Keene Evening Sentinel
Monday, June 26, 1911
Page 3
BACCALAUREATE SERVICE
Graduates of Normal School Listen to Sermon by Rev. W. W. Fenn.
An interesting service took place Sunday afternoon at 5 o’clock, at the Unitarian church, when the Rev. W. W. Fenn, dean of the Harvard divinity school, preached the baccalaureate sermon to the class of 1911 of the Keene normal school. The assembly was a large one and the music by the organist, choir and congregation was well selected.
The congregation having been seated, the graduates and pupils of the normal school entered from the rear, passing up the centre aisle and taking seats reserved for them in front. Other pews bearing large knots of ribbon, were reserved for members of the faculty and friends. The order of the sermon was as follows:
Organ prelude. Prof. C. H. C. Dudley
Anthem, “I am Alpha and Omega.” Choir
Responsive reading led by Principal Rhodes
Hymn.
Prayer. Rev. H. Sumner Mitchell
Scripture lesson. Rev. W. W. Fenn, D. D.
Sermon Rev. W. W. Fenn, D. D.
Anthem, “I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes Unto the Hills.” Choir
Benediction.
Organ postlude.
Dr. Fenn’s sermon was listened to with close attention by the large congregation who soon found in his words both eloquence and food for thought. He spoke rather slowly, but with much impressiveness and beauty of expression, each idea being clearly cut and defined without superfluous words. His text was selected from Proverbs xxix; 18, “Where there is no vision the people perish” and his sermon was on the vision or purpose of life, and may be thus briefly summarized:
One of the marked characteristics of the Hebrew people was a firm faith in their national destiny, which was one reason for their indomitable courage and invincible hope. But for this vision they might have perished. A similar faith in our future as a nation was held by that burly optimist, Walt Whitman, who expressed it notably in one line of “Blue Ontario’s Shore.” “I thus take finish; but the republic is ever constructed and ever keeps vista.” Accepting the phrase, but applying it individually instead of nationally, let us consider the value of keeping vista.
In strictness a vista consists of an outlook through lines of limitation. The life of a graduate ought not to have taken vista on commencement day, for there should be a wide and far horizon line. But as life goes on the vision shuts in and becomes a vista. The vista, however, must not be lost, for in it is the secret of usefulness and joy.
For some, literature, art and music keep the vista open, but many lack appreciation in these directions. And moreover, the vista should be in the line of one’s daily work, since it is not well to separate the tasks of life from its joy. The prime function of religion in human life is to enable it to keep vista and to keep it in the direction of ordinary work; for it relates every fact and event to a last divine purpose which is helped or hindered in its fulfillment according as we do well or ill. Thus, by investing the humblest life and work with meaning, religion becomes “the music to which the work of life goes on.” and keeps its vista open.