Today’s guest post is by G.H. Cachiaras. He was for many years a college professor and the Dean of Minnesota Bible College whose building stood proud and strong across from the University of Minnesota. He was my grandpa. Most of all, he was a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. At this time of graduation from high schools and colleges, I thought it appropriate to share some of his words. The text he used is Hebrews 11:24-25. Read the following, if you like, with the sound of his Greek accent underneath his words. The post will be serialized throughout the month of May.

*Blogger’s note: You might be offended by some of what is said. If so, it is because you are offended by the viewpoint of those now passed through history, but whose perspective is every bit as valid as the ones held today. God help us when we are judged by those who come after us.

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Fourth, we will elect to SET OUR TASKS TO MUSIC. By music in life, I mean harmony. How fine and exquisite it is to see a life set to music, happy, contented, at peace with God and man! One of the greatest statements I have heard in a lifetime is that of Dr. Wm. S. Sadler: “No happy man ever has a breakdown in health”. Irrespective of our outward conditions and circumstances, we can elect to be contented, happy, and at harmony with God and man. And without that peace and harmony, we can never be happy, nor will our health hod up under the stress and strain. Even Paul and Silas in prison set their task to music.

Fifth, elect to MAINTAIN YOUR INDIVIDUALITY in the crowd. There is a strange tendency in every generation to “Join the Crowd”; to do “In Rome as Rome Does”, to “join the gang”, and do things that in our own mind we question, but we feel we must do them because everybody else does it.

The strong young man, the one who goes farthest and the one who makes a real contribution to human society is the one who will maintain his own personality, his own individuality irrespective of what the crowd does. One professor cannot copy another’s actions in the classroom. It wouldn’t fit! Is the child in kindergarten crying with true reason or because all the other children are?

Sixth, elect to become a CRUSADER FOR RIGHT LIVING AND FOR CHRISTENDOM. All of our best thinkers are agreed on this one thing today – that our living standards are lowered; that, in many respects, America has lowered her standards to those of ancient pagan nations. America is today at the crossroads. She will either have young men and young women who, of their own free will and volition, elect RIGHT LIVING and high standards, and the ideals of the Carpenter of Nazareth, or we face the prospect of going the way of Pagan Rome.

What nobler sight is there that the mind of man can conceive than the mental picture of the young Crusaders of the Middle Ages who, as they went forth to rescue Jerusalem from the hands of the Saracens, sang “God wills it; God wills it!”

And what nobler sight is there for tens of thousands of young Americans (or Canadians) as they face the future, than to see these youth elect high and noble ideals, choose character above riches, elect to set their tasks to music, to maintain their own individuality, and determine to be a Crusader for Right Living and for the ideals of Christendom, singing as they go forth along the great highway of life, “God wills it; God wills it!”

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