Apostle. Sam. Adams and Abraham Lincoln have power to ennoble as well as Isaiah or Micah. I include the Scriptures, therefore, in history. But I see how these have helped to make a Sam. Adams or an Abraham Lincoln. It is as a student, therefore, and not chiefly as a minister that I ask for consideration of the great importance of the study of the Scriptures in our colleges. It is as a student that I emphasize their great help in making young men religious.

course.

There are grave difficulties in the way of carrying out the plan for which I plead. I can see these very clearly. Each department in college would like to have more time. Each professor, properly and naturally, exalts his own line of study. A new professorship would have to be established. More money would, therefore, be needed. But no amount of difficulty daunts me. "Where there is a will, there is a way." The first thing to secure is to have the will to have such a To have the will we must have thought, abundant thought. The faculties and trustees of colleges must be converted to the belief of its great importance. My little paper in the QUARTERLY is a humble contribution towards so great an end. I write out of my thirty-one years' experience as pastor and preacher, as sympathizer with and ardent friend of young men, as student of educational systems. Let me ask for earnest reading of earnest words. Let me plead that if the plan can be carried out certain great results will be secured. We shall have graduates of colleges leaders in all moral movements for the progress of the world. We shall have co-workers with ministers in our churches who will make our denomination a power for learning, for righteousness and religion. Surely the world needs these leaders. Surely, our church needs these co-workers.

As I see the baseness, the selfishness, the materialism of the world, I ask myself what are the colleges of the land doing in making men public-spirited, generous, aspiring, lovers of honor, devoted to duty. Charles Eliot Norton, I learn, has recently written concerning the service of the universities in stemming the tide of ignoble life now flowing so strongly in America.

I have not read his words, but I can understand why he wrote. The universities of Europe have done their splendid part in making men live for and "above the world." American universities and colleges may do a great work, in this direction, for the Republic. But they can only do it by sending forth men who will not change their views of Political Economy because of monopolies and seats in Congress, and who will not sell power of brain and will for silver and gold. They can only do it by sending forth men who feel that intellectual power and conscience and will and opportunity are to be consecrated to the service of the people and of God.

The flag at Bergamo, in 1848, borne by the troops under Garibaldi, bore the words, "God and the People." It was afterwards confided to Mazzini. It is the banner with these words which must be upheld by graduates of colleges, if these are to do their fitting work in the world. "The Son of man come not to be ministered unto but to minister to others.” 66 would rather have a wooden bench and Mark Hopkins at the other end of it," said Garfield, "than your finest architectural building without him." For Hopkins made all his pupils feel that the end of education is to develop the whole man, to enable him to serve God and man.

Our denomination has able ministers and laymen; but our churches need many more educated, consecrated co-workers with the clergy. I am myself exceptionally fortunate in having able co-workers who graduated from Tufts College. Not less than six of my parishioners were graduated at my beloved college. A graduate of Bowdoin promises to become a faithful helper. But I know how many graduates of colleges turn away from the denomination, and that there are some who have nothing to do with any church. I wish to secure the co-operation of all graduates in the splendid work now offered to our beloved Church. We shall not gain this to the desirable extent I long for, unless our colleges send them forth believers in God, followers of Christ, helpers of men. I believe that consecration can accompany culture. I believe that strong intellects, pure consciences, strenuous wills can be developed by wise, thorough

training in the study of the literature of Israel. The consummate flower of that literature is in the books of the Old and New Testaments. And rich, indeed, are most of the writings of the Apocrypha. To know all these, to see the part which Israel has played in the great drama of humanity, while seeing also the great parts played by Greece and Rome, will make men feel that there is One God and Father who is above all and through all and in all, a leader, peerless among men, the prophet of Nazareth, a glorious meaning to human life, an end to be reached through the ages worthy of the Eternal God.

Whoso feels thus can use all other studies, standing in all professions and avocations, to make himself a man who reveres God and worketh righteousness. He will stand for principle and not for party, for the people and not for the rich and strong, for college and for church, for the righteousness by which a nation is exalted. Such a result, accomplished by the study of the Scriptures in our colleges, is an object for which all men who love learning and religion will devoutly pray and strongly work. Henry Blanchard.

ARTICLE XVI.

The Future of American Institutions.

THE attempt to forecast the future of American Institutions is indeed an ambitious one. It will doubtless signify to the reader more of groundless presumption than of real knowledge and power to achieve the attempt successfully. Nevertheless it is something the thoughtful man, living in the midst of these institutions, cannot help thinking about, and possibly his ideas and conclusions, if not the most profound, will be found useful to some. Whatever foreigners, however distinguished, may think of America, to us America is, at least, a very interesting topic. While we should not dismiss in contempt, or as worthless, the impressions and convictions the foreigner may arrive

at in relation to us and our characteristic institutions, we ought not to be deterred thereby from a close and careful study of these objects, and a calm, fearless judgment in favor, or criticism against, as the case or occasion may warrant.

Among the nations of the world, America occupies a position that is unique, to say the least. Almost all others may be contrasted to her, scarcely any may be compared with her. It is true that America commands the attention of the world. Historians, politicians, statesmen, financiers, philanthropists, students of the problems that underlie human society, are turning their eyes upon America. Doubtless there are many that still regard America in the light of a vast experiment, the issue of which is doubtful. There may be some good reasons for this, the chief of which is the rapid and unprecedented growth that characterizes almost everything American. In reading the history of the older nations, one of the principal things that strikes us, is the comparatively slow unfoldment of their better life, their better institutions, and the hnmanities which to-day prevail among them. We trace stretching away back in their history, a long period of savagery and barbarism. There is no reason why this shonld be expected in American history. English history begins in savagery. Mr. Green, the historian, gives a graphic picture of the original Englishman, as he existed in the fatherland of the English race, a district in the region bordered by the Baltic and the Northern seas. M. Taine, writing of the same people, calls them, "Huge white bodies, cool-blooded, with fierce blue eyes, reddish flaxen hair, ravenous stomachs, filled with meat and cheese, heated by strong drinks, of a cold temperament, slow to love, home-stayers, prone to brutal drunkenness." It was written of them, "Of all barbarians, these are the strongest, of body and heart the most formidable, the most cruelly ferocious." American history, or what we have in mind usually when we speak of American history, may be traced back to no such beginnings. It began not with barbarism, but with civilization. The best thought, the freest, broadest, as well as most religious thought of Europe laid the foundation of American civilization. It

could scarcely be called the beginning of a new civilization; it was rather the transplanting of the finer and higher elements of European civilization in the new soil, amidst the new possibilities of a great country, rich in unparalleled resources. Max O'Rell, giving his impressions of American society in the Forum, says, "By and by it became clear to me that though there are plenty of Americans, the American does not exist as yet. The American of the West, differs as much from the American of the East, as this latter does from the Southerner." There may be something of inaccuracy in speaking of a civilization that is distinctively or purely American, since the seeds of what is best in it, were sown by Europeans.

Something there may be to wonder at in the rapid growth of about everything in this country. It is not to speak justly and truthfully to say that this growth is of a mushroom character. The seeds of it were properly sown. They had time to strike roots deeply. There had been plenty of preparation. The peculiar phases of American civilization, upon which the world gazes in astonishment, asking "How can these things be?" have not anticipated their time. The time, we believe, is ripe for the institutions upon which the old world, in its bondage to the past, stares in perplexed wonder that the heavens do not fall.

If we take an optimistic view of our subject, we need not be charged with looking lightly upon the actual condition of affairs. He, who among all others, had most hope for the world, and preached the largest possibilities, was perfectly conscious of the struggle in store for man. Hope is not inconsistent with a profound sense of hard conditions, and the struggle it must cost to reach an ideal state. Premising that we see clearly the task that awaits us and those that will come after us, that we are not blind to the actual state of human affairs in America, we declare our belief that the future of American institutions promises to be bright. May we not indulge the fancy that they are the beginning, the germ form at least, of institutions that shall develop and unfold with the completion of human history on the earth?