Von ¥ Lift. ‘No. 29.
NEW HAVEN, CONN., WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1899.
~ Price Ten Cents.
GEORGE ADAM SMITH AT YALE.
Verbatim Report of his Sunday
Night Talk to Students.
Prof. George Adam Smith of Glas-
gow, who is delivering the Lyman
Beecher lectures at the Divinity School,
preached the sermon at Battell Chapel,
Sunday, April 9, and also spoke in
Dwight Hall in the evening before a
very large audience of University men.
Many were turned away because of lack
of room.
At the evening service, Prof. Smith
after being introduced by Prof. George
P. Fisher, spoke as follows:
The Address,
Six weeks ago I had the pleasure of
addressing the students of my own Uni-
versity (of Edinburgh), gathered for a
Sunday evening in one of the college
halls in a assembly like to this assem-
bly, and, though they passed no vote
or message that I should bring to you,
[ know that in coming among you at
this time, as they knew I should come,
I am followed by their prayers for the
students of America and especially of
this University, for them and you and
all youth of the great race into the heri-
tage of which God Almighty has called
us, and also called into the knowledge
of his Son Jesus Christ and the blessing
and the peace and the power which have
come to mankind. And you can under-
stand, therefore, that as I stand before
you to-night it is with a pretty full
heart, thinking of the young men on my
own side of the ocean, whose hearts
and faces are set towards the service of
Christ. In coming over here I find the
same willingness to talk about religion,
and to hear explained and discussed the
great truths of our common Chris-
tianity. Now I understand that I have
but twenty or twenty-five minutes in
PROFESSOR GEORGE ADAM SMITH.
which to speak, and I have taken to-
night a large subject—the subject of
Prayer. And so without further preface
I will begin what I have to say.
DR. JOHNSON’S ANSWER.
Dr. Samuel Johnson was once asked
(by Boswell, I think), what was the
great argument for prayer. And _ his
reply in#iately was, “Sir, there is no
argument for prayer.” By which he
meant that no man was ever yet argued
into belief in prayer or into the practice
of prayer. But what argument cannot
do, what Dr. Johnson refused to at-
tempt to do by argument, he gave by
example. There are no prayers in all
the English languages more touching
than the prayers of that hero of lit-
erature, no man whose spirit was more
prayerful, or who was more convinced
of the efficacy of prayer. A philoso-
pher may be unable to argue any of us
into a belief in: prayer, but the’sight of
a great philosopher on his knees is
sufficient to drag the most obdurate of
us down on his knees beside him.
Now the high places of our history—
that history which is the common heri-
tage of both of our nations,—are full
of examples of this kind.
Leave aside all priests and clergy-
men, and take the statesmen and phil-
osophers, men of literature, men of the
world in its best sense, military officers,
governors and other of that class, and
you find among them men of the most
practical spirit and of the greatest suc-
cess and brilliancy, who confess that
they owe the strength and the triumph
of their lives to the habit of prayer.
But to-night I am to turn with you
to the most powerful example of all.
It was when the disciples saw Jesus
praying that they were moved to ask
him. how to pray.. Example worked
even in that case. Now it seems to me
that there are three points in which
Christ is our example in prayer. Upon
the first and third of the three I have
only time to speak a few words. On
the second, with your leave, I shall
linger a little longer.
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD.
Now the first of these points is that
Christ based all prayer on the father-
hood of God. The Gospels contain a
number of the prayers of Jesus Christ,
and not one of them, if I remember
aright, fails to address God as Father.
Christ never opened his lips to pray
without using that name. When he
gave us the model prayer, he bade us
begin it always with the words “Our
Father.” In the Epistle to the Romans,
Paul calls the spirit of intercession the
same which teaches ts to pray, say-
ing, “Abba, Father.” Christ, then,
based all prayer on the Fatherhood of
God. If we have the faith in our heart
that God is our Father, if we have given
ourselves to him as true sons, then we
have all the instinct and argument for
prayer that we require. We have been
accustomed to hear arguments against
prayers,—and sometimes they arise
without our having heard from others,
such as “What is the use of praying?”
“Does not God know already?”
“Should we try to change His will?’—
and so forth. All such arguments
are dissipated and mean absolutely
nothing for the man who believes with
all his heart, that God is his Father and
he God’s child. Just as natural as it
was for us when boys to go to our
father or mother with stories of our
pains or distresses, or troubles, or as
years went on with stories of our
aims and aspirations, so natural is it
for us to go to God our Father in the
same fashion. Of course, you need to
have the belief. You need to know that
God is your Father. You need to
have your heart set in the direction of
God’s will and the desire to do that
will from day to day. Once you have
got that faith, once you are earnestly
seeking to live up to it, you have got
the rock which stands unmoved, when
any argument is brought either by hon-
est or by dishonest men, against the
efficacy of prayer.
PRAYER THE REAL BATTLEFIELD.
Now when we grasp that Christ
meant by prayer the fatherward attitude
of the heart, we can understand what
[Continued on 253d page.]
SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY
W. M. Sanders.
O. A. Day.
_ W. Walker, Bus. Mgr.
EDITORS.
H. L. Davis, Chair.
W. W. Knight.
H. 8S. Canby.
H. Morrison.
THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY.
New Editors and Changes—The Grad-
uates Must Help.
On Monday night the following men
from 1900 S. were elected editors of the
Scientific Monthly for the coming year:
George Nellis Crouse, of Syracuse,
New York; Richard Hays Hawkins, of
Swissvale, Pennsylvania; W. Hastings
Swenarton, of Montclair, New Jersey;
John Foster Symes, of Denver, Colo-
rado; and Cornelius Delano Wood, Jr.,
of Brooklyn, New York.
There have been a few changes made
in the policy of the Scientific Monthly
during the past year. In the first place
the ’99 board felt that seven men were
not needed to manage the magazine,
and that five would be a better number.
In this way the honor of an election
can be greatly increased and the work
can be carried on fully as well, if each
editor does his full duty.
Last June the Faculty kindly set aside
a room in South Sheffield Hall for the
use of the Monthly and this is now the
office. During the first four years of
the magazine’s existence, meetings were
held in the rooms of the editors, so that
there was no place to keep the records,
the exchanges or the files of back
copies. The books sent in for review
were then appropriated by the editors,
by whom they were reviewed. Now
these books are kept in the office and
thus the nucleus of a library of Scien-
tific works has been formed.
This year a gold medal will be given
for the best article upon some scientific
subject written by an undergraduate of
the Scientific School. The gift of this
medal is made possible through the
kindness of Professor Chittenden, by
whom it is given, through the Senior
board of the Monthly. It is hoped that
by the offer of this medal the under-
graduates of Sheff. will be encouraged
to write upon science and that the
renewed activity and interest in the
Scientific Monthly may be greatly in-
creased.
The Yale Scientific Monthly has the
undisputed claim of being the best col-
lege scientific magazine in the United
States. .We.-have tried to live up to the
standard set by the preceding boards
and to improve on that standard when-
ever possible, but there is one thing that |
makes the work hard, and that is our
limited field for subscriptions in the
College. The Academic papers can
canvass the entire University, whereas
we thave only Sheff. We must therefore
depend, to a great extent, upon the
graduates, and for the good of Sheff.
the graduates should lend what aid they
can to the school’s only publication,
and assist the editors wih their subscrip-
tions. There is no money in it for the
editors now and many matters cannot
be accomplished owing to the lack of
ready funds. What we do is to accom-
plish as much as possible with what we
have, and aim to come out even, at the
close of the year. We therefore ask
the hearty co-operation of the alumni
for the new board, that they may accom-,
plish much during the next year.
Howarp L&E DAVIS.
SM 6
The Two Crews.
An important change in the Univer-
sity boat last week was the substitution
of F. G. Brown, Captain of the winning
Freshman Crew last year, for J..W.
Cross at No. 5. Both are big men, so
the change does not mean that the boat
will be lighter, but Brown’s possibili-
ties are considered somewhat greater
than those of Cross. Dr. Gallaudet has
been assisted in his coaching by Alfred
Cowles, ’86, who has been here about
a week. He is expected later, to remain
a longer period. Richard Armstrong,
’95 S. will help in the coaching this
week. So far the Crew has done only
fair work, but the weather has been so
bad that the four-mile course has only
been tried a few times and then under
adverse conditions.
The Freshmen are now in permanent
charge of J. D. Ireland, 1900S. The
Crew rows as follows: Stroke, Phipps,
7 Low; 6, Hooker; 5, Blagden; 4,
Kunzig; 3, Swan; 2, Warmoth; bow,
Troxell. ; |
