Charles T. Thrift, Jr. - "Hands Plus Wings" (June 30, 1963)

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Preacher	For all the directions, the assistances,	0:03
	and comforts of thy Holy Spirit,	0:06
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord,	0:09
	to whom with thee and the holy spirit be all honor	0:11
	and glory world without end.	0:14
	O most loving father	0:19
	who willest us to give thanks for all things	0:23
	and to dread nothing but the loss of thee,	0:25
	and to cast all our care on thee who cares for us,	0:29
	preserve us from fears and from worldly anxieties	0:34
	and granted no clouds of this mortal life	0:40
	may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal	0:43
	and which thou hast manifested supremely to us	0:47
	in thy Son, Christ.	0:51
	Almighty God, we pray thee with thy gracious favor	0:55
	to behold our universities, colleges, and schools,	0:59
	that knowledge may be increased among us	1:03
	and that all good learning may flourish and abound.	1:07
	Bless all who teach and all who learn	1:13
	and grant that in humility of heart,	1:17
	they may ever look onto thee	1:19
	who art the fountain of all wisdom.	1:21
	Heavenly father, who has given us this good land	1:25
	for our heritage, we humbly ask thee	1:29
	that we may always prove ourselves	1:32
	a people mindful of thy favor, and glad to do thy will.	1:35
	And may we ever know that our liberties are rooted in thee,	1:41
	and not in ourselves or in any human device?	1:45
	Bless our land with honorable industry,	1:51
	with sound learning and pure manners.	1:54
	Save our country and our communities from violence,	1:58
	from discord, from confusion,	2:02
	from pride, arrogance, and prejudice.	2:05
	Defend our liberties and fashion into one united people	2:10
	the multitudes that have been brought here	2:14
	to this land out of many nations.	2:16
	Do thou indue with the spirit of wisdom,	2:20
	those whom in thy name	2:23
	we entrust the authority of government	2:25
	that they may be filled with thy justice	2:28
	and thy truth.	2:33
	We pray that through obedience to thy law,	2:37
	we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth.	2:40
	In the time of our prosperity,	2:46
	fill our hearts with thankfulness	2:48
	and with the spirit of sharing.	2:51
	And in the day of trouble,	2:53
	suffer not our trust in thee to fail.	2:54
	O gracious Father, we humbly beseech thee this morning	3:00
	for thy holy Catholic church,	3:05
	that's how wouldst be pleased	3:08
	to fill it with all truth and all peace.	3:09
	Wherever it is corrupt, purify it,	3:13
	where it is an error, direct it.	3:17
	Where in anything it is amiss, reform it.	3:20
	O God, where it is right, do thou establish it,	3:24
	where it is in want, provide for it,	3:27
	where it is divided, reunite it,	3:29
	for the sake of Him who died and rose again,	3:33
	and ever liveth to make intercession for us.	3:36
	We make this prayer for the church.	3:40
	Take away all hatred and prejudice.	3:45
	Whatever else may hinder us within the church	3:48
	from godly union and concorde,	3:52
	that as there is but one body and one spirit	3:55
	and one hope of our calling,	3:58
	one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all,	4:00
	so we may be all of one heart and one soul.	4:06
	United in one holy bond of truth and peace	4:11
	of faith and charity,	4:15
	and may with one mind and one mouth glorify thee	4:18
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	4:23
	In his name, we offer this prayer, amen.	4:27
	(soft instrumental music)	4:35
	(orchestra music)	11:04
	(choir singing)	11:14
	O God, from whom every gift cometh,	11:50
-	We now dedicate unto thee the money,	11:54
	which has here been offered,	11:57
	and the money, which we yet retained	11:58
	for our personal use, all of it to be spent	11:58
	for the glory of Christ.	11:59
	In His blessed name, we pray, Amen.	12:00
Speaker	This chapel brings back	12:42
	many happy memories for me.	12:44
	Here, I twice attended baccalaureate services	12:47
	as a member of the graduating classes.	12:50
	My first baccalaureate service annotated this building,	12:54
	and was held over on the east campus.	12:58
	CR also graduated my two sisters, my wife,	13:01
	and one of our daughters.	13:06
	I was the best man, or at least that's what I was called.	13:08
	Maybe I'd better say I was the so-called best man at the	13:13
	first wedding in this chapel.	13:17
	This is not the first time I have preached from this pulpit.	13:21
	Though it's the first time I've ever had	13:25
	an audience present, and for you, I'm grateful.	13:27
	During the construction of this building,	13:32
	the nightwatchmen was a close friend of mine,	13:35
	and with his cooperation, this is where I practiced more	13:38
	than one sermon,	13:42
	for Dr. Frank Hickman's homiletic class.	13:43
	Being reunited with Dr. Howard Wilkinson, your chaplain,	13:48
	is also a great pleasure.	13:53
	He and I were freshmen together several years ago	13:56
	in a great Texas educational institution.	13:59
	My freshman year as a teacher and his freshman year	14:03
	as a student.	14:07
	In the first session of my first class,	14:09
	I met him and I have followed his career	14:13
	with interest and pride.	14:16
	Duke university has meant much to me and to my family	14:20
	for many years.	14:24
	Sometimes it close range when we have been enrolled here,	14:25
	and sometimes when we have been at a great distance.	14:31
	When the institution, which I'm privileged to head,	14:34
	has needed advice on peculiar problems	14:37
	or sought new faculty members,	14:41
	more than once I have turned this way	14:43
	and found able assistance.	14:46
	My debt to my alma mater	14:49
	is great.	14:52
	I had the late Arthur Compton as a dinner guest, some months	14:56
	after the Russians launched their first Sputnik,	15:00
	while we were still in the throws of trying	15:03
	to launch not a Sputnik, but a crash program in science.	15:05
	Hour of our goal was to catch up with the Russians.	15:11
	To catch up with them in many ways,	15:15
	but particularly in space exploration	15:17
	and to do it immediately.	15:21
	Dr. Compton expressed apprehension and doubt	15:24
	about the proposed program achieving its goal.	15:28
	For said he, "I fear all it will do is give us a hoard	15:31
	of scientific technicians with trained hands,	15:37
	but few seers with trained wings.	15:41
	Of hands, we already have enough.	15:46
	Of wings, far too few.	15:50
	Once a rocket is launched, it will probably be	15:53
	out of date before it's out of sight."	15:57
	"The so-called scientists of the hand variety,"	16:00
	he continued, "will have to be swept from the launching pad	16:03
	each time there was a model change	16:07
	because they will not understand the significance	16:10
	of the newly added gadgets.	16:13
	I fear our program will give us hands for action,	16:17
	but not wings for understanding."	16:22
	I said to him, "You sound just like Ezekiel."	16:27
	To which he replied, "Of course, I borrowed my figures	16:32
	from Ezekiel and I don't know of any better way	16:36
	to characterize this age in which we are living,	16:39
	trained scientists and all,	16:42
	than by calling it the great hand age	16:45
	until each of us can take on the wings of the morning	16:50
	of which the Hebrew Psalmist speaks to give direction	16:54
	to our current fetish of objectivity.	16:57
	I do not believe any of us will really make the contribution	17:01
	to our era of which we are capable.	17:05
	We need men of great motivation	17:09
	to choose the higher values."	17:12
	He concluded, "Few there are who doubt	17:15
	that Arthur Compton developed wings to go along	17:19
	with his skilled hand."	17:23
	This is the background for the selection of my text.	17:26
	I realized as well as you do,	17:30
	that there is nothing biblical in the background,	17:33
	but it's nonetheless worthy of attention.	17:36
	In the Ezekiel 1:8, you will find these words	17:40
	"and they had the hands of a man under their wings."	17:48
	In this first chapter, there's an account	17:54
	of a strange vision, which came	17:57
	to the ancient prophet, Ezekiel.	18:00
	In his vision he saw four strange creatures,	18:03
	each having four faces and four wings with calves feet	18:07
	shining like burnished brass, and with the hands	18:13
	of a man under their wings.	18:17
	Now, I have no intention of attempting any explanation	18:22
	of this strange Oriental picture,	18:25
	but it has suggested the theme of my remarks this morning.	18:28
	The thousand wonders of the present world	18:34
	are the works of man's hand.	18:37
	The intricate uncomplicated life of our day is largely	18:41
	as the result of the training of hands.	18:46
	The emphasis on education has been so largely	18:50
	upon the material,	18:53
	that there's little wonder	18:55
	that in the light of all this, that men and women	18:57
	have become increasingly materially-minded.	19:01
	And we constantly need to remind ourselves	19:05
	that a materialistically-minded theism	19:09
	is not the answer to an atheistically minded materialism.	19:12
	Skilled technicians and electronic gadgets are vital parts	19:19
	of this great hand age.	19:24
	Please don't misunderstand me, brains on necessary too,	19:28
	and we here in America have the respect	19:33
	of all the world for our know-how.	19:35
	We glory in the work of men's hand, and rightly so.	19:38
	Some people on a college campus,	19:45
	usually not the students, believe that a doctor	19:48
	of philosophy degree is synonymous	19:51
	with the wings of which I speak.	19:55
	It is not necessarily so.	19:58
	Though many with whom I have been privileged	20:01
	to work truly had wings	20:05
	under which they had the hands of men.	20:07
	However, many a man with a string of degrees	20:12
	is still only a skilled amanuensis.	20:16
	The late Edgar Goodspeed, who was well-known	20:21
	for his translation of the new Testament.	20:24
	and for many books dealing with the new Testament	20:27
	once said to me, "I think that we have in this country,	20:31
	in our colleges, some of the highest paid	20:36
	and most highly salary proofreaders	20:41
	that you can imagine."	20:45
	He said, "Let there be one typographical error in a book,	20:47
	and no matter how profound the subject matter,	20:53
	you will have more comments about the one error	20:58
	than about any contribution you have made in the book."	21:02
	I'm not opposed to the teaching of skills,	21:10
	of teaching of skills to young men and to young women,	21:13
	but I do think there is great danger	21:16
	of substituting the learning of skills for real education.	21:18
	Those of us who are primarily concerned with the education	21:26
	of this generation, need to ask ourselves,	21:29
	with increasing earnestness, whether it is conducive	21:33
	to real education, to teach only those things,	21:37
	which furnished the students with a bag of tricks	21:40
	and little or nothing more.	21:46
	Not all of higher education understands its responsibility.	21:50
	I've been diligent for a long time in pointing out	21:56
	that the Christian college must be concerned	22:00
	with helping its students understand more than just how	22:04
	to do things.	22:09
	The obligation of the Christian college is	22:11
	to have its students concerned with the why and the when,	22:14
	as well as the how.	22:19
	Too many students, I fear, are majoring in minors	22:22
	and thinking they have absorbed the whole curriculum.	22:28
	We must decide whether our educational goal	22:32
	is the production of a sophisticated critic	22:37
	or consumer	22:42
	of the products of others, or an energetic creative spirit.	22:43
	We must decide whether our economy is to be one	22:49
	of super fluidity, or planned obsolescence or,	22:52
	high living and poor thinking, or is our economy	22:56
	to be one where our equality is	23:01
	to be as important as quantity,	23:04
	and enough is not to be outbid by more than enough.	23:07
	Too frequently, education has been concerned	23:13
	with minions, but with little fault	23:17
	of Ians.	23:21
	We bogged down on the proper sequence of courses,	23:23
	or techniques of teaching, or the matter	23:27
	of proper faculty rank,	23:32
	and forget that the primary problem	23:35
	is the end,	23:40
	not these intermediate concerns along the way.	23:41
	Sometimes, the manner of education becomes so quantitative	23:47
	that it resembles the frontier druggist, who imported	23:51
	from Europe, many medicines with unusual names	23:55
	and unusual properties.	23:59
	He informed the physicians in the neighborhood	24:02
	about the unusual properties of his new drugs,	24:04
	but because of the difficulty with the names,	24:08
	he just identified each drug with a number	24:12
	and indicated what results might be expected from each.	24:15
	Some of the drugs were in short supply,	24:21
	And when item 10 was exhausted,	24:25
	he began to substitute equal proportions	24:27
	of items six and four.	24:30
	Little wonder that there was a sudden and marked change	24:33
	in the response of patients.	24:36
	Reminds me somewhat of a student	24:39
	in my own college days, who found that for graduation,	24:42
	he was expected to have history nine,	24:47
	which I think was the History of Latin America,	24:50
	but being unable to work this into his schedule,	24:53
	he asked if one semester of history two,	24:55
	the History of the Old South, and one semester	24:59
	of History seven, the History of the Near East,	25:02
	would suffice.	25:06
	Sometimes our educational perspective comes to this point.	25:08
	The late President Few said to my graduating class,	25:15
	"Young ladies and young gentlemen,"	25:21
	and with that characteristic gesture	25:24
	of running his fingers through his hair,	25:27
	which all of you who knew and loved him will recall,	25:30
	"Young ladies and young gentlemen,	25:34
	your hands will make your living,	25:37
	but your wings will make your life.	25:40
	You will need both, so develop them early."	25:45
	"Nothing," said he, "will contribute	25:50
	to their development more	25:53
	than the real meaning contained in the words	25:55
	of the motto of this university,	25:58
	dealing with education and religion,	26:01
	and you will need each.	26:05
	For in reality, they are inseparable,	26:07
	each serving to compliment the other."	26:10
	And some years later from this very pulpit, President Few	26:15
	speaking along the same line said,	26:19
	"Whatever one's theory may be,	26:23
	there is this power, not of ourselves,	26:26
	something of intuitive wisdom	26:30
	that enables one to live one's life wisely.	26:33
	Whether it be Socrates' demon,	26:38
	Cabot's super wisdom of the body,	26:41
	the hunch of the man on the street,	26:44
	some sort of extra sensory perception,	26:47
	that science can demonstrate,	26:50
	or a moral instinct that comes	26:52
	from right adjustment to light,	26:55
	and to the great spiritual order of which we are apart.	26:57
	I admonish you to seek diligently, for this gift of wisdom	27:02
	as a precious reward of a life rightly be gone	27:08
	and fully and rightly lived."	27:13
	He continued, "Learn all you can,	27:16
	you will never know too much.	27:20
	Find your place in life and feel it.	27:23
	Through filling it, find and fulfill yourself.	27:27
	Go out in the life about you	27:33
	and let down your bucket where you are.	27:37
	Start a school in some community where it's needed,	27:41
	set up a medical mission, if you were fitted for that,	27:44
	acquire a piece of land and live on it.	27:49
	And here I think the hands and give your spare time	27:53
	to pottery, painting, poetry,	27:57
	music, and whatever your gift may be.	28:02
	But in heaven's name produce.	28:06
	And here, I think we're the wing.	28:09
	In any events that he find or make our way to a life	28:13
	that is worthy of a human being.	28:19
	These observations I would make,	28:24
	I have observed,	28:28
	that trained hands and successful living	28:29
	do not always go together.	28:34
	Big jobs and big pay	28:37
	often go to very small men.	28:40
	Men and women with cramped souls,	28:45
	often live in the largest houses.	28:48
	The second observation at this point I would make is	28:52
	that it's well-nary impossible for average men and women	28:56
	to grow mentally or spiritually	29:01
	at their work.	29:05
	Most people must make their living at humble tasks.	29:07
	Think of the tens and thousands of men and women in this age	29:13
	whose work consists entirely of performing	29:17
	but one small function,	29:22
	such as inserting a bolt in an endless chain of parts,	29:25
	or as a teacher of mine here at duke once told	29:32
	of quitting an easy job in a factory,	29:36
	here in Durham, because said he,	29:39
	"It was not much work, but so deadly a routine."	29:44
	This is the thing that I think we must remember.	29:51
	We have to move beyond the things done with our hands.	29:56
	My third observation at this point is,	30:03
	that like the strange creatures of Ezekiel's vision,	30:06
	we, too, have wings as well as hand and the wings are	30:10
	above the hand.	30:17
	What will happen in coming generations?	30:19
	If an ever increasing number of men and women	30:22
	will have trained hand, but helpless wings.	30:28
	Nothing, I think, is more dangerous for democracy,	30:33
	nothing is more conducive	30:37
	to the development of totalitarianism	30:39
	than to have the masses knowing how	30:43
	and a very few people knowing why and when.	30:46
	It's a curious fact, that a nation so rich	30:53
	in science should be so poor in international relations.	30:56
	That a nation so advanced in medicine	31:02
	should be so poor in theology.	31:06
	That a nation so expert in advertising	31:10
	should be so inept in the study of ideas.	31:13
	It's really a reflection on American higher education,	31:17
	that this is so.	31:22
	Hands and wings were meant to compliment one another.	31:25
	The use of the wings will help the use of the hand,	31:29
	and the right use of the hands will help the use	31:34
	of the wings.	31:37
	George Washington was a farmer.	31:39
	Indeed, one of the most successful of his time,	31:42
	but Washington was infinitely more than a farmer.	31:47
	He found many things to occupy his mind	31:51
	and his heart outside his working hours.	31:55
	If Washington had been only a farmer,	32:00
	his name would not have been known beyond his time.	32:03
	It was the great interests that he developed	32:08
	outside his farming,	32:11
	that have given him a deathless place	32:13
	in the history of Liberty.	32:15
	We're told that Leonardo da Vinci,	32:19
	one of the greatest of the Renaissance artists,	32:22
	was trained as an engineer.	32:24
	He built the fortifications of Florence.	32:27
	We're also told that he was the inventor	32:30
	of the wheelbarrow.	32:32
	These were the ways in which he made his living,	32:34
	but he had other interests.	32:37
	He had trained wings as well as trained hands,	32:40
	And as a result, we have his Last Supper and his Mona Lisa.	32:45
	One of my heroes in American history	32:52
	and here, the historian in me comes out, is a man	32:55
	whose name is not widely known,	32:59
	but to me, his life is one of the best illustrations I know	33:01
	of a man whose wings and hands were equally busy.	33:05
	His name is Amos A. Lawrence.	33:09
	He belong to a Massachusetts family,	33:13
	which was interested in the manufacturing of cloth.	33:16
	Throughout his life. he was busy in the textile business,	33:20
	but he developed other interests, also.	33:25
	He became the treasurer of Harvard College.	33:29
	He became interested in the settlement of Kansas,	33:32
	and of making that territory free from slavery.	33:35
	He became the treasurer of the New England Immigrant Society	33:40
	and the town of Lawrence, Kansas received his name	33:44
	because of that fact.	33:47
	He contributed a sum of money	33:50
	to establish a college at Lawrence,	33:52
	and as a result, the University of Kansas was located there.	33:55
	He became the unwilling owner of a large tract	34:00
	of land in Wisconsin,	34:03
	and although he was a staunch Episcopalian,	34:05
	he turned the land over to the Methodist	34:08
	to establish a college and Lawrence College at Appleton	34:11
	was the result.	34:16
	Who would have ever suppose that Duke would benefit	34:18
	from this, from his foresight?	34:21
	We have borrowed, some say stolen, a present	34:24
	from Lawrence College.	34:27
	Amos A. Lawrence, in the midst of all these interests,	34:30
	had time to be a real father to a large family of children.	34:33
	He saw to it that his children's wings were trained	34:38
	as well as their hands.	34:43
	And as a result, they too carried on a full-rounded life.	34:45
	One of his sons was Bishop William Lawrence,	34:50
	the successor of Phillips Brooks,	34:54
	as the Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts.	34:57
	Please understand me, I'm not opposing the teaching	35:01
	of skills to young men and young women,	35:05
	as I said a moment ago,	35:08
	but I am greatly concerned, lest we substitute the learning	35:09
	of skills for real education.	35:14
	One of our greatest confusion is that training is education.	35:19
	We all know parents who believe this.	35:25
	who of us has not had students that want typing	35:29
	and shorthand exclusively, nothing else?	35:34
	One mother, still doubts my qualifications	35:38
	for the position I now hold,	35:42
	because I suggested, rather bluntly to her,	35:44
	that a business school rather than a college	35:47
	would suit her daughter.	35:51
	For when economics and history and English,	35:53
	political science. Mathematics,	35:57
	when these were ruled out by the mother as unnecessary	36:01
	and unwanted for the daughter,	36:05
	I could do little else.	36:09
	'Hands without wings,' I told her.	36:11
	Now, you, like most of the rest of us	36:15
	divide professors you have had into three groups:	36:21
	Those you have forgotten,	36:25
	those you have forgiven,	36:28
	and those you can never forget.	36:31
	And it's this last group, who	36:34
	if you haven't forgotten them,	36:38
	after 30 years probably had the wings	36:39
	of which I speak this morning.	36:43
	I suspect that the manner, in which we learn	36:48
	to make decisions, goes a long way	36:53
	toward determining the size and the strength of our wings.	36:56
	Too many have to wait until all the evidence is in	36:58
	to make a decision.	37:03
	"The art of living," as Mr. Justice Holmes once put it,	37:05
	"Consists in making correct decisions	37:09
	on insufficient evidence."	37:11
	Actually, you know, we have to make a great many decisions.	37:14
	Some, perhaps some of life's most important decisions,	37:18
	are made in college and usually on insufficient evidence.	37:22
	Choosing a mate, choosing a life's work,	37:28
	many things that we have to do,	37:30
	but the scholarly mind seeks comprehensiveness of truth.	37:32
	The administrative mind requires decisiveness of action.	37:37
	This difference, in approach, is the basis	37:42
	of much faculty administrative understanding.	37:45
	Each group is sure that the other has everything	37:49
	except wings,	37:52
	even to a forked-tail and horns.	37:54
	Now, I know, everyone who makes quick decisions	37:58
	is not possessed a great perspective or purpose.	38:02
	It's the soundness, not the repetitive that counts.	38:07
	Henry Wriston, in his reminiscences says	38:11
	that when he moved from a college professorship at Wesleyan	38:14
	to become a college president at Lawrence,	38:18
	he noted this difference, "A scholar can wait	38:21
	until the evidence is all in, an administrate of act,	38:24
	on the evidence available."	38:28
	He started work on his first book in 1914	38:31
	and it appeared in 1929.	38:35
	No such luxury is permitted to an administrator,	38:38
	nor might I add, to a candidate for an advanced degree.	38:43
	Here's the difference between the academic mind	38:48
	and the practical mind of the world-	38:51
	The academic mind believes that it's good to doubt for above	38:54
	way of doubt, the facts are evoked that lead to certainty.	38:59
	The practical man, however. knows that we walk	39:04
	in this life by faith,	39:08
	not by facts.	39:10
	He knows that he will never steal home	39:11
	with both feet securely planted on third base.	39:14
	The motto of the scholar is both hands.	39:17
	We must synthesize all the facts.	39:22
	The motto of the practical man is either or,	39:25
	we must decide.	39:28
	The man who piloted the plane,	39:31
	which dropped the first atomic bomb,	39:32
	now a general in the air force, told me recently, that	39:35
	but for the prodding of the military man, he doubted,	39:39
	if the scientist, attempting to develop the device	39:42
	suitable for aerial delivery would be ready yet.	39:46
	Perhaps the world would have been the gainer	39:49
	had this been the case.	39:52
	But his point was that the scientist wanted something sure.	39:54
	With a one in 10,000 chance of error.	39:59
	The others demanded a greater risk.	40:03
	The late Hayward Brown castigated the intellectuals once,	40:07
	by saying, "They are people who think the purpose	40:11
	of life is to pass the puck, back and forth,	40:14
	without ever taking a shot at the goal.	40:18
	A brash, young freshman, on our campus,	40:22
	once asked the late Arthur Compton	40:24
	if he had ever had sleepless nights worrying	40:27
	over the terrible sin he had committed in helping	40:29
	to make the first atomic explosion possible.	40:33
	Quick as a flash, Dr. Compton replied, "No, no indeed.	40:38
	It was my God-given duty	40:43
	to be the best possible physicist I could.	40:44
	But I will tell you what does give me sleepless nights,	40:47
	And it's this- the willingness of most people	40:51
	to let the physicist decide what to do	40:55
	with the bomb now that they have made it."	40:58
	"Such a decision," said he, "should be made	41:01
	by men with wings, not by a man with hands alone."	41:04
	Continuing, he said, "The real task of a college,	41:09
	especially the Christian college is to prepare men	41:13
	in the art of decision-making not just to be objective	41:16
	about everything."	41:21
	And I think he was right.	41:23
	Life forces us to meet deadlines,	41:25
	to meet these deadlines before all the facts are available.	41:28
	Someone will ask, "Are you not interested in truth?"	41:32
	Are we to be pure activist?	41:36
	Are we to live blindly in faith?"	41:39
	No, I think not.	41:43
	We ought to seek all the facts we can,	41:45
	but we must remember, we do not pass the puck around	41:47
	just for the fun of it.	41:51
	Actually, the deepest truth can be secured only by action.	41:53
	Action!	41:58
	The hands, if you please. to go with the wings.	41:59
	John Dewey once observed that while saints are engaged in	42:03
	introspection burley sinners run the world.	42:06
	What is true of saints is true of the scholars,	42:11
	while they are engaged in their rituals of objectivity,	42:15
	the burly sinners of Eden conspiring	42:19
	to take their right to be objective	42:23
	away from them.	42:25
	The world of the intellect needs a code of rules	42:27
	governing our decision procedure.	42:31
	We need a frame of reference,	42:34
	whereby we can assess the competing claims	42:36
	to our service.	42:40
	Beyond the scale of values. is the need	42:42
	for motivation that will drive us to choose the higher	42:45
	and forsake galore.	42:49
	Objectivity, alone, will not place wings above our hands.	42:52
	John Wesley found a way of making decisions,	42:58
	which he called experimental religion,	43:02
	and his way he literally gave wings to fallons.	43:05
	Christian higher education needs to recapture this,	43:09
	if it would remain vital-	43:13
	the vision of intellectual competence,	43:17
	joined with religious commitment,	43:20
	the academic mind and the will,	43:23
	would have the loyalty to serve.	43:27
	Of what good hands and wings be more symbolic?	43:30
	This is the vision for which both church	43:36
	and college wait.	43:40
	When it appears, the great days of Christian education	43:42
	will not be behind us.	43:47
	May we stand.	43:49
	Help us our Father,	43:57
	to realize that in the deepest sense,	43:59
	we cannot teach anybody anything.	44:03
	That the best we can do is to help them learn	44:07
	for themselves.	44:11
	May we be shepherds of the spirit	44:13
	as well as masters of the mind.	44:17
	And now may the Lord bless you and keep you.	44:22
	The Lord make His face to shine upon you	44:26
	and be gracious unto you.	44:29
	The Lord lift up his countenance upon you	44:31
	and give you peace both now and evermore.	44:34
	(choir singing)	44:44

Item Info

Title:

Charles T. Thrift, Jr. - "Hands Plus Wings" (June 30, 1963)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4cf9p775

Date:

June 30, 1963

Speaker:

Thrift, Charles T., Jr.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0232
ref5669_lai
uachapelsermaud
duke:628137
dcrau002238
ark:/87924/r4cf9p775
fdc5ef9c-238c-427b-a1d5-64ccb4f443ee

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Related Resources:

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

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

Rights:

No Re-Use

In Copyright

Rights Note:

This material is made available for research, scholarship, and private study. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations: https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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Charles T. Thrift, Jr. - "Hands Plus Wings" (June 30, 1963)

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1. Charles T. Thrift - "Hands Plus Wings" (June 30, 1963)

Duke University Archives

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Charles T. Thrift, Jr. - "Hands Plus Wings" (June 30, 1963)

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Duke University Archives

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