The large
audience room was filled to its utmost capacity. It was truly an ordeal
for the young man to pass through. Tom was the most nervous person in the
twelve hundred present. "Will my Carl stand the test?" asked Tom of
himself. But of course he would. Two young clergymen had charge of the
opening exercises. Alice presided at the organ, and a full choir rendered
the music, doing justice to the hour and the service.
The young preacher was pale and somewhat nervous when he arose to
announce his text. At first he could scarce be heard ten yards away;
but he quickly corrected the fault and went on with fuller confidence
and courage.
He spoke from Psalm 119. 59: "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet
unto thy testimonies."
"Thinking is royal," he said. "Thought is king. Everything of beauty or
usefulness is the child of thought. Here is the distinction between man
and the brute. Here is the cause of difference between the savant and the
savage. And here is the difference between men. Some think; others do
not. And what fields for thought are spread out before the human mind!
For instance, nations and cities once great and influential are now
blotted out. Babylon, Rome, Palmyra, Jerusalem. What destroyed them?
They refused to acknowledge God, and he left them to perish. Ah! They
forsook God and he left them.
"Again. Notice the nations that have come up out of barbaric obscurity to
become the world power today--England, Germany, the United States.
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