man had taken from the first against the lowering things of the life around him. He had not evaded the life; he had lived it, but always on the side of the things that were best. There is no danger in being where things are wrong except the tendency of badness to rub off. There is a kind of wet paint about evil; it requires preternatural care to keep from touching it so that it leaves a stain. Labelling it only adds to the danger. How often have you gone up to a sign of wet paint and touched the surface to see if it was really still wet? And that is what men do about evil; they try it to see if it is what other men pretend it is. On the other hand, the consciousness of the presence of wrong conditions stirs the blood, may even stir the ire of inherently active men. The 101st psalm, the 73rd, the 141st, all have this spirit of keeping one's self free, even while one is in the midst of the evil conditions. Henry Boynton Smith, Bowdoin '34, who later became a great American religious leader, went as a young man to a foreign country to study. His friends grew anxious about him, but he reassured them by saying that he knew his danger and was watching himself. "Be sure," he wrote, "that if I find my faith undermined, I will come home." There are men who would count that cowardice; they say if their faith can be shaken, they want it shaken. That is mere bravadoas though a physician, in a plague section, should be counted a coward if he refused to watch against the first symptoms of the disease he is fighting. He cannot know too much about it, for the sake of others, but if he let it seize himself, he is out of commission. That has happened with scores of college men. They have been ready to accept any kind of risk, supposably to grow stronger for life, only to be put out of commission for life. What they needed was courage enough to stand against the social group for the group's sake as well as their own. The man who is willing to take all his group is able to give him, but is not willing to give his group all he is able to give it, is not playing fair. IV It is not mere fear of popular disapproval that holds many of us back from the courageous opposition to wrong. It is dread lest we may deserve that disapproval. Becoming a croaker and faultfinder is painfully easy and painfully common, too. Once in a while appears a Dante who can take a brave stand against Florence, or a Savonarola who can criticize the Medici, or a Tennyson who can hold up his land to severe judgment in "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After," and yet be really loving and loyal. So occasionally a lad can stand against a college tradition and keep fine and strong and not become a mere pedant and stickler for his own ideas. But generally it is not so, and we have to admit it. It is hard to take a decided stand against something in the group and yet be honestly for the group. Always one must pass through a period of seeming to be a mere faultfinder, overproud of one's own opinion, setting up one's own standard against everybody else's standards, taking a holier-than-thou position, which every normal person hates. The problem is to keep from being that kind of critic down in one's heart and also to be brave enough to stand the pressure of common opinion that one is that kind until the opposite fact can be proved by time. All of us hate being called Jeremiahs. But do we know the real story of Jeremiah? The fact is that he was right in his contention, as his history showed. And the further fact is that he was right in his spirit all the way through. He was always ready for any scheme which was not palpably foolish that would help the situation. He was not willing to do just anything that any fool proposed, but he was eager to save the situation as long as there was the slightest hope of doing it. He was no croaker. He differed from other people only in the fact that his eyes were open and theirs were not. The 31st psalm is often ascribed to him as a man whose experiences would just fit such a song of disappointment and query. John Henry Newman said that "Jeremiah's ministry may be summed up in three words, Good hope, labor, disappointment." In that psalm appears the feeling of one who sometimes has to come out frankly against his social group and even the whole social order of which he is part. Always there is the danger of seeming merely stubborn (v. 18), and indeed of actually being so, a danger that makes so many men cowards on moral questions. Always there is the pain of estranging those whom one needs for comfort and cheer (vs. II, 12). Always there is the feeling that in near circles one is being discussed and condemned so that talk changes when one comes along (vs. II, 13, 20). It is all very natural. But, meanwhile, no matter what the danger or the cost, here is our social group and the only hope for it is that it be saved to its higher ideals, and that men like ourselves who love it shall not desert it, but do our honest part in its behalf. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER THOUGHT AND STUDY Read Browning's "Ivan Ivanovitch" and consider sharply its social problem-the right of an individual in a social group to take the correction of an evil into his own hands. Consider carefully the argument of the priest. Tennyson's "Maud" presents a phase of the same problem. Try to think out the principal traits which a man ought to show if he is to set himself worthily against any particular wrong on a college campus, in a society, or in a community. Concrete cases are better than speculation. CHAPTER VI Self for the Social Group DAILY READINGS Sixth Week, First Day Blessed is he that considereth the poor: Jehovah will preserve him, and keep him alive, And he shall be blessed upon the earth; And deliver not thou him unto the will of his enemies. Jehovah will support him upon the couch of languishing: Thou makest all his bed in his sickness. -Psalm 41: 1-3. Here the self is taking account of the group and the neediest portion of it. The margin of our Bibles substitutes "weak" for "poor," in the first line. It is not money poverty that is of largest concern. That hurts a great many and men who love the group must watch with interest any movement that promises to relieve distress by a more equitable distribution of wealth. Is not that a surface matter? The man spoken of here takes account of the fact that other people are weaker than he is and governs himself accordingly. The weakest men in college are not generally the men with least money, often they are the ones with most money. the average community there is often more manhood among young fellows who are working their way along than among those who have all the things they want. Men are needed who will set their strength over against other people's weakness, not for their own sakes, but for the sake of the weaker people. Even kings get their honor from doing that (72: 12). Whoever does it has the forces of the universe with him in his effort. The law of sacrifice and service is universal, one of the habits of God himself. He takes note of the man who In takes note of weakness. And he sees to it that no genuinely unselfish act is regretted; he makes its doer "blessed," happy. When we talk about the ingratitude of others toward ourselves we reveal that we were expecting something for our supposedly unselfish actions! The man who considers the weak may have a couch of languishing or a sick bed, and this does not say he may not, but he will be sustained on it, and that is better. Sixth Week, Second Day The Bible is not much concerned about the divine right of kings, but it is very clear about the divine duty of kings. The divine right belongs to the subjects; they have the right to the right kind of kings. This 72nd psalm expresses the ideal for any man who knows himself superior to others at any point. Give the king thy judgments, O God, And thy righteousness unto the king's son. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, He will judge the poor of the people, -Psalm 72:1-4. We have left governmental kings behind, partly because they persisted in thinking of their superiority in terms of somebody else's service instead of their own. If they had counted themselves chiefly burdenbearers for their subjects, we might not have grown so restive under the system of which they are part. And we have not left behind the many other types of kingship, which involve superiority in mind, in leadership, in ability. President Buckham of Vermont Unversity called college students "the very elect" because they were the most severely selected group in the country, each one being the survivor of so large a number that started with him. On that account he declared their responsibility is greatest. Whoever knows himself at any point superior to any other man is the theme of this psalm |