f
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE 
 COMMEMORATION SERMON 
 
 PREACHED IN 
 
 THE COLLEGE CHAPEL, 
 DECEMBER 15, 1838, 
 
 REV. WILLIAM WHEWELL, B.D. 
 
 FELLOW AND TUTOR.
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 THE MASTER, 
 FELLOWS, AND SCHOLARS 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE, 
 
 BY THEIR DEVOTED AND AFFECTIONATE SERVANT 
 
 THE PREACHER. 
 
 2111269
 
 SERMON, 
 
 HEBREWS III. 13. 
 
 Exhort one another daily* while it is called To-day. 
 
 IN this as in other respects, the precepts of our 
 Divine Master and his inspired followers are most wise 
 and kind ; that they do not command us each to 
 sustain his better feelings and hopes by the solitary 
 strength of his own soul alone ; but they direct us to 
 assist each other in this task by mutual converse and 
 exhortation. If we were left each to himself; if we 
 stood apart from each other, with no recognition of a 
 common interest and common sympathy in the great 
 ends of our being ; it might well be that all of us, in 
 some dark or some thoughtless moment, might find our 
 convictions waver, our strong resolves bend, our bright 
 hopes grow dim, our patience fail, our love wax cold. 
 But instead of this, we are bidden to exhort one ano- 
 ther : and the cheering and warning voice of a brother, 
 thus heard in exhortation, may dissipate the brooding 
 shadows, and restore us to our better selves. But still 
 more ; even when we feel no such trouble of the spirit 
 and sinking of the heart ; when all participate in the 
 same feelings and affections ; when like thoughts are 
 passing through the minds of a whole society, and
 
 need but to be expressed, to be cordially assented to 
 by all ; still more, under such circumstances, is it a 
 gracious and gladdening command that we should 
 exhort one another; that some one should be ap- 
 pointed, by some convenient rule, who may give a voice 
 to the common sentiment ; may utter reflections such 
 as all may acknowledge for their own, or at least may 
 admit as reasonable and fitting ; that some one, im- 
 pelled and sustained by the responsibility of such an 
 office, should endeavour to say, in however inadequate 
 a manner, a word in season. 
 
 And as the general commands of the first teachers 
 of our faith direct us to such a course, the special 
 arrangements of the institution to which we belong, 
 urge it upon us in a more peculiar manner. For we, 
 who continue, in our maturer years, to belong to and 
 abide in this Christian community, are called upon by 
 its ordinances, on this and on other occasions, to offer, 
 in this sacred place, a word of exhortation, each in 
 his turn to the others. The various solemnities of the 
 Christian year, and the sure and constant progress by 
 which one year follows another, bring to us in suc- 
 cession such tasks as I have now to execute ; invest 
 us for a time with the office of monitor ; make it our 
 place to endeavour " to provoke you to love and good 
 works." Above all, on this day it is our business to 
 invite you to the love and the good works, which have 
 for their object this community in which we live, this 
 institution of which the interests are committed to our 
 hands, this family of which we are members. We 
 stand here, as many have for centuries before us stood, 
 as many others, we trust, of generations yet unborn, 
 shall hereafter stand, to remind you of the blessings
 
 bestowed on and through this College ; perhaps to 
 point out grounds why we may admire and rejoice in 
 its fortunes ; but also to speak of reasons why we 
 should be earnest in performing the duties which 
 our relation to the society imposes upon us. He who 
 thus for a passing anniversary has to preach the claims 
 of this College, may well feel that there is something 
 solemn in such an office, by which he is called upon 
 to take his place, for a brief and transitory moment, 
 in a succession extending through ages, and dealing 
 with the interests and character of a body which sur- 
 vives so many generations of those who are the organs 
 of its utterance. The house to which we belong 
 stands stedfast from century to century ; but we who 
 are for the time its ministers and representatives pass 
 rapidly away, like the leaves of the forest. One race 
 succeeds another, as youth rises to manhood, and man- 
 hood declines into age : and every return of this occa- 
 sion reminds us how little share we have personally in 
 the permanence of which we love to boast as a body. 
 Those whom we have been accustomed to look upon with 
 regard, and listen to with delight, are smitten down 
 upon the bed of sickness; and one by one, sooner or 
 later, melt away from among us. The voice that is 
 now lifted up in your service will, in a few years at 
 the most, be heard no more in these walls ; and other 
 tongues than ours shall discourse, and other hands 
 shall labour, and other heads shall busy themselves, 
 on behalf of that body which we now so fondly 
 identify with ourselves. But which of us gathers from 
 such reflections any other lesson than this ; that 
 while we are yet here, while time and power, while 
 thought and voice are granted us, we should use the
 
 8 
 
 gifts to the honour and service of the gracious Giver ; 
 and, as one main part of such a lesson, that we should 
 employ those faculties in animating each other to such 
 labours, and such a frame of mind, as best may further 
 the purposes of this society, by which we are connected 
 with each other, with the past and with the future. 
 If our time here be short, the greater is the rea- 
 son why we should use it well. If no revolutions of 
 years perhaps may again bring back this office to us, 
 it well becomes us to discharge it with a serious faith- 
 fulness. To us the injunction of the Apostle in the 
 text comes charged with a peculiar significance : 
 " Exhort one another, while it is called To-day." 
 
 The occasion which now assembles us, the com- 
 memoration of those who have benefitted and those 
 who have graced this College, might perhaps to some 
 persons appear to furnish occasion of pride. For 
 assuredly it is no poor or ignoble company with which 
 we are thus led to associate ourselves; no pale or 
 "scanty rays of glory are they, according to the estimate 
 of human vision, which beam from the laurelled brows 
 of our predecessors. Of great men who have been sent 
 upon earth, the foremost for acute and penetrating 
 intellect, for deep and comprehensive thought, have 
 moved familiarly through our courts, and worshipped 
 habitually within these walls. And with these, no 
 small company of those who, engaged in active life, 
 have swayed the minds of others ; and a sacred band 
 of those who have discharged a far more precious 
 service, studying the commands of God, and making 
 them better known to men. And if the powers 
 and gifts of these our ancestors descended to us by 
 inheritance, and became a part of our own means and
 
 9 
 
 ability, we might well rejoice ; and might be not 
 indeed proud, for pride is not the passion which such 
 endowments inspire, but glad, that such noble talents 
 were committed to our trust. But when we look back 
 upon the former times and former tenants of this Col- 
 lege, may we not rather feel, how vast the disparity is 
 which separates us from them ; how little fit we are to 
 stand in their place ; how unworthy to support the 
 name which they have borne ! 
 
 Who among us is so extravagant as to imagine 
 that men in future times shall speak of us as we now 
 speak of them ? A few years ago it chanced that 
 journeying in a remote part of this land, I found the 
 tomb of one who had been in former days a member 
 of this our household, and a dweller within its walls. 
 And on the funeral stone it was inscribed that the 
 time of his abode here was that of Barrow and of 
 Newton. Those names were, even in their own day, 
 taken as the marks of a great epoch; while we must 
 reckon our years, not by annals in which other names 
 are placed as the successors of theirs, but by measuring 
 our distance from them. And if we have ceased, not 
 only to resemble such men in our powers, but to share 
 in the spirit with which they pursued their course; 
 if we can scarcely comprehend the writings on which 
 their fame rests; if we think it much to pursue feebly, 
 scantily, and for worldly purposes, some one branch of 
 those studies which they, with unquenchable energy 
 and generous prodigality of labour, followed over the 
 whole field of literature and science ; if we are im- 
 patient of intellectual exertion and constraint, and 
 rebellious against that training of the intellect by 
 which we become capable of understanding, at least,
 
 10 
 
 the labours of their minds ; if any part of this be so, 
 we may well acknowledge, that we have, in the recol- 
 lection of such names as have been mentioned, small 
 cause for exultation and pride. 
 
 In truth, we then only draw, from these and the 
 like recollections, the proper lesson, when we allow 
 them to teach us, not pride, but humility. That lesson 
 lies at the threshold of all genuine excellence. With- 
 out that temper, our weaknesses and defects are not 
 only manifest, but ridiculous. And so, without doubt, 
 those persons have constantly felt, who have been best 
 able to comprehend the real merits and achievements 
 of the most gifted of the men whose names stand on 
 our records. Those who have most fully meditated 
 on the profound reason, the wide research, the sure 
 sagacity, the pure aims and steady purposes of the 
 great men of the past, have risen from the contempla- 
 tion with reverent, not with exulting minds. They 
 have felt awed, as brought into the presence of 
 superiors; not elate, like some weak man unworthily 
 admitted into an illustrious company. Far from us 
 be it, to allow any thought of pride or self-compla- 
 cency to arise in our minds on account of any former 
 merits or excellencies of the society to which we 
 belong. We can only feel that such things increase 
 the weight of responsibility which rests upon us, not 
 our ability to bear it. They elevate the standard with 
 which we ought to compare ourselves, but they make 
 us conscious how far we fall below its full measure. 
 
 To all men of clear and sober minds, any lustre 
 which may have adorned this College, any reputation 
 which it may have enjoyed, is a matter of grave re- 
 flection indeed ; a thought to animate and point
 
 11 
 
 their exertions, to dispel all levity and indolence ; but 
 assuredly not to inspire any overweening self-opinion, 
 or insolence of spirit. If such dispositions arise in 
 any breasts, it must be in those of the most thought- 
 less and ignorant only: of those who, full perhaps of 
 the new pleasure of the admiration of intellectual 
 greatness, are yet so unaware of its real nature, that 
 they deem they may at once, without merit or labour 
 of their own, expect to share in the superiority which 
 it bestows; who imagine that the deference which 
 men willingly pay to excellence, when it appears with 
 its genuine attributes, may be claimed by all who 
 stand within the circle in which it has dwelt. There 
 is a satisfaction, it seems, for light and vulgar minds, 
 in the persuasion that they possess some title in virtue 
 of which they may look down on those around them; 
 may assume that, although untried themselves and un- 
 approved, they have acquired a latent power of judging 
 of what is good and bad ; may deem that a few de- 
 preciating words from their lips, destroy at once the 
 merit of the patient labours and disciplined exertions 
 of all who belong not to themselves. But we need 
 not stop to point out how idle and shallow, how in- 
 experienced and foolish, this temper is ; how far 
 different is the tone of thought of those who have 
 really engaged in the successful exertions of the mind 
 or the grave researches of solid learning. To the 
 genuine student, of whatever kind of knowledge, every 
 one who has given his strength to similar pursuits is 
 a friend and a brother. And narrow indeed must his 
 views be, and scanty his progress, who has not yet 
 advanced so far as to discover, that in every quarter 
 where there are earnest students and lovers of excel-
 
 12 
 
 lence, there are persons to whom he must look with 
 deference and respect; acknowledging his own in- 
 feriority, and perceiving, with humiliating clearness, 
 that a long series of strenuous efforts and laborious 
 vigils, not the contagion of the excellencies of wiser and 
 more accomplished persons among whom his lot may 
 be cast, is requisite to make him feel himself, not the 
 superior, but the equal of those whom the conditions 
 of a liberal education place about him as his rivals and 
 fellow students. 
 
 But passing over these possible follies of youth, 
 which, if ever they occur, the sobering influences of 
 age and of action must soon expel, let us look at 
 our own position and duties ; at the claims of this our 
 fostering mother, beneath whose sheltering wing we 
 live. For assuredly she has claims and we have duties. 
 We are not here that we may live for ourselves alone. 
 We may not persuade ourselves that we have nought 
 to do but to repose and to enjoy; that our sole 
 business with the concerns of this our abode is to cull 
 from them what may best minister to our comfort and 
 caprice. And we, especially, who are not, like the 
 rest, transient sojourners here, but are connected with 
 this our home by closer and more lasting ties, and 
 have made it our fixed habitation ; we may not forget 
 that this body looks, and has a right to look, for such 
 labours, such a spirit, such a regulation of our conduct, 
 as may enable it to answer the ends of its institution, 
 not for our time only, but from age to age. We are 
 not permitted to consider ourselves as those whose 
 task is finished; whose labours are over; who, in their 
 season, with strong arm and sharp sickle, have reaped 
 the harvest, and may now sleep upon the sheaves. To
 
 13 
 
 none among men is such a lot assigned, and least of 
 all to ns. All have an allotted sphere of duty, which 
 includes the regulation of their internal affections, as 
 well as of their outward deeds. This our family claims 
 from us our service, not in formal acts only, but a 
 ready and habitual devotion of our thoughts to its in- 
 terests ; a willing regard, ever watchful to discover 
 how its aims may be furthered, its spirit sustained, its 
 perils averted. It is our business to exclude and re- 
 press, as far as may be, even all semblance of evil ; all 
 wickedness and temptation, waste and excess, reckless- 
 ness and riot. It belongs to us, to all of us, to exercise 
 a mild but unrelaxing superintendance, which may 
 sober and restrain the levity of the thoughtless. If 
 we refuse to do this, if we indolently or weakly neglect 
 the functions which our position assigns to us, we un- 
 avoidably erect the caprice and self-will of others 
 into masters over us; and, abdicating an authority, 
 willingly acknowledged because obviously just and 
 salutary, we encourage assumptions the most wanton 
 and foolish, the most inconsistent with the constitu- 
 tion of a place of instruction and discipline. For such 
 objects it becomes us to be ready with our exertions, 
 and, if need be, with our sacrifices. Above all it is fit 
 for us to be ready with our small sacrifices; for, these 
 duly paid, the larger will seldom be needful. It is for 
 us, by mutual kindness and forbearance, by such 
 habits of intercourse as become members of the same 
 family, by bearing each other's burthens, by sympathis- 
 ing with each other's joys and sorrows, to inspire a 
 mutual confidence with regard to small matters as well 
 as great, and thus to diffuse a social sunshine through 
 the atmosphere of our courts and halls.
 
 14 
 
 While I say these things, I know that I only ex- 
 press the hahitual conviction of those who hear me ; 
 and that the only fear is, lest I should seem to be 
 asserting that which no one doubts, and urging that 
 which is already present to all your minds. But with 
 the feelings which here prevail among us, how can he 
 whose task it is, on such a day as this, to exhort you, 
 hope to find any train of thought which shall possess 
 the grace of novelty. When we, on such an occasion, 
 speak of the glories of this our home, we suppose not, 
 in so doing, that any of its children have forgotten its 
 splendours : and when on the like occasion we dwell 
 upon our duties, just as little do we admit the thought 
 that any are unmindful of those, or careless in their 
 fulfilment. But how can we more profitably employ 
 the opportunity thus put in our hands, than by im- 
 pressing upon our own mind and upon yours those 
 great maxims of our conduct with regard to our so- 
 ciety, upon which its welfare and credit essentially 
 depend, and which can never be too deeply engraven 
 in our breasts or too constantly present to our thoughts. 
 But while we thus make this day the occasion of 
 calling to mind the principles by which we may best 
 guide our conduct in smaller matters, let us not neglect 
 to turn our attention to a wider field; to considera- 
 tions which do not affect merely the details and the 
 temper of our intercourse with each other, but the 
 great purposes of our institution, and the offices which 
 we have to discharge in the social system of our coun- 
 try. What are those purposes? In one word, our 
 office is Education : but to distinguish that form of 
 instruction which is our peculiar concern, from the 
 various other modes in which, in various conditions
 
 15 
 
 and circumstances, the youth of this country are 
 trained, we term ours peculiarly and emphatically a 
 Liberal Education. And what is the leading charac- 
 ter of the idea which we thus endeavour to convey ? 
 Various, perhaps, in various minds, and vague, it may 
 be, at best, still this, I think, all will feel to be im- 
 plied in the phrase ; that those who are partakers of 
 such an education are to be made to participate in the 
 influence of all the development and progress, the 
 refinement and enlargement, to which the human 
 mind, in its happiest and most favoured seasons, has 
 attained. It is not because any one is profoundly 
 versed in the records of ancient learning, or because 
 he is familiar with the discoveries of modern art or 
 science, that we deem him liberally educated. It is 
 because he knows, of ancient literature, that which 
 enables him to understand and to sympathise with 
 those noble efforts of thought and imagination, by 
 which Greece and Rome became, and have continued 
 up to the present day, the mistresses and models of 
 the civilized world : and again, because he has accom- 
 panied the course of those more recent triumphs of a 
 severer intellectual power, in virtue of which the last 
 two centuries must for all future ages continue to be 
 the leaders and teachers of all nations in the know- 
 ledge of material nature. A liberal education is that 
 which, so far as the progress of taste and thought and 
 real knowledge are concerned, connects the past with 
 the present and the future. And those who enjoy the 
 inestimable advantages of such an education are the 
 instruments, graced and honoured by their office, as 
 well as by their possessions, of diffusing through the 
 present race of men, and transmitting to the next
 
 generation, all the best consequences of the intellec- 
 tual exertions of man, from the first dawn of letters 
 up to the present time. Happy and privileged beings ! 
 For them the historian reflected and laboured that 
 he might deliver to posterity an imperishable treasure. 
 For them the poet breathed sweet strains and lofty 
 thoughts into his undying verse. For them the ma- 
 thematician bent over his diagram while the storm 
 of war thundered unheeded at his door. For them 
 the astronomer has outwatcht the Bear, on the plains 
 of Chaldea, or in the palaces of Europe. All this 
 has been done, that they may learn, not without 
 labour and exertion indeed, but with a labour and 
 exertion, how small compared with the value of its 
 results ! that they may learn, what noble faculties 
 man possesses, of what exaltation his thought is 
 capable, what pleasures of the mind his bountiful 
 Creator has provided for him, what boundless pro- 
 spects he has thrown open to his gaze. This he 
 learns : and having learnt this, he cannot but feel 
 that it is his business to take care that this precious 
 inheritance be not, by his fault, lost or damaged. 
 The past is our benefactor, to which we can render 
 no return : but how can we help wishing to repay 
 to the future the vast debt we have incurred? How 
 can we avoid attempting to extend blessings which 
 we so highly value? The torch which was lighted in 
 early Greece, has been passed from hand to hand till it 
 is placed in our grasp : shall we arrest its progress, or 
 hide it in the shade; and not rather trim its flame, 
 and hand it on rejoicing to those who come after us ? 
 
 The whole of the past is our teacher ; and it is 
 our proper business to transmit its lore to the future,
 
 17 
 
 augmented by the best lessons which the present can 
 add. The literature of the ancient world has been 
 the means of enlarging and refining men's minds up to 
 the modern times. The science of the modern world 
 will be one of the great means of still further ex- 
 panding men's thoughts and unfolding their intellects. 
 As surely as we owe our mental cultivation to Ho- 
 mer and Sophocles, Plato and Cicero, so surely will 
 future ages have their minds directed and animated 
 by those vast and penetrating views of nature which 
 have been opened to them by those whose images 
 now stand near us, and whose names are inscribed on 
 our walls. As surely as our reason is still sharp- 
 ened and methodized by the influence of Socrates and 
 Aristotle, so surely must men now seek the highest 
 discipline of the reason through an acquaintance with 
 the powerful intellectual instruments by which the 
 more recent advance of truth has been effected. 
 
 To neglect to make these subjects part of our 
 liberal education, to confine ourselves to the labours 
 of the ancient world, would be to mistake, almost to 
 betray, our office. If the education which we here 
 encourage be such as to employ the student among 
 the literature of the past only, and to leave his 
 mind uninformed with those processes of rigorous 
 reasoning, those vast yet solid generalisations of na- 
 tural laws, which form the peculiar acquirements of 
 modern times; we shall deserve the reproach which 
 is sometimes cast upon us, of employing men's minds 
 upon verbal trifling and obsolete speculations ; we 
 shall be chargeable with stopping, so far as we are 
 concerned, the progress of the human mind. Our 
 education will not only be grievously defective in
 
 18 
 
 what it does not give; but that which it gives will 
 be deprived of its main value ; will lose its proper 
 place and signification, as one of the elements of the 
 civilization and intellectual advancement of the hu- 
 man family. 
 
 But there is another observation which I must 
 make before I conclude. Our education, as we have 
 said, ought to be such as shall connect the past and 
 the present with the future ; as shall be fitted for 
 its office in the progressive course to which man is 
 by his Maker destined. And there is still one view 
 in which this connection may be considered, far more 
 important, and more deeply interesting to us than 
 any other. It is this : Our education ought to be 
 such, as shall connect each man's Present with his 
 eternal Future; as shall prepare him for that ele- 
 vation of his nature to which he is, here and here- 
 after, called. The 'same Divine Ruler of man, who 
 directs the career of successive generations on earth 
 in the pursuit and attainment of beauty and truth, 
 invites us also to aim at a more glorious beauty, a 
 holier truth. He places before us, as our highest 
 object, that we should seek to draw near to Him, 
 and rise towards Him in this life ; in order that in 
 a future and higher state of being, we may see Him 
 as He is, and may find eternal life and joy in His 
 presence. This is a progressive aspect of our nature 
 which it would be indeed strange if we should for- 
 get, when we are considering what the training of 
 man ought to be. Our education would be most 
 incomplete, would be far other than truly liberal, if, 
 while shaping itself by man's intellectual progress, it 
 should forget his spiritual growth : if, knowing him
 
 19 
 
 to be destined to another stage of being, it should 
 treat him as if he were confined to this: if, pre- 
 paring his mind to respond to the loftiest strains of 
 poetry and the sublimest views of science, it should 
 never look forwards to the time when he is to learn 
 the songs of angels, and to know even as he is 
 known. 
 
 No education can be liberal which is not also 
 religious. It may not be necessary that doctrine or 
 interpretation in a systematic shape should form a 
 part of its scheme ; but the religious nature of man 
 must be recognised ; his spiritual hopes and privileges, 
 his dangers and his refuge, must not be kept out of 
 sight. If these did not exist, how mean and narrow, 
 how dark and wretched, would be the human destiny, 
 in spite of the progress of art and knowledge and 
 thought from age to age ! If these do exist, and yet 
 are never spoken of among us ; if we never look to 
 each other for sympathy in 7 the midst of these glorious 
 prospects, these awful perils, these gracious promises; 
 how cold and dull must our hearts be ; or else how 
 lamentably must we be bound and chained, checked 
 and silenced, by the fetters which we have made for 
 ourselves ! If we willingly meet together, and dis- 
 course, and teach, on matters of human learning and 
 knowledge, but hear and utter no expression of our 
 religious hopes and feelings, no word of exhortation 
 or sympathy with regard to our eternal concerns ; 
 how shall we, old or young, retain those subjects in 
 our thoughts, with their due force and influence ? 
 
 To this it may be replied, that our daily worship 
 does afford the means of our uniting in the common 
 expression of the feelings which belong to our religious
 
 20 
 
 condition. And far be it from us to depreciate the 
 value and advantages of that excellent institution of 
 daily prayer, by which the members of a Christian 
 family like this, acknowledge their dependence upon 
 and trust in their Divine Master. Yet, even pos- 
 sessing this, many may feel that something still is 
 wanting ; that to be led by stated ordinances to 
 express to each other, and to these our younger bre- 
 thren who surround us, the thoughts of Christian 
 hope and fear, which, by the help of God's Holy 
 Spirit, may arise in our hearts, and which assume a 
 clearer shape when we consider ourselves as called 
 upon to address others, might be salutary to all. So 
 long as this is not done, it may easily be that many 
 of those who sojourn for a time among us, rarely or 
 never hear the word of Christian admonition, which, to 
 most minds, gives a greater reality and impressiveness 
 to all Christian ordinances. And thus it may come 
 to pass, that the heart, though not at first alienated 
 from religious thoughts, may become careless and 
 callous, stony and dead, to all spiritual concerns. 
 If from time to time the voice of the preacher of 
 practical piety were heard within these walls on our 
 Sabbaths, might not many a bosom swell with reli- 
 gious emotions, which are now locked up in the breast 
 by the surrounding chill and silence? Might not 
 many a warning be uttered and take effect, many a 
 virtuous resolution be formed and fulfilled, many a 
 soul be turned to the way of salvation ? May we not 
 apply here the remainder of the passage which forms 
 our text : " Exhort one another daily while it is 
 called to-day, lest any of you be hardened through the 
 deceitfulness of sin" ? In short, forming, as we do,
 
 a Christian community, united by social worship, 
 might not the other ordinances of Christian societies 
 be here attended with the same blessings which are 
 elsewhere, by means of them, sought? 
 
 I have uttered this inquiry with no fear that I 
 shall therefore be deemed presumptuous by any ; well 
 knowing that all of us, those who may approve and 
 those who may disapprove of such a suggestion, have 
 still deeply at heart the good of this our Sion : and 
 that none will doubt that whatever counsel is now 
 offered, is given in the spirit of love. We need no 
 assurances from each other that this our home is 
 regarded by us with a strong and steady affection. 
 Endeared to all of us as the place where some of our 
 most precious mental treasures have been acquired, 
 some of our dearest friendships formed; fragrant 
 with the recollections of pleasant, and, we trust, of in- 
 structive hours ; how can we do other than look upon 
 it with pleasure and regard? We think with joy 
 and gratitude upon this scene, where our imagination 
 was disciplined, our. love of excellence fixed, our views 
 of literature and knowledge expanded. But this 
 place may have, and we trust to many of us has, a still 
 higher claim upon our gratitude and love. It may 
 be the place where not only the intellectual but the 
 spiritual man has been built up. It may be the 
 spot where the thought of our eternal destination 
 was awakened in us, or established, or carried into 
 practical effect. It may be the place where we have 
 not only preferred the exertions and enjoyments of 
 the mind to the gratifications of sense and vanity, 
 but have lived among heavenly as well as earthly 
 thoughts; where we have secured, not only dear
 
 22 
 
 and valued friends below, but a most kind and gra- 
 cious friend in heaven ; where we have not only 
 learnt to find, in literary tastes, a refuge from 
 the turmoil and care of the world, but have sought 
 also a surer refuge from the sin and death which 
 surround us, in the satisfaction of Jesus Christ and 
 the promise of his Holy Spirit. 
 
 If this be our case, we have indeed double and 
 sevenfold reason to join, with earnestness and grati- 
 tude, in the prayers and wishes which all are ready 
 to give to the welfare of this our beloved College. 
 " O pray for the peace of Jerusalem : they shall pros- 
 per that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and 
 plenteousness within thy palaces. For my brethren 
 and companions' sakes, I have wished thee prosperity. 
 Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God, I will 
 seek to do thee good*." 
 
 * Ps. cxxii. 69. 
 
 NOTE. I find that my memory had in some degree misrepresented 
 the inscription referred to in page 9. It exists at Felton in Northum- 
 berland, over the entrance of the Vicarage house ; and is as follows : 
 
 A. 1683 has sedes posuit ROBERTUS HENDERSON, Trinitatis Coll. 
 Cantab, tempore Barrowii, tempore Newtoni socius; hujus et ecclesise 
 non indignus vicarius. Pietatis ergo posuit hoc patri films testimonium. 
 1758.
 
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