In His Image

by William Jennings Bryan

In this connection I will speak of the words to be employed. Our use of big words increases from infancy to the day of graduation. I think it is safe to say that with nearly all of us the maximum is reached on the day when we leave school. We use more big words that day than we have ever used before or will ever use again. When we go from college into every-day life and begin to deal with our fellowmen we drop the big words because we are more interested in making people understand us than we are in parading our learning. The more earnest one is the smaller the words used. If a young man used big words to assure his sweetheart of his affection she would never understand him, but the word love has but one syllable, just as the words life, faith, hope, home, food, and work are one-syllable words. Remember that nearly every audience is made up of people who differ in the amount of book learning they have received. If you speak only to those best educated you will speak over the heads of those less educated. A story is told on a great scientist who made two holes in the back fence and showed them to his wife, explaining that the big hole was for the cat and the small hole for the kitten. "But cannot the kitten go through the same hole as the cat?" inquired his wife. If you use little words you can reach not only the least learned, but the most learned as well.

Illustration is one of the most potent forms of argument; we understand new things by comparing them with what we know. Christ was a master of illustrations—the master. No one of whom history tells us has ever used the illustration as effectively as He. He took the objects of every-day life and made them mirrors which reflected truth. His parables give us a wide range of illustration—the Sower going forth to sow, the Wheat and the Tares, the Prodigal Son, the Wise and Foolish Virgins—in fact, all the illustrations that He used might be cited to prove the power of this form of argument.

The question has been used throughout history; at every great crisis the orators of the day have used the question form of argument. Its strength depends upon the completeness with which the speaker includes all of the essentials involved in summing up the situation. The greatest question ever presented as an argument was that in which Christ concentrated attention upon the value of the soul. No one will ever place a higher estimate upon the soul than Christ did when He asked, "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" No greater question was ever asked, or can be asked. (See Lecture, "The Value of the Soul.")

Courage is the last attribute to which I shall invite your attention. The speaker must possess moral courage, and to possess it he must have faith.

Faith exerts a controlling influence over our lives. If it is argued that works are more important than faith, I reply that faith comes first, works afterward. Until one believes, he does not act, and in accordance with his faith, so will be his deeds.

Abraham, called of God, went forth in faith to establish a race and a religion. It was faith that led Columbus to discover America, and faith again that conducted the early settlers to Jamestown, the Dutch to New York and the Pilgrims to Plymouth Rock. Faith has led the pioneer across deserts and through trackless forests, and faith has brought others in his footsteps to lay in our land the foundations of a civilization the highest that the world has known.

I might draw an illustration from the life of each one of you. You have faith in education, and that faith is behind your study; you have faith in this institution, and that faith brought you here; your parents and friends have had faith in you and have helped you to your present position. And back of all these manifestations of faith is your faith in God, in His Word and in His Son. We are told that without faith it is impossible to please God, and I may add that without faith it is impossible to meet the expectations of those who are most interested in you. Let me present this subject under four heads:

First—You must have faith in yourselves. Not that you should carry confidence in yourselves to the point of displaying egotism, and yet, egotism is not the worst possible fault. My father was wont to say that if a man had the big head, you could whittle it down, but that if he had the little head, there was no hope for him. If you have the big head others will help you to reduce it, but if you have the little head, they cannot help you. You must believe that you can do things or you will not undertake them. Those who lack faith attempt nothing and therefore cannot possibly succeed; those with great faith attempt the seemingly impossible and by attempting prove what man can do.

But you cannot have faith in yourselves unless you are conscious that you are prepared for your work. If one is feeble in body, he cannot have the confidence in his physical strength that the athlete has, and, as physical strength is necessary, one is justified in devoting to exercise and to the strengthening of the body such time as may be necessary.

Intellectual training is also necessary, and more necessary than it used to be. When but few had the advantages of a college education, the lack of such advantages was not so apparent. Now when so many of the ministers, lawyers, physicians, journalists, and even business men, are college graduates, one cannot afford to be without the best possible intellectual preparation. When one comes into competition with his fellows, he soon recognizes his own intellectual superiority, equality or inferiority as compared with others. In China they have a very interesting bird contest. The singing lark is the most popular bird there, and as you go along the streets of a Chinese city you see Chinamen out airing their birds. These singing larks are entered in contests, and the contests are decided by the birds themselves. If, for instance, a dozen are entered, they all begin to sing lustily, but as they sing, one after another recognizes that it is outclassed and gets down off its perch, puts its head under its wing and will not sing any more. At last there is just one bird left singing, and it sings with enthusiasm as if it recognized its victory.