Ill
BUILDING UPON THE ROCK1
Matlhew VII, 24, 25—“Every one therefore that heareth these words
of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his
house upon the rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and
the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was
founded upon the rock.”
TWENTY-FOUR years ago representatives from the
victorious nations in the World War met to build a
house in which two billion people were to live. The paint
on the new house was hardly dry when the rains descended,
the floods came, the winds blew. The house fell, and great
was the fall of it.
Several statesmen who had part in the building of that
house gave warning at the time that the foundations con-
tained too much sand. Now that the house lies in ruins, all
of us can see that which a few of the builders saw at the time
of building.
Let us open the book, by Messrs. Hoover and Gibson at the
chapter on “The Armistice and Peace Making.” The chap-
ter points out that hate, fear, and revenge were substituted
for statesmanship. It deplores that the democratic regime
in Germany was required to sign a confession that the whole
nation was guilty of causing the War. It refers to the wicked-
ness of continuing the allied blockade, even beyond the sign-
ing of the Armistice. It further refers to the reparations bill
handed to Germany, a bill that no sane economist could have
1Baccalaureate sermon of the twenty-eighth annual commencement of the Rice
Institute, delivered by the Reverend Charles L. King, D.D., Pastor of the First
Presbyterian Church of Houston, in the Court of the Chemistry Laboratories, at
nine o’clock, Sunday morning, May 30, 1943.
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