Men Like Mountains 6/6/43

Scripture: II Timothy 4: 1-8

Text: II Timothy 4: 7; “I have had a part in the great contest, I have run my race, I have preserved the faith.”

Edwin Markham is a poet who is enough of a mystic to see God in the universe, in nature and in man. He can see the majestic mountains as symbols of the eternal hills. He puts into his poetry something of the grandeur of the mountains, reaching upward toward the stars, thrilling, enchanting, and challenging the souls of men. The mountains stand as symbols of great, firm, eternal truths. Markham can stand on the seashore and feel the urging restlessness of the beating seas. Their untiring, everlasting movement is like the surging of waves of living experience upon the soul.

Perhaps the mountains and the seas symbolize, more than anything else, the greatness and the power of the earth. With this in mind, Markham was writing about Lincoln. He made a vivid picture of Lincoln’s character when he wrote these lines:

Here was a man to hold against the world,

A man to match the mountains and the sea.

The Creator can bring forth mountains and seas; but he can also make a man to match them!

In that dark hour of American life, when the Union seemed about to be severed in civil war, when enemies presented a battlefront to him, when the generals of his own army were ineffective, when there were dissensions within his party, and even his closest friends were criticizing every action he made, still Lincoln believed his cause was true and just. And he could face the world in that belief, unafraid.

In this respect, the first president of the United States was like Lincoln. In the war of the Revolution, when he spent the winter at Valley Forge, with his handful of those patriots, who were weak and disheartened, leaving bloody tracks in the snow from their bare feet, he was fighting not only the British, but a far greater enemy in the indifference and even hostility of many native Americans. In that hour of crisis, at the birth of the American Republic, Washington stood - “a man to hold against the world, a man to match the mountains and the sea.”

As our nation has grown older, and more settled, a product of science and the progress of the machine, we are accepting the miracles which science has brought like everyday commonplace things. We seldom have called to our attention the heights of character and fidelity to which men have had to climb to make these miracles and conveniences possible.

We can see in the lives of Lieutenant Walter Reed and his companions the kind of sacrifice that had made some of our progress possible. The terrible plague of yellow fever raged through all tropical countries, taking its toll of human life. It had prevented the French from building the Panama Canal. It would make impossible the efforts of the United States to complete the canal.

Lieutenant Reed and a few others were sent to investigate the yellow fever when it was raging in Cuba. They believed that the fever was carried by the mosquito, but they were not positive. They only way to prove whether or not this was true was to test the theory on human beings. But who would volunteer to let himself be experimented upon?

Walter Reed himself, and some companions, gave themselves for the test. Mosquitoes were allowed to bite patients who were dying with yellow fever and then to bite Reed and his companions. In due time all of them came down with the disease.

The world then knew for certain that the mosquito was the carrier of the dreadful disease. But the men still had to fight for their lives. Reed recovered, but several of his companions died. “Here were men to hold against the world - to match the mountains and the sea.”

Many further advances of medicine and of other sciences, particularly the science of the mind, wait for the coming of other “mountain peak” men.

Our age, in America, has been an age of big business and commerce. And there are mountain peak men among financiers; men who are big not because of their pile of wealth, but because of their character and service to their fellowmen. “A dwarf sitting on a pile of money would be no larger than a dwarf sitting on the ground. He would only seem larger.” The genuine giants among businessmen are giants because they would tower high anyway.

John D. Rockefeller Jr. is a man who has towered high in wealth and in benefactions to education, medicine, churches, child welfare, and improvement of race relations. In the midst of the Harlem slums where Negroes lived, Mr. Rockefeller built the Dunbar Apartments for Negroes. They are beautiful, spacious in grounds, clean, comfortable, and have playgrounds for the happy children. He did not build them just as an act of charity. He built them to prove to businessmen that it is possible to build modern, comfortable apartments in place of the filthy tenements, charge a cheaper rent than many tenement rentals, and still make a reasonable profit from renting them out. “Here is a man with ideas to match mountains.”

Today we need economic pioneers who will venture into newer and better ways of adjusting our industrial order. We need men who will go beyond anything that has been undertaken up to the present time in order to set our economic order right. Some mighty men, matching the mountains, must help in readjusting the world so that people who are willing to work may be reasonably sure of a chance to work and earn their food, shelter and self-respect.

If we as a nation are still building Christian character in our children and our young men and women, it is quite probable that such leaders will arise. In a time when a small but devoted and God-fearing band of people needed him, Moses rose above the ancient world to free them and to give them the laws that they needed. Those laws have stood enormous tests and are still valid today.

Prophets, who stood forth to warn their people against the evils of idolatry, adultery, and gluttonous self-indulgence, and who were often killed for their prophecies, still stood forth as mountains after the warned but heedless people were crushed by enemies. “Here were men to hold against the world,

Men to match the mountains and the sea.”

Towering above them all is Jesus, giving his life in every way possible, to win the world to God; pouring himself out in self-forgetful preaching, teaching, healing, and even undeserved death on a cross.

Now let us not shrug our shoulders hopelessly, or regretfully, and leave greatness to others more fortunate than we are. Possibly every spot of land has the possibility of being in some day or age a peak of some mountain range or a part of some great ocean. Some time ago a new island appeared off the coast of New Zealand where before had been only open sea. In other sections, people feared that their part of land might be submerged beneath the ocean’s surface. It is always possible that any life may become great or deep in importance to the welfare of mankind. But people are to be great in the ways open to them. We must not be easily discouraged. Warfare appalls us, depressions overwhelm us and fears easily defeat us. And the way to usefulness seems lost. Put your life in better perspective!

One day a woman went to confess her failure to her minister. Since her childhood, she had wanted to be a missionary. She felt that no work could be greater than to take the message of Christ to people who needed it. She was expressing her regrets to her minister. He replied to her: “You have done far more than you would ever have been able to do as a missionary. You have two daughters on the mission field and two sons in the ministry, and your life in this community among the needy and crippled and sick has been an inspiration beyond measure.” She did not realize what others knew so well; “Here was a woman to hold against the world, to match the mountains.”

When we examine closely these great lives, we find two notable characteristics. The first is that each had a definite purpose or aim. Washington aimed to free his country. Lincoln aimed to hold it together and provide freedom for all within its borders. Reed was determined to discover the source and cure for yellow fever at any cost. [Moses’ aim] Any such great purpose brings out the nobility and character in any soul.

Jane Addams gave herself to help the poor and under-privileged of Chicago’s slums, always forgetful of herself. Because her lofty purpose was to minister in the lowliest places of America, she rose until many feel that she was in her time America’s greatest woman. Her worthy aim lifted her life.

The second notable characteristic of these great lives is that having set up an aim, they had the courage and conviction to go after it. Vital courage brings out the greatness of a soul. Many boys who would like to play football are probably timid about pushing into it. Some people want to go as missionaries but are afraid of the loneliness and the hardships of living in a strange land. Many believe in the values of temperance, but in some crowds they are ashamed to admit it. Many feel that the economic order should be changed, but are afraid to begin in their own business or occupation.

But courage is indispensable if we are to make our lives count for most in the making of a better world. It was the highest type of courage that led Lincoln to hold fast to the truth as he saw it - against enemies and friends.

It is courage of conviction born of high ideals, that the world needs most today. It is that devotion that our churches, our state and our nation need most. And it is within our power, through divine help in ideals and convictions, to hold against the world! May your life and mine be worthy of such a tribute as this: “Here was a man to hold against the world,

A man to match the mountains and the sea.”

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Dates and places delivered:

Kahului Union Church, March 6, 1932

Puunene Japanese Church, March 13, 1932

Paia Japanese Church, March 13, 1932

Wailuku Union Church, October 30, 1932

Lahainaluna, October 30, 1932

Haiku Japanese Church, November 5, 1932

Kahului Union Church, March 11, 1934

Puunene Hawaiian Church, February 3, 1935

Wananalua Church, Hana, February 17, 1935

Huelo Hawaiian Church, October 6, 1935

Puunene Japanese Church, October 13, 1935

Pilgrim Church, Honolulu, November 15, 1936 AM

Wisconsin Rapids, June 6, 1943