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Y. M. C. A. Building at University
of Georgia.
After a very thorough investigation extending over
some months and involving the careful consideration
of all interests involved, the committee of the Alum
ni iSociety, the trustees, members of faculty and
other friends of t_he University of Georgia, decided
that it will be wise to have erected in connection
with the other buildings of the university campus,
a thoroughly equipped building for the Student
Young Men’s Christian Association that shall be
adequate to meet the requirements of their work,
and that shall cost not less than $75,000.
The most important item in connection with this
fact is that students comprise the dominating force
of young manhood. In a very able address of the late
Chancellor Walter B. Hill, delivered before the
Georgia Bar Association, he said: ‘‘ One college grad
uate for every forty graduates has reach
ed distinction, while the proportion in those not
colleges graduates is one out of every 10,000. These
figures show that the chances in favor of the college
graduate are 250 to 1.”
The late Dr. P. D. Pollock well said that 11 Civili
zation comprieses the scientific ,the literary, the es
thetic, the institutional and the religious sides of
hfe. If education omits one of the five, it cannot be
found complete, sound or liberal.” Dr. W. W. Lan
drum has stated that the people of Georgia believe
in religion; and when it is understood that no sec
tarian body can be allowed to propagate its form
of religion in connection with the State University,
the importance of having the Young Men’s Chris
tian Association, the only institution to which this
religious work can be intrusted because of its non
sectarian character, so thoroughly equipped as to be
able to do effective work, cannot be over-estimated.
Dr. Charles W. Dabney, President of University of
Tennessee, said that"- considering the interests of
the students as a who! ~ l e regard d the Young
Men’s Christi in Association as tie rrost important
single department of the work of the University.
Now, whatever truth there may be in the old say
ing that it takes a good mechanic to work without
tools, it is the incontestible fact that no good me
chanic of the present day would undertake an im
portant task without good tools, and whatever good
may have been accomplished in the days of inade
quate equipments the associations that are to-day
being well equipped are surpassing the results of
the old methods as the modern steam plow surpasses
the old-time crooked stick drawn by the ox or mule
as a method of preparing the soil for our crops.
Dr. Henry Louis Smith, President of Davidson Col
lege, has said that since moving into its new build
ing, the association of that college comprises six
seventh of the students among its members; and the
testimony of College Presidents and instructors
throughout the country has been in the same direc
tion. The morale of student life has been transform
ed in most of our great universities through the care
ful and systematic work put forth by the Young
Men’s Christian Association among the students, and
no investment of money by the citizens of Georgia
will bring so great returns as that which will make
it possible for her largest educational institutions
to be thoroughly permeated with the religious spirit
of this association.
It may be stated that the trustees have endorsed
this movement with great heartiness, and granted
that a place should be provided upon the campus for
the location of tM» building,
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The members of the faculty have also gone on
record with the strongest possible statements of their
opinion that such a building will meet not only the
needs suggested above for the stimulation of the
religious life of the students, but also meet the needs
for the gymnasium, bath-rooms, study-hall, social
rooms and first-class dormitories, which are greatly
recognized by all the members of the faculty, one
of whom well said, “It will very largely increase the
religious activity of the university. It will revolution
ize the present dormitory system.” And the late
Chancellor Hill trenchantly stated his opinion in
these words, “The Young Men’s Christian Associa
tion building is undoubtedly the greatest present
need of the university.” J. V. Read.
Prayer For Colleges.
Abstract of a Sermon By W. H. Young, Ph.D.
It has remained for our boasted Twentieth Cen
tury to develop the first serious skepticism about
prayer.
Every race and religion has practiced prayer. The
Greeks and Romans with all that culture which re
mains the model for all time, so far from making
that an excuse from prayer, industriously prayed to
what they deemed to be divinities.
Homer called prayers the daughters of Jove;
■wrinkled - , slant-eyed, lame and weak in their persons,
but mighty as messengers and mediators. Socrates,
whose teachings are made an excuse from prayer to
day, rebuked those of his time who set up their puny
knowledge and power above those of Diety.
Men are bound together by myriad ties traceable
to limitless combinations of complex faculties and
relationships. Each human being represents a micro
cosm as vast and unexplored as the universe; but
God sees their every secret thought, together with all
their possibilities.
State, nation, race compose a chain of fathomless
hearts all stretching up to God. as the starry con
stellation of “The Bard,” which holds both the
fishes of “Pisces,” and touches the collar of the
“Whale,” also passes beneath the watchful feet of
“Aries,” that Lamb of God who shall one day ap
pear as all conquering “Leo,” the lion of the tribe
of Judah.
Must not men be worse than common fools who
enter upon the simplest concerns of life, in things
secular or social, without prayer to that One who
alone sees all men, and holds their destinies in the
hollow of His mighty hand?
Pericles, like Demosthenes, always began his ora
tions with prayer, heathen though he was. Our very
speech, too, bewrayeth us when we say “good-bye,”
which is a prayer that “God be with ye.”
But if temporal matters deserve our prayers, how
much more do the moral and spiritual welfare of
eternal souls!
Observe these grand, heroic, Patriarchs, mighty in
every human element of greatness, yet greatest as
they wrestled with Cod in all-prevailing prayer.
Look, again, at the Prophets, inspired of God
as they were, yet drawing down the powers of Heav
en by simple prayer.
Jesus not merely left us that precious model
prayer, but a far greater heritage in his tireless
example of praying while others slept.
The Apostles, when told to tarry at Jerusalem, in
stinctively gathered in a ten days’ meeting for
earnest prayer, And the converts at the resulting
Pentecost were said, by Luke, thirty years after
to have I ‘continued in the Apostle's doctrine
and in prayers” all the time.
What is this potent force? A breath, an exhala
tion, a wish “uttered, or unexpressed.” Who would
withhold the breath of his mouth to secure what cost
our Savior the blood of his life!
And besides what this simple means can accom
plish in those we pray for, its reflex influence is
happy upon ourselves. To paraphrase Shakespeare:
“Prayer blesses him that gives and him that takes;
’lis mightiest in the mightiest, it becomes the crown
ed monarch better than his crown.”
But reflex influences are impossible without di
rect power also. Action and reaction are equal but
one cannot exist without the other.
We hear too much about the reflex influence of
prayer as its chief if not sole effect. Whereas there
cannot be any reflex cff ct without true faith. To
the Christian who believes sincerely that God is,
and that he is the rewarder of those who diligently
seek him, there comes a calm reaction that is more to
be desired than gold. But what reflex effect can be
possible in the mind that doubts the possibility of
direct results?
Imagine Elijah praying for tire to come from
Heaven only for some reflex influence! Or Peter
sinking in the waves and asking Jesus to help him
merely for its reflex effect! Or John Knox spending
whole nights wrestling with God for the salvation
of Scotland just to enjoy the psychological reaction!
And yet this is the modern doctrine of prayer that
is taught in many pulpits, and involved in all recent
religious thought. A lunatic or idiot might make
such assertions, but sensible man and women calmly
adopt the like fallacy.
Tn our day of materialism, when God is made
subservient to matter, the Bible reduced to a col
lection of myths, prayer finds no place in the deli
cate machinery of nature.
But we know that prayer has interfered with this
mechanism, and has accomplished tangible, visible
and ponderous results.
Prayer saved shipwrecked men from what seemed
an inevitable death; prayer brought real fire, not
lightning, from the sky; prayer created a drought
and brought again the refreshing showers; prayer
destroyed an entire army in a night; prayer over
turned the solid walls of Jeric ho without mechanical
means; prayer stopped the mouth of lions; prayer
quenched the violence of fire for the three brave
boys in that Babylonian furnace; prayer drove devils
from a youth possessed; prayer opened the iron gates
of a Roman prison, as it unloosed iron shackles from
the prisoner’s limbs.
And such physical results, unmatched as they are
by modern mechanical and scientific skill, were all
accomplished by the faithful breath of men of like
passions with ourselves, so that we can as confidently
pray and as surely find grace to help in every time
of need.
But why do schools and colleges demand the exer
cise of this mighty force in their behalf? Have they
not trustees and officers, as well as teachers and
pious students, whose brain and skill and example
can accomplish all that might be wished?
e find that the religious am!, to a great extent,
the moral welfare of students gets little attention
from these local centers of influence.
Among the very few special objects for prayer
that Jesus named, was that we should pray the Lord
of the harvest that He send forth laborers into His
vineyard, which involves our schools, since from
them such laborers com&
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