WARNINGS OF THE WORD

From a Baccalaureate Address to the Students of South Carolina College, June 27, 1892.

HAVING thus warned us against violations of the first and great commandment, the word puts us on our guard also against the transgressions of the second, to which the Omniscient Eye sees we are prone.

You are now near an age at which you will no longer be under the legal control of father and mother; but the day will never come when you will not owe love and honor to those who so eagerly welcomed you at your birth. The frivolous, foolish, light-minded youth sometimes forgets this; but the guiding word is at hand to recall him from his ingratitude by this first commandment with promise.

As the youth mingles day by day with his fellow-men, he is sure not infrequently to meet with those who disregard his rights, it may be with some who offer him insult or do him wanton injury, or in other ways excite him into flaming anger. Tempted by his unrestrained passion to avenge himself, he attacks the offender, he is ready even to take his life. His monitor's voice may then be heard, "Thou shalt not kill." "Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath." "Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the Lord, and he shall save thee." It goes further, and warns against the cause of murder. You are told that hatred, malice, desire for revenge, lead to murder; that in the sight of God they are murder. Let this advice be heeded, and murder, in thought as well as in the shedding of blood, must disappear from the earth: "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice; and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

But besides the temptations which assail the young man, inciting him to anger and unrestrained wrath, to murder in thought if not in deed, there are others which beset him on every side, seeking to entice him from the paths of purity by every alluring promise, inflaming him by the prospect of unholy pleasures to walk in forbidden ways, while skilfully concealing the death in which they end. Against these the guide

utters precept after precept, warning after warning, in tones of entreaty and expostulation that surely the most insensible must hear. The folly, the danger, the sin are shown; woe to him who hears and heeds not; who, void of understanding, listens to the stranger with flattering words, forsaking the guide of her youth; who enters the house that inclineth unto death, and paths that descend unto the dead; who goes, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; deaf to the warning that they are in the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death; not knowing that the dead are there, and that they are amongst guests who are in the depths of hell. Nor are the warnings given against outward acts alone, but the youth is also cautioned against the wanton look, imagination, or desire; so earnestly, that he is urged, if his right eye do cause him to offend, to pluck it out and cast it from him; for the reason that it is better to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire.

In taking your places amongst men, no longer to be directly dependent upon others for your support, you expect to seek, with other good things, the possession of property; by your labor and skill, you look forward to making your own living by engaging in some kind of business, and even to accumulate wealth, if you can. And the word I am commending to you as your guide does not forbid or discourage such desires; it encourages them instead, and shows how they may most effectively be realised. It describes riches as a good—not the highest, by any means-but still as good; and then it tells how they may be gained-namely, by diligence, industry, thrift. The hand of the diligent maketh rich. He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread. In all labor there is profit. Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men. We command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.

Then as a rule to control us in our gains, as part of that which bids love to our neighbors as ourselves, it gives us this: "Thou shalt not steal." Possibly we may at first be inclined to resent the giving of such a rule to us. But let us remember that this commandment, like all the others, is exceeding broad.

It does not merely forbid one's being a vulgar thief; but it forbids our doing anything and everything that directly or indirectly interferes with the rights of our neighbors or in any way regards them less sacred than our own. It forbids. not merely embezzlement, the gaining of money by false pretences, fraud, cheating, gaming, taking advantage of others, but also all misappropriation or waste of the money of others, whether those others are private persons, corporations, or the State. It requires the most scrupulous integrity. It requires the payment of debts, and the prompt payment of them. It requires a strict observance of all contracts in their true meaning. It requires perfect honesty and uprightness in the sight of men and of God who sees and knows our inmost thoughts. By taking heed to these requirements, the young man will effectually cleanse his way in respect to all these things.

But there are still other directions in which protection from defilement is needed. There is one evil to which the corrupt heart is especially prone, which combines with all others, which towers above most others in its enormity, and of which God expresses his peculiar abhorrence. It is the sin of falsehood. Temptations to commit most other sins are not constantly assailing you; you are hardly ever free for a moment from temptation to commit this one. Bearing false witness against our neighbor is the form of it mentioned in the Ten Words; but this includes every form. That against which we are warned is falsehood, deceit, lying, hypocrisy, misrepresentation, dissimulation, perjury—all and every departure from perfect and absolute truth. Now, the word to which the young man is invited to take heed is full of incentives of every kind to lead him to hate and avoid the false, to love and practise the true. It declares that lying lips are an abomination to the Lord; that the Lord hates the lying tongue; that all liars have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; that into the holy city, the New Jerusalem, there shall in no wise enter anything that maketh a lie; that without are dogs, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. It sets forth not only God's hatred and detestation of lying, but that which is felt also by all good men. Then, on the other hand, it holds up to view the beauty and attractiveness of truth, and exalts the character of him who speaks the truth. This is the answer to the

question, "Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?" "He that speaketh the truth in his heart; he that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. He that doeth these things shall never be moved." And "they that deal truly are his delight."

What a changed world this would be if the truth and nothing but the truth were spoken; if slander, detraction, malicious gossip, evil-speaking of every kind, were unknown. How far can you rely on the representations of the seller of property as to its real value and its defects? How many buyers are there who say, It is naught, it is naught; but who when they have gone away, utter their boastings? How far can you trust the statements even of one who professes to be contending for the truth of God, when he formulates the creed and describes the practices of an antagonist? How much have we a right to believe of the assertions of a political partisan respecting the principles of the other party, the character and aims of the other candidate, the probable result of the coming election? How can we learn the number of soldiers engaged in certain battles and wars? So we might go over the whole range of human affairs, and ask, Where can truth be found? The world is covered with wrecks resulting from broken promises, deceit, falsehood, and treachery.

The tenth utterance in that part of the word we are considering, to which the young man does well to take heed, specifically forbids an unlawful desire for that to which we have no right; but it is based on the broader thought which the Lord Jesus Christ, himself the divine Word, so fully brought to view in his teachings while on earth. It is the state of the heart that determines the outward act; and even if not followed by the outward evil act is itself sin-uncleanness. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. The unlawful desire leads to murder, to theft, to impurity, to lying; it leads away from the love of God. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

In seeking to cleanse our way, therefore, it is not enough to consider the stream; we must more earnestly strive to secure purity at the source, the fountain head. As is the source, such will be the stream; as is the heart, such will be the life.

A SPEECH BEFORE THE STUDENTS OF
SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE

[One day while the students were engaged in athletic sports on the college playground, the State militia, commanded by the Adjutant and Inspector-general, came on the ground to drill. When the students refused to yield the ground, the troops were ordered to clear the field. One of the professors was seriously hurt, and one of the students lay at the point of death, as the result of the attack. Dr. Woodrow, the President, who was absent, returned that night. The next morning he assembled the students and made the speech given here. The intense excitement was quieted immediately, and the settlement was confided entirely to their President.]

"YOUNG GENTLEMEN: Upon my return home, I learned what happened to you and one of your number in my absence. I was inexpressibly shocked to learn that the very grounds which had been set apart for your amusement and pleasure were ruthlessly and violently invaded by armed force, and that one of your honored professors was run over and came near being seriously injured, and that one of your number now lies perhaps at the point of death. When I consider that this insolent and dastardly trespass was committed by some of the public officials of our State, by those who are especially charged, by their oath under the law, to profect the lives and rights of our people, when I consider that you were, as it were, in your own castle, upon your own land, my indignation rises almost beyond bounds. That defenseless and innocent boys should be driven from their own playground by a body of armed soldiery, that the head of the military department of the State gave the order to these soldiers to drive you from your own playground, is a black and indelible blot upon the good name of South Carolina. If boys should fall out and fight among themselves, I would blame both sides; and if men should dispute and engage in a personal difficulty, I know that each would be partially at fault; but here, while you were engaged in a pleasant and proper pastime, for the rest of your minds and the strengthening of your bodies, while you were where you ought to be, and behaving as you ought to behave, to be encroached upon, assaulted, and swept from the field by organised, armed soldiery, is a crime upon civilisation. I pledge you here now