James T. Cleland - "Albert Schweitzer" (October 10, 1965)

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	(uplifting music)	0:03
Narrator	Let us pray.	0:28
	Let the words of my mouth	0:32
	and the meditations of our hearts	0:35
	be acceptable in thy sight,	0:37
	oh Lord our strength and our redeemer, amen.	0:41
	(clears throat)	0:50
	If it be neither blasphemous nor sacrilegious	0:56
	and I do not think it is,	1:01
	I want you to come with me to the judgment hall of heaven,	1:04
	where the Lord Jesus sits on his glorious throne	1:11
	and as we heard in the scripture lesson,	1:17
	separates the sheep from the goats.	1:21
	The person who is being appraised	1:27
	as we watch of the scene is Albert Schweitzer,	1:29
	white of hair, bushy of eyebrows, walrus mustached.	1:35
	His eyes are pools of compassion or humor.	1:45
	His hands are supple, someone has described them as lovely.	1:52
	He is a grand old man, grand and old.	2:00
	Jesus turns to Saint Peter and says,	2:09
	"You have his record,	2:13
	let us hear it in 20 minutes."	2:16
	Peter in bewilderment and frustration answers,	2:22
	"Sir," with exclamation points and question marks.	2:26
	And Jesus quietly repeats, "20 minutes."	2:32
	So Peter tries to cram 90 years into the allotted time.	2:38
	Will he make it?	2:47
	Well let's listen as Peter reads the testimony of a life.	2:49
	He begins first a brief curriculum vitae.	2:58
	"Albert Schweitzer was born January 14, 1875 in Alsace.	3:04
	It was generally said of him	3:13
	that such a puny specimen could not live.	3:15
	He was a son of the mens	3:20
	and grew up in an atmosphere impregnated	3:22
	with piety, not with piosity,	3:25
	with piety and music.	3:29
	He enjoyed his surroundings,	3:33
	home, church, school, countryside.	3:35
	Although the sadness which so constantly hunts life	3:40
	kept him from being a too naive optimist.	3:47
	He became a student at the University of Strasbourg	3:53
	in philosophy and theology with music,	3:57
	the organ as his avocation,	4:02
	he listened, he would read, he talked.	4:07
	He played the organ with the great Widor of Paris	4:13
	and Widor was both his amazed tutor	4:21
	and his even more amazed pupil."	4:26
	Now at this point,	4:33
	Peter pauses in the biographical sketch	4:35
	and addresses him specifically to Jesus	4:40
	on the judgment throne.	4:43
	"You spoke to him directly, sir, when he was 21,	4:47
	you said to him, "You must pay.	4:54
	You must pay for your happiness	5:00
	by unremitting self-giving to those who cannot repay."	5:04
	Sir, you remember his decision	5:12
	since God did not call you to public service	5:19
	until you were 30.	5:23
	Schweitzer claimed the next nine years	5:26
	until he was 30 for himself.	5:31
	In these nine years, he earned three doctor's degrees,	5:36
	a PhD for a thesis on the Philosophy of Kant,	5:44
	a PhD for a study in the life of Jesus	5:49
	and I Mass doc for his interpretation	5:55
	of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.	6:00
	At the age of 28 he was appointed principal	6:06
	of the Theological College of Saint Thomas	6:09
	attached to the university in Strasbourg.	6:12
	And then three months before he was 30,	6:18
	he read a report of the parish missionary society,	6:24
	which pointed out how starved for workers,	6:29
	the French Congo was and he knew at once	6:33
	where the rest of his life would be spent.	6:39
	He also knew that his three errand doctorates	6:43
	would be of no direct use to the native Africans.	6:47
	So he returned to college for pre-medical courses,	6:53
	and then he went to medical school	6:59
	and after six more years of study,	7:02
	he secured his MD, his fourth errand doctorate in 1912	7:06
	at the age of 37.	7:15
	The next year he sailed for the Congo	7:19
	and literally built the hospital at Lambarene,	7:23
	which he financed by writing and lecturing	7:28
	on philosophy, ethics and theology	7:32
	and by giving organ recitals in Europe,	7:35
	primarily on Bach.	7:40
	He wrote two of the three plan volumes	7:44
	on the decline of ethical values in Western civilization.	7:47
	He published a volume on Jesus and one on Paul	7:52
	which staggered, angered and revolutionized	7:57
	continental New Testament study.	8:02
	With Widor, he edited the definitive edition	8:06
	of the organ works of Bach	8:10
	and he began a pamphlet interpreting Bach	8:15
	which ended up as the definitive biography in two volumes.	8:21
	And in between he maintained, enlarged and ran the hospital.	8:27
	Thousands of patients were treated there over 50 years.	8:36
	He built no chapel,	8:43
	but he presided over family worship.	8:47
	He was in harness until the week before he died.	8:53
	Honors poured in on him.	9:00
	He received an excess of academic degrees,	9:04
	honorary schnauzer, Edinburgh University	9:10
	in an attempt to be unique,	9:15
	gave him two honorary degrees at the same ceremony.	9:18
	Queen Elizabeth made him	9:24
	an Honorary member of the Order of Merit,	9:26
	there are only 24 members of that order	9:30
	and only one other honorary member, an American.	9:35
	In 1952, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.	9:41
	He died at the age of 90 on September 4th of 1965.	9:47
	He left no last words.	9:56
	A colleague, a medical doctor	10:00
	presided at the simple burial service.	10:04
	So much for the curriculum vitae.	10:09
	Second, what motivated him?	10:14
	Obviously he loved to work.	10:19
	All kinds of work were second nature to him.	10:24
	Academic, medical, manual, writing, doctoring, building.	10:28
	He was once asked what had given him most pleasure in life	10:34
	and he replied, "Whatever I'm working at."	10:39
	He once told a visitor, "To be a success in Lambarene,	10:44
	you must be a carpenter, a mechanic, a farmer, a trader,	10:49
	as well as a physician and surgeon."	10:55
	He once asked a negro resplendent in a white suit	11:00
	to help him haul a beam of wood.	11:04
	The negro answered, "I'm an intellectual	11:08
	and don't drag wood about."	11:11
	And Schweitzer replied,	11:15
	"You're lucky, I too wanted to become an intellectual,	11:17
	but I didn't succeed."	11:21
	But there was more to his motivation	11:25
	than a capacity to work.	11:28
	He could have stayed in an academic position	11:30
	and developed his interest in philosophy,	11:32
	theology and music.	11:35
	As a child, he was sensitive,	11:38
	hyper sensitive to suffering.	11:42
	Even the suffering of animals,	11:47
	which he included in his evening prayers.	11:51
	It was the pathos and the patients,	11:55
	the suffering and the sorrow in the face	11:59
	of a chained negro figure on a monument	12:03
	in a public square in Khumar	12:08
	which turned his thoughts even as a boy to Africa.	12:13
	Someone must repay the African	12:19
	for what the white man has done to him.	12:23
	Someone, why not Schweitzer.	12:28
	He must not just talk about love, he must practice it.	12:33
	That is why years later, he finally chose medicine.	12:39
	"I wanted to be a doctor	12:45
	that I might be able to work without having to talk."	12:48
	He dreamed of a fellowship of those	12:55
	who bear the mark of pain.	12:58
	Those who have learned by experience	13:04
	what physical pain and bodily anguish mean	13:06
	are united by a secret bond.	13:11
	For Schweitzer happiness was a twin of shared pain,	13:15
	not of shared the joy, of shared pain.	13:20
	The happiness, which is a consequence	13:26
	of a deep sympathy with the pain	13:29
	which prevails around us.	13:32
	From this community of suffering	13:34
	he never sought to withdraw himself.	13:36
	For years Schweitzer tried to find a phrase	13:41
	which would sum up what ultimately and consistently	13:46
	and continually motivated him.	13:51
	And one day the words came to him in German,	13:56
	(speaking German)	14:00
	which may be translated, reverence for life.	14:04
	Any life, all life, anywhere, everywhere,	14:10
	wherever there is need.	14:17
	He himself defined reverence for life as	14:19
	at its lowest, the ethic of good manners	14:23
	and at its highest, the absolute ethic of love.	14:32
	He undertook his African mission,	14:39
	not as a sociological study, not as a political reformation,	14:42
	not even as a medical enterprise.	14:50
	He undertook it with sober enthusiasm	14:56
	as an act of atonement.	15:00
	The motivation was religious and ethical.	15:04
	The implementation was practical.	15:07
	He once said,	15:10
	"Example is not the main thing in influencing others,	15:11
	example is the only thing in influencing others."	15:18
	And so he went to Africa to the despair	15:26
	of his academic friends who thought he was a fool	15:30
	and to the indignation of the Paris missionary society,	15:35
	who thought he was a heretic	15:40
	and they were both partly right.	15:43
	He was a heretical figure in the spirit of user,	15:47
	his Lord and master.	15:53
	This quadruple doctor who looks like Joseph Sterling	15:56
	and barons like Francis of Assisi.	16:03
	Third, what influence did he have in his contemporaries?	16:09
	It was almost unbelievable.	16:15
	We've mentioned it already in the realms of ethics,	16:19
	New Testament studies and organ.	16:22
	There's a footnote to the organ.	16:27
	He even wrote a 73 page pamphlet.	16:30
	Only a German would call 73 pages a pamphlet.	16:34
	He wrote a 73 page pamphlet on the building of pipe organs,	16:40
	but let's concentrate on the impact	16:49
	of his reverence for life and his unofficial fellowship	16:51
	of those who bear the mark of pain.	16:55
	At least half a dozen hospitals in impoverished areas	16:59
	and remote areas have been established because of him.	17:03
	A manufacturer in the American Midwest	17:10
	read about Schweitzer,	17:13
	sold his farm implement manufacturing company	17:15
	and used the money to build	17:19
	a string of medical clinics in the Cameroon.	17:22
	A Japanese professor raised money in Schweitzer's name	17:28
	and started an orphanage.	17:33
	A young German medical school graduate	17:36
	with a fund of inspiration as his only means of support	17:39
	started a hospital in South America.	17:45
	A Dutch girl selected medicine as her career	17:49
	because of Schweitzer.	17:51
	She became the chief surgeon at Lambarene	17:55
	and she left it to found a hospital of her own	17:59
	in Southern France.	18:02
	A Duke MD did the first year of his residency at Lambarene.	18:06
	Isn't that nice that Saint Peter	18:13
	knows something good about Duke.	18:15
	(audience laughs)	18:17
	Larimer Mellon of Pittsburgh,	18:23
	you know that name in Pittsburgh, the Mellon name.	18:26
	Larimer Mellon of Pittsburgh at the age of 37	18:30
	was making a career of being a rich man's son.	18:34
	His introduction to Schweitzer by reading was explosive.	18:40
	Like Schweitzer Mellon went back to college,	18:47
	then to medical school and graduated MD at 44.	18:51
	He has settled in Haiti with his wife, Gwen,	18:59
	and there will be built the	19:03
	Albert Schweitzer hospital of Haiti.	19:06
	Now Schweitzer does not expect	19:11
	this kind of dramatic medical response	19:13
	from all who come in any kind of contact with him,	19:16
	but he doesn't want them to open their eyes	19:20
	and seek another human being	19:24
	in need of a little time, a little friendliness,	19:27
	a little company, a little work.	19:32
	So Schweitzer wrote in an article in the Reader's Digest	19:38
	in July, 1965, two months before he died.	19:42
	A little act of reverence for life,	19:48
	a token of sympathy with those who bear the mark of pain.	19:52
	He once helped an old lady with two heavier suitcase	19:57
	onto a train in Chicago	20:04
	while some dignitary was reading an address,	20:07
	welcoming him to the Windy City.	20:12
	Schweitzer made your followers my Lord,	20:19
	hold their heads a little higher.	20:22
	If he were a Christian, even a heretical one,	20:25
	there must be something to Christianity.	20:30
	He made the good life attractive.	20:35
	But first my Lord,	20:39
	there has been criticism over this man.	20:42
	Some of it mellow and understanding,	20:45
	some bitter and debunking.	20:48
	He's accused of being cranky, dictatorial,	20:51
	irascible vein of being obstinately old fashioned,	20:54
	of being a crusty old Bismarck, a magnificent title.	21:00
	More seriously he is accused of being an outdated colonial	21:05
	wearing the sun helmet as a badge of his cast,	21:10
	whose attitude to the native was paternal	21:13
	and benevolent but who neither believed in	21:16
	nor had sympathy for the swelling tide of self-expression,	21:20
	in the individual, in the race,	21:25
	in the possible nation throughout Africa.	21:28
	He did things for the African, not with them.	21:32
	He has been a deliberate bystander	21:38
	in the African convulsion.	21:41
	From another angle he's accused	21:44
	of being a way behind the times in hospital techniques,	21:46
	surgical, medical, administrative, hygienic.	21:49
	It may well be that the Gabonese authorities	21:54
	will now close the hospital	21:56
	or have it now meet certain accepted standards.	21:59
	The kindest critic has said that	22:03
	he should have died at 70 instead of at 90 maybe.	22:07
	At least he lived long enough to hear	22:12
	all the possible praise and censure	22:14
	that could be said of him."	22:17
	And Peter bows to the throne.	22:20
	"My Lord, that is an abbreviated synopsis	22:22
	of the record in my books regarding Albert Schweitzer,	22:27
	I would have preferred 20 hours to 20 minutes,	22:31
	but you know all things, I desist."	22:36
	Then the king says to the one who stands in front of him,	22:42
	"Doctor, or should it be doctor Schweitzer,	22:47
	you have heard the record.	22:54
	What shall I do with you?	22:57
	Do you go to my right hand or to my left?"	23:00
	And Dr Schweitzer answers,	23:06
	"The air is clearer here than in Lambarene.	23:08
	I begin to understand my critics evaluation of me.	23:14
	I am not ready for heaven,	23:21
	but I am not enthusiastic about going to the place	23:25
	prepared for the devil and his angels.	23:28
	Is it possible that our Roman Catholic brethren are right	23:32
	with their doctrine of purgatory.	23:37
	Maybe I could be prepared for heaven there."	23:40
	And the king answers and says to him,	23:46
	"Would you make me out to be a liar	23:50
	on the days of my flesh?	23:54
	I said then those who feed the hungry and thirsty,	23:57
	who clothe the naked and visit	24:02
	the sick and prisoners,	24:05
	who accept strangers as king's folk	24:07
	are the ones to inherit the kingdom?	24:09
	What do you think you've done all your life?	24:12
	I know the criticism.	24:17
	I agree with some	24:20
	but your critics fail to distinguish	24:23
	between what is good and what is right.	24:26
	You are a good man, a radically ethical man.	24:31
	You were implementation of the ethic	24:38
	did leave some things to be desired.	24:41
	You were always good.	24:45
	Your were not always right, but regarding your critics,	24:48
	remember what Andre Gide wrote in The Immoralist,	24:53
	"One must allow other people to be right.	24:59
	It consoles them for not being anything else."	25:05
	God judges by motive, by intent.	25:12
	Your motive was not primarily medical,	25:18
	not even consciously social, never political, it was moral.	25:21
	Rooted in a religious affirmation.	25:28
	If I am true to what I said	25:32
	in the parable of the sheep and the goats,	25:34
	there is only one judgment I may pass on you,	25:38
	come, you blessed of my father,	25:44
	inherit the kingdom prepared for you	25:49
	from the foundation of the world."	25:53
	And in the celestial background,	25:58
	some angelic organist is playing	26:02
	a coral Prelude of Bach,	26:06
	according to the Widor Schweitzer definitive edition.	26:10
	Let us pray.	26:17
	Almighty God who are constantly revealing thyself	26:26
	if we would but see, we give the thanks	26:32
	for thy servant, Albert Schweitzer.	26:37
	Grant us the willingness to understand his great goodness	26:42
	and the will to learn of him,	26:48
	in the name of his master even Jesus Christ, our Lord,	26:51
	and may the blessing of God come upon you abundantly.	26:59
	May it keep you strong and tranquil	27:04
	in the truth of his promises	27:10
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	27:12

Item Info

Title:

James T. Cleland - "Albert Schweitzer" (October 10, 1965)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4cc0zv6z

Date:

October 10, 1965

Speaker:

Cleland, James T. (James Tough), 1903-1974

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0308
ref5821_eki
uachapelsermaud
duke:628420
dcrau002306
ark:/87924/r4cc0zv6z
16ecd105-e8a3-438f-a541-c56c5666dfeb

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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Language:

English

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United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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James T. Cleland - "Albert Schweitzer" (October 10, 1965)

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1. James T. Cleland - "Albert Schweitzer" (October 10, 1965)

Duke University Archives

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James T. Cleland - "Albert Schweitzer" (October 10, 1965)

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