BV 45/0 UC-NRLF $B MftB Ifil - ^>;.:';^"-::^^y'^:'J 'SfB^^5^- '^<^'^G^W< '^^-/x^. A E .A. C3- Ij E S ' -W I IvT a- S PEES. /HOPKINS'S B^€€ALA¥EEATE BEFORE THE ©Lass @r RfTT-il^lT. i^D^'^'- /^C^, »^^)©^3^- EAGLES' WINGS BACCALAUREATE SERMON, DELIVERED AT W I L LI AM S T O WN ,' M S " •. -. J 6 » • O ' V^ AUGUST 1, 1858. BY MARK HOPKINS, D. D. President of 'Williams College. PUBLISHED BY KEQUEST OF THE CLASS. BOSTON: PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN & SON, 42 CONGRKSS STREET. 1 868. a • i 'nr' • • • • « , Entered ac<^{di9g.«a4et •< Congrttss.in ^be year 1858, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 3> SERMON. ISAIAH XL. 30, 31. EVEN THE YOUTHS SHALL FAINT AND BE WEARY, AND THE YOUNG MEN SHALL UTTERLY FALL : BUT THEY THAT WAIT UPON THE LORD SHALL RENEW THEIR STRENGTH ; THEY SHALL MOUNT UP WITH WINGS AS EAGLES ; THEY SHALL RUN, AND NOT BE WEARY ; AND THEY SHALL WALK, AND NOT FAINT. Have we then, here, an exception to the great law of decay 1 Is there any thing that begins to be, and grows, that does not reach an appointed limit, and then go back '? Is not the daily move- ment of the sun in the heavens the fit emblem of every living thing that he looks upon in his cir- cuit 1 He comes out of his chamber in the morn- ing ; he climbs the eastern sky ; he reaches his meridian height, and then declines to his setting. So it is with every blade of grass, with every shrub, with every tree ; so with every insect and animal, from the animalcule to the elephant ; so it is with the physical system of man, and so with his mental faculties. And not only do change and decay affect every organized being, but also the empires of men and their monuments, and even the face of nature itself. " And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place ; the waters wear the stones ; thou washest away the things that grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man." V Thrpughi^i^t .this universe nothing is at rest. 'Jliere is perwiaWncp -o.^ly fiorii change. The stability of the heavens is from their motion ; the permanence of our bodies is by constant waste and supply. Whether the movements in the heavens will be perpetual we know not, but in the march of life every step is towards death. The movement there ^ tends to a cessation, and that cessation is death. It is this certainty of decay that gives a tinge of sadness to the scenes that are the most full of life. In the deepest green of the mountain side, the pro- phetic eye sees the " sere and yellow leaf ; " in the gayest assembly of the young, it sees the gray hair and tottering age. But to this law we find in the text, and in the Bible generally, an exception. We are told that " the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day " — that " the righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger " — that " they shall go from strength to strength " — that " they shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run, and not be weary ; and they shall walk, and not faint." ^ So, likewise, the kingdom of Christ is not to be subject to the decays of other kingdoms. " Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end." " And the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all other kingdoms, and it shall stand for- ever." " His throne shall be established forever as / the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven." " His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away ; and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." Here, in those who wait on God, we have an alleged exception to the law of decay. What then is it to w ait on God 1 It is not to w^ait for him in an indolent passivity. It supposes that " all our springs are in him," and that there is an open channel of communication between him and us ; so that the resources of his omnipotence may flow^ in to us, and supplement our weaknesses and infirmities. Its elements are expectation and trust. It implies ends sought in sympathy with God, and a sense of dependence on him actively expressed. It is as when a captive, who cannot redeem himself, waits on and earnestly implores the help of one who can redeem him. We do not suffice to ourselves. On every side we are sur- rounded by agents and elements that we cannot control. Beset where we stand, opposed when we would go forward, we find ourselves powerless in the presence of obstacles and foes. Then we wait upon God ; our strength is renewed, and we go for- ward. Plainly, those " who wait on the Lord " are the same as " the just," " the righteous ;" and the doctrine is, that the moral and spiritual nature of man is an exception to every thing else on this earth ; and that moral goodness not only need not wane, but that it may have an uninterrupted progress. ^ To establish the doctrine just stated will be our first object ; and to do this, we must find the ground on which the exception is made. This is found in the very nature of moral goodness. Moral good- ness has its seat in the affections and the will, and y these do not so decay with the strength of the body and the power of the intellect, that that goodness is impaired. It is a brave and a beautiful thing, if indeed it be not rather sublime, when a man, in the fullness of health and of strength, is required to abjure his faith in Christ, and in the face of the tyrant he says boldly, and even defiantly. No. But when the inquisition puts its victim on the rack, and the power of endurance is tested to the utmost, and there remains only strength of mind to apprehend the question, and only strength of body to whisper the feeblest No, there is in that No, a power that is mighty in proportion to the very feebleness of its utterance. Yea, if we suppose any power of ap- prehension, and of expression even by the feeblest sign, to remain, the indication of firm principle and enduring affection and moral goodness can become strongest and most affecting only at the point where the powers of the body and of the mind flicker on the very verge of death, and at the moment when they go out in its darkness. The love of the Saviour for this world reached the crown- ing point of its expression only at the moment when he " bowed his head and gave up the ghost." In these cases the exhaustion and feebleness are indeed from torture, but the principle is the same in natural decay. Had the affections of that aged and dying Christian grown weaker as his powers decayed, who, when he was asked if he knew his friend who spoke to him, said, " No," — if he knew his children, " No," — if he knew his wife, " No," — if Jie knew the Lord Jesus Christ, " Yes," and a smile from heaven lighted up his countenance ; " Yes, he is all my hope." In such cases, the em- bers of a wasting animal life gather over the " vital spark of heavenly flame," and obscure it. It seems to be lost; but when it can be thus reached, as sometimes it may, it is seen to be all a-glow, and the light which it shoots up is but the brighter from the darkness out of which it comes. It is conceded that the strength of virtue and of trust are most tried in adversity, and when the nat- ural desires are thwarted. " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him," is the strongest possible expression of confidence. Let, then, the decay of the powers from age commence and go on, and let there be perfect acquiescence in this till their ap- parent cessation ; and how does the power of good- ness, as thus seen, difl'er from that which is seen in submission to a voluntary death, and in holding on, through exhaustion from torture, till the very end 1 The truth seems to be, that an accountable being, remaining such, can be placed in no circumstances in which moral goodness, the principle of duty, of submission, of faith, may not be brought into exer- cise ; and if exercised, then, by a natural law, must they be strengthened ; and the more difficult and trying the circumstances are, the more strength may be gained. It is through and in the very weakness of the natural powers, that the moral powers may show their strength. Only at the mo- ment of the seeming triumph of the tyrant, of disease, of decay, can humanity pay its highest homage to goodness and to God. In the struggles of men against evil and for the if 8 ri^lit, there is doubtless given the special and su- pernatural aid of God ; but, in addition to this, it would seem, from what has been said, that the exception made by the Scriptures to the great natu- ral law of decay, is itself sustained by a natural law. Having thus shown that there may be constant progress in moral goodness, we next inquire whether such progress is not a condition of the highest possible strength and perfection of the intellectual faculties. If we regard man simply as intellectual, will he not, both as an individual, and as a race, mount higher, in proportion as he cultivates his moral powers, and waits upon God \ This is a question that deeply concerns every scholar ; and that it should be answered rightly, is of much consequence, both because it lies at the basis of all right education, and of all true self- culture ; and because there is, to some extent, an impression that skepticism and wickedness are nat- urally associated with intellectual power. In what has been said it has been taken for granted, that the powers of the intellect really decay. This may be doubted. Of mind in its essence we know nothing, and of the laws of its connection with the body, very little. What seems decay may be from the body, and be only as a tem- porary drowsiness. Certain it is that the intellect- ual, are indispensable to the moral powers ; that in the nature and sphere of each, there is equally a provision for an indefinite progress ; and that the aged must be supposed to carry into another state, not the imbecility of a second childhood, but the 9 results of their mental, as well as of their moral action. Still, these powers do seem to decay ; between them and the moral powers, as has been shown, there is a broad distinction ; and what we say, in either case, is, that the condition of their highest attainment is the cultivation of the moral powers. That this is true we believe, first, because of the obstacles to intellectual growth and progress that would be removed by the ascendency of the moral powers. These obstacles are prejudice and vice, both of which are inseparable from the sway of pas- sion and appetite, and both of w^hich would disap- pear in the full ascendency of the moral powers. If prejudice may not be said to weaken the mental powers, it misdirects, perverts, and limits their ac- tion. The power of the eye is one thing ; a clear atmosphere is another. Prejudice is, to the mental eye, an indistinct, a colored, a distorting medium. But while prejudice misdirects, vice enfeebles, or wholly prevents the action of the intellect. From the drunkard, the glutton, the licentious man, the gambler, we do not look for continuous thought, or for any rich fruit of intellectual culture. They have the instincts and sagacity of the animal, heightened by their connection with rational pow- ers ; but they are engrossed by their vices, and their intellects have no range beyond the activity necessary for self-gratification. Through these vices much of the finest intellect of the race has been lost. And so it must be. If the swallow would fiy, its wing must not be draggled in the mud ; if the eagle would continue to mount up, 10 the animal that is sucking his blood must drop from imdcr his wing. / But that the intellect will be most successfully cultivated through the moral powers, appears, sec- ondly, because it is lower than those powers, and subordinate to them ; and because, in securing a higher good, we best secure that which is subordi- nate and lower. That the intellect is lower than the moral pow- ers appears, because it is conditional for their ac- tivity. And here we find a criterion which may be universally applied in determining, both in mat- ter and in mind, what agencies and powers are higher, and what are lower. Always that which is conditional for another thing, and so serves it, is lower than that thing. The foundation of a house is conditional for a house, and is lower, in more senses than one. It is indispensable, but of no value without something beyond itself. So of all the powers and agencies of inanimate matter. They are conditional for vegetable life, and are lower. So, again, vegetable is conditional for animal life, and it is lower ; so with the heart and the brain ; so with the body and the mind ; and so with the intellect and the moral powers. The intellect is conditional for choice and activity, in which are the end of man, but it does not choose. It does not even know ends, as such. It can judge of their attainability, and of the fitness of means ; but the apprehension and choice of an end, and especially, that highest act of the mind, the choice J of an ultimate end, belongs to a higher power. The inferiority of the intellect is also manifest, 11 because it is an instrumental and not a governing power. We cannot too carefully discriminate those pow- ers in us, by which we choose ends, from those that are merely instruments in their attainment. In the one is wisdom, in the other talent ; in the one is character, in the other capacity; in the one, the man himself acts in his whole being, and very person- ality ; in the other, the faculties play on the surface. The end is already chosen, and the whole work is simply executive. But, as has been said, the intel- lect does not choose. It is an axe, a saw, a hammer, >y a piece of machinery to be worked by a power back of itself. It is a Swiss mercenary, that may be enlisted in any cause, good or bad, and, as such, is inferior to the employing and directing power. It appearing thus that the intellect is lower than the moral powers, it remains to show that the well- being of that which is lower can be best attained only as we secure that of the higher. This was illustrated at length the last year, on an occasion similar to this. It was shown to be true of health, and pleasure, and wealth, and reputation, and fame ; and also that the principle implied is incorporated into all the works of God. It is a great law of nature, with as few exceptions as there are to most of her laws ; and we may fairly presume, till the contrary shall be shown, that the intellect is no exception. ~^ But again, that the intellect will be best culti- vated through the moral powers will appear, if we compare those powers with any other force by which it can be worked. 12 As has been said, the intellect must be worked by something back of it. It is as the muscle, that is nothing without the nerve ; and its efficiency will depend partly on original structure and on training, and partly on the power that lies behind. That power must be some instinct, tendency, appetite, passion, taste, feeling, some capacity of emotion or enjoyment ; and if we make a comparison among these, we shall find that the moral powers have the advantage, both in strength and continuance, and also in the unity and harmony that result from their working. ^ Man's nature is not a hive of faculties without a queen bee. It is not a mob. It is rather a com- monwealth where each has its place, and where there can be strength and continuance and har- mony of action only as the moral nature is made central, and as all move and cluster about that. s/ If any force can compare favorably with the moral nature, it must be ambition. But ambition refers, for its standard, to the opinions and attainments of others ; when it has gained its end, or become hopeless of gaining it, its efforts cease. Let that end be but gained, and it does not require the im- provement of time ; it knows nothing of working in harmony with God, and so nothing of healthy, symmetrical, beautiful growth and development, as good in themselves. It has no power of self- regulation, and so is often consuming and self- destructive. It puts the mind in conflict with itself, and makes it anxious for the result. It is selfish, repellant, and tends to isolation. That fol- lows here which follows always when the lower 13 faculty is disengaged from the higher, and ceases to act in its light. That which was intended to walk erect by holding on to something above it, becomes a serpent going upon its belly and eating dust. But the moral nature is stronger than ambition. It underlies all true heroism, all martyrdom, and, by uniting us to God, was intended to be the paramount and immortal force of our nature. Let this, then, lie back of intellectual effort, and we have a permanent, constant, self-regulating princi- ple, that will always bring the faculties up to the full glow of a healthful activity, and forbid them to go beyond. Now, the standard will be fixed, not with reference to others, but by capacity and opportunity. The mind will act in its unity, with no conflict of its higher and lower faculties, and with no fear of the result. Hence there will be, not only strength, but balance and completeness and order and beauty. Not only will there be har- mony among the faculties themselves, with no ten- dency to a repellency of others, or to isolation ; but it will be felt that the activity is with all, and for all. It will be felt to be a struggling towards that absolute perfection of one which is necessary to the perfection of all. y But whatever may be said of individuals, of com- munities there can be no doubt. The spiritual and moral elevation of a people would certainly secure their general enlightenment. It would not make every individual intellectual, but it would create a summer atmosphere for the quickening and growth of intellect, that would rest alike upon the hill-top and in the valley, and would solicit every latent f/ 14 capacity. The higher faculties would so strike down, and stimulate and appropriate the lower, that there would be, if not technical intellectual- ism, yet a broad, balanced, directive intelligence which would, as by instinct, bear society on to its right ends ; and in the light and under the stim- ulus of which, individual growth, whether humble or gigantic, would be most favored. Then would the necessity of toil be no longer a blessing to man by keeping him from mischief Leisure would be a blessing. A community let loose into that, would rise like a bird. Under the power of moral motives, leisure — the power to do what we please — would be equivalent to a college education, and the works of God would be to every man a univer- sity. Without these motives, even a college educa- tion becomes, within the limits of possible grad- uation, a systematic evasion of study, the works of God are a blank, and this furnished world becomes a pig-stye or a pandemonium. It is in the use to be made of its leisure, that the problem of the race lies. Who shall drain this bog] — hitherto a bog bearing weeds and sending up miasm — who shall drain it, and make it healthful and fruitful ? Tell me what is to be done with the leisure that a ma- chinery, gigantic and tiny, myriad-handed and half- reasoning, is beginning to give, and will yet give more fully to the race, and I will tell you what the destiny of the race will be. To the opportunities and facilities it will furnish, for intellectual and social elevation, there is scarcely a limit ; there is none to the sensuality and degradation which may grow from its abuse. But intellect in the service 15 of the passions tends downwards. Only from the sense of obligation and the free play of those spir- itual affinities by which we are united to God, will there be the broad light of an intellectual day. We conclude, then, that the higher intellectual power, whether of the individual or of the com- munity, can be reached only by waiting on God, and by the culture, through that, of the spiritual) and moral powers. If, now, it be inquired how the impression of intellectual power has come to be associated with skepticism and wickedness, an answer may be found, first, in the fields of literature and specu- lation commonly entered by the skeptical and licentious. These are those of imagination, wit, ridicule, and transcendental metaphysics. Often, pervaded by a sneer, and quietly assuming the false- ness of religion and the weakness or hypocrisy of those who profess it, we have, in novels, in poetry, in essays, a combination of all these. Their object, the last excepted, is not truth, but impression ; and this last is as yet so overrun with strange terms, so the common ground of truth, falsehood, and nonsense, each aping the profound, that it is difficult to say whether it is better as a hunting- ground for truth, or a stalking-ground for vanity, or a hiding-place for falsehood. That there is power in this literature, is not denied ; but the power of imagination, wit, assumption, and even of bathos, is not distinguished from that of fair and searching investigation. A second answer we find in the effect upon the ^ 16 mind of all irregular action, especially when com- bined with daring, or fool-hardiness. The utmost power of a horse, exerted in the true line of draft, will excite no attention. Half the power put forth in rearing and plunging, will draw a crowd about him. A cheap method of notoriety, the world over, is this rearing and plunging. Sam. Patch, leaping over Genessee Falls, could gather a greater crowd than Daniel Webster. The great powers of nature, those by which she wheels up her sun, and navigates her planets, and lifts vegetation, and circulates her waters, by which she holds her- self in her unity and manifests her diversity, are regular, quiet, within the traces of law, and excite no attention. Here and there the quiet eye of a philosopher expands in permanent wonder, but from the very fact, the greatest w^onder of all, that these forces are so clothed in order and tempered with gentleness, they are to the multitude nothing. Not so with volcanoes and earthquakes, with hurri- canes and thunder-storms, with water-spouts and cataracts. These are irregular manifestations of the great forces that lie back of them. Compared with those forces, they are only as the eddy to the river ; only as the opening of the side-valve and the hiss of the steam compared with the force of the engine that is bearing on the long train ; and yet these are the wonders of the world. So with the mind. When it respects order and law, when it seeks the ends and moves in the channels appointed by God, its mightiest and most benefi- cent movements excite comparatively little atten- tion. But combine now irregularity with audacity ; 17 open a side valve ; assail the foundations of belief; make it impossible for God to work a miracle, or to prove it if he should ; turn history into a myth ; show your consciousness of power by setting your- self against the race ; flatter the nineteenth cen- tury ; dethrone God ; if you make the universe God, yourself being a part of it, so much the better, — do thus, and there will not be wanting those who will despise the plodders, and hail you as " the coming man." -^ y I have thus endeavored to show, first, that moral goodness is the only exception, on this earth, to the law of decay ; and, secondly, that it is the condition of the highest intellectual power, both for the individual and the race. In the light of these propositions we may see, first, what must be the essential elements in the promised kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. They must be righteousness and knowledge. So says the prophet. " The people shall be all right- eous : they shall inherit the land forever." " And the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the eft'ect of righteousness, quietness and assurance /> forever." " And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation." This gives the line and order of eff'ort for all who would labor for Christ. Not for an unintelligent piety — well-meaning, but blundering — are they to labor; not for a superstition without knowledge, calling itself righteousness, but weak, sentimental and showy — bolstered up by the fine arts and wire- pulled by a hierarchy ; not for knowledge without 18 righteousness, sensualized, self-conceited and pre- sumptuous ; but for a combination of righteousness and knowledge working together like the warmth and the light, every where pervading society in its free, oceanic, and multitudinous action, and building it up into the order and beauty of heaven. r In the second place you, my Beloved Friends of the Graduating Class, will see what you are to do in carrying out your own education. That education you have, I trust, entered upon not wholly from worldly ends, but with some reference to the state of your permanent being, and to an im- mortal progress. For it, many of you have made sac- rifices, and have applied yourselves laboriously and faithfully. That education is but begun. Probably you have never felt more painfully than now the limitations, the inadequacy, the relative nothing- ness of your knowledge. If you have any thing of the spirit of the instructions you have received, of the spirit of a scholar and of a true man, what- ever profession or business you may follow, you will give a portion of your time to the cultivation of learning, and the acquisition of mental power. Grow, my friends ; seek to grow. But as a condi- tion of a growth that shall be permanent, healthful, symmetrical, do not ignore that interaction of the higher and lower powers which is like that of the leaves and the trunk of the tree. As in that, elaboration, assimilation and ultimate growth are from above, so it is only through the higher moral nature that the sap of knowledge is converted into wisdom. If your chief sphere of study were to be the abstract sciences, cold, and passionless. 19 where, as in mathematics, the relations depend on no will, your moral state would be of less moment ; but your chief sphere is to be nature and man, where every thing is constituted by design, and where the key to the whole structure and to each particular department is to be found in ends and uses. Here love, trust, sympathy, will be stimu- lants of thought and elements of moral power. Nature is from God no less than mind. It was made for mind. It reflects the thoughts and feelings of God. It is understood only as the thoughts of God in it are reached, and it must be that, as we are in a right moral state, and in sym- pathy with God, we shall have a finer sense and a quicker sympathy on the side of nature. She will open herself to us more fully, and become, in a far higher sense, a companion and an educating power. But let now a man study nature with a scoffing spirit, and he must fail of insight. His stand- point will be wrong. Movements that are onward and beautiful when seen from the centre, will seem to him retrograde and perplexing. The sweetest voices of nature, her hymns, he cannot hear ; her highest beauties he cannot see, her profoundest teachings are to him mere babble. Jeers, sarcasm, fault-finding, exciting no enthusiasm, with no re- action on thought, with no element of satisfaction except as they minister to notoriety, will take the place of admiration, love, adoration, by which thought is naturally quickened and rewarded. Would you study the works of God, and your- selves as a part of those works, be in harmony with yourselves, and in sympathy with God. 20 But thirdly. Not only are you to educate yourselves, opening your minds to all light, and putting forth all effort, but directly and indirectly you will have much to do in educating the commu- nity, and you will see, in the light of this subject, your duty in that regard. You will neither form, nor encourage, any ex- travagant expectations from what is commonly called education. Not so will society grow up into its true life. If there be that above the intellect to which it ought to be subservient, but is not, then there will be a law of degradation even in its own activity. Education will become, either simply an accomplishment, or a drudge. It will do nothing towards removing the follies and weaknesses of society ; so that you will find, as we now do, com- munities claiming to be the most highly educated, pervaded, even more than others, with a credulity and a superstition that would have disgraced the days of witchcraft, but without the earnestness which saved those from being contemptible. This we may satirize and deplore, but, under the system, it can- not be helped. The only true method is that of our Saviour. Nothing now on the earth, or that ever has been, can compare with Christianity in its educat- ing power. "Wherever it has been in its purity, the standard of general education has always been highest. It is so now. You cannot have a pure Christianity without general education, while yet education, as such, is not the object of Christianity at all. Its educating power results solely from its reaching and controlling that which is highest, and from the necessary stimulus and rectification 21 through that, according to the principle laid down, of all that is lower. So has it wrought from the beginning ; so will it w^ork, and only in and through this can you work effectually. Hence one great blessing of those revivals of religion with which God has blessed our colleges — of that revival with which he has blessed us the past year, and for which we thank and adore him. Hence you will make, simply as educators, a capital mistake, if you do not seek to enthrone Christian- ity in all our seats of learning, and to extend and deepen its influence in every possible way. Hence no institution, not pervaded by Christianity, can do much in really educating and elevating the^ community. Finally, we see from this subject where lies the permanent strength and the true good of man. It is much to know, that there is any one thing on this earth that does not decay ; that while the body is constant only by change, and its identity is only similarity, there is in the mind a central point that is unchangeable, and an identity that is abso- lute. It is more to know that in this we find our true selves, that by this we are allied to God. This takes us out of the sphere of that law of uniformities, in the light of which we have hitherto chiefly regarded this subject, and brings us into that of free personalities. Made in the image of God, allied to him as personal and free, we have faculties, call them moral, call them spiritual, by which we apprehend him, and through which we become receptive of influences from him. These influences imply no inspiration of particular truths 22 as to prophets and seers, but are open to the race. They come as the tide to the stranded vessel that gradually surrounds it, and lifts it up, and bears it into the depths and boundlessness of its appro- priate element. By these influences, respecting the laws of our freedom, and the bounds of our individuality, the Spirit of God enlightens, sus- tains, purifies, exalts us, and makes us partakers of his own blessedness. This is the Scripture doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, that last link in the work of human salvation, by which, all incompatibilities of justice and mercy having been removed, the law becomes written in the heart, and we are brought to rest in the activity of a full and unceasing complacency in a holy and infinite God. Thus God himself becomes the portion of the soul. Thus do we enter into the " fullness of him that filleth all in all." Beyond this, nothing of good can be conceived of. This is our rest — our ultimate goal. This it is that we yearn after ; in the congruity of this to the mind, and in the deep, conscious want of it, it is that we find the solution of those enthusiasms, and extravagancies, and distortions of the religious nature, which have made religion a by-word. These suppose a capacity and need of communion with God just as insanity supposes reason, and they will cease only when that communion returns. Do you, my friends, accept this doctrine 1 Will you accept it practically ] Will you open the way for the coming into your own souls of divine light and divine help ? Will you put away sin ? This is the one condition of a pure light and a 23 true elevation. You must begin with the heart, for only the pure in heart can see God, and only as we see him, and in his light, can we see all other things in their true proportions. Will you then open yourselves fully to the light of the divine teachings, and to the intimacy of a divine communion 1 (Not only morally, but intellectually, will the answer to this question be the turning point in your destiny. The question involved in this doctrine of a divine communion and help, is the cardinal one for the race. At every point this doctrine meets not only our weaknesses and wants, but also our sinfulness, and so transcends all trans- cendentalism, and all possible philosophies and devices of man. It is not merely a philosophy, but a redemption and a remedy, a companionship and a portion. Without this doctrine, man is but a waif upon the waters, a severed branch that must perish. With it, he is united to God, and so there is nothing too great for him to hope. With it, the figure of the text — "they shall mount up with wings as eagles " — is fully justified. See the eagle as he leaves his perch. He flaps his broad wings, and moves heavily. Slowly he lifts himself above the horizon, till the inspiration of a freer air quickens him. Now there is new lightning in his eye, and new strength in his pinions. See — how he mounts ! Now he is midway in the heavens. Higher he rises — still higher. Now his broad circles are narrowing to a point — he is fading away in the deep blue. Now he is but a speck. Now he is gone. To the eye of sense, and for the pur- pose of the figure, it is an endless, upward flight. 24 Such a flight, my dear friends, may be yours ; but only as you yield yourselves to be upborne by an all-encompassing and an omnipotent Love. You are, inSeed, youths, the very youths spoken of in the text ; for this word is for all ages ; but in the dusty and thronged ways of life you will faint and be weary. Yes, the hours will come when you will be, O, how weary ! You are young men ; but the strength of nature will depart, and, relying only on this, you shall utterly fall. Only " the Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth," who " fainteth not, neither is weary," can gird you for the coming conflict and sustain you. Wait upon Him, and you " shall mount up with wings as eagles ; you shall run, and not be weary ; and you shall walk, and not faint." In addressing to you this parting counsel, in which all is thus seen to depend upon God, I am permitted to address, as one of you, my own son. I rejoice that he has been one of you. And now, with the most pleasing recollections of the past, cherishing for you all the spirit of a father, com- mending you all to that God who alone is able to keep and to guide you, I close by addressing to him and to you the words of one of old, who was also a father. " And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind : for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts : if thou seek him, he will be found of thee ; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off forever." 14 DAY USE i RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. RENEWALS ONLY— TEL. NO. 642-5405 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to imniediate recall. 1 lUL 1 1 1970 5 9 FEC'DLD JULl 370 -SAMS 2 ! J LD21A-60m-3,'70 (N53828l0)476-A-32 General Library University of California Berkeley G«ylord Bros., Inc. Stockton, Calif. T.IM. Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. IV1114245 U6 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY