Then there are the departments of mental and moral science and belles-lettres. These embrace mental philosophy, moral philosophy, criticism, elocution, rhetoric, logic, etc. There the mind will find something to grapple with, as well as to please and instruct. These are reckoned the finishing, as it were, of college instruction. This is, so to speak, the veneering and polishing. With these the college hands the student over to the active and real world to work his own way. In these last studies the faculties of memory and judgment are particularly called into action. These severer studies are admirably adapted to develop the higher mental powers.

In addition to all the facilities afforded the student in these departments, there are the literary societies in colleges; these are institutions of themselves. They are furnished with good libraries. Here the young men have their literary and polemical contests in debate, oration, declamation, and essay. There is also a wholesome emulation and rivalry existing between societies and students, which prove a valuable stimulus in acquiring an education. Now we hazard the assertion that did students not have any practical use for anything contained in the whole course, which is not the case, still the mental training alone would be a fine acquirement. Here is the pith of the matter after all: It is not how many books have been skimmed over, but how many principles have been mastered. How much muscle and nerve have been made, and how much have they been enlarged and strengthened. Is the mind prepared to grapple with the great principles and truths underlying society? Is it prepared to meet the rugged realities of active life? If so, this is sufficient; this is all that was aimed at by the college. This the modern seminary and college is prepared to do when they have the co-operation of the pupil. But it is objected that many pass through college and are numskulls for all that. This is too true, yet it is not the fault of the college, but of the student. The institution only professes to furnish the facilities, and the pupil must use these, or there might as well be no colleges. Colleges do not claim

to furnish men with brains, as too many seem to have conceived. They propose only to supply food and exercise for the mind that wishes to apply itself. It would be just as reasonable to suppose that the optician promises to furnish eyesight to the blind, because he professes to furnish glasses to assist deficient vision. No one would find fault with a pair of spectacles because a man who does not know his alphabet is not able to read fluently when he looks through them. Their design was not to teach men to read, but to assist them to see.

Again it is urged against colleges that there are many men who never attended a school of a high grade who far surpass some who have, both in learning and ability to think. Grant it. What does it prove? That we had better be without colleges? By no means. It only proves that occasionally we find one who has such application and energy as to surmount the barriers and difficulties in the way of getting an education. The same could have been accomplished in much less time and with much less labor had they enjoyed the advantages of a college education. It were as if men refused to use the improved instruments for cutting and threshing grain, because they have the old-fashioned sickle and flail; or the sewing machine, because they have a thimble and needle. It is true men have cut their crops with a sickle and threshed it with a flail, and carried it to the mill with grain in one end of the bag and a stone in the other. The same thing can be done again; but who would hazard his reputation for common sense by advising a return of this primitive way of doing things, and abandoning all the modern discoveries in the useful arts and sciences?

There is also an objection urged against the time required to pass through a regular collegiate course. It is true it takes from four to six years. Many young men are impatient to enter some business or profession, and imagine that they can not afford to defer the matter so long. One would think, to witness their zeal and impatience to benefit the world, that they had serious apprehensions that the great wheels of nature would stop, and that serious

derangement might occur in the Church and State unless their services were forthcoming. Is it not possible that they may be laboring under a slight mistake as to this? The sun, moon, and stars will, in all probability, keep their orbits, and empires and republics may dispense with their distinguished abilities for at least eight or ten years longer. There are, however, some whom we despair of convincing as to the truthfulness of this position. We shall have to pass them over to those knowing ones of whom Job speaks, "Ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you."

A man who enters a profession without a thorough education will be like a mechanic who is compelled to work in a narrow apartment with but few and dull tools. It is true he may do something by hard blows, but at best it is but bungling work. It is really an economy of time to spend the required period in some college, and become thoroughly furnished for the business of life. With proper training more efficient good can be accomplished in one year, than in three without the required foundation. If a man would be a workman that needeth not to be ashamed let him give himself earnestly and persistently to a thorough system of mental education. Let him drill himself as the soldier does; let him exercise himself regularly and systematically as the wrestler and pugilist do if he would succeed. Let all the mental faculties be in a vigorous and healthful condition. As good a capital as a young man needs in this world is a well-disciplined mind. He can soon gather matter; nay, he can create matter, and will then be prepared to use it efficiently. We have taken this somewhat particular view of college training, and yet we have spoken of but a small part of what might be said of the advantages of such a course. Add to this the stimulus of a noble emulation which is awakened by the contact of mind with mind, and you have an additional argument for colleges. This is a kind of friction or excitant which becomes one of the surest means of success, and that would not be likely to be enjoyed outside of the college and its surroundings.

In conclusion upon this subject, allow me to repeat and impress the principal thought of this whole subject upon your minds, young gentlemen and ladies! You are here not simply to stuff yourselves with Greek and Latin and the higher mathematics, for which you may never have any immediate practical use, but you are here to master principles, to learn to think. A man is educated who has learned to think; he is not who can not think vigorously and independently, it matters not how much. of the classics and mathematics he may have gone over. Do not forget this simple fact; it is not the amount of food the human stomach takes in that benefits the body, but the amount it thoroughly digests and assimilates. It is not the quantity that one reads that does him good, but the amount he can digest and appropriate. One chapter of Latin or Greek thoroughly analyzed and mastered is better than a volume superficially read. One proposition mastered as to its principles is better than the whole of Euclid recited after the parrot style. Modern colleges afford men all the facilities for this thorough mental training if they will but use them. While it is not true that all or most of the studies are of little practical benefit to the student after having left college, yet we would lay particular emphasis on the fact that the discipline is altogether paramount to the mere knowledge acquired. We are willing to take the ground that the mind which has submitted to the rigid exercises requisite to pass through the higher mathematics, Greek, Latin, Chemistry, Rhetoric, and Logic, must be educated in the highest sense. If the principles of these are mastered, we care not whether one fact has been retained for future use or not. If the power to think, and to think vigorously and efficiently, has been acquired, this is the chief object in an education.

A few words to these young men and ladies about to leave us. We need not say that we feel solicitous for your welfare and success in active life. You are going into a world of stubborn realities; not less stubborn than many of the subjects with which you have grappled in your college course. Do not fall into the very common mistake

that your days of study are over. They have just begun in good earnest. If you have realized the true design of education, you are now prepared to study in the true sense of the word. Resolve to play the true scholar. Let your aims be pure and elevated, and pursue your purpose with unwearied devotion and perseverance. Whatever professions, young gentlemen, you may enter, resolve to be more than mere novices, and rise superior to all mean condescensions. Never permit yourselves to do an unworthy act for party or other ends. Respect yourselves, and you will not fail to win the confidence and respect of others. You may do your Alma Mater signal service by dignifying yourselves. And to these young ladies we would say we have a right to claim and to expect that the full weight of your influence and talents will be given to true education. We know in this particular our expectations are not groundless. This institution sends you forth, young gentlemen and ladies, with her lessons and influences to bless the world. May a good Providence attend you through life! We bid you Godspeed and abundant success. Let us as your teachers assure you that we shall always take unmingled pleasure in learning of your prosperity. Our prayers and best wishes go with you.

THE LOST LIGHT OF HEATHEN NATIONS.

SERMON.

God has given to all nations at some time in their history light sufficient to have guided them aright, and if they are without it now it is because they have lost it or perverted it. (Rom. i, 18-25.)

When I was a boy in the Sunday-school, the commonly accepted opinion of the religious world was, that the nations of the world called "heathen" were receiving the religion of the Bible for the first time in the last, say two hundred years. That ever since the flood the great mass of mankind, except the Jews, were without a Divine