ADDRESS AT LUTHER COLLEGE GRADUATION

Decorah, Iowa

June 16, 1881

My dear friends, older and younger teachers and students at this school, and other of its well-wishers, grace and peace from God our Father through his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ!

I have always enjoyed being able to visit our Luther College. It has been doubly enjoyable for me this time to be able to be present for most of the final exams and to share in the joy of the results which have been achieved. To the earnest words which the school's honorable president has addressed to us, I shall add a few words in closing.

To honor God with body and soul ought to be everyone's purpose in life. That is why God created us, that's why he redeemed us, that's why he sends his Holy Spirit. So that our children could become capable of honoring God in the Lord's service as messengers of the Gospel to adults and children is the reason why pious men and women of the Norwegian people in America built this school, our Luther College - and that is why they continue to support it.

We thank God and we are also happy about the young men who leave here enriched with knowledge, but above all, with the intention of honoring and serving the Lord, even if it is in other positions in life. However, we do have to be saddened, and see the purpose of our school not being fulfilled, if from lack of ability or of will they become fewer and fewer who leave this school in order to honor God in the direct service of the church. The school's students and teachers must not forget that this is the specific purpose which our church body has set for this training which it allows the young men to receive here. That must be the goal which everyone here has set for himself, for whose attainment every individual must strive, and toward which everyone in the Synod cooperates; a great, an excellent goal for your work here, my friends, older and younger. Yes, a high and glorious, and I can add, a holy goal for you to strive for! All honor to every conscientious person and every faithful worker in it, even if he is the most insignificant; however, blessed is he whose position in life places him as a teacher and guide of the youth with such a goal!

Blessed is he to whom God grants such a training in his youth to be a teacher and a guide of people on the way to heaven! He certainly has reason to exclaim, "The lines have fallen unto me in pleasant places." (Ps. 16:6.) The glory and luster of the world will so easily dazzle our eyes, but on that Great Day in the clarity of eternity when we behold you surrounded by the hosts of witnesses whom we know in the thous-ands and by the millions who heard your words, then shall you attest to the truth that the lines fell upon you in pleasant places. It is good therefore that each of you have this exalted, glorious goal in view con-stantly from the beginning. It will strengthen you when weakness and fatigue attack you. It will revive you when despondency and faintheartedness depress you. It will give you staying-power when the course seems too long and wearisome. In a word, it will gather your mind and thoughts around the great main goal when pleasures of the world want to distract you.

Well do I know, my friends, that no one gives himself the will to have this goal in mind, even less, the strength and perseverance to retain it. God alone, who gives abilities and gifts besides, can bestow both parts. But he has promised that "he who asks, shall receive" (Jo. 16:24) - sometimes of course otherwise than we think, but always beyond our understanding. Therefore these things have to be asked for, asked for diligently, asked for in faith by teachers and students. Then they shall be given to you. Be sure of that. Do not doubt it! But the Spirit shall also be given to you through the Word. Therefore, it must be used, used diligently - by teachers and students - for doctrine, for edifying, for discipline - for self-discipline first of all but also for brotherly discipline and school discipline.

All this is old truth, my friends, nothing new, which I have presented to you here, but it is the old truth not the new which makes free. That's why I've wanted to lay it on your heart. If God grants it his grace then we shall certainly have the joy of seeing our school blossom, and host upon host of our young men go forth from here and bear much fruit to the glory of God.

And even if it is so that we have reason to be reminded about practicing that old truth, when we look backward to examine the school year which is now behind us, much of what it revealed, just as the results of the examinations which have now been completed, does however give us hope that the work was not in vain and that with the help of God it will bear even richer fruit in his time. But we shall also attest to the truth that wherever we truly do have reason to rejoice in such a hope, there precisely that old truth has been drilled diligently, and it still must be if our hope for the future shall not be put to shame.

But beside this more general admonition there is an individual flower which I would ask you to apply yourselves on this occasion toward cultivating and fostering here at this school. I need only to mention self denial so that every one of you will agree with me that just as our Christian life on the whole only makes progress in the same degree as this virtue is practiced, so will your work toward the goal only succeed to the degree with which you apply yourselves to self-denial.

I will not dwell on the denial which every one has to practice over toward the lusts of the flesh which tempt a person to the more coarse deviations and sinful amusements. At a school such as this on which the eyes of so many people rest, much more self-denial is of course needed, even in the choice of amuse-ments which are permissible and in themselves innocent, as well as in the manner in which they are en-joyed. Because if anyone is to follow the apostle's admonition to "abstain from all appearance of evil," (1 Th. 5:2O) then it is here at this school. We simply cannot disregard how very different the Christian ma-turity and point of view are of those who do however embrace the school and all its work with warm love.

No, I would direct your attention more to the self-denial which your position as students at the school requires.

Thus a certain self-denial is of course required right away from the young men in not resisting with ill-will and struggling against, but willingly and joyfully submitting themselves to a good many of the rules and restrictions which often place unpleasant and often unnecessary restraints upon the freedom of indi-viduals who are mature persons but which however are necessary for the sake of the whole for the keeping of order. This denial can seem twice as hard to the person who has been used to unbridled freedom through an errant upbringing. What constant self-denial is not required from those who are unsettled, from students who are inclined to being inattentive and lazy, for accustoming themselves to self-control, diligence, attention and order, and not lulling themselves to sleep with the idea that when they need to they can get by by the skin of their teeth? On the other hand, temptations can come to the faint-hearted to lose heart and to give up because you find that in spite of all your effort you are not making the progress you wanted or which other more gifted colleagues are making. Here, egotism and covetousness must be denied so that you find yourself well satisfied with and genuinely thankful for the abilities and gifts which God has given you, and in order that you can be found faithful in their use.

Or perhaps you are equipped with superior abilities, show great diligence in using them and are making excellent progress, but you notice in yourself a certain inclination to take pride in them and to look down on those who are less gifted - or you strain your abilities and your diligence to the utmost, yes, perhaps more than is required. You feel within yourself that the thought of showing off through your superior knowledge or of gaining a prominent position is not alien to you, you see - you will again have a struggle with denying your precious "I." The same will not less be the case when the temptation meets you that by taking up some other work, you, with your training and your knowledge will easily be able to gain for yourself both a more profitable and pleasing position than by continuing the studies you have begun.

The calling for which you are being prepared here will demand as broad an education as possible and that you be made familiar with various subjects and philosophies, which even if they might be said to lie on the periphery, are, however, very important for your development and continued studies. The awak-ened, studious mind can so easily be tempted here to throw itself into and to lose itself in such secondary studies with all too great a desire, and be stopped in its progress, if the goal is not thereby displaced en-tirely. Likewise, you need some diversions and distractions during your diligent studies so that the spirit can have some rest, the mind be refreshed and the body be strengthened; and you know you are given opportunity for various such things especially when at the same time they can work to improve your disposition, but how easily is not the healthy young man tempted here with an altogether fine, noble and strong open mind to give himself over to such a thing with a passion and to sacrifice too much of his so precious time to it. In both these instances you will necessarily have to watch yourselves and to practice an often painful self-denial.

Finally - all the while your development is moving forward, knowledge is increasing and interests are being multiplied, and you notice as it were, wings sprouting and a desire in you to fly, to leave school - if not to say the world - to experience and enjoy the benefit of all the wisdom you think you have gathered, of the exalted pioneering ideas your spirit has conceived, believe me, my friends, self-denial is also re-quired here to remember that one is still a student, and as long as he is he needs in all quietness to serve out the time of one's apprenticeship and to digest the learning, so that when it is over, one will be well equipped to be able to make one's appearance as a teacher and a leader in the sphere where God then places him!

Now may God help both you who are leaving school and you who remain, to show this self-denial during your continued studies! May his blessing be upon our Luther College, with its teachers, so that the work may go well, to the glory of God!

Kirketidende, July 8, 1881; pages 423-426