masters of human thought in all ages. Let us beware, however, of mistaking for history the fables which often claim the title. Let us feel the vital importance of discovering historic truth. Let us reflect that in every investigation we have been furnished with a guide to the real and the unfeigned in the only perfect history, that of which it is written, "Thy word is truth." I hesitate not to say, that, in the search of historic truth, he who begins not with the inspired narratives has no education that prepares him for his task. It is the blessed prerogative of faith in God to gather from His word the great secret of history, as something directed by Providence, always at unity with itself, proceeding from one Author and tending to one result. He who stupidly deals with events as if they were a random product of undirected human caprices and of men's undisciplined instincts, may be an annalist, a chronologist, a collector of details, but he cannot be, in the highest sense, a genuine historian. The lofty intelligence, akin to military genius, which marshals, combines, analyzes, and co-ordinates facts, showing their mutual relations, and their bearings on human progress and on the revealed plans of the Most High, is essential to the philosophic historian. Not less is something of the same kind essential to the student of history, to us, young gentlemen, who are mere recipients, economizing the lives and labours of the world's benefactors, in order that we in turn may not be wholly wanting in our life-work and in our appointed place among men.

4. THE USE OF LECTURES.

He who outlines truth in the form of popular lectures has, indeed, the distasteful prospect of producing only momentary impressions. In spite of this, my effort shall find encouragement in the fact that I address myself to youth, to young men of liberal pursuits and zealous to be directed to the sources of real knowledge and sound principle. To the growing mind that thirsts for information supported by evidence, the lecturer who brings truths that will bear investigation has a cheering mission. History gives us many examples of disciples, fired by earnest teachers, who long outlived their masters and greatly surpassed them. A word, an expression, a turn of thought, may quicken in some young brain impulses which shall give direction to all the future labours of a noble and successful life.

Long after I am dead and forgotten, some of you may live to say with effect what I can only enforce with earnest conviction. After the chastisements which a foolish age is bringing upon itself, you may live to be welcomed by a wiser generation. You will find your appointed task at another epoch. In your faces I seem to salute the twentieth century. As for us who must soon pass away, Morituri vos salutamus! The future belongs to you. Prepare yourselves to be its masters. But be sure you cannot be such save as you accept the lessons of human experience from the venerable past. Under the idea of progress, our times are chasing a mere will-o'-the-wisp;

a light engendered from decay, "that leads to bewilder and dazzles to blind." True progress always takes up the winnowed harvests of the ages, and scatters the seed of all that must be food for the

ages to come. Instead of having "no past at your back," the youth of this Republic start with the manifold treasures of all time, of all arts and sciences, of all that man has done, warned by the failures and mistakes of old countries and of unpractical theorists. You are here in America to build up a nation by the maxims of tried wisdom, and to establish its institutions upon the rock of God's word.

5. THE HERITAGE OF THE AGES.

collectors of its lesUnder my own ob

You are heirs of the ages; and it shall be my endeavour to make you great sons, its morals, its warnings. servation, a few shells given to a boy, by a friend who encouraged him to add to the little stock of smooth and many-coloured toys, created for the boy his life employment, made him a naturalist, and enabled him to amass from all the seas and oceans of the globe a museum of conchology, and to classify and expound his treasures as a philosopher. So I have known others to be made botanists, or enthusiasts in geology or chemistry, or passionate collectors of gems and coins. All such scientific pursuits are ennobling. Even the "dried beetle with a pin stuck through him" may be full of instruction to a careful observer; and under the microscope what miracles of creative wisdom are

unfolded to the student of an insect's eye or wing! But I claim for the student of historic truth a nobler sphere, and the faculty of bringing together a sublimer collection for ends unspeakably more practical and beneficial to the world. You collect portraits and pictures out of every age and clime, and furnish the chambers of your imagination with all that is most beautiful and precious in the results of human life. The philosopher whose department is biography and history makes his mind

"A mansion for all lovely forms, His memory to be a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies."

The whole world is a mine for his research, and all times are the fields of his exploration. From the Pyramids to the Catacombs; from the ruins of Egypt or Assyria to the mysterious remains of the Aztecs; under the arches and monuments of ancient Rome; amid the more splendid relics of Greek art and munificent ostentation; and passing thence to the wealth of the Rhineland, of the Louvre or the British Museum, - everywhere among men, he finds his material, his work, and his elevated enjoyments as well. The master of historic truth is the master of contemporaneous thought, in proportion as he instructs his age or contends with it. To such ennobling pursuits I now invite you.

6. CHRISTIAN HISTORY.

You know the difference between "anatomy" and "comparative anatomy" in the schools of the surgeon. The latter is a science which extracts

auxiliary knowledge from the bones and muscles of brutes, while the anatomist par excellence deals with the physical frame of man. In calling your attention to Christian history, I remind you that the history of Pagans and Barbarians is but comparative history, a useful auxiliary merely. But the history of Christendom is the history of man as very man, the image of his Maker. Christian history is the history of civilization; Christianity alone is the civilizer of the human animal. At best, the race beyond its pale exhibits only here and there a specimen of true manhood. It is only as enlightened from the manger of Bethlehem and the cross of Calvary that the race ceases to be savage.

Reflect that Christianity is as old as the world. Among the patriarchs and under Moses it worked only in element. "Ye are the light of the world," said the Master to the Galilean fishermen; and so it has proved. Not where the Gospel is merely named, but in proportion as it penetrates the life of a nation, this is realized. It needs no elaborate argument. One scorns to argue that sunlight makes the day. Look at mankind, look at the nations. The character of the true woman is the influence that refines, and where is the true woman, the wife, the mother, the home, apart from Christianity? In a word, Christianity is civilization.

7. THE PIVOT.

The world's history turns, as on a pivot, upon the Mount of Olives, and upon the great mission,