A Baccalaureate Sermon
Delivered at Williamstown, Ms. June 20, 1869 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from A Baccalaureate Sermon: Delivered at Williamstown, Ms. June 20, 1869<br><br>Probably to the first chiefly, because a knowledge of character could have no such place or importance under any heathen system as under Christianity. Such knowledge would not have been philosophy, and could have gratified no pride; it would not have been religion, and could have secured no reward. There was among the heathen generally no such knowledge of sin as to reveal to them either the importance or the difficulty of this kind of knowledge. Accordingly the current of speculation, so far as it had man for its object, was in the direction of the powers. So was it with Plato, and so has it been with the philosophers since. They have sought, and are still seeking, to give us the constituents, and to unfold the nature of man. Here, as in other sciences, the obstacle is chiefly ignorance, or a limitation of our powers.<br><br>With Christianity, however, this is reversed. That assumed that man is in the image of God, and is to live hereafter. And then, assuming also sin, and making destiny turn upon character, it gives to the knowledge of that an importance impossible under any other system. Hence the apostolic precept, "Examine yourselves," and the great standing duty of self-examination inculcated by the church, refer, not at all to the nature and powers, but wholly to the character and moral state of the man. Here, however, the obstacle is not simply ignorance from limitation of the powers, but from a liability to self-deception. The most difficult honesty in this world for a man to practice is to be honest with himself when he has done wrong, or desires to do so.<br><br>From this importance of character, and the difficulty thus originating, there has arisen a great department of Christian literature, that of self-examination for religious ends, to which there is nothing similar in heathen literature. There is, perhaps, something analogous to it, as the blindness, and inconsistencies, and folly of vice and of self-love have been made the objects of analysis and of satire.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.