Nine O'Clock Talks

by the Rev. Frederic B. Kellogg Chaplain to Episcopal Students in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Christ Church Cambridge, Massachusetts
These short sermons by the Chaplain to Episcopalian Students in Cambridge are collected here for their interest to Christians of all ages and as a reminder of the important religious work being carried on in colleges. It is a truism that the years of college are crucial for students; it is then that their interests become clear and the direction of their life's work takes shape. But for Christians, education involves more than the training of the mind and the acquisition of knowledge; it involves, like every other phase of life, enlistment of the will and dedication of the spirit. Awareness of this fact has given rise increasingly in recent years to questions concerning the proper place of religious teaching in the secular modern college and university. Without entering on that question here, one may be quite certain that a chief force in the religious life of students will always be associations for devotion and discussion such as those conducted by Mr. Kellogg under the auspices of the Bishop Rhinelander Memorial for Student Work. During his nearly ten years of service he has influenced by precept and example literally thousands of students. These sermons thus carry a double meaning. In addition to their own high value as Christian interpretations, they are tokens of a necessary work to be done.
John H. Finley, Jr.
Eliot House Harvard University

So the Bible opens, so the world began. The historian, Arnold Toynbee, has shown us how many beginnings there have been since that time, how kingdoms rise and fall, one civilization succeeding another as new life and inspiration take the place of death and complacency. There never will be an end of beginnings or of ends so long as the world endures.
A study of this historical cycle shows that mankind has never lost its hope for a deus ex machina, a God who will save men at the last moment from the effects of their own bad beginnings. It makes a good story to tell how the Gods from Olympus intervened on the behalf of their favorites on the plains of Troy but it is disastrous when men mistake this day-dream for reality. Yet at the end of each age there is to be seen a frantic scrambling for divine favor, a scurrying to the churches when the Goths threatened the Roman Empire, for example, or a bull market for indulgences as the Renaissance replaced medieval society.