Charles P. Bowles - "The Unfinished Pyramid" (August 21, 1966)

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Preacher	Dear friends,	0:03
	my appearance here this morning,	0:04
	is rather unusual to me.	0:08
	I have left the North Carolina,	0:10
	where we have built in air conditioning.	0:15
	And I had just listened to two of America's,	0:18
	I think most unique preachers.	0:21
	Bishop Gerald Kennedy from Los Angeles	0:25
	and Wallace Hamilton from	0:28
	Pasadena Church in St. Petersburg, Florida.	0:30
	Wallace Hamilton said on Thursday evening...	0:35
	He said tomorrow morning because of a shortened schedule,	0:37
	I shall preach at 8:30, on how to be a Saint.	0:40
	And he says, I know if you were there,	0:46
	I'll know you're a real one.	0:47
	Well, you're a presence here at 9:30	0:50
	makes you at least a partial Saint.	0:52
	I shall leave shortly after this service	0:56
	and then go back to my favorite hills,	0:58
	which makes you rather rushed schedule.	1:02
	And I'm reminded of my favorite children's story.	1:06
	I collect children's stories. I love them.	1:10
	I love children.	1:13
	The little boy who asked his mother saying,	1:16
	"Mother, is it true that we're made out of dust?"	1:18
	And she said, "Yes son it's true,	1:21
	you're were made out of dust."	1:23
	Well he said, "When we die, we return to dust.	1:26
	Don't we?"	1:28
	She said, "Yes. When you die, you return to dust."	1:29
	Well he said, "I was in my room a little bit ago	1:33
	and looked under the bed	1:35
	and someone's either coming and going, one,	1:36
	I don't know which.	1:38
	It's that kind of pressure that we live in in this day.	1:43
	Now, the scripture,	1:51
	which was read for you a moment ago,	1:52
	was only two of dozens that could be read in that respect.	1:53
	That righteousness exalted the nation.	2:01
	That a righteous, God loveth righteous people.	2:06
	And with that as a background to our thinking,	2:14
	I want us to do a rather unusual thing this morning,	2:16
	Because several years ago I was intrigued by a symbol	2:22
	or an emblem that has become the most meaning emblem	2:28
	or in symbol to my me, than any other, except the cross	2:35
	and it is not a symbol to me, it's the living reality.	2:40
	And that is the great Seal of the United States.	2:46
	I wonder how long it has been since you have seen it?	2:52
	In fact, I doubt, you know,	2:58
	how long it has been since you have seen it,	3:00
	because we see it so oft that we don't see it.	3:05
	And certainly we do not assess the deep meaning	3:11
	that it holds for us as Americans.	3:16
	It was by no accident that we sang a moment ago,	3:21
	America, The Beautiful.	3:25
	I love this nation of mine and I believe you do.	3:27
	And my hopes and all my prayers	3:35
	are with this nation of mine,	3:38
	but I want it to be a righteous nation.	3:43
	I want it to live up to the heritage	3:47
	that has been its heritage for many years.	3:52
	Now the great Seal of the United States is found	3:59
	in one place that you see quite often.	4:02
	It's on the dollar bill.	4:07
	And most of you, most of the time,	4:10
	have in your pocket or in your purse,	4:12
	a dollar bill.	4:15
	Now this dollar bill is the basic unit of our currency.	4:19
	And in world trade it becomes the basis,	4:27
	not only of our nation, but of the currency	4:31
	of many nations.	4:34
	As they seek to have a favorable dollar exchange.	4:37
	And we are commonly accused of dollar diplomacy.	4:43
	Now, of course,	4:50
	I am not speaking of the pictorial representation	4:50
	of our first president who is on the obverse side	4:54
	or the front side of the bill.	4:59
	Whose dignity and composure certainly,	5:02
	is not felt in the city that bears his name.	5:09
	But I'm speaking of the back of the bill.	5:15
	And this is the only one of the bills in our currency	5:19
	that has this pictorial representation.	5:23
	And you will see there both the obverse	5:29
	and the reverse side of the great Seal.	5:34
	The obverse side is very familiar maybe to you.	5:41
	It is the heraldic eagle,	5:44
	which represents the Congress of the United States,	5:48
	according to Felix Morley and many other people.	5:50
	But he called this first to my attention,	5:54
	that excited me.	5:56
	In the talons of one claw there a group arrows,	6:00
	signifying the power of our congress to wage war.	6:04
	But in the other talon there is the olive branch.	6:12
	Which is the perpetual hope of peace.	6:18
	Then upon the shield...	6:25
	Upon the breast of this eagle is an unsupported shield.	6:26
	13 stripes signifying that this nation of ours	6:32
	needs no other help, other than itself, for its support.	6:38
	Now on the reverse side,	6:49
	you'll see a design that was not complete,	6:50
	and it was not complete by design.	6:56
	By purpose.	6:59
	You will find there an unfinished pyramid.	7:02
	Look at it when you go home. Look at it now, if you will.	7:08
	And above this pyramid,	7:15
	there are two Latin words, annuit cœptis.	7:18
	And I'm not sure that's the way to pronounce it.	7:22
	For I have forgotten all of the little bit of Latin	7:26
	that I ever knew.	7:29
	All the Latin that I remember	7:32
	is the beginning of Caesar's Gallic wars,	7:34
	which says that all of Gaul is divided into three parts.	7:37
	And by some of the people with whom I have had to deal	7:42
	I've decided it's gotten back together again.	7:45
	But it means he has smiled upon our undertaking.	7:53
	Now we know for certain that Thomas Jefferson,	7:59
	the scholar lifted this out of Virgil's Aeneid.	8:01
	But the design of the unfinished pyramid	8:07
	was created by Benjamin Franklin	8:13
	and purposely he left off the capstone, if you remember.	8:19
	And it is there hovering over the unfinished pyramid.	8:25
	And it is the all seeing Eye of Providence.	8:31
	Some of you men	8:37
	who are members of our certain fraternal order,	8:38
	and some of you, women of it's auxiliary	8:41
	will readily remember it.	8:43
	The all seeing Eye of Providence.	8:48
	And the pyramid represented and still represents	8:54
	the constitution of the United States.	8:59
	Beautiful in symmetry and form,	9:04
	but not complete until,	9:10
	and unless it was watched over	9:14
	by the by the unseeing Eye of Providence.	9:20
	This was the concept of Benjamin Franklin.	9:28
	Now this was the same Franklin	9:33
	who stood at the age of 81	9:37
	at the continental congress and addressed the chairman,	9:43
	of that congress or convention. George Washington.	9:51
	And looking at George Washington he said,	9:58
	"I have lived a long time, sir, and the longer I live,	10:00
	the more convincing proof I see that God	10:08
	governs in the affairs of men.	10:12
	We have been assured in the sacred writings,	10:18
	as was read this morning.	10:21
	Except the Lord build the house,	10:23
	they labor in vain that building.	10:26
	I firmly believe that.	10:31
	And I also believe that without his concurring aid,	10:35
	we shall proceed in this political building,	10:40
	no better than the builders of Babel.	10:45
	This was the concept of our early fathers.	10:52
	At least many of them.	10:59
	Of the necessity of the all seeing Eyes of Providence	11:02
	in all we do.	11:06
	And it was written, it was drawn.	11:10
	It was placed in the very Seal of our government.	11:15
	Later, Mr. Franklin was asked whether he thought	11:26
	that this was a good instrument of government.	11:28
	And he said, "Frankly, I think so."	11:33
	I think it's the best instrument of government	11:36
	that could have been divised.	11:39
	That is if we live by its principles.	11:42
	But said he, "The government of the United States	11:48
	can only end in despotism as others have done before it,	11:55
	when the people shall have become so corrupt	12:03
	as to need despotic government being capable of any other.	12:09
	Now this old prophet of another age	12:19
	could look down the corridors of time	12:25
	and see the possibility of corruption	12:28
	in this nation of ours.	12:31
	He did not say if it becomes corrupt,	12:34
	he said, when it becomes corrupt.	12:40
	And when he designed the unfinished pyramid,	12:45
	he placed above it the all seeing Eye of Providence,	12:52
	which he hoped somehow not only what remain there	12:57
	in an emblem, in a symbol,	13:03
	but would direct and good govern the affairs	13:08
	of the people that should become the citizens	13:11
	of this nation of ours.	13:18
	Well, you and I know,	13:23
	and I do not need to stand here this morning	13:28
	to recount it for you.	13:30
	You and I know that things are not too well.	13:34
	Well, I'm not speaking about our international policy now.	13:38
	I'm not necessarily speaking about our domestic policy.	13:43
	I'm speaking to you this morning about the	13:49
	immoral erosion of our nation.	13:53
	If I had time, I could recount it for you.	13:58
	But you see it on TV, you hear it on radio,	14:03
	you'll read it on your newspapers.	14:06
	It becomes a part of the community of which you are part,	14:08
	and it is deplorable.	14:14
	Many of you.	14:21
	And it seems to be the right thing to do	14:24
	to quote Arnold Toynbee in this regard,	14:28
	but how right he is.	14:32
	And Arnold Toynbee said	14:36
	that there's been only three civilizations out	14:37
	of the 19 or 23.	14:40
	Some say one, some say the other that has ever crumbled,	14:42
	by an assault, from without.	14:46
	the rest of them have crumbled because of rottenness within.	14:52
	Now, as we look at this nation of ours,	15:04
	let me say three things.	15:06
	And only three brief things.	15:08
	When we see people who are investigated today,	15:13
	for the things which they have done in this nation of ours,	15:17
	sometimes brought into our own living rooms,	15:23
	the real culprit never appears.	15:29
	The real culprit never appears,	15:32
	for the real culprit is the indifferent public, you and me.	15:37
	A public that will allow these things to happen.	15:45
	The real culprit is hiding off in the wind,	15:52
	somewhere like a ghost or a rabid harpy.	15:55
	and he is never seen.	15:58
	The real culprit is the indifferent public,	16:02
	the complacent public that allow these things to happen.	16:05
	Whether it is in our own city, our state or our nation.	16:09
	We allow it.	16:15
	Rather interesting is when I was thinking of this situation.	16:23
	The moral lag the moral erosion of our nation.	16:29
	I picked up a newspaper that I was reading,	16:35
	that came to my home.	16:38
	And there was a picture of a man that I had quoted	16:39
	many years ago, by the name of Yellow Kid Weil.	16:41
	The greatest con man, this nation of ours has ever had.	16:49
	He admits it. $8 million he fleeced from other people.	16:53
	And he said there, as he had said years ago.	17:00
	90 years old, he is now.	17:03
	That's the stock and trade of the con man	17:08
	is playing upon the masochistic desires of his victims.	17:12
	Upon people who want to get something for nothing.	17:18
	Then he added.	17:26
	If it were not for the masochistic desires of my victims,	17:27
	I would have had to go out of business.	17:33
	That's a public that allows this type of thing to happen.	17:39
	And many years ago,	17:46
	there was a man in government	17:47
	that some of us did not like. Maybe you did not like,	17:48
	but he said something that was written	17:51
	upon the photographic plates of my memory	17:54
	that I shall never forget.	17:57
	He was the Secretary of interior	18:00
	and his name was Harold Ickes.	18:04
	And he said, public officials do not bribe themselves.	18:08
	If public officials are bribed,	18:16
	it is because someone wants to bribe them.	18:19
	And he placed the responsibility	18:25
	squarely at the door	18:29
	of the individual citizen of our nation.	18:31
	A righteous, God loveth a righteous people.	18:40
	And as the revised standard was read a moment ago,	18:49
	a righteous, God loveth the work, the deeds,	18:53
	of a righteous people.	19:01
	Yes. Any kind of corruption.	19:06
	It's but the reflection of the lack of integrity	19:09
	and basic morality of it's people.	19:17
	Now let me say in the second place	19:23
	that there is something else that disturbs me enormously.	19:27
	Now we hear a great deal today about subversive activity.	19:34
	We are even accused of it within the church.	19:41
	I have said from my own pulpits,	19:47
	if you can show me a Methodist preacher,	19:49
	who is a card carrying communist, let me know.	19:53
	and I will see that he is handled	19:56
	as we in the Methodist Church	19:59
	can handle people to that kind.	20:01
	And I've had no takers.	20:03
	Dear friends I'm not so afraid of subversive activity	20:08
	as I am of subversive inactivity.	20:14
	People who are good American citizens,	20:20
	who would never doubt the fact	20:26
	that they were loyal to their nation,	20:30
	who could sing as we sang a moment ago,	20:34
	not very lustrously, America, The Beautiful,	20:37
	and could somehow feel that they are	20:45
	an integral part of this great nation of ours.	20:49
	But these people who are too busy,	20:54
	having a good time and making money, to really care.	21:00
	And those are the people who in my churches and in your	21:10
	churches, in my community,	21:12
	and in your community are the people who allow	21:14
	the moral erosion, that first begins with them.	21:20
	And then it spread through the community	21:26
	of which they are a part.	21:30
	Now in the third place and last,	21:36
	let me say to you that in the final analysis,	21:42
	all that I have said this morning	21:45
	presents itself as a personal problem.	21:48
	Just preach your preaching to himself,	21:53
	as I always do.	21:55
	It's a matter of individual character	21:59
	of our citizens.	22:02
	After the first world war and several years afterwards,	22:06
	I read a statement by CE Montague,	22:18
	an English writer who wrote with some perception.	22:24
	And he said at that time	22:31
	we were playing God over the burned out holes hell.	22:32
	And someone asked him, Mr. Montague,	22:40
	what hope do you have for the future?	22:42
	And he says,	22:47
	I have no hope on the basis of the kind of lives	22:47
	that people are living at this time.	22:51
	And then he added.	22:58
	Something that I hope I shall never forget.	23:00
	Any structure of any new civilization	23:04
	must be built of the ordinary bricks of common decency,	23:10
	clean rightness of living and old fashioned principles	23:18
	practiced in millions of undistinguished lives.	23:23
	And that was the basis. That was the basis.	23:31
	Common decency, plain rightness of living,	23:35
	old fashion principles	23:42
	practiced in millions of undistinguished lives.	23:44
	When I go back to this constitution	23:52
	that I have verged up before you,	23:54
	and you will find that of the 55 men,	23:57
	that was the largest number I'd ever sat at that table,	24:00
	that it was fought over with bitter discussion.	24:05
	And actually it was a compromise.	24:13
	And of the 55 who sat there only 39 signed.	24:17
	And the 39 that did sign it,	24:23
	were not quite sure that it would work.	24:26
	What made it work?	24:31
	What made it work?	24:34
	It was the people back in the 13 colonies,	24:36
	who had enough spiritual and moral fortitude and character	24:43
	to get under it and make it work.	24:49
	Yes, it was a wonderful instrument of government,	24:54
	but back of it, there had to be people.	25:00
	People, with moral character and spiritual insight.	25:04
	And so it resolves itself down to this,	25:13
	that nothing we do matters very much.	25:19
	Externally,	25:23
	without character, without character.	25:25
	Oh, I know we need intelligence.	25:31
	Here I stand amidst the great university that I love	25:35
	with a passion because it has meant a great deal to me.	25:39
	And I know that the technological age,	25:45
	of which we are a part	25:50
	is represented here in this university.	25:53
	I know it is represented in the community	25:58
	of which you're a part.	26:02
	And I know we must have intelligence.	26:05
	My dear friends, intelligence is not enough.	26:09
	Intelligence is not enough.	26:13
	Someone has rather humorously stated	26:18
	that if they were drowning,	26:20
	they would rather see a burglar who could swim	26:24
	than a bishop who couldn't.	26:27
	So would I, so would I.	26:30
	But I feel that somehow we would not be overcome,	26:34
	not be drowning in this moral erosion	26:38
	that is around about us,	26:44
	if we had enough high minded citizens of character,	26:47
	to give the leadership, we ought to have in our homes,	26:56
	in our churches, in our community, our state and our nation.	27:00
	Let me closed with this very simple story.	27:10
	It isn't a story either it's the truth.	27:13
	One of the movie idols.	27:18
	And I have ceased to go to movies,	27:22
	except on occasions, when a great film is produced.	27:26
	One of my idols was an Englishman in the states,	27:31
	by the name of George Arliss.	27:35
	And I see by the annoying looks on some of your faces,	27:39
	that you too remember George Arliss.	27:42
	He was an Englishman as I stated.	27:45
	He went back to England,	27:49
	saying concerning a friend of his, John Mason,	27:54
	that John Mason would have been the greatest actor	28:00
	that America had ever produced,	28:04
	if only his private character had been as well balanced	28:08
	as his public performance.	28:14
	My, like the sting of a whip is it?	28:18
	If only his private character had been as well balanced	28:22
	as his public performance.	28:30
	Yes, yes.	28:34
	That's one of America's greatest.	28:37
	If only you have a dollar bill in your pocket,	28:43
	and I hope it will be always, you will have a reminder,	28:48
	that over and above the instrument of government	28:57
	of this nation of ours,	29:01
	there is the capstone that was not placed.	29:05
	That capstone,	29:10
	was the all seeing watchful Eye of Providence.	29:14
	Never as long as I have it in my pocket,	29:22
	never will I forget the unfinished pyramid,	29:29
	which to me will always be a meaningful symbol.	29:37
	May we stand.	29:46
	Father in the quite of this moment,	29:55
	in this lovely place.	30:00
	When our hearts cry out in praise to Thee,	30:04
	we also look into the deep of our own hearts,	30:11
	our own souls and find many things there	30:14
	that would keep us from becoming what we ought to be.	30:22
	Remove them we pray.	30:29
	For we pray in humility and we pray for forgiveness.	30:33
	Send us away knowing	30:41
	that a righteous God loveth the work,	30:47
	the deeds of righteous people.	30:52
	Make us those people.	30:57
	And now may grace, mercy, and peace from God, the Father,	31:03
	the Son, and the holy spirit	31:10
	rest and abide richly and always in thy life forevermore.	31:14
	Amen.	31:22
	(church bells ringing)	31:29
	(organ music)	31:40

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Title:

Charles P. Bowles - "The Unfinished Pyramid" (August 21, 1966)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4k35rf44

Date:

August 21, 1966

Speaker:

Bowles, Charles P.

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0350
ref5903_l41
uachapelsermaud
duke:627947
dcrau002346
ark:/87924/r4k35rf44
ccf8e7d9-c8d7-4526-ae1e-ba1ed4265929

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Charles P. Bowles - "The Unfinished Pyramid" (August 21, 1966)

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