Category Archives: Wheaton College Archives

Perfect Order Must be Maintained

Wheaton College Archives

Students and visitors using the Wheaton College gymnasium (now called Adams Hall) in the early nineteenth century were required to sign a card with the following stipulations:

1) The Gymnasium is for the benefit of students of Wheaton College and others.

2) It will be open from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. of each school day in the Fall, Winter and Spring terms, and at such other times as may be arranged.

3) The fee for students will be $1.00 per term: for non students, $2.00 per term. If paid for the year in advance, for students, $2.50: for non students, $5.00.

4) Baths will be accessible during the hours when the Gymnasium is open. Members using them will furnish their own soap and towels.

5) The dress will be, for men, dark blue sweater with orange W on breast; grey trousers, black Gymnasium shoes and belt: for women, dark blue blouse waist and Turkish trousers trimmed in orange; black stockings and shoes. The suit must be used when in class work.

6) No persons will be allowed to practice except as assigned by the Director, and perfect order must be maintained in the building. Tobacco may not be used in buildings or on College grounds.

Young men perform gymnastics in the Wheaton College gymnasium, early 1900s.

Freedom to Flourish

College-related Publications, Wheaton College Archives
What is the connection between economic freedom and poverty?

Thirty years ago, the Wheaton Alumni magazine began a series of articles in which Wheaton faculty told about their thinking, their research, or their favorite books and people. Seth W. Norton is currently the Jean and E. Floyd Kvamme Professor of Political Economy and former Director of the Wheaton Center for Faith, Politics & Economics. Professor Norton has taught at Wheaton since 1995 and was featured in the Autumn 2010 issue.

Seth W. Norton
Seth W. Norton

Poverty rates are customarily measured as the proportion of a country whose income is beneath a low absolute level such as one or two dollars a day. Poverty can alternatively be measured in non-pecuniary terms, such as the percentage of the population that survives infancy, or the percentage of the population that has access to basic life-sustaining benefits like safe water.

Economic freedom exists where there are consistent institutions and policies in place to ensure a voluntary exchange coordinated by markets with free entry and freedom to compete, as well as a protection of persons and their property.

The last two decades have seen a promising decline in poverty levels. The average population living on $1 a day fell dramatically from 32 percent of the world’s population in 1980 to 16.5 percent in 2004. Similarly, infant survival and life expectancy are on the rise.

While much of the non-industrialized world has flourished in this period, the good news has to be tempered with a grim exception–sub-Saharan Africa. Many of the non-industrialized nations of the world have become economically freer, while economic freedom in Africa has stagnated or even declined during the last quarter century. Understanding this exception requires exploring the connection between the world’s poverty and economic freedom. Simply stated, for non-industrialized nations, economic freedom reduces poverty.

Countries that are not economically free have about 30 percent of their population living on $1 a day and nearly 60 percent living on $2 a day, while countries that are economically free have less than 8 percent living on $1 a day and 39 percent living on $2 a day. About 74 percent of the population has access to good water in countries that are not free, while almost 100 percent of the population has access to good water in most economically free countries.

The various measures of poverty all point in the same direction–more economic freedom means lower poverty rates. Some might question whether lower levels of poverty are in fact the cause of economic freedom, rather than the result of this freedom. This interpretation is plausible, but not likely. Further statistical analysis shows that increases in economic freedom lower poverty rates regardless of the measure of poverty, even after accounting for other factors such as geography and the levels of urbanization in a country.

Studying links between economic freedom and world poverty is fascinating yet depressing, given the ties between poverty and human suffering, frailty, and depravity. If so many people would benefit from free economies, why do we not observe more economic freedom around the world?

Dr. Seth W. Norton has made research contributions in the fields of government regulation, franchising, telecommunications, and world poverty. He studied the links between economic institutions and poverty; public policies toward business and the economy; as well as government regulation, property rights, and the role of culture in framing economic institutions. From 1996 to 2008, he was also head wrestling coach at Wheaton.

When God Moves

Wheaton College Archives

25 years ago this week the Wheaton College Revival of 1995 transpired on campus. The following historical account was transcribed from the Wheaton College Alumni Magazine, Spring 1995.

——————————

by Dr. Stephen B. Kellough ’70, Chaplain

Our Lord has poured out his love in a dramatic way.

Throughout the history of Wheaton College, God has chosen to he present and active in this place. There have been times of spiritual awakening, and during the week of March 19-24, we received another special visitation of God.

It would be incorrect to say that it all began at 7:30 P.M. on Sunday, March 19, in Pierce Chapel at the weekly meeting of the World Christian Fellowship. There had been a significant stirring of the Spirit in the lives of individuals and in groups on campus several weeks before that, throughout the semester, and well before that.

But something unique and important happened on that Sunday evening when James Hahn and Brandi Maguire, students from Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas, described a recent “revival” on their campus. Following their presentation, the microphones were open for students to share their burdens and confess their sins.

Confessions were heard throughout the night. There were tears and there were smiles. There was crying and there was singing. People confessed their sins to God and to each other, and there was healing. It was biblical. It was Christian, It was orderly. It was sincere. It honored out Lord. Finally, at 6:00 A.M., we adjourned the meeting, with students still in line who had waited hours to speak.

We reconvened on Monday in Pierce Chapel with about 900 students and adjourned at 2:00 A.M. with 400 students listening to the last confession. Still, many were unable to reach the microphone. Tuesday’s meeting was held at the College Church, a larger facility which accommodated the 1,350 people who arrived at 9:30 P.M. Because lines still remained at the microphones at 2:00 AM., another meeting was set for 9:30 P.M. on Wednesday.

College Church of Wheaton

That night a capacity crowd of about 1,500 assembled. The program included worship and testimony along with some specific instruction and direction concerning the biblical method of dealing with temptation and sin. The group was addressed by President Duane Litfin, and Professors Lyle Dorsett and Tim Beougher. The confessional stage of the week’s meetings ended at 2:00 A.M.

The final plenary session was held on Thursday evening at 9:30 P.M. at the College Church, the largest assembly of the week with many faculty, staff, and members of the community attending. The theme of the evening was praise and testimony. It was a dynamic celebration.

The challenge was issued to move on to new levels of commitment to loving and serving God. The closing moments included an invitation for people who were sensing the call of God to Christian ministry to come forward for a prayer of dedication. Many knelt at the front of the sanctuary to commit themselves to bringing the gospel to the world.

Is this something that has been humanly contrived or manufactured? The personal sharing within the body of Christ here at Wheaton College has been spiritually sensitive and biblically grounded. The depth and breadth of the confession, repentance, and reconciliation point to a divine initiative. Every factor seems to confirm that we are experiencing an authentic work of the Sovereign Lord.

As President Litfin has said, “God has prompted a wonderful surge of conviction and confession sin, genuine repentance and forgiveness, and the restoration of broken hearts and relationships.

“Our challenge now is to see the results of this renewal tilled into the soil of our lives. Our desire is to move from this mountain top to a new plateau of obedience and fellowship with the Lord, and renewed relationships with one another.”

We trust that this incredible movement of God’s Spirit will continue on our campus and beyond. We believe that what we have seen here at Wheaton is only a small piece of what God is doing worldwide.

Why scientific literacy matters for Christians and for society as a whole

Wheaton College Archives
Twenty-five years ago, the Wheaton Alumni magazine began a series of articles in which Wheaton faculty told about their thinking, their research, or their favorite books and people. Professor of Physics Stewart Desoto (who taught at Wheaton from 2003-2017) was featured in the Autumn 2009 issue.
Dr. Stewart Desoto

Are you scientifically literate? A key goal of the Nature cluster in the general education program at Wheaton is to ensure that our graduates leave with an appreciation of nature and a solid grasp of what we can learn about the universe via the scientific method. But how much science do our students really learn during their education at Wheaton? To test your knowledge, answer the following true/false questions, then read on:

  1. Sufficient experimental evidence can demonstrate that a scientific theory is true.
  2. Science is partly based on beliefs, assumptions, values, and the non-observable.

Understanding both the extraordinary possibilities of what science can do (likely a lot more than we often think), and what it can never rightly do for us (perhaps even more important), lies at the heart of true scientific literacy.

Today, Wheaton grads enter a world that is more saturated with scientific and technological twitterings than ever before. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate the possible from the impossible, let alone the ethical from the dangerous, or the wise from the shortsighted.

“Cold fusion,” for example, initially promised infinite, clean energy in a big media splash in 1989. It was quickly debunked as fraud and pseudoscience, but has now recently made a scientific comeback. And though it might seem like science fiction, physicists have actually made cloaking devices from exotic meta-materials that can bend light around objects, rendering them invisible.

Of course, with science’s power comes the potential to do more harm than good. Environmental activists warn of the dangers of genetically modified foods, and of the threat of a “grey goo” of self-replicating nanobots multiplying out of control and consuming the biosphere. In movies, we contemplate a future in which our machines become super—intelligent, and condemn us to lives of slavery or annihilation. Alternatively, some science utopians envision a nano-bio-technology–based future in which the human body and mind are fused with machines to create a new; improved, transhuman species, called H+.

With such fantastic possibilities, many find it hard to discern what’s legitimate, and more importantly, what is worth pursuing. For some Christians, science presents an added challenge, as scientific truth can appear to be at odds with closely held religious beliefs. Biological macroevolution is often assumed as an explanation for the origin and development of life on earth, with no apparent necessity of a Creator. A large number of planets orbiting stars other than our own have recently been discovered, raising the possible consideration of life beyond earth. Finally, mathematical “Theories of Everything” like String Theory purport to be the ultimate description of our existence.

Getting back to the test questions–number one is false. Science operates by falsification; no theory can ever strictly be proven true, only false. Number two is true, as it is inevitable for any activity performed by humans. If you answered both questions correctly, you are more literate than the average citizen.

Unfortunately there is no shortcut to true scientific literacy, but the need is clear for a well-informed Christian dialog, for scientists and lay people, to help guide society toward a bold new future.

E.E. Shelhamer and the “old stone walls” of Wheaton College

Alumni, Books, Wheaton College Archives

E.E. Shelhamer (1869-1947), prominent Methodist evangelist and author, writes of his early years at Wheaton College in Sixty Years of Thorns and Roses:

After earning enough to go West, I, for the first time, bade good-bye to home and friends. A day and night of travel brought me to the thriving city of Wheaton, Illinois (twenty-five miles west of Chicago), where preparations were begun for that long-cherished education. In order to lessen expenses four of us preacher boys kept “bachelors’ hall” the first year. One got breakfast, another dinner, I supper, and a fourth one washed all the dishes. In this way we were able to live at the rate of from thirty-five cents to $1.50 a week and grow fat. My first recitation came at 9:30 a, m., hence it gave me five hours (from 4 a.m. to 9 o’clock) for manual labor; then another hour in the afternoon and all day Saturday. I always kept several small jobs ahead for slack times, and averaged from $2.00 to $6.00 a week at fifteen cents per hour. The studying was done at night, sometimes 11:30 finding me poring over my books.

The other boys could not understand why they could not get work while I had more than I could do, but the secret was in leaving white collars at home and going prepared to take anything I could get. Sometimes I had the promise of only an hour’s work, but went at it with a relish and frequently got in a day or more at the same place. Any kind of work was solicited, such as gardening, whipping carpets, mowing lawns, trimming trees, sawing wood, unloading cars, cleaning out cisterns and sometimes other very unpleasant work that made my fingers bleed, but I was determined to make the best of it and not let my father borrow money or sell a cow, which would have been gladly done that he might assist me. I declared that if a boy at the age of eighteen could not educate and care for himself, he was not worth educating.

I well remember the first meeting in which I assisted. At the age of nineteen, I felt that I could no longer be caged up inside the old stone walls of Wheaton College, and accordingly joined a company of three young men at Atwood, Illinois. Souls were getting saved and interest was running high when the devil made his appearance in the form of the Justice of the Peace and other lewd fellows. Their first attempt was to cut down the tabernacle, but they succeeded in getting it only half down when we intercepted them.

Shelhamer usually signed his photos, “Yours for a clean, rather than a big work.”

The next night we remained after service, but well for us that we extinguished the lights, for we were shot at and missed but a few feet: we thanked God in that instance at least for “darkness rather than light.”

Had I applied myself as some of my colleagues did, I might have been a professor in an institution. What an elevation! In fact, when I left dear old Wheaton College it was intimated that I remain and teach. Thank God I escaped!…I remained that year and kept on top of public opinion. The next summer I entered evangelistic work and did not get back to Wheaton again. It was several years before I visited the place, and when I did I naturally inquired what had become of my old colleagues. One had died from the effects of bicycle riding, another was clerking in a little grocery store, another was driving a bakery wagon and still another was preaching for a worldly congregation.

“Lighting the Way” Evan Draper Welsh, 1904-1981

Alumni, College-related Publications, Wheaton College Archives
The following article was taken from the December 1981/January 1982 issue of the  Wheaton Alumni Magazine. It celebrated the life and ministry of Evan Draper Welsh, Wheaton College chaplain, who passed away 37 years ago today.

Chaplain Welsh, 1957

Evan Draper Welsh ’27, D.D. ’55, who served for 26 years as chaplain to Wheaton College students and alumni, died early on December 17, 1981.  He suffered congestive heart failure in his home in Wheaton, and died shortly after entering Central DuPage Hospital.

Born on September 3, 1904, in Princeton, Illinois, Evan spent his boyhood in Newton, Kansas, Long Beach, California, and Elgin, Illinois, before enrolling in Wheaton Academy.  While attending Wheaton College, he served as president of his freshman class and as captain of the football team his senior year.  Additionally, Evan’s activities at Wheaton included membership in the Excelsior Literary Society, the Y.M.C.A. Cabinet, and participation in varsity debate.

Following graduation, he did graduate work at Princeton Theological Seminary and the University of Minnesota, where he studied English literature.  While at Minnesota, Evan pastored Bethany Presbyterian Church on the college campus.

In 1933, he accepted a call to pastor the College Church in Wheaton, where his father had served.  During his 13 years there, he became very active on the Wheaton College campus.  He also continued graduate study at Northwestern University, completing the M.A. in philosophy in 1938.  Evan moved to Detroit in 1946 to pastor the 1700-member Ward Presbyterian Church.  He also taught at Detroit Bible College.

In 1955 Evan received an invitation from President V. Raymond Edman to accept the newly-created position of college chaplain on Wheaton’s campus.  The new chaplain, who also served as assistant professor of Bible, was awarded the doctor of divinity degree from the College that same year.

During his 15 years as chaplain, Evan became endeared to countless students through his helpful counsel, his faithful visits to the health center and local hospitals, and the traditional ‘open house’ hosted each weekend at his home.

Evan retired from his post as chaplain in 1970, but continued in the capacity of alumni chaplain until his death.  Even when on vacation he poured himself into building and renewing friendships with alumni, and encouraging them in their Christian faith.

Evan’s outreach extended to the community through the teaching and visitation ministries of the College Church of Wheaton until his death. His popularity as a summer Bible conference speaker occupied much time in his earlier years.  Evan’s commitment to spread the Gospel worldwide fired is involvement in the evangelism service and national and foreign missions of the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.

Evan & Olena Mae Welsh, 1970s

At the time of his death Evan was survived by his wife, Olena Mae Hendrickson ’41, of Wheaton, two daughters and eight grandchildren.  He was preceded in death by his first wife, Evangeline Mortenson ’27.

The relationships we value most become our greatest losses.  In the homegoing of Dr. Evan Draper Welsh ’27, Wheaton College suffers the loss of an institution and countless thousands find a vacancy in their lives where a deep friendship had been.

But the ministry of that life continues. From his perspective, Evan Welsh’s gift to us was only a means to an end.  His love for us rose from a desire that we might know the love of a greater Friend, and commit ourselves to that One.

Evan Welsh would not want praise lavished upon his life.  The tributes given to him underline the purposes of his life.  He related those goals in an article in The Tabernacle Bulletin, 1961.

I am increasingly convinced that the true source of happiness for the growing child of God is the setting of certain high and definite goals for his or her life, and then, the giving oneself to the achieving of those goals.  Surely this is what Paul had in mind when he wrote in Colossians 3:1-4: ‘If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.  Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.  For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.’

“The other day with the glory of God in mind, and thinking of the peace of heart that comes when God is truly glorified, I sat down and listed several high goals that I believed the Lord wanted me to strive for.  I listed seven, and I really believe they are relevant for every Christian’s life.  They’ve already blessed my own soul, and if sharing them gives new direction and fire to some other Christian I shall be thankful.”

Evan proceeded to list the following goals: disciplined growth in godliness; growth in the knowledge of the Word of God; prayer; soul winning; witnessing throughout the world; cultivating a strong church life; and undertaking the “rich ‘adventures in friendship’ which await that one who will prove himself friendly.”

“These goals are high,” Evan continued.  “They’re difficult. They’re costly.  But I believe they are Biblical, and that the ones who to make them the core of their lives will have a new zest for living — and the life here will more and more resemble that in Glory.”

We pay tribute to a man who ran untiringly toward his goals.  We thank a loving family who shared themselves and their dear one so freely.  And we thank the Lord for His servant, Evan Draper Welsh, who reminded us of the beautiful reality of life in Christ.

“For the path of the just is as a shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” (Proverbs 4:18)

 

See also: Highway to Heaven – Sesquicentennial snapshot

 

The Miracle of Muriel Arney

Alumni, Wheaton College Archives

Muriel Arney of Red Oak, Iowa, was born totally blind in one eye, and partially blind in the other. But with a determined heart, she engaged life with more focus than many who are fully sighted. Writing an autobiographical statement for her Wheaton College application, she remarked, “I broke my arm in third grade while coasting. The pain wasn’t bad, missing school was terrible.” This statement summarizes Muriel’s relentless love of learning. Afflicted with a “spastic” leg ailment in addition to her blindness, Muriel managed to convey a radiant love for people and education. “There is nothing that she will not try or do,” wrote a former grade school teacher, “and she wants no sympathy.”

Walking with a cane, Muriel maneuvered efficiently throughout campus, carrying a tape recorder under her arm for recording lectures and class discussions. Listening intently to the sounds all around her, Muriel recognized fellow students and professors by their voices and footsteps, remembering names, though she hardly knew many of them. While enrolled at Wheaton College, she learned Braille and studied with friends as her vision worsened to total blindness, accompanied by terrible throbbing headaches. Navigating chapel aisles or crowded hallways, she was terrified that someone might jostle her and detonate the excruciating pain.

While attending the winter evangelistic services on February 7, 1957, the guest preacher, Reverend H. Lawrence Love, delivered the closing prayer as Muriel listened with her head bowed. Looking up, she was greeted by a stunning surprise. “There was my roommate,” she said, “plainly visible to me; the pain was entirely gone. How shocked I was! As soon as the service was over, I said to my roommate, ‘I can see!'” Later that night during a prayer meeting in Williston Hall, Muriel saw for the first time the girls who had been assisting her. The next day a medical examination proved 20-20 vision in her left eye. The Psychology Department chronicled the event as a genuine miracle.

Graduating from Wheaton College in 1959, Muriel continued her education at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois, and eventually completed her teacher’s certification. Suffering further operations, she used crutches and braces for support as she commenced her career as a teacher to those with disabilities. Suffering deeply but ready to testify to her savior’s abiding love, Muriel Arney died in Red Oak on December 26, 1968, after an acute five-day illness. Her life verse was II  Samuel 22:33, “His way is perfect and he maketh my way perfect.” Muriel’s mother, Pauline, wrote to Alumni Magazine, “May the testimony of her life for her Lord continue to be an influence and a blessing in the lives of her host of friends.”

Owen Lovejoy Scholarships

Wheaton College Archives

Owen Lovejoy (1859)

On November 23, 1859, the minutes of the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Institute, the precursor to Wheaton College, record that the Rev. Jonathan Blanchard opened the meeting in prayer and that seven new members joined the board.  Among these founding Trustees of the soon-to-be-established college was Owen Lovejoy, the younger brother of martyred abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy.  Owen was also a sitting U.S. Congressman from Illinois (who later introduced the bill to outlaw slavery in the United States) and an intimate friend of Abraham Lincoln.

Several years later during the annual trustee meeting of June 1864, Rev. Blanchard, now President of Wheaton College, proposed a new scholarship to honor Owen who had passed away the previous March. The Lovejoy Scholarships would support the education of students of color, and in his remarks about the fund, President Blanchard praised the work and character of his dear friend:

“As it has pleased our Heavenly Father during the last year to remove by death the Rev. & Hon. Owen Lovejoy, a member of this Board, we desire hereby to express our loyal and cheerful submission to the ordering of our Sovereign, infinitely wise and good, while we record our affectionate sorrow and our appreciation of the Christian, the philanthropist, the patriot, who has been removed from us in the meridian of his powers of his influence of his success.

As the life long champion of the despised slave he was worthy of our admiration and our affection. But to his principles of sympathy with everything, with everything that tended to abate from the spirit of caste and to promote a healthy public sentiment, he was willing to cast in his name and influence with this Institution, even when political honors, that had begun to rest upon him, might have tempted him to decline such a relation.

We will ever cherish the memory of his virtues, while we believe that the savor of his self-sacrificing life will be preserved as one of the rich legacies of our nation.

Whereas the Trustees of the Lovejoy Monument Association have proposed the endowment of Lovejoy Scholarships for the education of colored persons [sic] in such of our literary and professional Institutions as will receive the recipients of those funds to equal privileges and on the same terms with the white students.

Resolved, that this Board highly approve the proposed plan of perpetuating the memory of that Christian patriot, that true philanthropist Owen Lovejoy and that we proceed to the endowment of a scholarship of 1000 dollars upon the conditions required by the Monument Association and to be called the Lovejoy Scholarship.”

 

Faculty Voice – Plotting and Theming: Why I Became an English Major

College-related Publications, Wheaton College Archives

Twenty-five years ago, the Wheaton Alumni magazine began a series of articles in which Wheaton faculty told about their thinking, their research, or their favorite books and people. Professor of English Emeritus Wayne Martindale (who taught at Wheaton from 1981-2011) was featured in the Winter 2011 issue.

Almost like a dare, students (and parents) often ask, “What can you do with an English major?” Because Philip Ryken was an English major, my answer could now be, “Serve as the eighth president of Wheaton College!”

Wayne Martindale, c2011

Actually, I do take this question seriously and often relay the vocations of former student teaching assistants. Statistics from the College help round out this list. Then, I get to the answer that has mattered most to me: Literature is about life and helps me understand it.

I didn’t come to an English major easily. My own undergraduate sojourn led through four majors: engineering, Bible, psychology, and English.

Looking back, I see that the hook was first set in my high school senior English class. We had to memorize 40 lines of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. I grumbled with the rest, but secretly, I loved it. For one thing, here in my previously unbookish life, was beauty. It was a beauty laced with the tragic sense that the future might be ugly or hurtful-or worse, count for nothing. “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day / To the last syllable of recorded time.”

Shakespeare’s potent vision made me see that actions had consequences and could invite unnecessary pain; that unwashed guilt is living hell; that evil may and must be confronted.

I had found high seriousness. Choices mattered. Despite Macbeth’s claim that life was “a tale told by an idiot,” all lives had themes. There was a pattern of meaning we readers could see, even when the characters could not. They were all born for something noble, even if they missed it.

From Shakespeare to Dickens and Dostoevsky, there were many books filled with “seeings.” I discovered the truth of T.S. Eliot’s dictum that we come back from imaginative explorations to “where we start…And know the place for the first time.” In the plots of our lives, the sequence of events might seem random and the patterns fraught with apparent trivia- I sleep, I eat, I wash the dishes-over and over. Yet, even amidst the messy clutter of life, our experience is always suggesting some goodness and beauty and meaning beyond “ordinary” living. A literary plot skips the clutter and stages the patterns of life. As Lewis says, successful writers “throw off irrelevancies” and usher us into “whole classes of experience” closed to us before, and thus, “instead of ‘commenting on life,’ can add to it.”

But even plots and poetic images must move through time and space. What we really want is to connect with something that transcends both. That’s where the theme comes in: it is the meaning bigger than the sum of the parts. The author, like an interior designer, has come in and permanently rearranged the furniture of our minds.

It’s an easy step for the Christian reader to see that the teeming plot of human history is everywhere pregnant with the theme of the necessity of salvation and the reality of reconciliation.

The plots of our lives move through time and space, not randomly, but crafted by a Divine Author into a meaning beyond the sequence of events to fit an eternal theme. All stories are God’s story.

 

Billy Graham’s Class of ’43 celebrates 75th reunion

Alumni, College-related Publications, Wheaton College Archives

This year marks the the 75th reunion for the class of ’43 which includes it’s most famous alumnus, Billy Graham.  Twenty-five years ago, the famed evangelist gave the commencement address during his 50th reunion weekend.  Below is a transcript of his address to the class of 1993 taken from the Wheaton Alumni Magazine, Autumn 1993.

Today’s Investment, Tomorrow’s Return

Returning alumnus and renowned evangelist, this undergraduate commencement speaker urges graduates to use God-given time wisely.

 by Billy Graham, ’43, Litt.D . ’56

In a few minutes, you’ll walk out the door of Edman Chapel with a diploma in your hand and a life of uncertain length ahead of you. For some, it will be a long life. For others, it will be a surprisingly short life. And if you reach my age, you’ll wonder where the time has gone. It passes so quickly. A student at a university once asked me what was the greatest surprise of my life. I replied, “The brevity of life.”

Time is a nonrenewable resource that moves inevitably toward total depletion, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Time is our investment capital. Our choice is to use it or lose it, either invest it or let it dribble away like sand through our fingers.

Jesus told the story, in Luke 19, of a nobleman who, before going on a journey, commanded his stewards to invest his money carefully. The Lord expects us to use what he has given us–whether it’s money, time, or talents–in profitable ways. And he promises his personal audit of our lives when he returns.

Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day: 1440 minutes, adding up to 168 hours per week.

In Psalm 90:10, the Bible indicates that our allotted time span on earth may be 70 years, or possibly an extension to 80 years. The psalmist goes on to say, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

Let’s think about the numbers in a typical lifetime. The first 15 years are in childhood and adolescence. We spend a total of 20 years sleeping. So we have only 30 years left, and part of that time must be spent eating meals, building family and social relationships, working at our jobs, and figuring out our income tax.

Rich people cannot buy more hours than the rest of us. Scientists cannot invent new minutes. Each day, we each have 86,400 seconds to invest. Time allows no balances, no overdrafts. If we fail to use each day’s deposit, our loss cannot be recovered. It’s not like putting savings in a bank and getting interest. We cannot hoard time to spend on another day.

Paul tells the Ephesians to redeem the time, because the days are evil. Redeem is a word from the business world, and in this context, it means to buy the time. Redeeming the time means making the most of every opportunity that you have, every minute, every second.

Our natural tendency is to count the days, but God tells us, make every day count.

Time is the capital God has given us to invest wisely. So the question is, “Where do we invest it?” God calls us to invest our time capital, our very lives, primarily in people. Not in projects; not in possessions. God invested his only begotten Son in us, as sinners–not because we were prime prospects to give him a good payoff, but because his heart is overflowing with love for us.

When I was your age, I said to people, “There’s one thing I don’t ever want to be. I don’t want to be an undertaker or a preacher.” And I put them in the same category.

But one night, 55 years ago, I said with tears at the 18th hole of a golf course, “Oh God, I’ll go where you want me to go and be what you want me to be.” I never dreamed what he had planned for the future.

God’s will, first and foremost, for all of us, is that you love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Then God’s will for you is that you live a holy life, to become like his Son in your attitudes and actions, in your thoughts and words. To be and behave like Jesus did, which means delighting in doing His will and serving others.

Jesus said, “I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day. The night is coming, when no man can work.” What was the work of Jesus? Simply to do the work of his Father and finish the work that had been assigned to him. He lived and died for others–for his friends and enemies alike. Jesus told his disciples, “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” Invest in heaven.

What are those treasures or investments? They are people who need to know God. I’ve seen these people all over the world. I’ve seen them in every kind of situation, every kind of culture. I know that what they’re searching for can only be found in a relationship with God.

Time is the capital that God has given us to invest. People are the stocks in which we are to invest our time, whether they’re blue chips or penny stocks, or even junk bonds.

Jesus was willing to take a risk with twelve diverse disciples. And he took a great risk with us. But when we talk of investments, everyone asks, “What return will I get?” A meaningful, fulfilled life that will count for God is the dividend that we receive for putting our trust in Christ and our time into people.

From my more than 50 years of experience, may I say to you young people today, as you face careers and the uncertainties of life, the best of all investments you can make is to help people come to the Giver of eternal life and peace, the Lord Jesus Christ.

You can’t count your days–but with Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, you can make your days count. You can invest whatever time is yours for a high-yield return in the lives of people whom you introduce to Christ. Right now, you can decide to invest your life in such a way that someday, you will hear God say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Come and share in your master’s happiness.”

So I would say to you today, don’t just graduate.  Commence.