"Aim high! It's no harder on your gun to knock the feathers off an eagle than to kill a skunk," was the advice which "Billy" Sunday gave to over 20,000 students in the big tabernacle on "Student Night" last evening. The big tabernacle was crowded to capacity and fully 10,000 were turned away at the most notable service so far of the "Billy" Sunday campaign. Delegations from every educational institution in and nearby Boston were present. After the opening hymn each delegation gave its cheer. The singing by the huge choir, particular the "echo-singing" across the tabernacle, worked up the spirit of the meeting.
Mr. Sunday introduced himself at the start to the large number of University men present by saying, "I have never gotten much nearer to Harvard than the Stadium, which I visited and cheered myself hoarse in, at Saturday's game, but I have met men throughout this whole country in every walk of life who owe their start to Harvard and to Technology." Then he swung with characteristic vigor into the theme of his famous sermon.
"God likes to see a man crawl out of the sewer and get up in the roof garden--not the man who is little because it is easy to be so. Study your capabilities! If God wants you to be an iron cog-wheel in the machinery of life, you will be better off the sooner you stop trying to be a steam whistle or a glaring searchlight."
"But we must remember," shouted the fiery evangelist, "that we can't create a desire if it isn't there. A red-headed kid with a stone bruise on each heel can ride a Kentucky thoroughbred to water, but a college professor with mutton-chop whiskers and 49 diplomas can't make him drink."
In his startling and forceful way, Mr. Sunday reminded the many undergraduates in his audience that "it takes more than a mortar board cap, a diploma, a fraternity pin and a bull-dog pipe to make a man. You can't expect to get an education out of a four-years' college course. You just get started. Keep at it all your life and you will get part of an education if you are among the successful. Don't build your character like a woman fixes a sewing machine--removing everything that should be left stationary and putting oil on the belt. I can tell your size by what you are over-coming. Striving for big things is what makes men like Abraham Lincoln."
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