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heedless to his folly, till the cup is full and a sudden retribution comes, has certainly mistaken his calling. He was not summoned on a court-martial, nor to be a public executioner, but called to be a guide to the inexperienced, a friend of humanity, a lover of youth.

Christianity thus enthroned in the polity of the corporation and the spirit of the faculty will show itself in the deportment of the students. It should be no wonder if, where the college faculty or any considerable portion of them are indifferent to religion, its claims, and its observances, the students should be noted for riotous conduct and even collisions with the police. Indeed we look back with disgust and horror upon some brutal and even dangerous customs that prevailed in the schools of England and formerly in the colleges of this country. They seem almost incredible among a body of students of the humanities. They took their worst form, apparently, at a time when religion in the college was at its lowest ebb. The true recital fills one with somewhat of the feeling that he has in a continental museum when viewing the thumbscrews, Spanish boots, racks, and other instruments of torture of the mediæval ages. From most colleges, and certainly from this college, thank God! these things have passed away. But much yet remains for Christianity to achieve in these institutions. There are certain notions and customs, mostly traditional, the relics of a darker time, but hard to eradicate, which have nothing to commend them and everything to condemn; certain tendencies to lawlessness and conflict and to forms of collective

unscrupulousness that cannot be tolerated elsewhere in society and which call for extermination. There are false codes of honor, moral compromises, and depressions of æsthetic, social, and even religious standards, which should forever disappear. While it may be firmly maintained that in no equal collection of young men is there on the whole greater safety, a higher tone of morals, or manlier conduct than in a college like this, we may as firmly maintain that all these things should rise higher yet. The student must stand up in his lot. like other men, expecting and receiving no toleration in wrongdoing and no discharge from duty because he is a student. Indeed, greater privilege carries greater responsibility. Things that might be palliated elsewhere would seem to be inexcusable here. Good citizenship, solid worth, true religion, if ever they are to assert themselves, should do so in college. For where there is no germ there will be no fruit. The professing Christian who cannot maintain a consistent, manly piety, and resist the temptations here, will probably be but a frail dependence elsewhere. It is time that all such concessions, compromises, excuses, palliations, and evasions of duty were forever swept away, and that the young men in our institutions of learning should stand forth in a true Christian manhood as marked and exalted as are the opportunities they enjoy. They should show themselves in training to be leaders and examples in a great Republic.

Young Gentlemen of the Graduating Class: You are about to close your connection with an institution

that was founded wholly in the interest of Christianity. During your student life we have endeavored to carry out the aim of its founders by throwing around you the daily influences of the Christian religion and giving instruction weekly in the volume that embodies it.

Neither of these things, we confess, has been done so effectually as it should have been done and as, we would hope, it will yet be done. But such has been our effort and aim.

And now I give you your final instructions in the same direction. If any of you depart without at least a thorough intellectual persuasion of the truth and importance of the theme, it has not come to my knowledge.

But as you go forth you will encounter a numerous body

of men who set themselves resolutely against it.

Let me, then, solemnly charge you, as wise men and good citizens if not as true Christians, to maintain throughout your life a profound regard and a lively and helpful interest for the institutions and the Book of our most holy religion. Ever look upon it as, whether tested by its standard, its aims, or its effects, the most extraordinary phenomenon in all history. Behold it steadily and surely full filling its Founder's unparalleled prediction: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." See how, in affection or in antagonism, he is more and more seizing the eye of the human race, till his strongest opponents are constrained to be meeting that question: "What think ye of Christ?" It is the problem which the world must face. Meet it manfully yourselves.

Look upon it as the supreme authority and the sole

hope for man. It addresses him, and with paternal authority and paternal love summons him back to the Father's house as the lost child of God. It offers him a perfect code, a sure help, a great salvation. Oh, follow that code, take that help, receive that salvation!

Look upon that religion and its sacred volume as the most benign and blessed of influences. See how it has fostered and is fostering all that is highest and best in this world, spreading civilization, literature, art, beneficence in its myriad forms, furnishing the peace and quiet in which science has achieved its triumphs and the very security in which its foeman makes his attacks. For its transforming influence upon the individual, the nation, the world and all it contains, cherish it as a priceless boon and enlist yourself in all its enterprises and activities.

Look upon it, too, as destined to prevalence and to victory - the one movement in this world of ours so entwined with human wants, affections, and hopes, and so entrenched in the attributes, purposes, and promises of God, that nothing will stand in the way of its complete and final triumph. And, O young friends, cast in your personal labors, life, and lot, your hand and mind and heart, into the fortunes of that blessed and eternal kingdom, and hear at last from the lips of its mighty Monarch those words: "Well done, good and faithful servant!"

CHRISTIANITY IN THE COMMONWEALTH.

BACCALAUREATE SERMON, JUNE 26, 1887.

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. — JOHN 8:36.

HESE words of our Saviour bear directly upon

THE

personal character and affirm that they only are the truly free men who are delivered by Christ and his gospel from the bondage of sin. But, like so many of his deep sayings, these words are pregnant words of germinant fulfillment. They apply with equal force to communities of men as to individuals, and with even more signal power upon the broader scale.

A week and a day will bring us to the commemoration of American Independence. The college festival is this year to the national festival in its perigee. We step from the one to the other. Having spoken to the previous graduating class upon the relation of Christianity to the college, I propose this morning to extend the theme beyond the college, and, following these young men as they pass from the special condition of students to the broader sphere of citizens, to speak upon the fundamental relation of Christianity to the State. "If the Son therefore shall make you free," says the incarnate wisdom of God, "ye shall be free indeed." Applying to the community of men what is here applied to individual men, I propose to show that

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