ADDRESS,

DELIVERED AT THE COMMENCEMENT IN 1818.

Young Gentlemen,

As power and obligation are correlative terms, to know the measure of our duty, it is requisite to examine our abilities, and the extent, to which they may be brought into beneficent action. Our obligations are commensurate, not merely with our powers, (whether physical or intellectual); but with these in connexion with opportunities of exerting them for the promotion of virtue and human enjoyment.

It will not, therefore, be foreign to the present occasion, to contemplate the influence, which persons, liberally educated, have in society; and the importance, which is by consequence attached to their characters.

A large portion of those, who receive a collegial education, enter on what are denominated the learned professions. To estimate their importance in society, it is, therefore, necessary to consider the nature and influence of these professions, together with the proportion and standing of those, who, in each of them, were previously instructed in some of our public seminaries.

I well know, that there are those, to whom a college catalogue gives their only distinction. There are others too, and those in no inconsiderable number, who, by a vigor of intellect, which no circumstances can repress, and an ardor of application, which no difficulties can discourage, make ample amends for

the want of literary advantages in early life, and justly claim the notice, confidence, and gratitude of the public.

This obvious fact notwithstanding, it is still true, that the influence, exerted in the community, by those, whose intellectual habits were first formed in our public institutions, has an intimate connexion with individual happiness and national character.

We begin with counsellors at law. In the large number of those, who, from the first settlement of New England, have arrived at eminence in this profession, imagine the non-existence of all, whose youth was consecrated to literature, and who were prepared by public education for professional studies; there will doubtless still remain characters of much distinction and great merit. But, who does not perceive the chasm of hideous extent, implied in the supposition, which has now been made?

In all the momentous discussions concerning the principles of government, and the establishment of civil constitutions, which the state of political science, and the condition of our infant country, have rendered numerous ;-in questions, relative to the greatest degree of freedom, compatible with established authority; or the least individual restraint, that is consistent with public security;-in legislative assemblies, where boundaries, provisions and exceptions, are necessarily attached to every act of legislation; but especially, in expounding the law, and administering public justice; in maintaining the dignity of civil tribunals, and securing confidence to their decisions :-in all these respects, how extensive and salutary has been the influence of the - legal profession, and of that class of professional men to which we allude.

But these subjects, you perceive, comprehend all that is implied in the civil state. They relate to life, property, and morals; to every thing, indeed, for which man consents to relinquish the freedom of nature. There is no family, however obscure, there is no member of the community, whose happiness and safety are not dependent on the constitution, under which he lives, the statutes, that are enacted, and the impartiality and promptness, with which justice is administered.

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Our dependence on the medical profession is too obvious and too sensibly felt, to require proof. While frailty, disease, and death, remain, the assiduous and well informed physician can never cease to occupy a conspicuous place in public estimation. The proportion of those, who have not accomplished the prescribed course of college studies, is, perhaps, somewhat greater in this profession, than in either of the other two.

But, if the number of physicians publicly educated were small, such has not been their influence in the medical fraternity :such has not been their usefulness to the public. They have been among the first to project and organize medical establishments;-to check empiricism and unprincipled temerity,―to encourage laborious study;-to bring into repute that candid, open, and philosophical practice, and that readiness to admit into the healing art the happy discoveries of modern science, which have raised the medical profession to its present high degree of respectability.

Reckoning from the earliest periods in our history, the preachers of religion have, with few exceptions, been educated at public institutions. This has resulted from the learning, judgment, and piety, for which so many among the venerated fathers of New England, whether of the clergy or laity, rendered themselves distinguished. The establishment of Harvard College, at so early a period; when the country in general was a vast wilderness; when wealth was almost unknown; when dangers were forever impending; and the tenure of life peculiarly frail; evinces a generosity of spirit, intellectual comprehension, enlargement of views, and boldness of design, which their descendants should never contemplate, without gratitude and admiration. Their object was to have a State, free, virtuous, enlightened, and well governed;-a church, exemplary and evangel ical: a ministry, learned, pious, and venerable.

For many reasons, the influence of a Christian teacher depends much, under God, on the soundness of his mind and the solidity of his knowledge. It will readily be perceived, that he cannot, without great disadvantage, be unacquainted with subVOL. II.

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jects intimately connected with his profession. But the subjects, connected with the clerical profession, are numerous and of great extent.

The duty of man, it has been already observed, is commensurate with his powers. These powers should, therefore, be well understood by those, who would urge him to duty, by displaying his obligations.

The divine law is to be vindicated; and offenders are to be shown, that the virtue, which their Creator demands, is precisely that, which corresponds with their rational nature, and is what enlightened reason condemns them for not possessing.

As Christian teachers are set for the defence of the gospel, it is required of them clearly and forcibly to exhibit the evidences of Christianity; to remove objections, which may be urged against it, and to defend not only its precepts, but its principles and declarations. Whether we consider the antiquity of the sacred Scriptures,—the time, at which they were written,― the customs long disused, to which they refer,—the period, which elapsed from the age of Moses to that of Christ,-and the numerous changes, which the world underwent during that period;—whether we consider the peculiarites of the nation, from which they originated, and whose fortunes they describe,their style and manner, influenced by a thousand circumstances, which no longer exist; or whether we consider, that the languages, in which they were written, have for many ages fallen into disuse ;—we might rationally conclude, that something more than an ordinary education would be requisite, rightly to understand and judiciously to apply them.

But it will be more directly to our purpose, to fix our attention, for a moment, on the influence, which well informed teachers of religion have had on the literary and moral state of the community. They have been the hearty and uniform friends. of learning, and of all institutions which have for their object either the enlargement of the mind or the melioration of moral habits. They have been extensively active in the encouragement of common schools, by which some portion of knowledge has

been conveyed into every family, whether enjoying wealth, or suffering poverty. They have never viewed, but with honest attachment, and warm interest, the establishment of seminaries of a more public nature, and designed to cherish a mental discipline more liberal and comprehensive.

By displaying the sanctions of religion, and enforcing its duties, they have brought God and a retribution to remembrance ;--kept alive, and rendered active the moral sense; imposed restraints on human passions; and thus contributed to the interests of virtue and public order.

In no country on earth, is the action of that vast machine called civil society, maintained without enormous waste of moral principle. Integrity, truth, benevolence, and justice, are worn away by the revolutions, which are kept up through its various parts. In what manner, do you imagine, that this waste is to be repaired? Whence is that stock of virtue to be supplied, which is absolutely necessary to a prosperous state either of civil government or social intercourse? It is from the precepts, the discoveries, and sanctions of religion. It is from Christian instruction, early and incessantly applied to the public mind; by which conscience is rendered more alive, more active, and more imperious. This, even though the statesman be ignorant of it, is the celestial dew, that nourishes the vine and fig-tree, by which he is shaded. He, who brings home to the bosoms of those around him a livelier belief in religion, a more sensible conviction of the unchangeable difference between virtue and vice, together with their appropriate consequences, is a benefactor to the government, under which he lives, to every corporation, to every profession, and to every member of the State. Had piety formed no part of the character of our ancestors;-had there been no religious instructors, or, (what is worse,) had such instructors been hostile to knowledge, and generally indifferent to the duties of their profession, I ask, whether our nation would have been what it now is? Whether there would have been the same stability in government, or the same security to the people; and whether, in that case, there would not have been wanting the strongest ties, by which society can be bound together?