THE]
pansion and use of the power with which he is
endowed. A future and an eternal future is
necessary to his being and capacity. Unseen
realities then lie at the very basis of real life.
The Christian religion takes account of them
and builds upon them. They are its foundation
and its hope. They lift the believer into a higher
world. They bring him nearer to God.
The soul has its eyes. It sees those things
which are invisible to the eye of flesh. * * They are
spiritually discerned." "Blessed are the pure in
heart, for they shall see God." Faith's visions
are real. Reality does not demand material substance.
Love is real, though no one can see it.
Hope is real, though one may not weigh it or divide
it. Courage is real, though one cannot buy
it or barter it in the market. And there is an
inward eye, some kind of a spiritual organ of
vision, that sees those realities and reports them
as genuine and substantial. This soul vision may
be affected somewhat as the body vision. It requires
the clear sunshine of God's favor and
presence, and the radiant atmosphere of faith. It
is dimmed by sin and disbelief. A mind not subject
to the reasonable conditions lis apt to have
distorted views sometimes. The purer the
medium through which the figure of the vision is
seen, the smaller the refraetion and the. -mnrre
perfect the object.
This seeing invisible things may be made the
habit of the soul. It will elevate and ennoble
the character and life. It will endue one with
power for service. It will bring comfort and
peace. It wiTl reveal more and more the beanties
of holiness. It will penetrate the veil and let
us look into the innermost sanctuary, where
God's presence is gloriously manifested and felt.
THE EDUCATIONAL DRIFT.
That an extraordinary shakeup in educational
affairs is in progress in this country there ran be
no doubt. Certain educational methods and certain
classes of educational institutions are receiving
broadsides from so many quarters at the same
time that there seems to be an educational atmosphere
of near-panic. A while back the small
colleges and denominational schools were being
challenged by Prof. Pritchett of the Carnegie
Foundation. The professor seemed to be nnable
to find much good in anything that was not in
some degree an nnderling of the Foundation.
His criticisms attracted transient attention, bat
the colleges continued to pursue the even tenor
of their way and now the wise ones are saying
that these smaller institutions are the centers
of intellectual culture and builders of character,
while the great schools are the whited sepulchres
of culture, full of rich men's sons, social clubs
and many questionable diversions.
Some time ago The Bible Student raised the
question. What is the matter with the schools
intellectuallyt and answered "from the frank
confessions of the heads of Harvard and Prince
ton that so far as these institutions were concerned
they were dead failures educationally.
Later Professor Baker, of Harvard, boldly declared
that the youuff men of that university
"shed culture as a duck sheds water." In
the Wesleyan Oollesre of Connecticut coeducation
has lately "been abandoned and the
women shut out after a trial reaching over crenerations.
apparently for the reason that the men
could not compete with the women."
In an article entitled. "A challenge to American
culture and colleires," Owen Johnson, the
novelist declares that the oollefre men of todnv
have no ceneral knowtedtre. let alone real culture."
He affirms that most of the colleges have
become mere social clearing houses, whose students
know only a few facts hastily crammed for
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SC
examinations and promptly forgotten. Mr.
Johnson has lately prepared a list of questions
which he says every college graduate ought to be
able to answer and which any man in a French
or German university could pass an examination
on but as to how many American collegians could
pass, he is in considerable doubt.
The racy editor of the Advance has treated
the subject in concrete form giving us pictures
of real life and so vivid are they, and illuminating,
that we append the series of nature sketches
for the further elucidation of the subject in
hand. The Advance treats "The Cost of an Education"
as follows:
There is probably no country in the world
where institutions for the higher education are
so munificently endowed as in Amenca, not one
in which an education costs so much. There is
no reason why it should be so, except the foolish
and wasteful habits of our oeople. Tt ought not
to cost any more to teach French than to teach
English and it would be bard to say wby geometry
should be so expensive and mental arithmetic
so cheap. The ordinary and necessary
studies of a college might be taught in any city
at no greater cost than the usual curriculum of a
high school, and the chief effect of increasing the
endowment of any "university" now is to increase
the distance between it and the common
people.
"My college course cost me less than $300 a
year," said an old friend to us at luncheon the
other dav. "but my boy in Hail University cost
me $3,700 last year, his junior year." At that
the father was beeping hack part of the story, as
we knew, because we knew that the father bad
been wired by his son to come to his relief and
+v.o+ v.? j a-vi- ?
t/tJCiv lie I vMi 11 \1 UlC iau VY | l/llw 111/ t% I UK, LttUlC, curtain
or book in his rooms, stripped to the last
rag by his "unfortunate" bets on the last
Thanksgiving day game.
"When we told that story to another neighbor,
he said, "My boy is in the Blankville Academy.
I know that he has not a single bad habit, bnt he
cost me $1,500 last year. "What he will cost in
the university remains to be seen." "We were
curious to know how the boy got away with more
than his father spent on his household exnenses.
and twice what he will earn when he is through
college. "O. he and his chum entertain girls?
and their chaperons?from neighboring schools
whenever there is a ball game and that never costs
less than $50 to $150. "We saw one of the boys'
girl friends, seventeen years old, start off for an
auto whirl, loaded down with orchids, while her
mother retreated to the kitchen to wadh up the
di?hes from her daughter's dinner.
"It isn't always the girls who run up the cost
of 'an education.' " said our friend to the left,
"although my hoy blew in $10 for an evening at
tbe opera in Ohicogo on bis way to college last
fall. The institutions themselves permit extrava
? iVoi ? _ T ^Via vi?AWfrt
Kniii-rx turn ftin miliums. i n-^ncu uir mmi?i,m r?
son in orir snbnrb why he left college without a
diploma when he had reached the latf; semester
of his senior year. And he told me frankly that
Ms inevitable 'commencement expenses.' sanctioned
hv custom and winked at bv the faculty,
won Id cost him as mnch as a vear in the law
Rchool which he wonld enter in the fall." So be
onit six months before thev were to be incurred
TCven then it seemed to be chiefly the "extras"
that cost, however difflcnlt to cut ont. but when
another neighbor reminded ns that his daughter
paid more for two nowt-eradnate studies in modem
lansruafires. neither of which was taught bv a
native, at an institution which had an endowment
greater than Oxford and Cambridge combined,
there did annear to he "something rotten
in the state of "Denmark."
Apart from the millions noon millions crranted
to favored institntions by the states, and other
millions collected in fees from students, the
Ameriean people crave in the year 1911 over #92.000.000
to such institntions. And what will he
done with itt The nniveTsities will blow it in
in "excavations" in Mesopotamia and "resmches"
in Borneo and "experiments** npon frosr
spawn in some cities we eoold mention. Meanwhile.
the students will add another twentv-five
per cent, to their cost of livincr. beer more fnnds
for another fraternity honse, and wo to a dozen
more hall erames and sorority dances. The era
of "plain livine and hicjh thinlcincr" seems to he
distinctly an era of the past, and H cost a ffen
> XJ T H [August 28, 1912 I
oration ago only one-fourth as mfcioh to educate I
the minds of the parents as it costs to-day to
educate the heels of their children. It it worth
it T
VICTORY THROUGH CHRIST.
The greatest victory in the world's history was
the victory of Christ over death. Beside H not
only do all victories pale into insignificance, but
the greatest of all others, men's victory over
spiritual foes, springs from it.
The doctrine of a resurrection may be clearly
traced in the Old Testament no less than in the
New. It underlays all the hopes of the early
patriarchs. Christ said, "Now that the dead are
raised, even Moses showed at the hush, when he
called the Lord the God of Abraham, and the
/vf Ton-o/i or*/? Aia vV TI\?? A?
? v? xixmhv,, auu wit vivu vii oawu, rvr lie 18
not ft God of the dead, but of the living." It
was Job'8 comfort. "And though after my skin
worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh dhaTl I
see God." It was David's expectation. "My
flesh also shall rest in hope. Dor thou wilt not
leave my soul in he'll, neither wilt thou suffer
thine Holy One to see corruption." Daniel declared
it. "And many of them that sleep in
the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting
life, and some to shame and everlasting
contempt."
Christ'8 emergence from the tomb was the
crowning proof of his divine mission and power.
It was also the proof of the efficiency of his
work. It was like the coming forth from the
Holy of Holies of the great high-priest, on
Israel's day of atonement. Had that priest,
having entered in with blood upon his hands to
sprinkle the ark, not come forth, the people
wonld have known that the sacrifice was not accepted.
His re appearance told them that he
had been received and that God was favorable
to his people and had pardoned their sins. "When
our High Priest, Jesus, entered in and made an
offering for sin, once for all, his failure to owne
forth would have blasted forever all hope of tifc
through him. Men's faith would be vain. The
whole gospel scheme would have failed.
No wonder, then, that so much stress was
placed upon the fact of the resurrection of
Christ. No one could be an apostle who bad not
seen the risen Christ. The fact and the doctrine
wnieh was involved in it must be preached everywhere,
as the great central theme of the meditorial
scheme. It was the "sign of Jonas." the
most commanding miracle as well as fact in the
Saviour's career. Without it the preaching of
flia onnefloo do wall oe Violitwrmro' foifh QUATlIrl
VUU OO TT U? uut f VID lOitn, rvvr????be
vain. All would yet be in their sins. It wnc
the climactic proof of Christ's divinity. He was
"declared to be the Son of God with power, according
to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection
from the dead." The incarnation and the
resurrection are the two piers upon which rests
the bridge which spans the chasm between death
and life, between sin and holiness, between a lest
world and heaven. The one sett* forth the humanity
of Christ in its relation to the scheme of
grace. The other sets forth the divinity of
Christ in its relation to the scheme of gTacc
They are the foci of the ffreat plan. About them
the entire plan revolves.
The fact and the doctrine of the resurrection
relate to nn as we?,. Because he rase, we also
shall rise again. Because he lives, we also
live. "I am the resurrection and the life. He
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet
shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believed
in me shall never die." Not only is OhrH
victory the prronnd of oars, the proof of the
divine satisfaction for sin. bnt it is also a pledsr*1
of onr rismff. He vras "the first frnits of them
thst slept." Th?j earnest of onr risinjr hn.? heert
sriven and accepted, and it is for ns to lay