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Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont film6s 3n commengant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaTtra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbols — ► signifie "A SUIVRE ", le symbols V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film6s A des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est >ilm6 d partir de I'angle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. 32X 1 2 3 4 6 6 W "STRETCHING FORWARD." \ I / X. i' ' <■'■■■■ A SERMON PRKACIIKI) IN THK. CHAPEL OF TRINITY COLLEGE, TORONTO, ON nil-. EIGHTEENTH SUNDA V AFTER TRimTY, ,'.v ' 13th OCTOBER, 1895. • I • / HY THE . *>• 4^ V REV. E. A^-'AVELCH. M.A., Provost II x'i- PRINTED BY REQUEST. TORONTO : ROWSliLl. AND IIl'TCIlISON, PRINTERS. PhilIPPIANS III. 13.— 'E7re/eT€tvo^€i/o?. Reaching forth (A. \.) Stretching fonvard (R. V.) St. Paul, as he dictated the passage in which this word occurs, had in mind, no doubt, the foot-race, vhich would be so famih'ar a sight to his readers. He calls up before himself the remembrance of some of those great games at which, probably, he had often been a spectator : he sees the crowded seats filled with an applauding and excited multitude : he sees the stadium below with the runners at the top of their speed, their heads erect, their chests thrown out, their eyes never turned back, but fixed on what he calls the goal, and every nerve and sinew strained to the utmost in the effort of the race. That is his image : and for the help and guidance of his readers he takes it and applies it to his own life. They are still, in much weakness and imperfection, struggling on: it is the same with himself: he counts not himself to have apprehended yet : he is still imper- fect, though perfection is his goal : and towards that goal he never ceases day by day to press onward : what is fir past (the things that are behind) is past forever: the ideal still unattained (the things which are before) concerns him now : and to that ideal he is always stretching forward. What a picture it gives us of a life of strenuous endeavour after higher things: the life of the man who wrote, "I so run as not uncertainly: so fight I, as not beating the air : but I buffet my body and bring it into bondage, lest L> t.*iv r:v,ans after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected :" the life of the man who exhorted Timothy to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, to be instant in season and out of season, to fight the good fight of the faith, to endure afflictions, and who at its close could look back upon it and say without any boasting, *' I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course." Progress, unceasing, persistent progress, was indeed a chief characteristic of the life of St. Paul. But there is more than this implied in his use of the foot-race as an illustration. If the runner is ever on the stretch, if he is exerting every muscle to the full, if he keeps his eyes forward, it is that he may each the sooner to the fixed and definite goal which he has in view. So with St. Paul. His progress was always towards a definite aim : he ran, but he ran as not uncertainly: he was ever stretching forward to the things that are before : his eye was always on the goal as he pressed towards it. Progress, and progress towards a definite aim and with a fixed purpose — these are the thoughts on which I wish for a few moments to dwell this morning. And you will not, I trust, think it unnatural or out of place, if speaking to you for the first time in this holy house, this sanctuary of our common home, this sacred centre of our family life, and with a .ull and deep sense of the great rcsponsibih'ty laid upon mc by those who had every right to command and whom I had no choice but to obey, I try to apply the thoughts suggested by the text to our life as a College and our lives as individual mem- bers of the College. The College should ever be moving forward, and moving to a definite aim. The current of the individual life should always be setting towards some clearly defined mark, and that mark the highest possible. I. And, first, the College in its corporate life. (a) We are all agreed that stagnation and lethargy must necessanly be fa*:dl. The only hope for an institu- tion as for an individual, in these days of progress, is to keep moving, to advance in line with the advancing life all round. And in two respects especially, it seems to me, should we be always stretching forward. (i.) The first is knowledge. However good the work done here in years gone by has been, better work still should be done in the years to come. For as knowledge grows from more to more, we should claim our share in its increasing store. It is in the power of every member of the College to do some- thing, however small liis individual part may be, to secure, not only that we do not fall behind the standard of the past, but that, heirs as we are of all that has gone before, we plant our footsteps a little hi^'hcr on the hill of intel- lectual attainment. (ii.) But there is another respect in which it is of infi- nitely «,'reater moment that our standard should be always being raised : lor if we are not trying consciously to raise it we shall, unconsciously perhaps but no less certainly, fall below what it has been. I mean what it is only pes-* sible to describe as the "tone" of the College. Tone is an indefinable thing, almost mysterious ; but in a place like this, where numbers are gathered in close intercourse, it is always easily perceptible to any one who knows the particular place at all well. And, naturally, no one knows what a College really is so well as its undergraduates. You know what the tone is, you know exactly where it is all that it should be, and where it might be raised, and may I say .* it is only you, ultimately, who can raise it to yet higher levels. It is, of course, impossible for any one to make a man either a scholar or a gentleman against his will. But here, at least, the opportunity is offered to you all to gain an education of which no man need be ashamed, and in the social life of the place to acquire those feelings, and to practise those courtesies, the possession and exercise of which arc of infinitely more importance than the accident of birth, or the merely superficial polish of breeding. Yes, the opportunity is offered to you : and the fact that it is offered brings with it a grave responsibility. The oppor- tunity is yours, but no one can force you to use it : you must take it or reject it as you will. Only remember, I beseech you, a chance like this comes but once in a life- time. If you lose it now, you lose it for ever. 1 ! 1 ) {b) Moreover, the progress which we all desire our College should make must be progress on definite lines and towards a definite goal. Not only education, but a religious education, is its object. And when I speak of a religious education, I mean one that does not ignore, but on the contrary trirs to cultivate, the spiritual part of the complex nature in which we are created. i imagine we can, most of us, feel that there is some- thing very defective in any system of education which takes no account of the body. A man whose physique is altogether undeveloped, whether by his misfortune or his fault, is, however well his brain may be stored, a poorer specimen of his kind than he might have been : just as on the other hand one with an empty head, how- ever broad his shoulders, however strong his muscles, is after all not very different, except, indeed, in the sadness of his wasted possibilities, from a magnificent animal. But it is just as fatal, nay, it is immeasurably more fatal to leave undeveloped and untrained that highest and noblest part of our nature, that side of it on which we are akin to God Himself. And here again with regard 'o what the College ofiers, I must say what I did before. f it is impossible to make a man a scholar or a gentleman against his will, still less, even, is it possible to make him a religious man against his will. But here — and now, of course, I am not think- ing of those who have come with the already formed intention of devoting themselves to the sacred ministry of the Church — here to all is offered the opportunity of gaining some elementary knowledge at least of eternal truths, some .laiuaintancc with what I may call the theory of religion. Here, — and this is of much greater import- ance — here in the Chapel Services day by -lay, here in the opportunities of frequent communion, arc oflfered to all, if they will but use them, facilities for developing, for training, for educating that highest part of our nature of which I spoke, the starving of which leaves a man a poor stunted creature at the best. And in the social intercourse of man with man, in the excitement of games, in the true delight of real and lasting friendships, the spiritual faculties that are, or may be, enlightened by teaching and developed by the exercise of prayer, find ample sphere for the prac- tice of whatsoever things are true, honourable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. II. I have spoken, so far, of the College in its corpo- rate life. But after all we can, as a body, make progress only if the individual members of the body recognize that they must each individually move forward. (a) And so here again each one of us should have a definite goal. The ideal for the College must be your ideal for yourselves. It could only be reached if each member of the College were to realize it in his own person. Trinity men are proud, and justl> >roud, of their College : still more, I rejoice to think that they are loyal to it with a loyalty that will last through life. You are proud, and justly proud, I say, of your College, even as wc are all proud, and justly proud, of being subjects of a great and mighty empire. But why are we proud .'' The reason is the same in both cases. Because there is a history, there is a past to be proud of. We are proud to remember that wc arc the children of the men who, twelve an«l thirteen centuries a^o, laid the foundations of our liberties in the old folk-moots, of the men who a^e by age claimed and gained from kinjj, and noble, and parliament, the rif^hts which belong to men as men. It is not because of anything that wc ourselves have done that wc are proud of our race, but because of the past glories of our fathers whose heirs we are and into whose labours we, their sons, have entered. So, in its measure, with the College. Those wh :> have come and gone before you have made a name for Trinity such that you are proud of the Col- lege. And you could not bear to think that when you have gone, and your places are filled, as all too soon they must be filled, by a younger generation, those who come after you would not be proud of the College which will then be theirs as well as yours. Well, it depends upon yourselves. At any given moment the character of a College is in the hands of its undergraduates to make or mar. And if you want your successors in those benches to be proud as you are proud to-day, be sure that you are, and that you do, nothing of which they shall ever be ashamed. (/;) Yes, have a definite ideal for your own personal life : and (next) be ever stretching forward towards it. Wc, none of us, count ourselves to have attained : we are none of us yet what we may be, what we hope to become, what we will strive to become, either in knowledge, or character, or .spiritual depth. For the very best among us life must be an unceasing advance from strength to strength until unto the God of Gods he appeareth in Zion. 8 And if there is one here whose unspoken thought is thit it is of no use for him to try to go forward, because of his own past history, because of the things that are behind, let him remember that St. Paul said of himself that he forgot the things that are behind, as he stretched forward to the things that are before. Past failures, past sin, should be remembered only t& keep us h imble ; they should never be allowed to paralyze effort. If because of our wec.,kncss we cannot, we dare not, hope to go from strength to strength, let us not forget that out of weakness we may, by God's infinite mercy and grace in Jesus Christ our Lord, be made strong, and being strengthened with might by His power ill the inner man, may then go from strength to further surength. Yes, let there be no standing still for any one of us, but always a persistent stretching forward. To try to stand still is to abdicate one of the highest prerogatives of humanity. For progress, it has been nobly said, is " Man's distir ctive mark alone, Not God's, and not the beasts' : God is : they are : Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be."