The good men do

A few weeks ago, I found a copy of a founder's day talk given in 1964 by Dean of the College Philip Covington.  I wrote about Dean Covington last month.  From what I understand, this talk is quite characteristic of Covington, and of a generation of Wofford faculty members in its combination of wit (both razor sharp and dry) and in its insight into the human condition.  I share it here for your continuing enjoyment, and because I missed making any mention of Founder's Day a few weeks ago. 

And also because I wish I could write like this.  

I understand that the section down in front is reserved for seniors.  I notice that quite a few of them are not present, but I'll forgive them since most of them have heard this speech for three or four years. And have heard me make it that many times.

Today is Founder's Day.  For 110 years now this College has paid tribute to its founder, Benjamin Wofford.  I am sure that on this very same platform very many people have made some very fine speeches about Benjamin Wofford...in fact, I have made some of them myself. As a matter of fact, it seems to be my privilege and duty (we always say) to do this in recent years.  I hope that in the next world it will be his time and he can talk about me.

At the end of this sermon this morning, Pete Berry, the President of our Student Body, is going to lead us in the singing of the Alma Hater.  As soon as he has finished and you have regained control of yourselves, and the thunderous applause has died away, please give Pete enough time to make a break for the door first.

Actually, my remarks are rather difficult to arrive at since I have talked on this subject so many times it is hard to think of a new approach to the same subject.  I feel very much like a preacher Dr. Wilson told me about who had the same problem of preaching a different sermon each Sunday morning.  He finally preached on the parable of the Prodigal Son — from the point of view of the fatted calf.

I rather feel that way, and that my remarks today are worthy of the title, "The Bones of Benjamin Wofford.”  I think I have talked about practically everything else.

In Shakespeare's famous play, "Julius Caesar," Mark Anthony, in his funeral oration, says, referring to the dead Caesar, "The evils that men do live after them, the good is oft interred with their bones."  Such is the magic of Shakespeare's eloquence that it was years after reading this, before it dawned on me that, while this is a beautiful and arresting statement, it simply is not so, and I have a feeling that Shakespeare and Mark Anthony both knew it at the time.

The Lord be thanked, things being as they are, that the exact reverse of this is true, or this world would be much worse than it is.  Take comfort, my friends, when we die and they take us out, dig an appropriate hole, and bury us in it, people will even say nice things about us.  They will forget completely what stinkers we were.  But if we have ever, even inadvertently, done one good thing, that thing will be remembered and will go on, reproducing itself even until the very end of time.

The real problem is not the problem of evil, that is, how to account for the existence of evil in the world; the real philosophical problem that confronts man as he looks about him is this: "How does one account for the existence and the continuation of good in this world?"

Old Benjamin Wofford was, as Time magazine would probably put it, "No pretty boy, he."  I would like for you to take a look at the portrait of our Founding Father which is out in the vestibule.  Take a good look.  I enjoy looking at it, because it is always very comforting to me.  Take a look at the frost-bitten, hawk-like nose, the sunken eyes, partially hidden behind dark glasses as if he feared the light of day, the cadaverous cheeks, the sharp and jutting chin...on which a razor might cut itself.  No matter how you look, my friends, you still look better than old Benjamin.

Now I don't know whether in his long life he ever did a really bad thing.  Knowing his miserly ways, I think I can assure you that he never indulged in any expensive evil!  But what has been remembered about this man?  The fact that he was a failure as a preacher, and went into the business of what we would probably call a "loan shark"?  That he was a stingy skin-flint who carefully saved rusty old nails?  No, these things are not remembered about our founding father.  As a matter of fact, the thing which is remembered about him is the thing which we are talking about today - the College which bears his name and which he called into being — but more than that, we remember the good - both the known good and the larger unknown good which has flowed from this College for 110 years, and also all the greater good yet to come.  That he certainly never lived to see — the far greater good that you and I also will never live to see, because we celebrate here a living, continuing thing.

In my front yard, where I live here on the campus, there are two huge hem­lock trees - very slow-growing trees.  Some years ago I saw an old daguerreotype taken from the road in front of the house. Heaven only knows how long ago it was taken, but there on the front porch was Dr. James Carlisle, one of the original faculty members in 1854.  He is a fine figure of a bearded young man, with his wife and young children about him.  And there in the foreground were two tiny hem­lock trees.  I have seen another picture of him taken sometime since - same identical spot - years later, about the turn of the century. And there again was the memorable Dr. Carlisle, much, much older now, and this time standing all alone, looking out toward the College, and there in the foreground this time are two fine hemlock trees.

Now, I sometimes stand where he stood and look out between the two huge hem­lock trees and I wonder who, long after me, will stand there.  I wonder what the College will be like that he looks out upon, and I get a feeling of being a small part of a great and continuing good, long since begun, to which all of us may con­tribute, and that is, at least, the little good which may be in us.  The good is interred with their bones?  I think not.  I think that anyone who stands out there today at Wofford's tomb and looks about him is compelled to say, "The good that men do lives after them," -- and for this, let us be grateful.        

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