“Jesus turned to the student body and began to speak as if the Chancellor were not present and had not said a word. I believe, at that moment, I had some glimpse of Jesus’s real power as ‘Lord of all.’ As for the Chancellor, I do not know yet what his action meant, but after Jesus began talking to the student body again, he turned and walked off the stage. The rest of the faculty members looked simply dazed at the whole affair, but they sat there on the platform, gazing at Jesus as if awestruck.

“As he went on talking to the students, I realized that another scene was impending, this time with the students. For as Jesus went on, he began to condemn the fraternities in the University, which were destroying the social democracy of the place. He seemed to know exactly what the conditions were, and looks of amazement were everywhere among the students as he went on to give detailed accounts of their social affairs, their wine suppers, and especially a recent carousal at the close of an athletic contest which had been a disgrace to the state.

“I shall never forget how groups of the students sat there, white-faced and enraged, as Jesus went on. And every minute I looked for some outburst, but the silence seemed to deepen as Jesus calmly but with awful directness spoke of the coarse dissipations and selfish exclusiveness of large student groups.

“Suddenly, he turned to the faculty members on the platform and, to their bewilderment, asked them what could be expected of students, if those who were set over them as teachers and counselors were men of disbelief; men who taught distrust of the divine and supernatural; men who never taught their classes anything except technical facts, ignoring the entire subject of moral and religious experience?

“From the way he spoke, I gathered that moral and religious conditions at the University have greatly changed since the Bible was put out of the state schools.”

“They have!” Dr. West said emphatically.

“And Jesus again seemed to know exactly what professorships came under his just condemnation. Man after man on the platform sat there white-faced and enraged, but convicted in their own hearts of neglect to use their great office as teachers to teach the student body the main thing—which, as Jesus said again and again, is righteousness.

“Never in all the history of the University have faculty and students ever heard such an address at the Assembly. I do not believe any words can express the power of Jesus’s appeal as he closed. It was a heart cry to the University to open the doors of the soul to God. Without in any way detracting from the value of the technical work the University is doing, he insisted upon the main thing in education, which is and always must be religious development, righteousness, social democracy, love to God and man.

“I walked off the platform with Jesus, leaving the audience, faculty and students still seated in the hall. One of the teachers who came out and overtook us on the way to Mr. Maxwell’s said it was a full minute before any one stirred.