or so remote in time that I may not hope to know of it all which I need to know. With this knowledge rising about my feet, until I am half drowned with the mere names of the topics which it presents to me, I ask if there is nothing to be known of the things which are most important. I go through the libraries from shelf to shelf, from book to book, and they tell me almost everything but that which I must know. I press my inquiries and beg for a reply, and the wise men say, "We will teach you everything else; we will tell you what you sprung from; we will analyze your character; we will break the light into fragments and lay the stars as a glittering dust at your feet; but your duty you cannot know; your relation to God you cannot know; what comes after death you cannot know; the way of bringing peace to your conscience and righteousness to your life you cannot know." I say that we can know. In the name of growing, star-eyed science, we can know. In the name of fourteen hundred students in our university, we can know. In the name of our vast libraries, our bold search for truth, our accumulated, teeming, and overwhelming knowledge of everything else, we can know. I know that I can know. God, duty, life, destiny-I am sure that I can know them; and I find the knowledge in this gospel of God, which answers the questions with a voice that does not tremble; which gratifies this longing of the heart to whom these are the real, the practical things of life; and because the gospel comes to me doing what must be done, telling what I must know, supplementing all the growing knowledge of the world, it commends itself to my conscience in the sight of God. My conscience says that I can know my duty

and my destiny. The world says, "We cannot tell you your duty nor your destiny"; and my conscience smiles upon the revelation and glories in it.

In its rational method the gospel commends itself to the conscience. It addresses itself at once to the spirit. It recognizes the spiritual nature of man. That grand sentence, almost the grandest sentence in the Bible, which our Saviour uttered at the well of Samaria, when he said, "God is a spirit," finds its counterpart in another truth implied all through the Scriptures. It might be rendered in this way: Man is a spirit, and they that help him must help him in spirit and in truth. Some persons, claiming our respect, say, man is a spirit, and they that help him must build him a better house; they must give him a better social estate; they must provide a better government; they must invent a new kind of sepulchre. But the gospel is better; it goes directly to the spirit of man. That word "conscience" itself is a witness. What other system of religion clearly pronounces the word? What system of learning speaks the word "conscience" except as it takes it from the gospel? To the reason, to the affections, to the will—that is, to the man himself, Scripture appeals. It flashes no sword; it stretches out no sceptre; it paints no picture; it sings no song; it raises no glittering pageant which may delight and bewilder. It comes with the simple truth to the reason and heart of man. You may hear this truth of God in the stateliest cathedral with all its accompaniments of architecture and music. You may hear it in the camp of the soldier. The sailor may read it in his forecastle. The wrecked mariner may recall it upon the ocean rock. The prisoner may

remember it in the dungeon. The dying man may catch its words from the scroll at the foot of his bed. You may not have the book; you may recall but a single chapter, a single sentence of it; and that sentence, in its witness to God, and duty, and truth, and redemption, shall be enough to save a man into a righteous life and to give him a glorious hope.

VARD CLUB OF NEW YORK. By HENRY E. HOWLAND.

I

FEEL the usual diffidence that should characterize

the representative of a junior branch of the great family of which Harvard is the head, in appearing at your annual reunion; but, as the university from which I hail springs from your loins and you are responsible for its existence it is natural that I should feel the glow of family pride as you rehearse your achievements, and say as the little child did to her grandmother who had given a children's party: "Now, grandma, you must be very nice to us to-day, for if it wasn't for us you wouldn't be a grandma at all."

There should be a proper amount of modesty in one called upon to address such an intelligent audience of educated men as I see before me, and I am conscious of it in the same sense as the patient who said to his physician: "I suffer a great deal from nervous dyspepsia, and I attribute it to the fact that I attend so many public dinners." "Ah, I see," said the doctor, "you are often called upon to speak, and the nervous apprehension upsets your digestion." "Not at all; my apprehension is entirely on account of the other speakers; I never say a thing;" and it is with some hesitation that I respond to your call, like the absentminded deacon of convivial tendencies who was asked by his pastor at a prayer-meeting to lead in prayer, and he replied, remembering his experiences of the night before: "It isn't my lead; I dealt."

Following out that line of thought, there is a great deal that is attractive in a gathering of Harvard men.

They have such a winsome and a winning way with them.

Richest in endowments, foremost in progress, honored by the renown of a long line of distinguished sons, the university that claims you is worthy of the homage and respect which it receives from the educated men of America, wherever trained, and which it is my privilege to pay to her to-night, from the eldest daughter of her house, which seems to be in a condition of orphanage, for the head of that great family has taken himself away, and we are wandering about seeking a father, like the little boy who met a policeman in a crowd and said: "Please, sir; have you seen a man walking around without a little boy, 'cause I'se that little boy!"

The work accomplished by a university is the result of the combined labors of a large staff of educators, and, however important it may be that the direction should be under the guidance of a competent head, the result is due to the work of all and not to one alone, although the outside world is very apt to attribute the credit to the head of the family-like the little girl from town who was staying with some country cousins, and at breakfast one morning saw on the table a dish of honey, and regarding this as an opportunity to show her knowledge of country life, and with a desire to be polite and agreeable to her host, said smilingly as she looked at it: "Ah, I see you keep a bee!"

The study of the development of the human race by educational processes which change by necessity under changing conditions and environment, is one of the most interesting that we can engage in. The greatest men of this country, or any other, have not