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1-f

TRAINING FOR THE TIMES.

REV. W. M. BARBOQR, D.D.

O. BLACKETT HOBINSON, PHINTIH, 5 JORDAN SIRttT, TOBONTO

^rainino for the XEimes,

BEING THE I'tUGURAL ADDRESS OF THE REV. W. M. BARBOUR, D.D., ON HIS INSTALLATION AS

PRINCIPAL OF THE CONGREGATIONAL COLLEGE OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA,

MONTREAL, SEPTEMBER I4, ibSy.

Mr. Chairman, Fathers, Brethren, Christian Friends :

That is an honourable record of the tribe of Issachar, at the rally to make David king,
" They were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do." While
the other tribes are reported as strong in their warlike thousands, this tribe alone has this
peaceful record ; and with it this is added, that " the heads of the tribe were two hundred, and
all tTieir brethren were a^ their commandment." Neither a numerous nor a noisy company is
here introduced to our notice, yet an orderly and a thoughtful one— a whole tribe characterized
by an observant knowledge of passing events, and a practical application of that knowledge
to life and duty.

From this historic extract, it is apparent that observant men, of a cultivated judgment,
have long been in demand as counsellors in the crises of life. And, surely, they were never
more in demand than now, when the signs of the times are a daily study ; and when, to so
many people, duty seems to be completely done when what is seen and temporal is sufficiently
attended to.

At these opening exercises, including, as they do, a notice of the new Principal's appoint
ment— it seems proper to turn attention to what, in the inidst of the signs of our times, the
directors of this college think ought to be done. And as the one through whose appointment
they are pkr sed to indicate their general policy, it may be well for me, in a suggestive way,
to give you their general counsel upon the work of the college, as I find it, not in their
personal dictation, but in the plain and unforced dictates of my own understanding. As we
mutually understand this turn of affairs, and as we jointly and severally acknowledge our
dependence upon a higher wisdom than our own, I think 1 am fairly interpreting the present
situation, and expressing their mind in this expression of my own : " We desire the Christian
public to take and to keep it for granted, that this college shall continue to meet its end in the
training of such a ministry as the world always needs, and one that the churches of our order are
specially calling for at the present day ; namely, a ministry of the Gospel, not oblivious of
the past; awake to the state of the world as it is; and ardently hopeful of Christ's cause in
the world as it is about to be."

My reference to the " churches of our order " suggests to me the fitness of some allusion
to what may be called our " peculiarities." or, better perhaps, " to what e lay special
stress upon," living as we are among other churches and other colleges, with i-eculiarities, or
emphases, in their own view, no doubt, as important as our own.

As we read the New Testament— I speak to those who are at one with us in the right to
read it, and to interpret it as answerable to the One Judge— and, as we understand its revela-

TRAINING FOR THE TIMES.

tion of Christ, He is "like unto Moses in His fidelity over His own house, as Moses was over
hisr We thus believe that He left His house with such an outline uf its order as can be kept
by the dwellers in that house while it stands upon this earth. At any rate, we find an outline
of church order, substantially followed by Christian believers among Jews at Jerusalem, and
Gentiles at Corinth ; in towns and villages throughout Jud.-a, Asia Minor and Europe ; and
which, in our judgment, is fitted to meet the governmental necessitiesof any body of Christians,
anywhere, who hold that Christ's kingdom " is not of this world ; " " comes not with observa-
tion," or great ado ; makes no strain after even "a fair show in the flesh ; " nor, indeed, spends any
great amount of thought or energy upon the shadows of power as flung over territory, numbers,
or widespread report ; but whose chief concern is with the power itself, in the spirit of man]
and the Spirit of God, and with both in their mutual relations. If the churches we represent
have any " peculiarity " among other bodies of ostensible Christians, it is their reiterated
msistence upon placing the emphasis of the new dispensation upon their life and order. And,
in this, they hold that they find exemplars in the New Testament. The first characteristic^
then, of a Congregational Church, is the first characteristic of the New Testament churches—
Spiritua/itv. Here let us not be consideied arrogant, nor let us be misunderstood. In what is
said we are not to be taken as either denying or suspecting the spirituality of other churches, or
rather of other conceptions of the church. Nor by this emphatic claim for spirituality are we
to be taken as insisting that churches are, or ought to be, spiritual gatherings only, admitting of
nothing in their life and service that is outward, symbolic, or corporeal. As we understand a
cnurch of the New Testament, its economy is the reverse of the economy of the old dispen-
sation. 7 hat was characteristically carnal, " standing in meats and drinks and divers washings
and carnal ordinances imposed upon the worshippers ; " but this is characteristically spiritual,
standing in the offering of the heart, and the consequent obedience of the life, with such devo-
tion of the whole man as love may evoke from the worshippers. But necessarily, so long as we
are flesh and blood, the offerings of the spirit and the instruction of the spirit must in part be
by what can be touched and tasted, seen and handled. While maintaining the predominance
of the spirit, we by no means claim exemption from such things of tlie flesh as may minister to
us of the Spirit. But their fewness and their simplicity are both grounded upon the evident
preponderance of the glory of God over the glory &<" man in the things of the new dispensation.

Another feature of the New Testament we profess to make much of in our church life is
Catholicity. We neither have nor hold to national establishments as political or semi-political
aids to the Gospel ; we have no churches of national name even, nor of race, caste, sex, colour
or any other differing cond'tion of mankind ; no denominational creed imposed alike upon all
believers ; no stereotyped forms of worship nor set ritual for all times and cultures alike ; no
particular attachment to worship " in this mountain, nor yet ?t Jerusalem " — far less at Rome
— as of special avail in honouring the Father. Nor do we separate from our fellow-believers

because of differences in forms of Christian service, nor varieties in non-essential beliefs

holding with all who hold the Head, and parting only with those professing Christians who tell
us they cannot follow Christ with us, nor with the great company of Christians who keep close by
Him as the only Saviour of the world.

And this hastens me on to notice what is in fine harmony with their Spirituality and
Catholicity, namely, the Simplicity of the New Testament churches. They are constituted
under this simple charter, " Where two or three are together in My name [or for My name]
there am I." Christ is their hope of glory — Christ, and not the ccv'eted "powers that be."
The glory of the terrestial is one thing, it is the glory of studied magnificence ; of power over
the external ; of laboured and complicated effort to gain the eyes, the ears, the nerves of men
to a confession of its mighty sway. Tlie glory of tiic celestial, of the spiritually celestial, is

TRAINING FOR THE TIMES.

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another thing. It is simply free from observation ; it has no machinery, ecclesiastical or othe- •
It IS managed without heat or bluster, or complicated subtlety in any department of its life!
Itn glory is that of love, of principle, of character ; it is the glory of heaven, the glory of God
This IS the New Testament's ideal of a church ; and lo some extent its real church as in
Phihppi and Smyrna and Pergamos, Thyatira, Ephesus, Antioch and Jerusalem. And doubt-
less in the mam to this every church bears a testimony, and by more or less direct effort seeks
to attain it. However far short our churches may come of attaining it-seeking it as we believe
by the most direct v.ay-they have no intention of lowering *he ideal, even while confessing
tl -^ir non-attamment of it as the real. Granting that they are under the reproach of the
critical on the one side, and of th. practical on the other, for insisting on an ideal of the church
too high for even regenerated humanity to make its own, still we do not lower that ideal • for it
is not our own, but set before us by One wiser than we. It is not ours to make it more
•' serviceable," bv accommodating it to the world, any more than it is ours to lower the Divine
law in our promulgation of it ; or rather to think that the Divine Lawgiver should let down His
law. because men do not live up to it. No, we are steadfastly set upon the upholding of these
scriptural features of the church-not for a moment falling in with the current notion of some
that " It I wed t^ accommodate where you cannot attain "-a- if an inveterate unbelief of the
■ .died by the apologetic unbelief of the preacher !
hi . ■■ :heL 3 [[.'1 stress upon spirituality, catholicity and simplicity in their life,
r : a -nouglitful and cultivated ministry, only shows their recognition of the

Ai..i It v,ouid be a sign of a change upon one of these fundamental positions
c ,c their ^ oferenc for any other ministering than that of the best within their
\- -is t:. s night opened in this place that such a ministry may be pro-
as indirpting the order of the studies here to be pursued, let me revert to
the desire ot the churches ab . uessed in my opening paragraph. I said they desire a ministry
not oblivious of the pas. It is a^iong certain sip;ns of our times to mak^ light of the past to
count It among the bygones tnat ought to be bygones, of no present use in certifying to any
present truth. But no church of the living God can take this position. For, under the living
God, out of the past has she been born, and to be separated from all that has come to pass is to
have neither root for herself to stand by, nor branch to extend to those beyond the reach of her
present body. Besides, Christianity is not simply a system of thought, the conception and the
production of a singK inind, left among other great conceptions, to work its way in the earth !
It is part of the world's life ; it has always expressed itself through organized bodies of
believers who have not only promulgated certain truths, but done certain deeds, in establishing
ar. extending God's kingdom upon earth. Moreover, it has spread divergently, now in one
dh .ction, then in another, impressing itself, expressing itself, repressing alien systems, and in vari-
ous ways affecting both itself and the world it has moved in. It is impossible to secure any trust-
worthy knowledge of what it is. without some historic study of what it has been, and what it
has done. Moreover, its present doctrines need the past for their explanacion. To follow the
thinking of the ancient chi rches ; to look at the problems interesting the fathers ; to learn how
the easier master-minds of Christendom solved their difficulties; to trace to their roots some
of the pestilent heresies of an earlier day ; to read the lives of the holy and the true ; to see
how sincere and earnest minds liave, in other ages, been trammelled by what does not tram-
mel ourselves ; in a word, to watch the evolving providence of God, is to put ourselves in
training for enligiitened action upon the Christendom around us. But, aside from itswealih
of instruction, who— oblivious of the past— can pretend to progressive action in the present ?
I cannot step forward without one foot behind me, to give me both poise and impetus in my
movement. And it is sheer experiment if not recklessness, to cast one's thinking forward, and

TRAINING FOR THE TIMES.

forward only, without respectful attention to what has been thought. We are making up a
p..st soon to be, and what think we of that contempt, applauded as originality, independence and
progress, which reduces to ridicule what has made the past for us, virtually charging the
benign Providence with folly, for allowing such men and measures to live a life and die a death,
that the world might thereby be moved one step nearer to the end for which it has been made ?
But while thus vindicating church history as part of a course of theological training, and
while thus suggesting the value to a minister of a knowledge of past doctrines, rituals, liturgies
and literature, let me advance a step by the assertion that he will be but a poorly trained minister
for churches of our order, who lives in the past only, or even mainly. The ministry at present
under call, is one awake to the state of the world that now is. I shall speak soon upon what is
indestructible and unchangeable while man is man, but at present let me say that we shall
betray ourselves as having anything but the spirit of the sons of Issachar, if we do not express
our understanding of our own times, in our counsel to our own Israel, on what to do. The
church of Clirist has not passed this way before ; she has therefore to lead her religious life
amidst new surroundings ; and, if her ministers do not recognize this, how shall they instruct
the people to be religious, in the new religious circumstances ?

Tiieologians may have some good hints on how to take this changing world— for changing it
is, as everybody knows—from their bretliren of the literary guild, who think they have reason
lio lament the disillusionizing processes of the last sixty years. Says a judicious and Christian
critic(Delta— D. A/. .V<n>). " I shrewdly doubt whether ' Marmion ' or ' Childe Harold' would
even now be hailed, as v;e delight to know they were hailed, sixty years ago. Still I do not
despair of poetry ultimately recovering from the staggering blows which science has inflicted
in the shape of steam conveyance, electro-magnetism, geological exposition, political economy,
statistics ; in fact, by a series of disenchantments. Original genius in due time must form out
of new elements new combinations ; and these may be at least what the kaleidoscope is tojthe
rainbow, or an explosion of hydrogen in the gasometer is to a flash of lightning on the hills. In
the foamy seas we need never more expect to see Proteus leading out his flocks ; nor in the
dimpling stream another Narcissus admiring his own nir face ; nor Diana again descending on
Latmos to Endymion. We cannot hope for another Una, making * a sunshine in a shady
place,' nor another Macbeth, meeting witches on the blasted heath ; nor another Faust, wan-
dering amid the mysterious sights and sounds of another May-day night. Robin Hoods and
Rob Roys are incompatible with sheriffs and the county police. Rocks are now stratified by
geologists as exactly as satins are measured by mercers ; and Echo, now no longer a vagrant
classic nymph, is compelled quietly to submit to the laws of acoustics."

But upon what does our lively critic fall back for his new combinations under the new condi-
tions of his favourite branch o{ Belles Lettres ? On the elements of poetry in the immutable princi-
ples of our nature. Certainly. On what else ? While men breathe there will ever be room for a new
Shakespeare and a new Scott. The passing away of the old form is not the total loss of the old
thing. This world has as much in it as ever it had, and more ; and he shows but a faint faith in
the world's Maker or His modes of management who sighs over the disillusions of his own day, as"
if they argued a loss of like enjoyment or profit, in other forms, to other minds thus made ready
for other things. Nor is literature alone in this experience, Medicine has lost, if loss it is to be
called, in like changes. " It has lost alchemy, incantation, and cure by the royal touch. Law
has lost trial by wager of battle, the ordeal by touch, and the mysterious confessions of witch-
craft. Yet who would not be tried by law as it is, than by what it was " — though an eminent
judge not many years ago said " that since evidence under torture was not procurable, he did
not see how trials for high treason could be properly conducted."

Theology has had to take a share of these losses, so-called. She has lost certain verbal

I
1

TRAINING FOR THE TIMES.

I
1

excellencies, so some ancient men in Hebrew philology maintain ; by losing the unpointed text,
lor instance, though the wonder to most of us is how Hebrew was ever read without the points.
Formerly Hebrew pronunciation was traditional, now it is scientific ; yet Aleph begins the
alphabet still, and Tau ends it. Theology, within living memories, has lost the power to explain
certain texts as they were once explained. She has to look at the Scriptures tl<rough improved
spectacles ; travel, discovery, new power of critical judgment, all have affected her. And yet
a consensus of even conservative opinion grants that, upon the whole, the gains are clear, the
real losses but dimly perceived, and consisting of what is of decreasing value to those borii into
the world as it now is. To fail to recognize this is to be literally " behind the times," and in
consequence to be so far short of the power to tell the Israel of to-day what ought to be done,
in view of the truth as it now is. And, in matters to their personal ta«te, the most obstinate of
theologians are free to acknowledge this. Witness it in those who favour the present advances
in evangelical movements, modern missions home and foreign, new measures in moral reform ;
how ready are they to fall in with what speeds the missionary to his field, the evangelist to his
crowd, the visitor to her womanly work, and others to forms of labour among classes of the
needy not named in the annals of the older world. But when something we do not altogether
fancy, is proposed by men we do not altogether like, how ready are the most enlightened and
catholic of us to confess to ourselves, if to none else, the wish that in some of its notions the
world had remained about where it was when we were born !

And now, having made this generous allowance to the benefits of change, I can fairly claim
the liberty to say, that there is nothing in reason or in history more demonstrably fallacious
than this, that a change is necessarily a change for the better. That is nut so. Vast is the
difference between an innovation and a reform, between swelling and growth, between a novelty
and a blessing, between what sets popular feeling aglow and what rectifies and purifies our
common life.

At this point let me turn to the benefits of a course of theological study to those who are
to be the guides of the people through the signs of theological unrest that the times are ever
presenting to us. And one of the first is that by such a study they may be able to teach the-
people to discriminate between changes that are likely to be beneficial to the soul, hence to
the life, and changes that are not likely so to be. Certain it is that change is not lo be
disposed of by ignoring it, nor by treating it superciliously ; nor by acting as if God had
abandoned the world, and given up His government of it, because some phases in its life and
culture for eternity take us by surprise. This is to be tripped headlong— a casualty easily
avoided by a thoughtful investigation into the first principles of thejlogy. Theology is the
science of God ; it aims at a true knowledge of the true God, and its end is to impart this
for the good of the people ; its motto is Sa/iis populi, suprema lex. Very well, one of the first
and grandest and most saving thoughts about God is that He is the Infinite and the Eternal
Spirit, infinite in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth ; in - word,
that He is the Absolute in life and love. Bring now the changing world under the impress of
this thought of God, Here is cne Being who is never surprised, never circumvented, never
imposed upon, never baffled, never left to try experiments, never in doubt as to the issue of
His plans, or to .he efficiency of His rule over mankind. If there is not something in the
knowledge of that God to give a man firmness and poise in a changing life, I despair of
ever helping that man in a troublous time.

Again, as another thought in theology fitted to meet other demands of our life, this
unchanging God has put within us certain unchanging attributes— reflections of His own. He
has put a conscience in us— a thing an unholy God neither could nor would have done— by
which we know with Him and within our own selves, what is right and what is wrong. And no

TRAINING

FOR rHE TIMES.

power in heaven above or earth beneath, or in any hell beneath the earth, can ever get the
average man to believe that right is wrong, or wronjj is right, or to think it ever can be the
same with a man whether he be true or false in his speech, pure or impure in his thought, brave
or -owardly in his actions. On these fundamental endowments we can fall back as evidences
of God's care of us, just as we fall back on our constitutional desire for God as an evidence of
fiis fatherhood of us, and of His desire for our filial love in return for what we find in our own
very make. And this is only an indication of what, in greater abundance, is found in the fulness
of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ. Into further details I cannot go to-night, but upon
this, I rejoice to say even a word, as indicative of a growing source of theology coming into a
prominence for which there is a preparation in tho growing study of man, in his constitutional
attributes.

Nor is this to interfere with or lessen interest in the study of the Bible— the Word of God
to His creature man— but rather to anticipate and to supplement it. The textual investiga-
tion of the Sciiptures— corresponding to the microscopic study of nature— is as necessary to
secure certain aspects of the truth, as are the thoughts of God that " wander through eternity "
—corresponding to the telescopic views of the heavens, by which the far-reaching glories of
God become better known. We are to remember that our Lord favoured all sorts of appeal
to every source of knowledge in order to learn of God. " Consider the lilies of the field, "
said He, " they tell of God." " Search the Scriptures," and ponder " the words I speak
unto you," said He, " they tell of Me ; they bring you eternal life." And that the minister
be efficiently practical, he must be wisely profound ; for we sadly miss the best of effects
when we disregard the deepest of causes. Above all, the minister must not live in a constant
terror lest the realities of things in some surprising form upse^ him, and his people with him.
Nor must he ftar the truth, the sweetly reasonable truth, the deep and solemn truth, the
vastly overpowering truth of God. Its search dotn lead to trust.

Reason pursued is faith, but unpursued
Where proof invites, 'tis reason then no more.

Hear this, from a seeker of truth : "To have a disinterested regard for truth, the mind
must have contemplated it in abstract and remote questions. For the most part, the ordinary
mind -that is, the uninstructed after this method— are only conversant with those aspects of
truth in which their own interests are concerned. Most people's notions are local, present,
personal, and consequently subject to what is local, present, personal, and little else. Hence
the abundance of speech upon the striking and sensational ; the disproportionate amount of
utterance upon what comes uppermost, the lack of distinction between what is born of the heat
of temper, and the warmth of love for the truth. Even the preaching of the Gospel may be
open to criticism, as "of contention," as manifesting a desire to overcome an antagonist, rather
than to present Christ as the ' altogether lovely," or the ' mighty to save." It is to this more
lofty, more taxing, more subtle and profound examination of the truth, that our rising ministry
are invited. They are called away from the tramp and toil of life, to come up higher, to points
of view beyond the ordinary, that they may be able more fully and richly to disclose' to others
the bearings of Christian truth, and to urge it on the conscience by considerations not always
found on the surface of life. Some fear that this is to be wise above what is written ; but it is
upon what IS written that these secluded years of contemplation are to be spent. And it is to
make men wise unto salvation that the things written are thus to be pondered. Here we may
well ask ' Why are we endowed with intellect and reason, if not for an apprehension of the
glorious perfections of our Maker, if not for minute and reverential examination of His won-
derful works, the sublime movements of His providence, the more sublime operations of His

TRAINING FOR THE TIMES.

grace." While some, like the fodly Leightor., would say, " D:) not examine— turn to piety,
love God with all your hearth' we would say, with the severer class of thinkers— the Butlers
and the Bacons of their day—" Examine, and be devout too," emphasizing another clause of
the law, " Thou shall love the Lord thv God with all thy mind"

But I am pressed by the hour, to take up the desire of the churches for a ministry
hopeful of the cause of Christ in the world i.s it is about to be. What like is the world to
be when these young men are at three-score-and-ten ? It is to be in the main what it
is now. " 1 he earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereo':, the world and they that dwell
therein," and while much may change to them that has changed to us, other things will
be the same to them that they have been to us. If angels from heaven should offer a
better favioar, if these young men themselves should profess to preach a better Christ
than the one they are now beginning to declare, they are not to be believed. And it
is a source of true hopefulness to recognize this fact, that whatever the future may reveal,
Christ is to be in it, even as He has been in what has changed unto us. Christ has many
crowns, and th'nr number is on the increase, for ei ' .ew century and new civilizal-on puts
one more on His conquering brow. And those k to Him as King of the kingdom of
love, enter each succeeding experience with a predesanated victory in their hands, because
under Him and by His direction, they face the future as propagators of the truth m love.
" Truth " and " love "—the truth in love, and love in truth— are tne weapons of our wartare ;
and wherever tliey are wielded they invariably iuithtr the interests of their King. This 's
the hopeful theology which every age calls for— a theology which transcends the school-
men's questions, v.'hich aims at something higher than sectarian triumphs— the theology ' 'i!' ;.
presents a saving knowledge of God as the exponent of that religion whose main eler;-r.. it; the
life of God in tlie soal of man. And the teaching of it, and the training of men for its applica.
tion to human life, I conceive to be no easy task ; nor is it undertaken here as an easy task.
Nor is the effort to inspire the preacher of the coming age an easy task ; for though what is dead
may be kept embalmed a thousand years at little cost, what is alive cannot be kept a lifetime
without gi°at care, pains, outlay and solicitude. Hcpe, we are to remember, is not a cheap
virtue : its constitu;,nts are desire and expectation ( ombined ; and both of these elements are
restless, and craving, and disturbing unto others. But gladly shall the unrest and the craving
be cared for ; with pleasure shall the pains be taken, and the solicitude exercised, if so be that,
with cheerful spirits and mag- animous intent, those who study here can be sent forth to bless
the world by the preaching of Christ. Whether or not they pieach Him as here taught, at this
date God alone knoweth ; but the Christ they are to be taught to preach is not the Christ of
the Esthetic, or the merely preceptive schools ; but the Christ of the sacrificial cross, the Saviour
from sin, the Bread of Life, the Beginning and the Ending of all that Go 1 hath shown ; in
whom God stands revealed as in none other.

As an in'^piiation of hope, here let me say that profoundly do " I believe in the Holy
Ghost, and in the Holy Catholic Church," k. ^ in a ministry within that church, by all
spiritual and catholic minds. And in taking up this work of train-ng I desire to further that
ministry of unlimited love, which Christ never lets fall to the ground. For I do not believe
that the ministry of any one, bent on the coming of the kingdom of love, is limited in either
its truths or its fields of labour. No minister's parish or congregation is enclosed for the
handful who hear him speak. If he preaches the Christ who is the gift of God to a
dying world, that world will hear of him ; if not by the hearing of the ear, by the seeing
of the eye, and by the understanding of the spirit. Let me illustrate my idea by a leaf from
a record of real life, as true as if it were " written in i book and sealed with the seven seals "
of the divine approval. Half a lifetime ago, a worthy minister of a Christian church came

TRAINING FOR 7 HE TIMES.

to a Scottish city half the size of this, and when he began his labours he had not a welcome
from a single Christian pastor in that city. Even those of his own order kept aloof, because
he was thought to be somewhat " advanced " in his views of the love of God, the work of Christ,
the influence of the Spirit ; and he had advanced in his belief in them as of avail, where others
held they were not. But that is a matter of secondar- importance now. This good man lived
on and laboured on, growing steadfastly in the esteem of all, for he was never heard but in a
testimony for Christ, never seen upon the street but when on some errand of love to some soul of
man ; never heard of, but as doing good. And so, like the leaven, whose first particles do their
work by immediate contact, but which leavens the mass by what is itself more remotely
leavened, this whole city came to know, and to acknowledge, that a man of spiritual power was
in it. And when that good man one day fell dead at his own fireside, and was borne to the
grave, every evangelical minister in that city walked in deep respect behind his dust. And yet,
I question if ten of all that city's clergy ever heard a word from his lips. Great is the mistake
that only to the handful who hsten to him does the minister preach. The minister preaches
through all \/ho hear him and hear of him, through all whose lives are moulded by his truth,
and through his own life as a persuading power. Alas for the Go:.pel, if eloquence of language
is its main dependence, instead of the eloquence of thought, and the eloquence of life. We are
to stand instructed in this, too : that the best man is not always the one with the widest sphere
of influence ; a- we say, not the man who " does the most good "—that depends on other than
human efforts on the one hand, and on other than moral causes on' the other— but hei^ the best
man and the best minister, v/ho in his own sphere uniformly acts on the highest and the purest
prmciples. Prominent virtues often require elevation in order to their display ; but goodness
needs no elevation, nor any arrangement of lights to give it eff"ect : nor is it in anxiety lest it
should suffer by accident or decay. We cannot live in contact with it, without being aware of •
it, and without confessing to its excellence. It is a thought to be engraven on our souls to-night
that, in the long run, the pure motive carries the day with all that is worth securing. Circum-
stances may be untoward, but they are only circumstances ; something in a man himself may
hinder signal and successful action, but this is only an infelicity ; ultimately, goodness can be
neither obscured nor neglected, neither despised nor forgotten. By the degree of its purity of
motive, every ministry makes an impression as a something with no equal among the forces of
this life. Secularly said : " A man's strength is as the strength of lions, when his heart is
pure." Religiously said: "It is not you, but the Spirit of your Father, which sneaketh in
you."

Men and brethren, I find it easy thus to speak of others, and to others, in a common expe-
rience with myself; but I find it harder to become more personal as I conclude. Yet I trust
to an extension of your patience, as I speak of my own intentions as the one in charge of this
College. I have lived long enough to know that, in mental as in physical life, when nourish-
ment ceases, vitality fails ; hence the necessity of a constant addition of knowledge to the mind
that would inform and direct other minds. The teacher's mind, according to Dr. Arnold,
should be kept in the state of a running stream ; for, says he, " It is ill drinking out of a pond
whose stock of water is merely the remains of the long past rains of the winter and the spring,
evaporating and diminishing with every successive day of drought." It is my desire, there-
fore, to be the scholar of the best teachers, in order that I may be a teacher of the best
scholars this college can graduate. And in order to this, I desire to m dertake the work
to which I am called as an important duty, calling for a consecration as sincere and devout
as that expected in any other branch of the ministerial profession. In my place, I expect
to study " things that are lovely, and of good report," entering as heartily as I mLy be able
to enter into all that affects the interest, the honour, and the prosperity of the institutions

TRAINING FOR THE TIMES.

with which I stand connected ; but by no means neglecting what is special and personal in the
teachers' culture, that there be no neglect in that quarter, of the improvement of those who are
here to be taught.

And this is said not merely for its own sake, but for the sake of those whose professf.d
attendance here is for the study of theology. I wish it to be distinctly and permanently under-
stood, that it is expected of those who live here that they make study their business, and not
their by-play. I here and now take this opportunity to warn off from, these premises, those who
have it not in their heart of hearts to " scorn delights, and live laborious days " in earnest and
prayerful thought upon things divine. To any who are bent upon becoming amateur preachers
while yet in their novitiate ; to others who think they are presently called to the conduct of
exciting and exhausting services ; to any whose first and last thought is how to make a living,
or how to improve their worldly circumstances ; or, in a word, to any who have a divided mind,
and consequently a divided life in this place — in all Christian kindness, I say it — " I fear you
will not find il good to be here." This is not the place to try experiments in ; it is the place
of definite preparation for one arduous work, one day to be done ; it is the place in which to
think, to examine ; to be taught here to apply what is secured for the benefit of ot' ers — a place
of discipline, not of achievement ; a place for the sons of the prophets, not a cave for the
prophets themselves to rest in between their stonings ; a place like what Arabia seems to
have been to the newly-converted Paul, where in silence he made that mighty mind of his alert
and strong in the Gospel he ceased not to preach till, as Paul the aged, he stood ready to be
offered. The tr"th, to which he testified, not only struck him down on the way to Damascus,
but stood all his investigations before he began to preach it, and it sustained him in his lifelong
effort to make it known. But why need I cite Paul as secluded with the truth before he pro-
claimed it ? A greater than he. One, humanly-speaking, in less need of preparation to preach,
between His baptism and His proclamation of the kingdom, was for a while led of the Spirit
into seclusion : " And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led
by the Spirit into the wilderness." A'ter these words, " full of the Holy Ghost . . . led
by the Spirit into the wilderness," let no one plead a pious haste to preach as a reason for
neglecting preparation. Indeed one reason why so many in their preaching end in the
wilderness, may be that, unlike the Master, they do not begin in the wilderness and preach
themselves out of it ; they begin outside of it, and preach themselves into it.

Aware of the unpretentious character of this school, and of the denomination behind it,
because aware of their supreme design in the culture of individual souls, as distinguished from
an effort to erect and sustain great institutions or to sway a wide territory, in the quietness and
assurance of those who seek not so much the seen as the unseen, and who find their best life
not so fully in the temporal as in the eternal, let us, beloved, as directors, teachers and pupils,
begin the year's work, showing by our life here, our faith in the great principles we profess.

For my own part, I desire to begin near to Him of whom I read at daybreak, who said to
those wondering how any man could give the thousands aught to eat, " How many loaves have
ye ? " and they said " Seven." And He took them, and blessed and brake them, and gave
them back to the disciples to set before the people. And in like manner He blessed and used a
smaller number of fishes. And the people did eat, and were filled. Comparatively few our numbers^
small our means, little their variety ; but if He will ask for them, take them, bless them, break
them, give them to us again to set before the hungry souls whom we may reach, by the thousand
they may all eat, and be filled.

Commending myself to Him, to the considerate judgment of my directors and associates,
and to the affectionate respect of the studsnts, I assume the duties this night laid upon me,
and I ask the prayers ot all Christian people that I may discharge these duties aright.

CONGREGATIONAL COLLEGE, MONTREAL.