A Baccalaureate Sermon 193
Turning from these considerations and mainly desirous
all along to speak in such way as to serve particularly the
young men and young women who graduate at this com-
mencement, I want to urge the realization that true religion,
the finding and fulfilling of the right relation to God, is the
first duty, the great commandment, the supreme object of
human life. This is axiomatic; but it is an axiom which
cannot be too much emphasized when young people are
about to go forth to take up the objects and pursuits for
which they have been prepared in their university years.
Is religion, is the establishment of a true relation to God,
to be the first object of our lives, or the last? Is it to be
merely one of many objects, to be taken up in moments
which may occasionally be spared from other things, and
then in the crowd of things to be permitted to fade and
vanish; or is it the supreme end?
The priority of true religion, its pervading and prevailing
influence as the chief object, its transfiguring effect upon the
other objects, its power to unify and glorify the entire human
life; this conviction should be with us forever.
Concentration upon our right relation to God, sustained
obedience and responsiveness and love towards Him, can be
interfered with and negatived in such manifold ways that
our reflection upon them now could only be partial and
incomplete; and my insistence here is that the duty which is
the great one and which is the first must be lived for first,
and all other duties and interests be seen and sought in its
light. Self-will and sin can bring us to fatal separation from
God; doubt, unless conquered, can paralyze us and bring
us to spiritual destruction; the consciousness of mystery and
unearthliness in things spiritual can be allowed to breed un-
rest, and to cripple conviction and excuse indifference. But
it is the preoccupation with secondary things, the préoccupa-