place where this advanced work can be done, and that the place draw every teacher and scholar to itself. Therefore in this group of buildings this Chapel stands in its own right. Among the multitudinous studies the teachings of this house belong. Every man needs that which it is the design of these services to provide, needs to enter and frequent the realm of spiritual truth which invites the man who himself is spirit, where he can see God manifest to man. There is no compulsion to hear, still less to accept, still less to employ that which is spoken. But there is the opportunity. Behold," He saith, "Behold, I have set before thee a door opened."

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But this is not the only purpose for which this house and these services stand. They are not for learning alone; not learning and conduct combined make up the whole duty of a man. Learning, when it is free, rises into worship. Conduct, untrammeled, becomes communion with God. It is the becoming recognition of our relation to Him, of our dependence which is complete, and of his benefits which are constant, to live as in his presence and to begin every day with the distinct thought of God. We must do this when alone. But it is a good thing for us who live together to come up to his house in company, to read his word in unison, to utter our common prayer for the day

into which we are venturing. To this high act of the spirit which is the man we are called. Into this worship the door is open. To the willing, waiting mind God delights to reveal himself, spirit to spirit, that we may walk in the light, children of the light, and in "the power of an endless life."

It is in keeping with the purpose of this University, from the day when that young Puritan minister who sits yonder beneath the open heavens lifted his eyes from his book to found a house where books should have their home and do their work, to this day when the great questions of life are receiving new attention and the problems of conduct are solved in charity and faith, and there is no limit to our thought and hope, it is in keeping with our original and unalterable purpose, that Christianity, in its largest meaning and closest application, should have our devout and studious regard. Something is due to our origin and our commission; to intelligence and uprightness. The province of Religion has widened till it is no longer a system whereby the confiding can in the world to come escape perdition and attain to paradise. It does indeed make the future sure and safe; but it does this by making the present wise and dutiful. Religion believes in to-day, teeming with its necessities; in this world of God, where the divine life has been made visible. It is here

first that God reveals himself to men.

It is here

first that men must see Him, hear Him, enter into his decrees. The words which name and define spiritual things, that is, real things, lasting things, should be in the warp and woof of every man's language and living, every man's; surely of every man in a college with its vigorous life, its uncommitted thought, its open mind and heart. In the studious retirement of these days, apart from the excitements of the outer world, we have leisure for all which greatly concerns us, and hospitality for all truth and duty. We may furnish ourselves completely for the work which waits for us; which claims, as never before, the stout hands and large hearts of men who have a broad education and a liberal training in the things which the world, the stricken, impoverished, blind and blundering world, needs the most, far, far the most. We ought so to live and think that the world will feel the beneficent impulse which moves along these walks and issues from these doors and brings the kingdom of heaven nearer to the earth. We ought so to think and speak, to teach and learn, that good men without the gate shall lift up their eyes in confidence to these consecrated halls. We might even now give courage to those who are fighting the battle of right against wrong, and struggling for the good against the forces of a

naughty world; and carrying the kindly light, the immortal life, over sea and land. Here is our opportunity, to which our future turns. All this we might do. "Behold," He saith, "Behold, I have set before thee a door opened."

It is not the design of the College services to make a defense of Christianity, but to proclaim its truths and to administer its grace. Some things are settled. Two hundred and fifty years must have accomplished something in the knowledge of truth which needs neither undoing nor unlearning. Some things are of interest for what they are in themselves; some for the work which they do. These interests are combined in Christianity. If a long and eventful history is fascinating, the history of Christianity exceeds in fascination. If philosophy employs the high faculties of the mind, the philosophy of Christianity engages those which are highest. If the study of morals is profitable, the ethics of Christianity grant a larger reward. If daily duties, and the relations of man with man, and the complex requisitions of society require continual study and offer a recompense, much more does Christianity claim attention for the laws of personal and social life which it presents. If the ministration of that which is of the earth is good, the ministration of the heavenly is glorious.

Think of the history which is before us.

In a

village of an obscure province a child was born for whom the inn had no room, the world no care. The day of that birth has become the new startingpoint for all civilized life. Not from the building of the earth, or the founding of a city, do men reckon the years, but from the coming of Him whose name in this remote century is emblazoned in these windows; from whose coming the nation dates its treaty and the school its diploma. The most significant fact in the newspapers of the world is in the few figures underneath the title. Here is something to be understood and accounted for, who He was, why He came, what He did, by what means He gained the place He holds; what lessons He left, what duties cluster around his precepts, what hopes wait upon his promises. These things intelligent men must know. Break the rocks, search the stars, measure the forces of nature, explore the mind of man; but above all things know Him from whom the lines of our life run out, by whom our thoughts are held. This is for every man, like the alphabet and the Golden Rule. Selection does not reach so far as this. The elective system pauses on the confines of this theme. This is not one of many provinces in which we can choose our home. It is the one sky, the one light, the one atmosphere over and around all the provinces, in which all true things grow and are glad.