For A government which he though to be the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today to lecture others on non-violence, he saw as unseemly at best. This is not to condone, as he himself did not condone. And thus one must in candor, point out that many of those who now luxuriatingly inflame to violence are often, as Orwell once suggested, those who are always elsewhere when the trigger is pulled, who "playing with fire don't even know that fire is hot."

May I remind also that of those who seek now to build duchies of hatred on Dr. King's death. many had disdained him, patronized him, scorned him, sneered at him, as De Lawd, as Chump, though he left scars on the map of history as no burning city could.

*

But if we may reproach our white brothers who so indulge themselves now, in vicarious violence, I do not believe we are justified, least of all in memory of Martin Luther King, in reproaching the black man for his tactics and advising him on his strategy.

The counsel of reason in the black communuty does not depend on the white man's advice. It does depend on our acts. I am saddened, we are all saddened, by the separate gathering outside this church. Our service here today is an act of brotherhood. Yet I would offer as injunction to us the words of The Talmud, "Do not attempt to pacify a man at the height of his anger. But respect it."

*

FOR US, NOW, there is in any event enough to do with our own souls, our own institutions and society. We are to Dr. King after all as the mill owner's sister was to Gandhi--not guilty of the faults of his adversaries, but also not able to claim his virtues.

The burdens of the immediate future will be taxing enough if we would assume them. Dr. King was planning a Poor People's March on Washington, an act of creative disorder, deliberately contingently disruptive. Will we move with the hungry, those tired at last of the preconditions of their hunger, the conditions of their indignity? Or will we watch?

Will we make Martin Luther King's undiminished and unyielding dream of an integrated and just society of black and white a reality? Or will we allow the slow motion of judicial, all deliberate speed to continue to maim the minds of the young, black and white alike?

*

Mrs. King on Saturday reminded us that her husband, the father of their children, died for the garbage collectors of Memphis and the peasants of Veitnam. Let us not forget that with an ever clearer and more systematic analysis of our society and its wrongs, this good man, who did not shrink from prisons or bayonets, had spent his last energies on bringing this wretched war to a close. As long as the bombs drop and the guns fire, those sounds and the piercing cries of the victims drown out the homilies of tribute to Martin Luther King.

Now is the time for all of us--all of us to examine our consciences, acknowledge our guilts.

*

IT IS IRONIC, isn't it, that the full integration of this Negro into society had to await his death. Here too! Our seniors, however, movingly and deeply aware of the inadequacies and dubious relevance of received wisdom to their lives, had asked Dr. King to address them at their Class Day exercises.

Isn't it sad--I hope one could say isn't it strange--that our university which has, at Commencements these last years, honored politicians and international bankers, scientists and poets, journalists, scholars, and headmasters of elite preparatory schools, had not seen fit to honor--not what we use to call in the old parlance "a credit to his race," but the controversial prod to our self-satisfaction, the extraordinary moral teacher of our time, the prophet of living religious faith, the leader of a truly democratic movement of Americans for freedom and for peace.

This church of course had welcomed him and his ministry. But we may take whatever slight hopes we can from the fact that it was the young who eagerly sought him out. They know, as this beautiful man did and had tried to tell us, that it is now five minutes before midnight, Not earlier. Five minutes before midnight.