The Work of Abilene Christian College

The Work of Abilene Christian College THE WORK OF ABILENE CHRISTIAN COLLEGE

(Speech delivered by President-elect Batsell Baxter
during Lecture Week, February 24, 1924)
THE PAST
Today my mind goes back to the time, twelve years ago when Brother and Sister Sewell came over from San Angelo where he had been preaching and invested their lives in Abilene Christian College. At that time the college consisted of the academy building over there, and the white cottage. lie went to work with that fine enthusiasm and great vision which have ever charac­terized him. She stood by him with her quiet, steady per­severance. Out of that beginning twelve years brought a new administration building, a splendid library, well equipped science laboratories, two good dormitories and a first class four year college with the emphasis on the name Christian.

Connected with them in the work have been numbers of men and women who have served and sacrificed as teachers that the institution might succeed.

Under the institution with their time, their prayers, and with their money and financial influence, and their counsel, there has been a board of trustees that has never wavered in their loyalty and service to the insti­tution. THE FUTURE
Today the institution is on the most stable basis it has ever been. The trustees have taken over the debt against the school. They have assumed responsibility for the running expenses of the school.

They have promised that the program of growth and development shall go steadily forward. Our rating as a first class senior college has been re­newed for next year. Our faculty for next year is one that has never been surpassed for strength and capacity for Christian serv­ice and scholarship in any Christian College. Every man and woman is staying with me for less than he would be paid somewhere else. Our equipment has be.en inspected and approved by the Department of Education and by the Association of Texas Colleges. Our diploma is good at face value anywhere. Our department of Education is given credit for teach­ers’ certificates just as in other first class colleges.

Abilene Christian College faces the future with the assurance bom of twelve years of uninterrupted service and growth. As I was taking the inspector to the train a few days ago a hotel man said, “Well, are you going to raise the rating of Abilene Christian College?” He answered, “No, it already has the highest rating that it it possible for a college to get. It is a first class senior college.”

We have a standard four year college. Students who remain one year with us may get through our depart­ment of Education, a teacher’s certificate. Those who do two years’ work get a longer certificate. Those who do three years’ work get a longer certificate yet. Those who do four years ’ work receive a life certificate to teach school, and also the A. B. degree. That certificate and that degree are good at face value anywhere. That is not all. When you send your boy or girl to school you give them up into the hands of the teachers. I want to tell you how they feel about it: My little boy said, “Mother, how did you teach school?” She told him, “Well, that is out of style now.” Sometimes he wants to know about something. If he does not fully understand, the explanation, he says, “Well, I’ll just ask my teacher, she’ll know all about it.” Growrn boys and girls feel just about that way. You surrender your boys and girls when you give them up to the teacher. A teacher can make a mockery of this Holy Book and of the religion of Christ. Our teachers are all Chris­tians. They reverence the Lord. They love his holy religion.

If that were all we would have a right to ask your support. It is worth much to have even an ordinary standard education given by Christian men and women. But if that were all we would not ask your support. It is not enough for teachers to provide the example of Christian lives. They must provide definite, positive Christian teaching. The Bible is God’s Holy Word, is the greatest textbook in this school, and the teaching of New Testament Christianity is the greatest obligation of every teacher here. AN IDEAL
No work of any kind is worth much without an ideal. Many of you have read the story of Ernest, in Haw­thorne’s “Great Stone Pace.” Day after day this man looked at the image carved in the side of the mountain. As the years passed by he watched for the coming of the one whose face should look like the image. Slowly and surely his own countenance was changed into the image of the stone face on the mountain. The Great Teacher and his apostles have taught you and me to look forward to the coming of the Lord. We are admonished to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth. We study his character as revealed in the Bible. All of us who trust and follow him have the promise that we shall be like him when he shall appear. We shall be transformed into his image. It is the high­est ambition of every teacher'here to help your boys and girls to grow into the likeness of Christ. THE NECESSIITY FOR CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS.
You don’t always have to pour water on a fire to put it out. If you can get that fire in a small room or in a house you can put it out with a fire extinguisher. It simply pours out an atmosphere in which fire will not —cannot burn. The modern idea of education is not always to throw water on the fire and fervor of Chris­tian faith. The modern idea is to educate the mind and iceep out all religious teaching. The very atmosphere provided is one in which it is difficult for the fires of faith to burn. In too many cases the flame goes out, and in many others it comes back home flickering. THE TWO SEAS
Over in the Land of Palestine there are two seas. The Dead Sea is a stagnant water with a skum around its edges. The trees are of a dull drab color, as also are the birds that live along the shores. There is little of life around it, and nothing to cheer. Men leave it to its barrenness. It takes in all the water that comes its way, but it does not give out any. The sea of Galilee, just a few miles north, on the Jordan river, is a bright and sparkling water. It is surrounded by grassy meadows dotted with grazing cattle and sheep. Its waters are broken by the swish of the fisherman’s net, and by the keel of the fisherman’s boat. On its banks are thrifty villages, with honest industrious people, who get their living from its waters and from the surrounding fields. It gives all it gets. These two seat; represent two kinds of lives—the selfish life which gives out nothing, and the unselfish life which is spent for others. What we give we take with us when we die; what we keep we lose.
REAL DEVOTION
For Abilene Christian College to succeed every teacher, student and friend must do our best. No service is too big; none too little.
The Scripture tells of a woman who anointed the Savior’s feet. She could not still the howling mob that would take his life. She could not shame the cowardly governor who signed the order to let him die. But she did what she could. Our Lord thought enough of that humble effort to have it written down and told wherever the story of Jesus’ love is brought to men. Our Savior and his disciples were standing one day in front of the treasury of the temple of God. The disci­ples watched how much some of the rich cast in. It was all fine. Each liberal gift helped to swell the treasury. A poor widow cast in two mites. Jesus said, “She cast in more than they all because she cast in all she had.” She was not too poor to help. In Sweetwater there lives a crippled man who is a member of the church. We built a new church there recently. He came one day. “I want to give you a dollar.” He insisted on doing it. It takes that kind of loyalty to make any institution succeed.

I tell these things to stir up some of you who have plenty of the world’s goods and to spare. These hoys of ours have lived in the “Mule Barn” for four years. Four years ago they gave up Zellner Hall that more girls might come to school and have a place to stay. With characteristic good humor, they called their new home the “Mule Barn.” The rest of us called it Emergency Hall. An emergency hall is supposed to give place in a few months to something permanent. I am ashamed to face these patient, uncomplaining boys, and call it Emer­gency Hall any longer. So I just call it the “Mule Barn.”

We have nearly ten thousand dollars in cash on that new dormitory we have talked so much about. You peo­ple right here before me today could raise that to thirty thousand and not be hurt. There are twenty men in this audience who could give a thousand dollars by the first of June, and we could have this building ready for our boys in September. [Work on this building began the following May. It was ready in September.] THE INFLUENCE OF SERVICE'
I once read the story of Silas Marner. He toiled day by day. He earned his gold. He lived alone. He saved and skimped, and skimped and saved. Every night he would count his gold and then put it back under the brick in the hearth. People avoided him. He cared nothing for them. His gold formed an accursed bar­rier across which the hand of friendship could not clasp. It built a wall through which the voice of comradeship and sympathy could not pass.

One day he came home and his gold was gone. Wreck and ruin stood out before him. The fruit of years of toil and sacrifice and self-denial had fled in a moment. A few weeks later, one day a little child knocked at his door for shelter. He invested his time, his talent, his earnings in that child. Men and women learned to re­spect and even love him. He became a happy man. I am asking you to invest some of your money in boys and girls. It will take some of the sadness out of your life. It will take the hardness out of your heart. It will mellow that heart and soften it. It will make you have more love for your fellow man and greater respect for yourself. It will give you a feeling of kinship to boys and girls. .

It will make you forget the sordidness and selfishness of the world and give you a vision of service to young and ambitious men and women growing into the wisdom and favor of God. As I look into your faces this morning I see many furrowed cheeks. Time and hard usage have placed those furrows there. I see many eyes that are dim through many long years of anxious watching. I see many heads upon which the autumn frost has already laid its hand. Over where you live there is a faithful church, because for years you have fought the battles of the Lord. A little while and you must say, “The time of my depart­ure has come.” I hope that you can say, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course, I. have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but also to all them that love his appearing.” Not many miles from Abilene lived a grand old man in a Christian community. He loved the Lord. They knew it and we knew it. A few weeks ago the messen­ger came to summon him to the presence of God. When he knew that the time had come to go, he sang in his enfeebled voice the lines of that grand old song, “Am I a Soldier of the Cross?” Then he breathed out his life with scarcely a pain. He loved to come to Abilene and listen to the songs and prayers and talks of Lecture Week. He liked to sit and watch our boys and girls. And when they examined his will, those who had been trusted as his executors found that he had made a gift to Abilene Christian College that will some day be avail­able to help. I wish we had more men like Brother Lindsey.

Here in Abilene we are educating boys and girls to take your places. Some of these boys are preaching the gospel. Other boys will be leaders in your congrega­tions. The girls will become the leavening influence Christian homes.

TRUE TO THE BOOK
One of the most responsible duties on earth is preach­ing the gospel. The other most responsible duty is living so that our lives will jiot hinder our preaching. The Lord always wanted his servants to make good prepar­ation. Moses was filled with zeal for the Lord that amounted almost to a fury. He went at the work in a whirl of enthusiasm. But the next day saw him leav­ing Egypt and going out to the desert to go to school. He was already skilled in all the learning of the Egyp­tians. But the Lord wanted him to know about God. He kept Moses in school for forty years preparing him to lead the Lord’s people. In the Old Testament we find the Lord rebuking the education of the day. He says, “like people like priest.” He said also, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” What kind of knowledge? Hear him, “There is no knowledge of God in the land.” (Ilosea 4:1).

Twenty years later Isaiah warned the people that their lack of knowledge would bring them into captiv­ity. (Isaiah 5:13). At one time the Lord had the schools of the prophets. These were conducted at Ramah, Bethel, Jericho and Gilgal. There the young went to school to God’s chosen teachers. It was the prophets wlio repeat­edly warned Israel of apostasy and turned them back to the law of the Lord. After the captivity they had the synagogues for teaching the law of God. Paul was ed­ucated at the feet of Gamaliel in one of these schools. After the new dispensation we find Paul teaching daily at Ephesus in the school of Tyrannus. Here was a school that opened its doors to the teaching of the Bible every day. And here was an inspired apostle taking advant­age of the offer, and the Holy Spirit endorsing and direct­ing the work. And the Scriptures dominated the policy of that school. This arrangement continued for two years and Paul taught the word of God in that school until the heathens stopped the work. But I want you to notice the results. “All Asia heard the word of the Lord and believed.” A little further on we are told that “Not a few of them that practiced magical arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. So mightily grew the word of the Lord and prevailed.” (Acts 19:10-19).

Many of you people here, and others all over Texas have grown weary of seeing your sons and daughters go away from home to increase their capacity for useful­ness and come back with their love for the Lord and their loyalty to the truth shattered. You have felt the need of schools where the plea for plain, simple, positive teaching of the Lord and his apostles would be instilled into the hearts of boys and girls. Where the worship and service of the early church would find an example in the practices of the church here. Some of you have given money that these things might be possible. You have sent your sons and daughters here that they might have an education and come back to you, not only wise and learned in the wisdom of the world, but consecrated to the Lord and his truth. No man has any sort of right to pervert or change in any way the ideals of truth and love and Christian service that form the foundation on which you have built this institution. We recognize this obligation to you. A HIGHER OBLIGATION
But I recognize another obligation. There is another reason for our determination that this institution shall never waver.

More than nineteen hundred years ago our God sent his Son to this earth to bless humanity. He lived amongr men in the form of a man. His perfect life left to the generations of earth an example of holiness and un­selfish service. His words and the words of the Holy Spirit, as revealed in this book, gave us the wonderfully' sublime system of saving and serving men. He planted this teaching in the face of the bitter opposition of the religions leaders of that day. He purified it and sancti­fied it with his blood. His apostles arose to the gall, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” One by one they died by the hands of men who would not accept the religion of Jesus. They died telling of his life and death and what it meant to the world.

I want you to go with me to the fourth chapter of Matthew, the first eleven verses. Just after the Lord’s baptism the record says: (Read Matthew 4:1-11). I want to illustrate what that means to us. There was an old slave in a Kentucky home. A visitor asked him, “Don’t you know the slaves.have been freed? You don’t have to stay here and w'ork.” He said, “I want to.” Then he told of the time when he was mortgaged. He was put on the block and sold. The bids ran high. Fin­ally he heard the quiet, firm voice of his master as he raised the bid. The auctioneer said, * ‘ Sold! ’ ’ That strong young slave leaped from that platform, and gathering his master into his arms, carried him to a carriage that was to take him home. “Marsa, I never will leave you.” The master went away into the other world. The ser­vant took up his abode with one of the children. “I cannot leave. Marsa bought me back.” The human race was under the curse of Adam’s trans­gression. Jesus came to buy humanity back. Satan bid bread, pride and finally the whole world. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” “The blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.” “Ye are not your own, ye have been bought with a price.” We belong to the Lord. Our work belongs to the Lord.

I pledge you today that Abilene Christian Collegeshall remain true to the Lord in the teaching in her classrooms, that this institution shall remain true to the Lord in the lives of its teachers. Our boys and girls shall know why we exist as a religious people. They shall be taught what we believe and why we believe it as Christians, and where the Bible teaches it. That they shall know what the Lord would have his people do, and why they must do something else. I want them to be filled with the admonition to “Grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth.” To “Study to show themselves approved unto God, workmen that need not be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth.” I want them to get the vision and catch the spirit of Him who came to seek and to save the lost. We don’t want them to seek soft and easy places. We want them to seek opportunities to serve.