MR. ROCKEFELLER'S CLASS.
Bible Students Addressed by Mark Twain and Robert C. Ogden.
The young men's Bible class of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, of which John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is the leader, listened to a speech by Robert C. Ogden, and another by Mark Twain at the regular monthly meeting of the class last evening.
Mark Twain attempted to teach the class how to reach a person of great eminence, an Emperor, for instance. At 9:20 he stopped short and informed the young men that he would have to go.
"I'm a farmer now," he said. "Not a very good farmer yet, but a farmer just the same. So I'll have to go now to be up early in the morning to take care of my crop. I don't know yet what the crop will be, but I think from present indications it will be icicles."
Mr. Ogden said that he had recently read in a newspaper that as soon as a man began to feel his own importance he ceased to be of importance to the world.
"I think this is true of nations, also," he went on. "During the civil war, I remember, I thought that it was a grand thing to live through those times. Others, I think, thought so, too. We were doing a great deal of boasting then, but we were not really great. Now we are very quiet, and I think we have become great in a larger sense.
"We hear much talk in these days to the effect that organization is crushing out the life of men. I do not think this to be true. I believe that organization is going to give men greater opportunities than they have ever had before."
Mr. Ogden then spoke of the value of the higher education in business, and quoted, as he said, from a little volume recently published by Dr. Canfield of Columbia University, which he said stated that 1 per cent. of the men engaged in business life were men of higher education, and that 40 per cent. of the men who held the positions of great responsibility were university men.
The Rev. Dr. Rufus P. Johnston, pastor of the church, also spoke. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was present, but took no part in the exercises.
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