Howard C. Wilkinson - "A Lesson from the Clock" (September 23, 1962)

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	(somber music)	0:03
-	Their old daughter at a birthday party,	0:37
	but she was attending at the home of one of her friends.	0:41
	As I went from my car across to the house,	0:46
	several giggling girls ran up to me and said,	0:50
	they would like to ask a question.	0:54
	The question was,	0:58
	how long will an eight-day clock run	1:00
	without being wound?	1:05
	Well, I was the sucker.	1:08
	I said, "Eight days,"	1:10
	but this was not correct.	1:15
	It proved it will not run at all without being wound.	1:16
	Now, this cornfield conundrum suggests an elemental truth	1:22
	about clocks and a profound lesson	1:29
	about human values and human existence.	1:34
	It may even suggest new light on an old and familiar verse	1:39
	of scripture, which is John 3:17:	1:43
	God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world,	1:49
	but that the world through him might be saved.	1:54
	Now, in order to see this light,	2:00
	which I say will be shed upon this verse of scripture,	2:03
	let us return to the clock conundrum for a little while	2:08
	and examine it.	2:12
	The elemental metal fact about clocks,	2:15
	which it suggests, is that clocks have a way persistently	2:18
	of running down, and they will not continue to run	2:23
	unless they are rewound.	2:27
	So that if you have a clock of some sort with you	2:30
	this morning, you have a device which does not have	2:34
	built-in perpetual motion.	2:38
	It has to be rewound periodically.	2:41
	Now, even electric clocks have this same principle.	2:46
	True of them, we have three electric clocks at our home,	2:49
	and they are in continual need of being reset	2:53
	or of occasionally being repaired.	2:58
	It seems that whatever kind of clock it is,	3:01
	the kind that has a spring	3:04
	or is operated by electricity or some other kind,	3:06
	the clock requires perennial attention	3:10
	in order to be reliable.	3:16
	Now, this is true of old clocks and of new clocks	3:19
	it's true of big clocks and little clocks.	3:23
	I am told there is a clock in the tower	3:27
	of the Strasbourg Cathedral, which is 30 feet high.	3:30
	Attached to this clock, and as a part of it,	3:36
	are a great many accessories and novelties	3:38
	of one sort and another.	3:42
	This clock a quite a item of interest to those	3:45
	who go to the Strasbourg Cathedral.	3:49
	It strikes every quarter-hour.	3:52
	And for example, when the first quarter-hour is struck,	3:56
	it is struck by the figure of an infant coming out	4:00
	and striking the bell with an infant's rattle.	4:05
	And the final quarter is struck by the figure of death	4:09
	coming out and striking the clock with a bone.	4:13
	What you might imagine that this clock requires	4:17
	a great deal of attention.	4:19
	It not only has to be wound,	4:21
	it has to be regularly serviced and repaired.	4:22
	Whatever clock it is,	4:27
	it has this built-in tendency to run down.	4:29
	And if you're going to continue to use it,	4:33
	the necessity of its being rewound.	4:36
	Now, this is true of the great spiritual realities of life.	4:40
	All of them, it is true of everything	4:46
	worthwhile in this world.	4:49
	There are no exceptions.	4:51
	There is a tendency throughout the universe for the things	4:55
	that are worthwhile to run down.	5:00
	At the beginning of this academic year,	5:05
	let us take a look at that and see	5:08
	what might be the significance	5:09
	which it would hold for us here at Duke University today.	5:11
	What is it about life that's worthwhile that runs down?	5:17
	Marriage runs down.	5:23
	It commences with romance with great devotion,	5:25
	it commences with idealism.	5:30
	Not some marriages, but all marriages have a tendency	5:33
	to run down for the devotion to slack off,	5:37
	for the romance to cool, and for the marriage	5:42
	to become humdrum.	5:45
	This is a tendency.	5:48
	There is a tendency for religious movements,	5:50
	which begin with great fervor and are started	5:53
	by revival meetings of one kind or another,	5:57
	which come into existence in response to a mighty stimulus	6:01
	and are built around a great idea and ideal,	6:05
	a great goal in human life and for the glory of God.	6:09
	Not some of these religious movements,	6:13
	but all of these religious movements	6:15
	have a tendency to grow cold, to become formalized and stale	6:18
	and to lose their momentum, to run down.	6:25
	This is true of individual religion.	6:30
	I am sure that under God, there is no exception	6:32
	to this rule, that every person who commences	6:36
	a Christian life dedicated to Christ	6:40
	and to the glory of God, finds a tendency	6:43
	within himself to look to the past,	6:46
	to think of this moment of dedication, not to keep it alive,	6:51
	not to help it to grow and cultivate it.	6:57
	There's a tendency for all of these values to run down.	7:00
	Now, when we stop to think about it, this is not surprising.	7:06
	We've not been promised anything to the contrary.	7:10
	We have not been told either by God or by intelligent men	7:14
	that life is to be any different.	7:18
	This is really what we should expect, which one of you men,	7:21
	this morning, when you arose, thought about shaving,	7:24
	decided not to shave because you said,	7:28
	"Well, if I shave today,	7:30
	I'll still have to shave tomorrow."	7:32
	When you go to sleep tonight in your bed	7:36
	to rest up from the fatigue of this day,	7:39
	you will not be able to get enough sleep tonight,	7:43
	however long you stay in bed to make it unnecessary for you	7:46
	to return to the bed on the following evening.	7:50
	You can't get enough rest in one night to serve you	7:53
	for the rest of your life.	7:56
	You can't get enough food in one day to make it unnecessary	7:57
	for you ever to eat again.	8:01
	It is so with all of life,	8:04
	it is so with the clock that it has to be continually	8:07
	rewound, if it has to be usable.	8:10
	So it is with the great spiritual values of society	8:13
	and of the individual.	8:17
	Now we are faced at this point with a very practical	8:20
	question, we have to make a decision.	8:24
	The reason why I am going to mention what will seem at first	8:28
	to be something very elementary is,	8:32
	that although the answer to this question seems elementary,	8:37
	we do not always act in this way.	8:42
	When the clock runs down, what do we do?	8:48
	Throw it away?	8:53
	Buy a new one?	8:55
	Or do we rewind it?	8:58
	"Elementary my dear Watson," we say.	9:02
	We wind it up like any intelligent person would do.	9:05
	All right, so we do.	9:12
	So we don't keep buying a new clock every day of our lives,	9:15
	as long as we live.	9:20
	We assume it needs to be rewound, we rewind it.	9:22
	But do we act with as much elementary intelligence	9:26
	about the spiritual values of life?	9:31
	Do not assume too quickly that we do.	9:35
	A man about 30 years of age came to see me last year.	9:40
	A very intelligent man.	9:45
	He said, "I am having a great problem in my life.	9:47
	And that problem arises from the fact	9:51
	that my marriage has gone to pieces, it has run down.	9:53
	My wife and I loved each other very much.	9:57
	When we got married, we were entirely devoted to each other.	10:00
	There was a warm glow of romance about everything	10:04
	that we planned or did."	10:06
	He said, "The wedding ring on my finger then gave me	10:09
	a great sense of joy every time I looked at it."	10:13
	But he said, "Now that same wedding ring is an empty symbol.	10:17
	It means nothing because the devotion,	10:21
	the romance, is gone from our marriage."	10:24
	When I said, "What do you plan to do about it?	10:28
	He said, "That's what I came to ask you,	10:31
	what I should do about it?"	10:33
	Well, it is obvious what he needed to do.	10:37
	I asked him if he remembered his wife's anniversaries,	10:42
	their marriage anniversary, her birthday.	10:47
	It seemed that he could remember her age,	10:50
	but not her birthday.	10:51
	He knew how many years they had been married,	10:53
	but he never remembered the anniversary.	10:56
	He had not told his wife in two or three years	11:00
	that he loved her because he didn't feel	11:04
	that he did love her as much as he did	11:07
	when they were first married.	11:09
	No gifts, no kindness.	11:12
	The marriage had run down.	11:15
	I suppose that he had thrown away this marriage	11:17
	and had obtained himself another one.	11:19
	If he behaved with regard to the second one,	11:22
	the way he had the first,	11:25
	it would quickly have run down also.	11:27
	This young man, intelligent as he was, needed to learn	11:30
	that the clock has to be rewound continually.	11:33
	That marriage is something which has to be renewed,	11:36
	which has to be brought into	11:41
	new existence again, regularly.	11:44
	Now I mentioned this mainly to serve as an illustration	11:49
	because this is not primarily a sermon on marriage	11:54
	to a student body, which is a largely single.	11:57
	I would like for you to remember this analogy and apply it	12:03
	to three great areas	12:06
	to which every student and faculty	12:09
	and staff member of Duke University	12:12
	should be challenged this year.	12:14
	Three great areas in which the clock	12:17
	can and does run down.	12:20
	Three great spiritual areas in which rewinding is necessary.	12:24
	Now, I would like for each of us this year	12:32
	to accept the challenge of rewinding the clock.	12:35
	First, the goals and aims, and ideals of Duke University.	12:41
	This university was founded by men who believed	12:47
	that it was important to join together	12:51
	in a creative tension, the values of religion and learning.	12:55
	Eruditio et Religio.	13:02
	And here was the stated aim, which those founders	13:05
	affirmed and which the trustees reaffirmed	13:09
	officially this year.	13:12
	To assert a faith in the eternal union of knowledge	13:14
	and religion as set forth in the teachings and character	13:18
	of Jesus Christ.	13:23
	To advance learning in all lines of truth,	13:25
	to defend scholarship against all false notions	13:28
	and doctrines, to develop a Christian love of freedom	13:32
	and truth, to promote a sincere spirit of tolerance,	13:36
	to discourage all partisan and sectarian strife,	13:41
	and to render the largest permanent service	13:46
	to the individual, the state, the nation, and the church.	13:49
	Now, what is wrong with that	13:55
	as a statement of aims for this university?	13:57
	I submit to you that there is very little wrong with that,	14:02
	except for the fact that it has a tendency to run down	14:05
	and no generation that has preceded us could have done	14:10
	anything to make that statement of aims live for us	14:14
	in this generation, unless we choose to make it live.	14:17
	And it will live to the extent that we renew it	14:22
	and rewind it in our own lives this year	14:24
	and in this student generation.	14:27
	There was an individual who was a Duke here a few years ago,	14:30
	Who looked about him and he saw some students	14:35
	who did not seem to be motivated by this ideal.	14:37
	He perhaps saw a faculty or a staff member, a trustee,	14:41
	or an alumnus who did not live by this statement of purpose.	14:44
	And so he said, this was a hollow mockery,	14:49
	and it meant nothing.	14:52
	The Duke University was not	14:54
	a spiritually oriented university.	14:57
	He had a perfect right to say that,	15:01
	but what he was doing was confessing his own position.	15:03
	There is nothing which anyone else can do to make the aims	15:08
	of Duke University live,	15:12
	if they do not live for you and for me	15:13
	and we, in turn, will not be able to make them live	15:19
	for those who follow us.	15:22
	We can only make them live or not make them live now,	15:24
	for those of us who are at the present time Duke University.	15:28
	And so we should, this year, assign ourselves to the task	15:35
	of making these a reality, vital and warm, and meaningful.	15:41
	Anytime you want to, you can assert a faith	15:47
	in the eternal union of knowledge and religion	15:49
	as set forth in the teachings and character	15:53
	of Jesus Christ.	15:55
	No one can stop you from advancing learning	15:57
	in all lines of truth, if you want to do it.	16:00
	You are perfectly free to defend scholarship	16:05
	against all false notions and ideas,	16:07
	if you set yourself to it.	16:10
	Anyone who wishes to can develop a Christian love	16:13
	of freedom and truth here at Duke University.	16:16
	How badly do we need here and everywhere	16:21
	to promote a sincere spirit of tolerance?	16:25
	This is for us to do, it's in our hands.	16:30
	We either do it and make it live, or we don't do it.	16:32
	And it is like the man said about his wedding ring,	16:36
	an empty and meaningless symbol, it will be what we make it.	16:39
	A few years ago, there was a student who graduated	16:46
	from Columbia University with an AB degree,	16:49
	and shortly thereafter, he entered suit	16:52
	against Columbia University to recover	16:54
	all of the fees and tuition,	16:56
	which he had paid the university.	16:59
	The reason why he wanted to recover it was he said	17:03
	that the catalog of Columbia University promised	17:05
	that the students who came to Columbia would be given	17:09
	both knowledge and wisdom.	17:13
	He admitted that when he graduated from Columbia,	17:18
	he had possession of a great deal of knowledge	17:20
	that he did not have when he first enrolled.	17:23
	But he said that he was not one wit wiser when he graduated	17:25
	than he was when he first entered.	17:28
	And so he said that Columbia University had broken	17:31
	its contract with him in that	17:34
	it had not given him any wisdom at all.	17:36
	While the court denied his appeal,	17:40
	not because it found any evidence	17:42
	that he had anywhere obtained any wisdom.	17:44
	But they denied his appeal because of technical reasons.	17:47
	Now it seems to me that both the student and the court	17:51
	overlooked the most important factor,	17:55
	which was that in order to obtain wisdom,	17:58
	this student would have had to have made	18:00
	the major effort himself.	18:02
	There was not anything which the university faculty	18:04
	or the university library could have done.	18:07
	It would have conferred or bestowed wisdom upon him	18:10
	unless he was earnestly seeking it.	18:13
	He was the reason himself, why he did not obtain wisdom.	18:16
	The aims of Duke University, fine as they are,	18:22
	will be real and meaningful only as we make them so.	18:26
	The second great area of spiritual values	18:31
	that has a tendency to run down and which, if it does	18:36
	run down, is very tragic.	18:39
	And to which we should call ourselves	18:42
	in this student generation to a rewinding	18:44
	is the spiritual goals of our nation.	18:49
	The United States of America was a name,	18:53
	which at one time made the pulse of people	18:56
	all around the world, beat faster.	19:00
	The United States of America symbolized great things	19:05
	to the downtrodden masses of the earth	19:11
	and to every schoolboy and every factory worker	19:14
	and farmer and business executive all across America.	19:17
	Why?	19:21
	Because when our nation was founded, it was founded	19:23
	by people who believed in the spiritual ideals	19:27
	and purposes of any group of people.	19:30
	Be they a nation, a family, a church, or whatever.	19:33
	And so they unashamedly declared their trust in God.	19:38
	Stamped this upon our coins, made it our national motto.	19:43
	And in so far as a nation could declare its faith in God,	19:48
	the United States of America did so.	19:53
	We even erected a statue at the port of entry	19:57
	of the United States, facing as it were the entire world.	20:00
	And we put on that statue, these words,	20:05
	"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses	20:08
	yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse	20:14
	of your teeming shore.	20:18
	Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me,	20:21
	I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"	20:26
	And so we were known, and so we considered ourselves	20:32
	as being a great democracy as being people who believed	20:35
	in freedom, both here and everywhere else	20:40
	who were unselfish, who were seeking to give to all men	20:42
	everywhere, the basic necessities of life,	20:48
	both material and spiritual.	20:52
	But my friends, I have to say to you, in all honesty,	20:57
	this morning that the clock has run down pretty badly.	21:00
	We are not so regarded around the world today.	21:06
	Our students who go into areas of service in Latin America,	21:10
	in Africa, in the Orient, and wherever,	21:15
	come back and tell us that the people	21:19
	over there look upon us as a nation,	21:22
	of drunkards, of home breakers,	21:24
	as a nation that is looking for what it can get from others.	21:29
	A nation that is trying to prop up	21:34
	decadent imperialism around the world.	21:37
	A nation that is willing to feed the starving,	21:41
	only if the starving will promise that they will vote	21:43
	with us the next time in the United Nations.	21:46
	That they look upon us as a nation,	21:51
	which denies to American citizens equality	21:54
	before the law in American institutions of education,	21:57
	a nation that looks upon us, a group of people	22:02
	who look upon us as a nation that has lost	22:05
	the spiritual ideal with which it began	22:09
	and for which it was willing to make sacrifice.	22:14
	Well, what should we do about this?	22:19
	Some people have taken a look at this and said,	22:24
	"Well, we are not what we once were.	22:26
	We are a post-Christian men.	22:29
	And so let us cast aside these meaningless symbols	22:32
	that do not any longer mean anything today	22:37
	and let us become thoroughly secularized,	22:41
	let us drop all pretense of being a spiritual people	22:44
	and let us become secularistic, neutralistic, meaningless.	22:48
	And if we have any religion, we will have it simply	22:55
	as private individuals, rather than as a nation."	22:57
	And they think of themselves as being avant-garde.	23:03
	And they may very well be avant-garde, but of what?	23:07
	The dark ages had their vanguard,	23:13
	let those who consider themselves avant-garde	23:17
	ask themselves, what it is they are the forerunners of?	23:20
	Unless we rewind the spiritual values,	23:26
	which alone made America great, our nation will degenerate.	23:29
	If the Lord does not keep the city,	23:38
	the person who attempts to keep it is attempting in vain.	23:41
	If the Lord does not keep the watch,	23:45
	the person who keeps it is awake in vain.	23:48
	And if God is driven out of America by our indifference	23:53
	and our voluntary choices, to be indifferent to God,	23:59
	we will deserve the ruin, which will come upon us.	24:04
	But I would like to believe that this student generation	24:08
	will dedicate itself to making live,	24:12
	what is on the Statue of Liberty to making the motto	24:15
	on our coins mean something rather than be an empty symbol,	24:19
	like the wedding ring.	24:25
	I believe this is worth every bit of devotion and sacrifice,	24:28
	which we can give to it.	24:33
	Now, the third great area in which our clock is running down	24:35
	to which the students of this generation and the faculty	24:40
	and the staff need to assign ourselves is with regard	24:44
	to the recovery of an understanding of,	24:48
	and commitment to the word of God.	24:52
	All of the art, the music, the literature, the ethics,	24:57
	and the governmental principles	25:03
	that have made civilization great	25:04
	have been derived from the Bible,	25:08
	from the word of God, the holy scriptures.	25:12
	And there was a time, there have been times in the past	25:16
	when people knew the Bible.	25:21
	Today, the average person does not know the Bible.	25:24
	He could not call the names of half of the books	25:29
	in the New Testament.	25:32
	He might be able to quote from memory 20 songs	25:34
	of the Elvis Presley variety.	25:38
	But about the only verse of scripture, he could quote	25:40
	would be, "Jesus wept."	25:43
	We do not know the Bible today.	25:46
	We have some people who speak about biblical theology,	25:48
	but what they mean is what they have heard someone say	25:51
	the Bible means and teaches.	25:55
	There was a literary society in England only a few years ago	26:00
	that sponsored an essay contest.	26:03
	There was one person who decided to enter the essay contest	26:08
	dishonestly, but to prove a point.	26:12
	He took the Book of Esther in the Old Testament,	26:17
	changed the names of the principal characters	26:21
	and the place of location and turned it in as his entry	26:25
	into the contest with every other word	26:30
	exactly as it appears in the Bible.	26:33
	He won first prize.	26:36
	(congregation laughs)	26:39
	And when the prize was presented to him,	26:40
	there was a great flowery speech made saying	26:44
	what a genius this young man actually was	26:47
	that he could write so brilliantly.	26:51
	And nobody who read the essay,	26:54
	recognized it as being the Book of Esther.	26:57
	I wonder if you and I were called upon	27:02
	to read such essays written in this fashion,	27:07
	if we would recognize them,	27:11
	if they were to come from the Bible?	27:13
	Will, you look upon your courses in Bible,	27:17
	in this university as being not simply	27:20
	a means of passing off a requirement,	27:24
	but as an opportunity, really to come to know	27:26
	the word of God.	27:29
	Out of which greatness has come in every part	27:31
	of our culture and our civilization.	27:34
	And which if we lose, we will also lose	27:38
	the greatness of our culture and our civilization.	27:41
	We need to do what Isaac did, as read by President Hart	27:46
	a few minutes ago.	27:52
	When Isaac took command of his herds and his people,	27:54
	as he had inherited them from his father, Abraham.	27:59
	The first thing he did was to go out and dig the dirt	28:02
	out of the wells that had been stopped up by their enemies	28:08
	after the death of Abraham.	28:13
	He went out and dug the dirt out of the wells,	28:16
	which his father Abraham had dug.	28:18
	They were good wells, there was good water in them.	28:21
	The only trouble was that they had been filled up with dirt.	28:26
	He had the wisdom and good sense to renew those old wells.	28:31
	Perhaps the steps down to them are different	28:36
	from the steps that Abraham had built.	28:39
	Perhaps the approach to the well was different,	28:40
	perhaps many things were different.	28:43
	And I'm certainly not suggesting that we should return	28:45
	to the elements of greatness that those before us	28:48
	have had in exactly the same way that they approached them.	28:52
	But I am suggesting that the great ideals	28:56
	of Duke University, the spiritual commitments	28:59
	of the United States of America and the essential message	29:02
	of the word of God are springs of creativity	29:06
	without which we cannot safely do.	29:10
	And that in each of these areas,	29:14
	what we need is to rewind the clock.	29:16
	In doing this, we will follow the example of our Lord	29:21
	and Savior Jesus Christ, who came to a world	29:24
	where the law-giver had come and had stated the law of God.	29:27
	People had followed it, then they had disobeyed it.	29:32
	A world where the prophets had come	29:35
	proclaiming the righteousness of God.	29:38
	The people had listened, and then they had fallen away.	29:40
	I presume that from the standpoint of strict justice,	29:45
	God would have had a perfect right to have sent his Son	29:49
	into the world to condemn it.	29:53
	But he didn't do that.	29:56
	He came here to rewind it and to make it better.	29:59
	God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world,	30:03
	but that the world through him might be saved.	30:07
	Remember, one other thing Jesus said,	30:13
	"As the Father had sent me into the world,	30:16
	even so send I you."	30:20
	Christ is sending you and me into Duke University	30:25
	and into our country today, not to condemn it,	30:28
	not to give it up for lost, but to rewind it	30:32
	and be instruments of its salvation.	30:36
	Oh God, our heavenly Father,	30:46
	we thank thee that thou did not give up on us,	30:48
	but has continually sought to renew us	30:52
	and to call us back to thyself.	30:55
	Make us this day and this year instruments	30:58
	of thy grace for all mankind.	31:01
	And now may the grace of the Lord,	31:04
	Jesus Christ, be with you all.	31:06

Item Info

Title:

Howard C. Wilkinson - "A Lesson from the Clock" (September 23, 1962)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4m90641h

Date:

September 23, 1962

Speaker:

Wilkinson, Howard C.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0199
ref5602_fcp
uachapelsermaud
duke:628014
dcrau002209
ark:/87924/r4m90641h
62e08ecb-a64f-4923-911f-23d3ecc81c23

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings

Related Resources:

See below

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:

Limited Re-Use

Educational Use Permitted

Rights Note:

This material is made available for educational and non-commercial use. This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the license indicated here. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For other 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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Howard C. Wilkinson - "A Lesson from the Clock" (September 23, 1962)

Transcript

Item Info

Related Item

Duke University Archives