A UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT RESPONSIBLE TO THE END

Dr. Samuel Palmer Brooks was President of Baylor University in Texas from 1902 until his death in 1931.

On his deathbed he wrote a message to the senior class of 1931 which has become immortal to the students of Baylor.

“I stand on the border of mortal life but I face eternal life. I look backward to the years of the past to see all pettiness, all triviality, shrink into nothing and disappear. Adverse criticism has no meaning now. Only the worthwhile things, the constructive things that have built for the good of mankind and the glory of God count now. There is beauty, there is joy, and there is laughter in life – as there ought to be, but remember, my students, not to regard lightly nor to ridicule the sacred things, those worthwhile things.

Hold them dear, cherish them, for they alone will sustain you in the end. And remember, too, that only through work and oft-times through hardships may they be attained. But the compensation of blessing and sweetness at the last will glorify every hour of work and every heartache from hardship.”

[Reproduced with permission from Encylopedia of 7700 Illustrations, by Paul Lee Tan,Assurance Publishers, Rockville, MD, 1984. #1051]

This material is published by the Faith Committee of the Character Council of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. Reproduction and Adaptation is encouraged.