knowledge of the manifold applications of Christian truth and duty. While these, the old foundations, will remain unchanged, new structures of beauty and of state will rise, such as the world has never dreamed of, in the philosophy, the literature, the art, the manners, the politics, the trade, which Christianity shall transfigure by its enlightened and loving spirit, and employ in nobler uses, and electrify with resistless energy.

These truths are not unfamiliar to your thoughts. The questions which I have endeavored to answer spring into the minds of all thinking men at the present time. They force themselves upon the attention of all who are conversant with the course of speculation now abroad in the world. Development and progress are the watchwords of the hour. In science and letters, in every field of research and of culture, the demand is for something new, and the supply as constantly meets the demand. So many new and startling speculations have of late been accepted, and so many old and venerable theories displaced in the most solid minds, while history and criticism have as frequently defended such surprising conclusions, that it is not unnatural that the student who is introduced suddenly to this imposing array of novel speculations, and confronted with the confident asseverations of brilliant theorists, should ask in earnest and sad misgiving, Is everything old to go which men have trusted? Must theism be abandoned because it is antiquated, and Christ be denied because the time-spirit can no longer find occasion for him? Is human personality dissolved by the last analysis? Has the conscience which makes cowards of us all been itself frightened away at the last word of the comparative physiologist? Is morality only a sentiment, and this the changing product of habit and environment? Are worship and prayer and natural piety to dry up or die out of the soul under the keen and searching eyes of science and criticism? On the other hand, if we believe, must we accept a formulated tradition, or a stiff and scholastic dogma, or an unnatural morality? Did the living God speak from Sinai thousands of years ago, and has nothing new been commanded, or can nothing new be inferred as to his will? Did Christ exhaust the limits of the code of practical morality in the exact words which He uttered, leaving nothing to be inferred in respect to special duties in the broad light of the rich and manifold experiences of modern life, and the complicated structures of modern society?

To these and all questions like them, I have endeavored on this occasion to furnish a comprehensive answer. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. This is as pertinent to living truths as to living souls. Christ declares of himself, "I make all things new. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending. The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth."

Go forth into life, carrying with you the firm conviction that faith in

God and duty, in Christ and his cause, is not only justified, but required by the most liberal and the profoundest philosophy. Suspect of haste and charlatanism all those conclusions which are at war with the old humanities and the venerable faiths on which Christendom has stood so solidly for centuries, and through which men have prayed and worshipped and done heroic service for these several generations. Be assured also that these faiths are not dead traditions, but living germs which are capable of growth and expansion, and of varied adaptation to every demand of human experience.

Τ

THE CHRISTIAN COLLEGE.

[From the Same.]

IT may still be argued, that in the present divided state of Christendom a college which is positively Christian must, in fact, be controlled by some religious denomination, and this must necessarily narrow and belittle its intellectual and emotional life. We reply, a college need not be administered in the interests of any religious sect, even if it be controlled by it. We have contended, at length, that science and culture tend to liberalize sectarian narrowness. We know that Christian philosophy, history, and literature are eminently catholic and liberal. No class of men so profoundly regret the divisions of Christendom as do Christian scholars; and, we add, their liberality is often in proportion to their fervor. While a college may be, and sometimes is, a nursery of petty prejudices, and a hiding-place for sectarian bigotry, it is untrue to all the lessons of Christian thoughtfulness if it fails to honor its own nobler charity, and will sooner or later outgrow its narrowness.

It may be still further urged, that a Christian college must limit itself in the selection of instructors to men of positive Christian belief, and may thus deprive itself of the ablest instruction. We reply, no positive inferences of this sort can be drawn from the nature or duties of a Christian college. The details of administration are always controlled by wise discretion. A seeker after God, if he has not found rest in faith, may be even more devout and believing in his influence than a fiery dogmatist or an uncompromising polemic. And yet it may be true, that a teacher who is careless of misleading confiding youth, and who is fertile in suggestions of unbelief, may, for this reason and this only, be disqualified from being a safe and useful instructor in any college, whether Christian or secular. Personal characteristics very properly enter very largely into a just estimate of the requisites for an ennobling and successful instructor; and among personal qualities, those which we call

Christian are esteemed the most ennobling, except by those who are ashamed of the Christian name.

Last of all, it may be urged that a Christian college may become the nursery of pietistic sentimentalism or fanatical fervor. This is true; but there are other sentimentalisms than those which are inspired by Christian truth and the Christian history, and there are other fanaticisms than such as flame in the Christian Church. The best security against all excesses of this sort is to be found in that soundness of mind which earnest Christian devotion is fitted to inspire, when instructed by solid learning, and enlightened by science; when refined by imaginative literature, and made graceful by consummate art.

We conclude as we began,-that a Christian college, to be worthy of its name, must be the home of enlarged knowledge and varied culture. It must abound in all the appliances of research and instruction; its libraries and collections must be rich to affluence; its corps of instructors must be well trained and enthusiastic in the work of teaching. For all this, money is needed; and it should be gathered into great centresnot wasted in scanty fountains, nor subdivided into insignificant rills. Into such a temple of science the Christian spirit should enter as the shekinah of old, purifying and consecrating all to itself. In such a college the piety should inspire the science, and the culture should elevate and refine the piety, and the two should lift each the other upward toward God, and speed each other outward and onward in errands of blessing to man.

Whether a Christian college shall surpass one that is purely or chiefly secular in its scientific training and literary culture, must be tested by time; but, in order that the test should be fair, the advantages must be equal. The endowments, the appliances, the libraries, the museums, and all else that wealth can furnish, must be similar in attractiveness and solidity. The friends of each must give to each an enthusiastic and unwavering support. We do not contend that religious zeal can be a substitute for scientific ardor, but we do argue that it may and will furnish the highest aspiration when directed to scientific studies. We are not so simple as to hold that the culture of the religious feelings is a substitute for the training of the imagination; but we do contend that the imagination, when fired by Christian faith and fervor, rises to its loftiest achievements. In a word, we believe that the Christian faith is the perfection of the human reason, as truly as a necessity to the human heart, and is, therefore, essential to the highest forms of human culture.

We conclude that no institution of higher education can attain the highest ideal excellence in which the Christian faith is not exalted as supreme; in which its truth is not asserted with a constant fidelity, defended with unremitting ardor, and enforced with a fervent and devoted

zeal; in which Christ is not honored as the inspirer of man's best affections, the model of man's highest excellence, and the master of all human duties. Let two instructions be placed side by side, with equal advantages in other particulars; let the one be positively Christian, and the other consistently secular, and the Christian will assuredly surpass the secular in the contributions which it will make to science and culture, and in the men which it will train for the service of their kind,

William Ingraham Kip.

BORN in New York, N. Y., 1811.

OUR VENERABLE LITURGY.

[The Double Witness of the Church. 1849.]

QUALLY important is the influence of a Liturgy upon a Church collectively. It preserves its orthodoxy unimpaired. Without a prescribed form of prayer, each individual teacher is left to inculcate such doctrines as best suit his own private views. He may preach error, and then pray in accordance with it. There is no standard to which his people can at all times direct their attention, and judge of his doctrines. He may become a disbeliever in one of the cardinal articles of the Christian faith, but if he omit all mention of it, both in his sermons and prayers, it may not be brought before the attention of his people for years, and thus insensibly, yet gradually, they fall into his errors.

Such, however, can never be the case where there is a Liturgy like that of our Church. Let one who ministers at our altars become heretical, and he cannot lead his people with him. He may for a time preach his views, but each prayer he reads in the service will contradict him, and proclaim most unequivocally that he is faithless to the Church. Thus he will be placed in a false position, until at last he is compelled to go out from us, showing that he is not of us.

Now see how this has always been exemplified. What religious society without a Liturgy has ever subsisted for any length of time, and yet not wandered from its early faith? Look at those on the continent of Europe, which, after the Reformation, while they abandoned the Apostolical ministry, gave up the ancient Liturgy also. To what result have those in Germany been led? Why, we see them wandering in all the mazes of rationalism, each year tending downward to a darker, more hopeless infidelity. What is the faith which now prevails at Geneva,

where once John Calvin inculcated his stern and rigid creed? There all is changed, and in place of the strictness of his views, we have the latitude and coldness of those who scoff at the Divinity of our Lord. We are compelled, then, to regard the reformation on the continent as a thing that has passed away.

So it is, too, among the dissenters in England, and the same pulpits in which, during the last century, their ablest divines preached, are now held by Socinians. And is not this the case in our own land, where even the descendants of the New England Puritans have abandoned their faith, and substituted in its place the most fearful heresies, “denying the Lord that bought them!" There is reason, therefore, for that exclamation, uttered by Buchanan, the apostle of the East-"Woe to the declining Church which hath not a Gospel Liturgy!"

But where could this melancholy history be written of any who adhered faithfully to a prescribed form in their public devotions? Take our own Church, for example. Investigate the doctrines which are embodied in her formularies, and you will find that they are now what they were eighteen centuries ago. Faithless and unworthy men have indeed at times been the teachers of the Church, but their errors passed away with them, and the great body of her members, by looking to the Liturgy for instruction, still hold to their steadfastness. Its holy language, bearing the impress, and breathing forth the spirit of the purest days, is stamped upon the memory of each one of her true children, and wrought into the very texture of his mind. Her beautiful services, adapted to every change and circumstance of life, from the cradle to the grave, speak to his heart with a power which no extemporaneous prayer can have. In these words his fathers have worshipped. These prayers, perhaps, have trembled upon the lips of some whom he has loved, but who long since have passed away to their reward. By the chain of association they unite him to the departed. They recall them to his memory, and thus, by means of these petitions, he lives again in scenes which have long since gone. Oh, solemnly and sweetly do these words and these services come home to the Churchman's heart! He would not part with them-so rich in hallowed recollections-for all the eloquence that modern wisdom could devise. He clings to them through life, and trusts that the last sound which shall fall upon his dying ear will be that solemn prayer by which the Church commends the departing spirit to the mercy of its God.

Thus it is, that a thousand remembrances gather around our timehonored Ritual and commend it to our affection. We have seen, that in this manner the followers of our Master worshipped, even in the Apos tolic age. When, therefore, we are called to abandon it, and adopt in its place the extemporaneous effusions of man in our public worship,