PRAYER AS A POWER. 
 
 BACCALAUREATE DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, 
 
 JUNE 22, 1873. 
 
 BY ASA D. SMITH, 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 CONCORD, N. H. : 
 
 PRINTED BY THE REPUBLICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION. 
 
 1873. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/prayeraspowerbacOOsmit 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 GENESIS 32: 28. 
 
 “For as a prince hast thou power with God and 
 
 WITH MEN, AND HAST PREVAILED.” 
 
 The spirit of prayer, in a qualified sense of the 
 expression, may not inaptly be classed among the 
 natural instincts. There is in the human soul, with 
 all its pride and self-exaltation, a deep and ineradica- 
 ble sense of dependence. We are neither self-made, 
 we feel, nor self-sustained. We lean perpetually on 
 props without us. In our blindness and weakness, 
 and in the insufficiency of all earthly aids and re- 
 sources, we turn, by a resistless inward prompting, to 
 a power above us. The idea of God, if it be not 
 innate, is at least most natural — of a God who can 
 and will help us, and whose ear is open to our cry. 
 So prayer has a place in all religions. There is not 
 a mythology but embraces it ; there is not a creed, 
 either of Christian or non-Christian lands, but gives it 
 warrant and prominence. Nay, there is scarce a 
 human being, especially where the light of revelation 
 
4 
 
 shines, who does not, after some form or manner, at 
 times if not habitually, take the attitude of a sup- 
 pliant. This normal tendency of our being is well 
 set forth by Mrs. Barbauld. "If prayer,” she says, 
 "were not enjoined to the perfection, it would be per- 
 mitted to the weakness of our nature. We should 
 be betrayed into it if we thought it sin ; and pious 
 ejaculations would escape our lips, though we were 
 obliged to preface them with — 6 God forgive me for 
 praying.’ ” 
 
 But man, in his fallen estate, is a bundle of contra- 
 dictions ; and so, in this relation, as in many others, 
 there is often a lurking, if not an outspoken skepti- 
 cism. " They say, How doth God know, and is there 
 knowledge with the Most High?” And "what profit 
 shall we have if we pray unto him ? ” It is the ten- 
 dency of modern infidelity to eliminate all the great 
 personalities from religion, and to substitute for them 
 unintelligent, impassive forces. It either takes from 
 us wholly a personal God, or the privilege, at least, 
 of communion with him. And "science, falsely so 
 called,” lends to the doubter her glass and her cruci- 
 ble. In all the potencies she recognizes, prayer has 
 no place. It may be a harmless and pleasant employ- 
 ment — a profitable exercise to the suppliant himself. 
 But beyond that, she sees no fruit of it. Sad, indeed, 
 are these questionings in one view, but in another we 
 rejoice in them. The recent discussions have turned 
 
5 
 
 t 
 
 the thought of all Christendom to this great subject. 
 The truth in regard to it has been unfolded as never 
 before ; and it will be more and more eclaircized. 
 God will be more fully revealed to men, and men 
 will be brought nearer to the divine Fatherhood. As 
 presented in the text — one of the most remarkable 
 in the Word of God — and as commended, especially, 
 to those who are just beginning the great battle of 
 life, it will not be found, surely, an inappropriate or 
 unprofitable subject. This passage has reference to 
 the great supplicatory struggle of the patriarch Jacob 
 ■ — that wondrous night-scene, when “ there wrestled a 
 man with him until the breaking of the day.” With- 
 out entering into the particulars of the inspired nar- 
 rative, it will suffice to say, that, as well in its unique 
 symbolism as its literal statements, it naturally sug- 
 gests as our theme, Prayer as a Power. 
 
 It is a power, I remark first, following the order 
 of the text, with God . It is so, not because of any 
 might or worthiness in us, but of his gracious ordina- 
 tion. He has said , 66 Ask, and ye shall receive.” And 
 this is repeated and reiterated, in a thousand forms 
 and relations, from the beginning of the Bible to its 
 close. Prayer is not only set forth as a privilege, but 
 enjoined as a duty. And it is urged upon us by 
 an infinite variety of motives, now drawn from the 
 sterner attributes of God, and now from the milder. 
 It is so presented, that we must needs take the 
 
6 
 
 simplest view of it. It is in literal truthfulness 
 he speaks, when he calls himself the hearer and 
 answerer of prayer. Otherwise to judge is to make 
 the whole drift of the scriptures, in this relation, a 
 mockery and a lie. We are to come to our Heavenly 
 Father as children to an earthly; we are to ask as 
 they ask, and receive as they receive. To conceive 
 of it as only a spiritual gymnastic, putting the sup- 
 pliant in a good mood, but having no further issue, is 
 to make it little more than a vain show, and the 
 promises that authorize it a pretentious illusion. Nay, 
 it would be hard, in this view, to save it from con- 
 tempt. Think of an earthly father directing and 
 encouraging his children to ask favors of him, and 
 then saying, “ I bade you ask, with no thought of 
 giving, but only of the good the asking would do 
 you. I deemed it a profitable mental and moral dis- 
 cipline.” Under such conditions, how soon would all 
 prayer cease — nay, all reverence. 
 
 As to the blessings to be secured, the range is vast. 
 That it includes spiritual mercies, few who believe in 
 prayer at all are disposed to doubt. Some, indeed, 
 limit its efficacy to these — as to the pardon of sin, to 
 the joy of God’s salvation, to the cleansing of the 
 heart, to the wisdom we lack, and to the influences of 
 God’s Spirit generally. Of these, as subjects and 
 issues of prayer, the Bible makes emphatic mention. 
 But it mentions, also, temporal benefits. There is 
 
7 
 
 scarce a good pertaining to the present life but it 
 particularly names, either as a thing to be prayed 
 for, or which prayer has secured. I need not remind 
 you how the sick have been healed, prison gates have 
 been opened, armies have been put to flight, the 
 heavens have given rain, and even, as in the case of 
 Daniel, the secrets of Providence have been unlocked. 
 Our Heavenly Father has indeed put into the hands, 
 of his children, so to speak, a blank petition, to be 
 filled up at their pleasure. “ Be careful for nothing ; 
 but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with 
 thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto 
 God.” “ In everything” — blessed amplitude of grace ! 
 We may bring to the mercy-seat our minor as well as 
 our major troubles. Whatever is a burden to us, 
 whether from its own weight, or from our weakness, 
 it is our privilege to cast upon the great Burden- 
 bearer. In this respect as in others, “ to him no high, 
 no low, no great, no small.” Nor does the thought of 
 God’s care for the lesser matters, as for the falling spar- 
 row and for the hairs of our heads, detract at all from 
 his general providence. It was a fine saying of Ralph 
 Waldo Emerson concerning Froude, that he “is able 
 to see and say wholes, and to see and say particulars.” 
 There was a certain divinity of his genius in this 
 regard. So, on an infinitely broader scale, God knows 
 how to harmonize, in his providence, wholes with par- 
 ticulars, and particulars with each other. “Providence 
 
8 
 
 is making a great stir for you,” it was remarked 
 once, with a slight tinge of sarcasm, to a man who 
 had been devoutly recounting God’s gracious order- 
 ings of his private affairs. “Yes, for me,” the reply 
 was, “but for others as well, and in the self-same 
 events.” 
 
 11 In human works, though labored on with pain, 
 
 A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain ; 
 
 In God’s, one single can its end produce, 
 
 Which serves to second, too, some other use.” 
 
 He can so correlate the diverse and multitudinous facts 
 of earth’s history, that the gracious answer to prayer 
 in a single case shall affect not the recipient alone, 
 but thousands of his fellow men — nay, all, it may be. 
 Like the little pebble cast into the lake, it may send 
 circling waves of influence to the farthest shore of 
 being. As in the material world, according to the 
 fancy of some, the vibrations caused by the human 
 voice never cease, so, in a spiritual sense, the atmos- 
 phere about us may be stirred, at this very moment, 
 by utterances of supplication from the earliest ages. 
 
 We may well pause and ask here, however — 
 especially in view of the recent questionings of sci- 
 ence — whether, as touching the power of prayer, 
 there is no qualification or limitation. May we hope 
 to receive, literally and exactly, whatever we ask? 
 An inquiry this of great moment, as it stands related 
 to fanaticism on the one hand, and to skepticism on 
 
9 
 
 the other. Our reply to it will be brief, but frank 
 and exhaustive. We shall contemplate therein not 
 miraculous interferences, such as pertained, for im- 
 portant purposes, to bygone ages, but such answers 
 to prayer as may be looked for now. And we shall 
 take for our guide, as the only final authority, the 
 Word of God. 
 
 Prayer, to be prevalent, we say, then, in the first 
 place, must be uttered in faith. “He that cometh to 
 God, must believe that he is, and that he is a reward- 
 er of them that diligently seek him.” Where Christ 
 is known, to say the least, and not to touch on the 
 possibilities of heathendom, he must be believed in ; 
 for “ he that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the 
 Father which hath sent him.” We must pray, too, in 
 Christ’s name — virtually, if not formally ; for he is 
 the “one Mediator between God and men.” “No 
 man,” he says, “ cometh unto the Father but by me.” 
 Praying thus, we say, in the second place, whatever 
 is particularly and positively promised, we shall surely 
 receive. As, in the case of an earthly father, there 
 may be some requests concerning which he has given 
 unequivocal pre-intimations, so that they may be 
 uttered with no shadow of uncertainty, so is it with 
 our Heavenly Father. He has promised the Holy 
 Spirit to those who ask him ; he has promised wis- 
 dom, also, and other particular spiritual blessings. 
 He has promised that he will give to his Son the 
 
10 
 
 heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts 
 of the earth for his possession. He has not, indeed, 
 indicated the ways and forms in which these blessings 
 shall come ; a the times” and “ the seasons” he “ hath 
 put in his own power.” But that prayer will secure 
 them, he has pledged his word — more abiding than 
 the earth on which we tread, or the heavens that 
 bend over us. As to things not particularly promised, 
 of which the number is vast, we have only to cast 
 ourselves on his general benignity. We may well 
 be encouraged by it, written as it is all over the uni- 
 verse, illustrated as it is on every page of the Bible. 
 Yet “we are but of yesterday, and know nothing.” 
 What we ask in our blindness, we might depre- 
 cate as granted. Well says the great dramatist : 
 
 “ We, ignorant of ourselves, 
 
 Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers 
 Deny us for our good ; so find we profit 
 By losing of our prayers.” 
 
 Where no specific promise guides us, while we have 
 the priceless privilege of spreading all our wants be- 
 fore God, we have only to leave them all with him, 
 saying, with our Great Examplar, even in the Geth- 
 semanes of our history, “ Not my will, but thine be 
 done.” To all this I must add, that prayer is a power 
 only as all appropriate means are used. The fable 
 of Hercules and the wagoner does but adumbrate 
 Christian truth. God honors as truly, though not in 
 
11 
 
 precisely the same way, his natural as his moral laws. 
 It is for our weal that the activities required by them 
 should be ever kept in play. Even in the case of 
 miracles, what stress has been laid on human instru- 
 mentality. The rod of Moses must be stretched 
 forth ; the rock must be smitten ; Jericho must be 
 compassed ; Elijah must stretch himself upon the 
 dead child. In the wonders wrought by our Lord, 
 though the potency inhered in his mere word, how 
 often is the use of means commended to us. He 
 touches the eyes that are to be opened, or he anoints 
 them with clay. He puts his fingers into the ears 
 that are to be unstopped ; he touches the tongue 
 that is to be unloosed, and the leper that is to be 
 cleansed. To complete his cure, the blind man must 
 wash in the pool of Siioam. Much more are means 
 to be used when they are not symbols merely, but 
 veritable second causes. The spirit of prayer is the 
 spirit, also, of accordant action. He who prays only, 
 neglecting appropriate instrumentalities, is either a 
 fanatic, mistaking God’s methods, or a pretender, rest- 
 ing in the mere verbiage of supplication. 
 
 Keeping in view the qualifications and limitations 
 thus succinctly specified, we are prepared now to 
 aver, that real prayer is always answered in some 
 way. It is, in other words, always a power with God. 
 So is it, as we have said, when we have a specific 
 promise to plead. So, too, when we cast ourselves, 
 
12 
 
 simply, on the divine Fatherhood. If we ask him for 
 bread, he will not give us a stone. It may not be 
 the bread, either in substance or in shape, that our 
 fond fancy has conceived ; that, he may see, will not 
 be best for us. It may not be, to his all-discerning 
 eye, our fittest soul-food ; it would harm, on the 
 whole, instead of helping us. And so he may deny 
 it, that he may give us something better. Just as an 
 earthly father might withhold from his little child the 
 edge-tool that would be perilous, or the viand that 
 would work evil, only that he may show his love by 
 some wiser gift. In this view, we judge, we have a 
 key to all those passages, save only such as relate to 
 miracles, which assure us that faith will secure what- 
 ever it asks. Faith never dictates. Faith asks sub- 
 missively. Faith means always, “ This, if it please 
 thee ; or something else, if, in thy sight, that is better. 
 Give me, for my seeming needs, if it may be so, the 
 meat which perisheth ; but give me, at least, that 
 meat ‘ which endure th unto everlasting life.’” Faith 
 regards all temporal good as but the shadow of the 
 spiritual and the eternal ; and it deems its prayer for 
 the former answered, if, instead thereof, the latter is 
 granted. Even spiritual blessings come to the sup- 
 pliant often in disguise. They may be as God’s good 
 angels about him, while he detects not their footfall 
 or the rustle of their wings. They may be within 
 the heart’s portal, when there seems for the moment 
 
13 
 
 to be but loneliness there. Beautifully is this set 
 forth by an oriental poet, — albeit of another faith than 
 ours : 
 
 ‘ ‘ Allah ! was all night long the cry of one oppressed with care, 
 
 Till softened was his heart, and sweet became his lips with prayer. 
 Then near the subtle tempter stole, and spake, Fond babbler, cease, . 
 For not one Here am I has God e’er sent to give thee peace. 
 
 With sorrow sank the suppliant’s heart, and all his senses fled ; 
 
 But at night’s noon, Elias came, and gently spake and said, 
 
 What ails thee now, my child, and whence art thou afraid to pray, 
 And why thy former love dost thou repent ? Declare and say. 
 
 Ah ! cries he, Never once to me spake God, Here am /, son ! 
 
 Cast off, methinks I am, and warned far from his gracious throne. 
 
 To whom Elias, Hear, my son ! the word from God I bear ; 
 
 Go tell, he said, yon mourner, sunk in sorrow and despair, 
 
 Each Lord ', appear , thy lips pronounce, contains my Here am I ; 
 
 A special messenger I send beneath thine every sigh. 
 
 Thy love is but a girdle of the love I bear to thee, 
 
 And sleeping in thy Come , 0 Lord , there lies Here, son , from me.” 
 
 It is in place here, and will meet the demands of 
 our subject, to glance at the views of one of the 
 most eminent of our modern scientists. I refer to 
 Professor John Tyndall. I utter his name — as it sug- 
 gests his own remarkable history, and as it stands 
 related to the progress of human knowledge — with a 
 feeling of profound admiration. A man who, with a 
 diligence that never tires, a will that quails not before 
 the most appalling obstacles, a keenness of insight 
 that stops not short of the deepest mysteries of 
 nature, has made his way from obscurity to his present 
 proud position • a man whose genius has illumined so 
 broad and diversified a field of science, reaching from 
 
14 
 
 the cold glaciers of the Alps, through cloud and rain 
 and river and rivulet, down to fhe central fires — yea, 
 to the innermost secret of those fires ; is worthy to 
 be heard with respectful consideration. Chistian 
 charity would fain have for him no scornful words. It 
 would ill comport with his own emphatic utterances 
 to deem him an atheist; we are slow even to pro- 
 nounce him an infidel. We are willing to believe 
 that he has been too severely judged by many. He 
 discards not prayer ; he thinks " not otherwise than 
 solemnly,” he declares, “ of the feeling that prompts 
 it.” He denies not even — after the puerile fashion of 
 the Westminster Review and its coadjutors — the pos- 
 sibility of miracles. “ There is no inherent unreason- 
 ableness,” he says, “in the act of prayer” — in that 
 act, he means, as it respects even the physical sphere. 
 66 The theory,” he adds, “ that the system of nature is 
 under the control of a Being who changes phenom- 
 ena in compliance with the prayers of men, is, in my 
 opinion, a perfectly legitimate one.” He only asks 
 that this theory be verified ; and it is in relation, 
 almost solely, to the test he proposes, that we take 
 exception to his views. 
 
 He errs, we say in the first place, when he repre- 
 sents us as holding that prayer is, in certain relations, 
 “a form of physical energy.” We hold no such thing. 
 We never identify it with a law of nature; we regard 
 it rather as a purely spiritual force, issuing from the 
 
15 
 
 depths of the free spirit in man, and reaching and 
 moving the Infinite Spirit. Mr. Tyndall seems, in- 
 deed, to be not quite sure of his own statement; for 
 he adds, “ or as the equivalent of such energy.” Be 
 it so, in some sense. Admit that in some cases, like 
 results come of both. Are equivalents in this regard 
 always identical ? Do they belong to the same cate- 
 gory? Are they subject to the same laws? A kind 
 word may soothe as well as an anodyne, but is it 
 framed, therefore, by the pharmacopoeia ? A sermon 
 may induce sleep as well as the juice of the poppy, 
 but would you test it, therefore, by the chemist’s re- 
 agents ? A physical force is, ex vi termini , in nature — 
 part and parcel of it ; prayer and the divine power it 
 invokes, — in other words, the power of prayer, — is 
 without and above nature. Nature is affected by both, 
 but what folly to confound them. Prayer is no more 
 “ a form of physical energy ” than is the cry of a 
 suffering child, or the pity it awakens in a father’s 
 heart. 
 
 Erring at this point, it is not strange that he errs 
 as touching the test of prayer. How inept and im- 
 possible, clearly, is the verification he proposes. This 
 is evident from the nature and conditions, as we have 
 stated them, of all prevalent supplication. It is to be 
 offered in faith ; but in what laboratory of man — by 
 what analysis, either of science or philosophy— is that 
 to be surely detected ? The power must be present, 
 
16 
 
 of course, or you have no right to count on the effect. 
 To ordinary prayer for physical benefits, we look in 
 vain, moreover, for specific promises. They are all of 
 a general character. We commit our case, as we have 
 said, to the infinite benignity of our Heavenly Father, 
 and to his unerring wisdom. But who can say, with 
 certainty, what will be best for us, or what he can con- 
 sistently do ? “Who, by searching, can find out God ?” 
 That various forms of natural good, such as rain from 
 heaven and the restoration of health, are sometimes 
 granted in answer to our petitions, we have reason, 
 both on experimental and historical grounds, to be- 
 lieve ; and what is more, this belief is warranted by 
 the infallible word of God. In that we rest. But 
 that prayer, in particular instances, may be subjected 
 to some crucial test — as if the mere form of words 
 were of itself a power, working like the forces of 
 nature, certainly, constantly, and invariably — is so 
 near to an absurdity, that we cannot but wonder at 
 its finding a lodgment in a brain like Mr. Tyndall’s. 
 
 We have doubters, however, respecting the power 
 of prayer, as we intimated at the outset, of a very 
 different character. Their difficulties are of a deeper 
 and broader sort. They plant themselves on the im- 
 mutability of nature, so far as her essential laws and 
 ongoings are concerned. Law reigns, they tell us, in 
 all the material creation, and law is uniform. It 
 brooks not interference. Its maintenance is essential 
 
17 
 
 to the harmony of the universe — nay, to its stability. 
 If it is liable to be disturbed, at one point and another, 
 by varying modes and measures of spiritual influence, 
 not only may the equilibrium of things be destroyed, 
 the whole system may topple into confusion. What- 
 ever link prayer may strike from the chain of causa- 
 tion, “ tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike” 
 While confidence in the future is lost, the stimulus to 
 present action is weakened. Nay, as the mind and 
 heart of God are affected, even his immutability is 
 brought into question. 
 
 Such, in its length and breadth, is the case against 
 us. We might meet it, if we chose, on the simple 
 ground of faith. If we could frame not the slightest 
 conjecture as to the way in which the reign of law 
 and the prevalence of prayer could be reconciled, the 
 unchangeableness of God and his readiness to hear 
 his children, yet on his testimony we should be sure 
 that they could be reconciled. I would not say with 
 the old divine, “ Credo, quia impossibile ; ” but I 
 would say, I believe because God hath spoken. Like 
 the little child, who paused in his evening devotions, 
 as his eyelids grew heavy with sleep, and faintly mur- 
 mured, “ God knows the rest,” so would I say, at the 
 end of all my own poor wisdom. Yet we are not 
 straitened as to arguments wherewith to vindicate the 
 ways and the utterances of the Most High. 
 
 As to the difficulties growing out of the reign of 
 
18 
 
 law, they pertain no more, be it observed, to the ma- 
 terial than to the spiritual sphere. For hath not 
 mind its laws as well as matter ? The law of liberty 
 in the soul, indeed, or the freedom of the will* would 
 seem to present a special difficulty. The objection in 
 hand, pressed to its full issue, would leave no place 
 for prayer — a result avowedly contemplated by some 
 who urge it. I may say further, that as to the appre- 
 hended derangement of nature by the interposition 
 of a divine force, our fears may well be allayed by 
 the fact that we have the analogue of that interposi- 
 tion, as Mr. Tyndall admits, in “ the ordinary action 
 of man upon earth.” If his free will may enter 
 harmlessly, and as a distinct but real efficiency, into 
 the complicated tissue of physical causation, why 
 may not God’s ? And as to the doctrine of the divine 
 immutability, it is put in no peril. We essay not the 
 metaphysics of God’s nature. That there is to him, 
 as divines have said, “ one eternal now,” is doubtless 
 in some sense true. Yet there is a sense, that to 
 which, from the limitations of our being, we must be 
 mainly confined, in which there is succession with 
 him — succession of thoughts, feelings, and deeds. 
 Changeless in his essence and attributes, and so in 
 the principles of his government, he yet varies, as 
 occasions arise, in the application of those principles. 
 Yesterday we sinned, and he frowned upon us; 
 to-day we are penitent, and we share his smile. Yes- 
 
19 
 
 terday we were prayerless, and he withheld priceless 
 blessings ; to-day we kneel in suppliance, and from 
 a father’s yearning heart those blessings come down. 
 It is only thus he is true to himself, and so, in the 
 best sense, the unchangeable God. 
 
 With these preliminary remarks, we pass to the 
 two main theories, by either or both of which, it is 
 believed, the power of prayer may be reconciled with 
 the essential stability of nature. The first has been 
 called the theory of preestablished harmony. It is so 
 called because it recognizes the predetermined con- 
 currence of prayer and the need it meets. A cer- 
 tain exigency, and the cry for help it elicits, are 
 foreseen by God ; waiving all speculation about an 
 eternal present, they were foreseen — or foreordained, 
 if you please so to say — before the world was. And 
 the aid implored is also foreordained — not as a mira- 
 cle, but as the resultant of undisturbed natural forces. 
 A line of causation is established, natural causation, 
 running through the ages, and so timed and adjusted 
 that it brings to the suppliant, in his extremity, just 
 the blessing he asks. At the beginning of Daniel’s 
 supplication 66 the commandment went forth,” and the 
 angel Gabriel, “ being caused to fly swiftly,” touched 
 him before it was ended. At an earlier command- 
 ment, in the view we now present, and over a longer 
 track, God’s messenger comes, but with a concurrence 
 not less exact and felicitous. Is this harder for God, 
 
20 
 
 think you, than for the cunning weaver so to dispose 
 the threads of his variegated web that they shall 
 cross each other at precisely the right points, each 
 making its contribution to the preconceived figure ? 
 There is, according to this theory, no suspension of 
 law, no modification of it. It reigns as ever • and yet 
 God reigns, and graciously answers prayer. 
 
 It happened, not long ago, that on one of the rail- 
 roads of New England, a road with a single track, 
 two trains had started in opposite directions ; and 
 they had started at such times, the superintendent 
 learned, that unless they were arrested a collision was 
 inevitable. But there was no way of arresting them. 
 They had both left the only telegraph stations avail- 
 able. As the sole remaining resource, the superintend- 
 ent telegraphed to one of those stations, directing that 
 a swift car be dispatched immediately — a car which he 
 was assured would reach the point of collision at just 
 the time when, under the pressure of the foreseen 
 calamity, the cry for help would be heard. In this 
 predetermined concurrence, we have an imperfect 
 illustration of what we may conceive to be God’s way 
 of answering prayer. 
 
 There is a second theory, however, which owes its 
 most brilliant exposition to the genius of Chalmers. 
 I may call it the theory of occult influence. It em- 
 braces no miracle, in the proper sense of the term ; 
 for a miracle is not only “ an effect in nature above 
 
21 
 
 nature/’ it is a sensible effect. It is something which, 
 perceived, becomes a wonder. Nor does it contemplate, 
 strictly speaking, a suspension of the physical forces — 
 not even an apprehensible counteraction or modifica- 
 tion of them. “Prayer,” says Chalmers, “may obtain 
 its fulfilment without any visible reversal of the con- 
 stancies of nature, provided its first effect is upon 
 some latent and interior spring of the mechanism, and 
 not among its palpable evolutions. Let but the touch 
 of communication between the Deity and his works, 
 when he goes forth to meet the desire of any of his 
 creatures, be behind or underneath that surface which 
 marks and measures off the farthest verge of man’s 
 possible discovery — and then may there be many a 
 special request which receives as special an accom- 
 plishment, yet without disturbance to those wonted 
 successions which either the eye of man or his nicest 
 instruments of observation shall enable him to ascer- 
 tain.” And he goes on to illustrate this view with 
 reference to prayer for a prosperous voyage or for an 
 abundant harvest, answered, possibly, by some divine 
 touch, far down in the unsounded and unsoundable 
 depths of meteorology ; and to prayer for the recov- 
 ery of health, responded to, not by any derangement 
 of the visible ongoing of nature, but by some occult 
 influence in the unexplored recesses of the animal 
 economy. “ It is thence,” he says, “ God may answer 
 prayer ; and however proud science shall despise the 
 
22 
 
 affirmation, there is nought in all the laws and se- 
 quences that she has ever ascertained, by which she 
 can disprove it.” 
 
 I met lately with an illustration of this view — given 
 as such by an eminent divine — drawn from a familiar 
 department of human mechanism. In one of the in- 
 land cities of New York, beside the river on which it 
 is built, there is a steam engine in a small building, by 
 means of which, as it is kept going day and night, the 
 inhabitants are supplied with water. The machinery 
 is so arranged that the demand of the town acts ordi- 
 narily as a governor, the engine moving with greater 
 or less rapidity, according as the water is taken off in 
 greater or less measure. But there is a special provi- 
 sion, a reserved force, for a special exigency. When 
 a fire occurs, by means of wires accessible from with- 
 out, an alarm bell rings in the engine-room ; and the 
 engineer, unseen by the people of the imperilled city, 
 and by methods which they, probably, would but im- 
 perfectly understand, gears on some curious extra 
 machinery, by means of which the mains are charged 
 to their fullest capacity, and such an amount of pres- 
 sure is brought to bear upon them, that the water is 
 sent to the tops of the loftiest buildings. We have 
 here, in the leading particulars — we say not in all — a 
 shadowing forth of the theory in hand. In the ordi- 
 nary machinery — in the larger and smaller pipes, in 
 faucet and hose, and in the maintenance of the gen- 
 
23 
 
 eral law, supply answering to demand — we have an 
 illustration of the visible constancies and regularities 
 of nature. In the tinkling of the bell, as, rung by 
 some faithful watcher, it falls on a single ear, we have 
 the voice of prayer. In the heart and the hand that 
 respond, and the interposing force, unseen but effec- 
 tive, we have the Infinite Architect and Engineer 
 answering, out of the veiled recesses of the physical 
 sphere, the cry of the earnest suppliant. 
 
 What is so clearly possible in the material world 
 is even more conceivable in the world of mind. By 
 facts, experienced or observed, its likelihood, to say 
 the least, is often suggested. It is related of an 
 eminent naval officer, that, as the vessel he com- 
 manded was once crossing the ocean, its course 
 brought him in sight of the Island of Ascension, an 
 island at that time uninhabited, and seldom visited 
 by any ship. It met his eye but as a speck on the 
 horizon ; yet, strange to say, he was seized with a 
 strong desire to move towards it. He knew how 
 singular such a wish would appear to his crew, and 
 he struggled against it ; but it grew more and more 
 intense, and, as they were fast leaving the island 
 behind them, he ordered his lieutenant to prepare 
 to “put about ship” and steer for Ascension. The 
 lieutenant ventured respectfully to remonstrate. He 
 urged the loss of time a change in their course would 
 occasion ; and, as the men were just then engaged, 
 
24 
 
 he pleaded for, at least, a little delay. His argu- 
 ments, however, availed nothing ; they rather in- 
 creased the desire that had mastered the captain, 
 and he gave, at once, the word of command. Though 
 in the faces of all the officers there was an expression 
 of wonder and even of blame, the order was obeyed, 
 and the prow was turned towards the uninteresting 
 little island. All eyes and glasses were immediately 
 fixed upon it, and soon something of an unusual sort 
 was perceived upon the shore. "It is white — it is a 
 flag — it must be a signal ! ” were the cries which 
 broke at intervals from the excited crew. As they 
 neared the land, a touching spectacle met their view. 
 They found that sixteen men, wrecked on that coast 
 many days before, and suffering the extremity of 
 hunger, had set up the observed signal, though 
 almost without hope of relief. They were taken on 
 board, and the ship that had come thus as God’s 
 ministering angel, went on its way. 
 
 That cries to heaven for help had risen from 
 some of those shipwrecked men, is, to say the 
 least, highly probable, and that prayers had been 
 offered for them by devout friends at home. Is it 
 irrational to say that those prayers were answered ? 
 It may have been in the first of the methods we 
 have indicated. There may have been only the 
 operation of natural causes, the chain thereof reach- 
 ing down from the eternal purpose to the moment 
 
25 
 
 of need. That remarkable desire of the captain may 
 have come of the normal workings of mind and 
 heart ; the reign of law in both may have been un- 
 broken, unmodified, unsupplemented. We know too 
 little of the mysteries of thought and feeling to 
 aver the contrary. Yet this very ignorance favors 
 rather than forbids the theory we are now consider- 
 ing. How very possible is it - — according to the 
 seeming of the case, as it would strike most minds — 
 that, far down in the arcana of the soul, there was 
 some special pressure of the divine finger, reaching 
 we know not what cell of memory, stirring we say 
 not what wing of fancy, thrilling we aver not what 
 chords of association, opening we affirm not what 
 founts of feeling, — yet giving such ultimate direction 
 to the will, as wrought salvation for the perishing 
 ones. God is not straitened as touching his access 
 to the mind, or his secret operations there. He has 
 glorious options as to his way of working. And 
 apart from all arrogant and presumptuous dogmatism, 
 and without discarding the great stabilities of nature, 
 it is not difficult to show how, as touching both the 
 physical and the spiritual, prayer may be a power 
 with him. 
 
 We pass now, in the second place, to contemplate 
 prayer, according to the suggestion of the text, as a 
 power with men . In view of what has been said under 
 the first head, no amplitude of argument or illustra- 
 
26 
 
 tion is needed here. That which moves the hand 
 that moves the universe must needs have power in 
 inferior directions. It gives to the suppliant, we may 
 say, first, power with other mm. This, both as it exerts 
 a certain direct influence, and as it secures, in various 
 forms, divine aid. It has been beautifully said, “ The 
 nearest way to any human heart is round by heaven.” 
 So was it in the case of Jacob. There was an influ- 
 ence from above, we may presume, upon the mind of 
 his exasperated brother — “ harder to be won,” it had 
 seemed, 66 than the bars of a castle.” There was a 
 wisdom of precaution and of conciliation on the patri- 
 arch’s part — there was a power of suasion in word 
 and look — born, we cannot doubt, of that night of 
 wrestling. You remember the famous saying of 
 Queen Mary, that she feared the prayers of John 
 Knox more than a host of armed men. She had 
 many reasons for fearing. Not only is God with a 
 praying man, his omniscience and omnipotence work 
 ing for him, — he is himself a power. He is Virgil’s 
 good man before the “ignobile vulgus,” only on a 
 higher plane and a broader scale. His face shines as 
 did that of Moses. Like Stephen’s, it is as “ the face 
 of an angel • ” and his words come to men with more 
 than angelic authority — it is as if God were working 
 and speaking through him. 
 
 There is involved in all this, moreover, what may be 
 called the reflex influence of prayer. If it be real 
 
27 
 
 prayer, from a believing heart and an earnest pur- 
 pose, it is mightily retroactive ; it is a power with the 
 suppliant's own soul , and so, as has been intimated, a 
 greater outgoing force. Here, as in other relations, 
 we “give out ourselves, ourselves take back again.” 
 Nay, we take back with an increment. There are 
 potent echoes of our supplication ; it resounds from 
 the heavenly hills, with a sweet and sanctifying influ- 
 ence, through the innermost recesses of our being. 
 We draw near to God; we commune with infinite 
 excellence ; and so, by a law of our spiritual nature, we 
 receive a transforming and elevating influence. We 
 grow into the likeness of the object we contemplate. 
 Even the intellectual being is exalted. “An hour of 
 solitude,” says Mr. Coleridge, “passed in sincere and 
 earnest prayer, or the conflict with and conquest over 
 a single passion, or ‘ subtle bosom sin/ will teach us 
 more of thought, will more effectually awaken the 
 faculty and form the habit of reflection, than a year’s 
 study in the schools without them.” Hence the old 
 maxim, “ Bene orasse, est bene studuisse .” It is related 
 of a student here, in years long gone by — a man as 
 distinguished for diligence and success in scholarly 
 pursuits as for fidelity in his religious duties, that he 
 was observed, one morning, to make a strangely im- 
 perfect recitation. “ Pray, how did it happen ? ” said a 
 friend. “To tell you the truth,” was his answer, “ I 
 had neglected my morning devotions.” There was a 
 
28 
 
 sound philosophy in that reply. There is not a men- 
 tal faculty to which prayer gives not a quickening 
 touch. For it is the voice of faith, as we have seen ; 
 and it is well said by the profound writer just quoted, 
 “Never yet did there exist a full faith in the Divine 
 Word, (by whom light , as well as immortality, was 
 brought into the world,) which did not expand the 
 intellect while it purified the heart; which did not 
 multiply the aims and objects of the understand- 
 ing, while it fixed and simplified those of the desires 
 and passions” Prayer helps the memory even. It 
 gives keenness to perception, and balance to the judg- 
 ment, and a loftier flight to the imagination. It 
 imparts a serene and commanding self-possession. 
 And, what is more, there is not a Christian grace, be 
 it love, joy, peace, gentleness, meekness, or holy bold- 
 ness, over which the breath of supplication comes not 
 as that of spring over the nascent buds and flowers : 
 
 “ Lord, what a change within us one short hour 
 Spent in thy presence will avail to make ! 
 
 What heavy burdens from our bosoms take ! 
 
 What parched grounds refresh as with a shower ! 
 
 We kneel, and all around us seems to lower ; 
 
 We rise, and all, the distant and the near, 
 
 Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear ; 
 
 We kneel, how weak! We rise, how full of power! ” 
 
 It is through the channel of prayer, above all oth- 
 ers, that the soul is “ filled with all the fulness of 
 God.” 
 
29 
 
 Such is prayer as a power- — as a power with God, 
 with our fellow-men, and with ourselves. How do its 
 achievements, as seen in the light of our subject, 
 dwarf all others. We speak of the marvels of mod- 
 ern science, and we render due praise to its successful 
 votaries. But whabgreater wonders are here. Prayer 
 is the telegraphic wire that stretches beyond the stars. 
 It is the spectroscopic power, unfolding to us the mys- 
 teries of the Sun of Righteousness. It is the mighty 
 solvent, that melts away the great mountains of diffi- 
 culty. It is the divine alchemy, that turns the baser 
 metals of earthly toil and care and sorrow into heav- 
 en’s own gold. What an ineffable dignity does it 
 impart. How far above the mere kings of men are 
 those who, in this exalted service, are “ kings and 
 priests unto God.” No loftier plaudit ever fell upon 
 the ears of a mortal than that which Jacob heard, as 
 the day was breaking upon him— that plaudit which 
 heaven grant it may be ours to hear— “As a prince 
 hast thou power with God and with men, and hast 
 prevailed.” 
 
 Young Gentlemen of the Graduating Class: 
 
 As we meet you in these Sabbath solemnities for 
 the last time, very pleasant to us are the memories of 
 your college course. I speak not for myself alone, 
 but for the whole circle of your teachers. And very 
 deep is the interest with which we contemplate your 
 
30 
 
 future. As you stand now on the verge of the great 
 field of action, you have a new sense of its responsi- 
 bilities, and of the importance of ample preparation 
 for them. You will need for the work before you a 
 various equipment. The highest mental discipline 
 will be called for, and the largest possible acquisition. 
 You will welcome, too, all fitting opportunities, facili- 
 ties, and helps. But our chief solicitude is, that you 
 may have the best spiritual endowments ; that under 
 whatever name you may choose to serve God — a 
 matter, you will bear us witness, which we have ever 
 held as of comparatively little moment — you may all 
 be men of prayer. So, in the highest sense, as to all 
 the great interests, both of time and eternity, you 
 shall be men of power. 
 
 There are tender recollections awakened by the 
 scenes of to-day, which specially commend to you 
 this high attainment. There are graves which, to 
 your open ear, are eloquent of it. You think of 
 Huntley, and Bichardson, and Smith, and Foster, and 
 Clark — beloved classmates, with you but as yester- 
 day, with hearts as buoyant and promise as fair as 
 yours — now numbered with the dead ! I seem to 
 hear their voices from the spirit land, saying, “ What- 
 ever else ye fail of, be men of prayer.” While yet 
 the dew of youth is upon you, you may need, as 
 they did, that only key to the pearly gate. Should 
 long life be yours, yet as cares accumulate, as bur- 
 
31 
 
 dens press upon you, as fierce conflicts arise, as 
 sorrows are multiplied, as temptations cluster about 
 you, you will need, to your latest breath, this divine 
 resource. You will need it in whatever lowly walk, 
 and on whatever shining height. I thank God, as I 
 speak, for the example of one — that honored son of 
 Dartmouth, mourned of late by the whole nation — 
 whose life was a noteworthy illustration of the theme 
 before us. The late Chief Justice Chase, I joy to 
 believe, was a man of prayer. He bowed the knee, 
 we are told, at the family altar. He communed with 
 God, we doubt not, in the secret place. And the 
 normal issue of that communion was his whole grand 
 career. It is pleasant to remember, that it was in 
 these classic halls, as we have reason to believe, he 
 began his life of devotion. I was affected by the 
 statement, as I lately read it, that, for many hours 
 of the week preceding his decease, he employed his 
 colored servant in reading to him from the recently 
 published sermons of his own College President, the 
 late Dr. Bennet Tyler. How, as page after page 
 was turned, was he carried back, doubtless, - to the 
 scenes of his undergraduate life. He was a boy again. 
 He was within these walls as of old. His classmates 
 were about him. The preacher’s noble form was 
 before him ; and the living voice, so especially per- 
 suasive then, as tradition has it, to a life of faith and 
 prayer, was sounding again in his ears and thrilling 
 
32 
 
 his heart. What fitness was there and what surges- 
 tiveness — what a memento of the power he had wield- 
 ed — in the presence and the ministry of that repre- 
 sentative of the down-trodden race for whom it had 
 been his joy to dare and to do. And how are we 
 pointed to the chief source of that power, as his life 
 of prayer comes thus to its natural and beautiful 
 close. What a lesson have we in this elder brother, 
 for these younger sons of Dartmouth. Be ye “ follow- 
 ers of them who through faith and patience inherit 
 the promises.” Be ye men of prayer ; — and so, when 
 the last of earth shall come to you, you shall leave 
 blessed memories behind you, and the voice of sup- 
 plication shall pass into heaven’s anthem of praise. 
 
 \ 
 
I 
 
A POSITIVE FAITH. 
 
 A 
 
 antalaureatq Sermon, 
 
 PREACHED AT 
 
 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL COLCORD BARTLETT, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE, 
 
 JUNE 24th, 1883. 
 
 HANOVER, N. H. 
 
 PRINTED AT THE DARTMOUTH PRESS, 
 
 1883. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 2 Cor. iv: 13. “We having the same spirit of faith, accord- 
 ing AS IT IS WRITTEN, I BELIEVED, AND THEREFORE HAVE 
 I SPOKEN ; WE ALSO BELIEVE, AND THEREFORE SPEAK.” 
 
 Here are two voices, but one sentiment. “ It is written,” — 
 in the Psalms. It is repeated in the epistle. In the midst of 
 conscious weakness and well-nigh universal treachery, the sweet 
 singer of Israel, centuries before, had stayed himself by faith 
 on God : “ I believed.” And now the great apostle, looking out, 
 backward and forward and around, on the enormous trials and 
 dangers enveloping his whole pathway, rests his undaunted hope 
 and courage on “ the same spirit of faith ” in God : “ We 
 
 also believe.” Two dispensations here coalesce. The apostle 
 and the psalmist join hands across the ages, and together they 
 proclaim in our ears this great lesson of a cheerful and success- 
 ful life, 
 
 THE DUTY, THE VALUE AND THE POWER OF A POSITIVE FAITH. 
 
 The distinction between a matter of science and a matter 
 of faith has been stated thus : the one is a certitude admitting 
 of verification, the other a certitude not admitting of verifica- 
 tion, — although both rest on satisfactory proof. The distinction 
 may be admitted, — so far at least as verification to another is 
 concerned. It is, for example, a matter of science that the dis- 
 tance accomplished by a falling body varies as the square of the 
 time ; for it not only rests on evidence, but can at any time be 
 tested. So with the physical properties of a metal or a gas. 
 But it is matter of faith that God intelligently governs the uni- 
 verse. For though the evidence seems to me irrefragable, I can 
 not verify it, at least to another, as I can the law of falling bodies. 
 Again, that the properties ascribed to the metal and the gas are 
 actual qualities of an external object, and not modifications of 
 my mind or senses, is matter of belief, or in a broad sense, faith. 
 
4 
 
 For however invincible the conviction to me, I can not verify it 
 by experiment to the questioner. In its most general sense, 
 therefore, faith has a wide range, — from the trust we repose in 
 the truthful working of our human faculties up to the surrender 
 of mind and heart to the claims and authority of Jesus Christ. 
 This last is the culmination of all faith, being the supreme move- 
 ment of the human soul, in its highest humanity, towards the 
 Supreme object of the Universe. It is pre-eminently Faith, 
 Christian Faith. And this will be the aim and goal of my dis- 
 cussion, while yet I do not exclude from thought all those sub- 
 ordinate exhibitions of belief, which lie in the same direction, 
 though in a different plane. For there is a believing spirit, ready 
 to find and receive all truth, and to embrace the highest. And 
 there is a spirit of unbelief, doubt, cavil, which notably grows 
 with the greatness of the theme. 
 
 Now the world is so adjusted in its chief arrangements as’ 
 to make the believing spirit both a privilege and a duty, a kind 
 of moral necessity. Man, the head of the creation, was made 
 to walk by faith, and not like the animal, only by sense. It is 
 the prerogative of humanity as rational ; it is the necessity of 
 reason as human. 
 
 So are we trained from the cradle to the grave. Faith is 
 both the law and the instinct of childhood. All early knowledge 
 is belief ; all early inclination is to trust. Parental authority is 
 the child’s law and his gospel, parental care is his life : “ My 
 mother said it ” ; “ my father will do it ”. Then follows the in- 
 evitable reign of the book and the teacher : “ Ipse dixit ”. The 
 time comes when the man sets up for himself, and for what he 
 calls original research. Is it history ? Here his knowledge is 
 testimony or inference, except what is conjecture. Is it science ? 
 His scientific knowledge is chiefly, a vast mosaic of other men’s 
 researches. Is it the field of demonstration ? Every strict dem- 
 onstration is but the conclusion from an assumption, and every 
 stage of the process necessitates an absolute trust in the truth 
 and trustiness of the memory. In all personal investigation the 
 man falls'back on an unverifiable confidence in his faculties, and 
 an unprovable persuasion that the unknown is like the known. 
 Throughout his business life, however much he may have been 
 deceived and defrauded, he caqnot for an hour escape the ne- 
 
5 
 
 cessity of confiding in his fellow-men. Every dollar of the 
 Rothschilds’ fortune is secure only through the integrity of a 
 multitude of men scattered over the world. All business invest 
 ment is a trust in the future and often in the antipodes. The 
 traveller from Boston to San Francisco, blindly commits himself 
 by day and by night to the skill and fidelity of a great army of 
 engineers, brakemen, switch -tenders, wheel-hammerers and sec- 
 tion hands, makers of time-tables and time-keepers, mechanics 
 of wheels and axles and bolts, and manufacturers of forty mill- 
 ions of rails, any one of whom or of which, if untrue, might land 
 him, not in San Francisco, but in eternity. At home he trusts his 
 life and property all the day and all the night to the hourly in- 
 tegrity of his many neighbors. Or if once in a life-time he 
 appeal from the conduct of some one of them, it is still to the 
 supposed uprightness of courts and truthfulness of witnesses. 
 Some little village lies nestled away among the hills. It is 
 thronged with students. A small cluster of residents, men, 
 women and children, are in the power of some hundreds of 
 young men in the vigor of youthful strength and of youthful im- 
 pulse. Do they lie down at night in perpetual anxiety lest their 
 property be destroyed, their houses burned, and themselves 
 abused and outraged ? No, they sleep all the more peacefully, 
 knowing that those young men will on the morrow, if need be, 
 exert their utmost strength to save their homes from the devour- 
 ing flames, and even give of their scanty means to relieve the 
 sufferers by fire.* 
 
 Such is the settled and accepted condition of life. With 
 whatever qualifications, we believe the past, we trust the future, 
 we confide in the present. We fling ourselves upon the waves 
 and the winds. We cast our hopes boldly upon the seasons of 
 the year and the ancient promise. We put ourselves in the 
 hands of natural law, of brute force, and of men, individually 
 and by multitudes, — the men we have seen, and the men we 
 never saw, nor shall see. This vast network of trust and confi- 
 dence is interwoven with the woof of our life, and entwined with 
 the fibres of our being. Our life, and every part of it, like some 
 
 *An allusion to what had taken place in the village of Hanover, a few 
 weeks previously. 
 
6 
 
 Suspension Bridge, swings by a cable in the air, with Niagara 
 rolling beneath ; and we ride boldly on. The attempt to evade 
 it or escape by doubt or suspicion, is fruitless. It is “as when 
 one fled from a lion and a bear met him.” Abbas Pasha built 
 him a high watch-tower and kept swift dromedaries always sad- 
 dled for flight ; but it could not have saved him from the hand 
 of the assassin. 
 
 We are also inclined, trained and compelled to live by faith 
 in regard to things less tangible, and more supersensual. Men 
 naturally accept implicitly their intuitions, and are dominated by 
 their religious convictions. When one asked stout old Samuel J ohn- 
 son how he would deal with Berkeley’s idealism, “ Sir,” said he, 
 “ I refute it thus ” — and he brought his foot vigorously against a 
 stone. Neither Johnson nor mankind can be reasoned out of a 
 primary belief, ultimate but unprovable. The agnosticism which 
 would shut out from human purview all that is beyond and above, 
 is “ as much at war with human experience, as with reason and 
 revelation.” In token of profound belief in a future life, the 
 old Egyptian embalmed his dead and hewed out his vast tombs 
 on the banks of the Nile ; and the Indian on the shores of Lake 
 Superior placed food and weapons, apparel and ornaments in 
 the grave. And so resolute has been the faith of the human 
 race in superior beings, that “ they will worship a stock or a 
 stone sooner than have no God ”, — will bow their very intellect 
 before the demands of their spirit. Much more will they cleave 
 to the dictates of their moral nature against all puzzling shows 
 of logical acuteness. It is useless for the metaphysician, whether 
 he be a Tappan or even an Edwards, to say, “ unless you accept 
 this or that theory of the will, you can not hold to human free- 
 dom.” I answer him, “ My knowledge of my freedom is older, 
 deeper, clearer than your speculations. They may — or may not — 
 go to the winds ; my freedom stands on a rock. I know it with- 
 out you or in spite of you.” Vainly would Clifford or Tyndall 
 parade their theory of necessitated action, and therefore no 
 proper responsibility. We answer, “ Your brain-spinning can 
 no more withstand the instincts and necessities of humanity than 
 any other spider’s web. Responsibility is the ultimate fact and 
 settled law of humanity, so all-embracing and inevitable that he 
 who denies it in word will sternly hold all other men responsible 
 
7 
 
 to him in fact, and will himself be held forever responsible by 
 ‘ all other men — and by his Maker too ” The believing spirit is 
 the normal, rational state, the unbelieving is abnormal, unnatural 
 and irrational. 
 
 In every line of thought and action, doubts will occur and 
 perplexities arise. But we solve them, or act in spite of them. 
 We see the objections, and in view of the proofs we overrule 
 them. We recognize the difficulties, and under the exigency of 
 life we over-ride them. The most cautious inquiry must point to 
 some settled result. A state of chronic indecision is intolerable, 
 whether in the business man, the scholar, the physician, the law- 
 yer, the general or the theologian. Your business man sees what 
 and how to do. Your scholar decides, or he is no scholar. Your 
 physician diagnoses and prescribes, or you drop him. Your 
 judge finds out the law and applies it. Your general plans, often 
 in a flash, and by the flash, and fights. McClellan doubted and 
 dawdled ; Grant believed and struck. While the Reverend Syd- 
 ney Smith questioned whether missions in India could succeed 
 or would comport with the safety of the British empire, Carey, 
 Marshman and Ward, his “ consecrated cobblers ”, were in India 
 leading the vanguard of the great host of Christian converts, to 
 the saving of souls and perhaps of the Indian empire. 
 
 There is no good reason why the same principle that prevails 
 everwhere should halt upon the threshold of the very highest 
 sphere, religion. But there is the best of reasons to the contrary, 
 in the inconceivable magnitude of the interests. Unsettlement 
 here, in the main issues and fundamental truths, instead of being 
 the mark of strength, must, on every analogy, be regarded as the 
 token of weakness. It is but mental and moral flabbiness. And 
 though, not seldom, good men attain to bright hope through long 
 distressing doubts, — and we rejoice in the issue, — is it at all 
 needful to desire the process — much less to call it the necessary 
 or even natural way? Is it the only or the best way to confirmed 
 temperance through inebriety, or to health though dangerous dis- 
 ease ? I believe it to be our privilege to reach the full assurance 
 of faith, without the long conflict with darkness. But whether 
 or not we pass by that way, it is our privilege and our duty not 
 to have our home in the dark valley but to come out and dwell 
 in the clear light. 
 
8 
 
 For the main aspects of our spiritual relationships are plain 
 and simple : an intellect looking, a heart yearning, a conscience 
 commanding, towards the One Supreme Excellence ; that glori- 
 ous One shadowing forth his eternal power and Godhead in the 
 visible things of creation, openly declaring himself in the Divine 
 and matchless Word, unveiling himself tenderly and intimately in 
 that mighty Saviour whose historic coming revolutionized the 
 world’s career, whose living power and presence are as manifest 
 all over the world to-day as in Jerusalem eighteen centuries ago, 
 and whose calm voice calls to every man, “ rise and follow me.” 
 Surely the benign influence of the blessed sun is hardly more un- 
 mistakable than of him who calls himself “ the light of the world.” 
 It is inscribed in the volume of the book, on the human soul, in 
 the Christian life, on all modern history. Open rejectors have 
 often been, in their hour of candor, his strongest witnesses. How 
 such men as Rousseau the profligate skeptic, Carlyle the rugged 
 deist, Napoleon the heartless but lynx-eyed semi-pagan, Mill the 
 hereditary unbeliever, Lecky the free-thinking historian, rise up to 
 rebuke the Matthew Arnolds and their congeners for their shuf- 
 fling evasions of Christ’s character, claims and religion. When 
 a Christian clergyman writes of “ the Ten great Religions ” of 
 which Christ’s is but one, he might well listen to the great Scotch- 
 man, when he says, “ We often hear the Christian doctrine liken- 
 ed to the Greek philosophy, and found on all hands in some 
 measurable way superior to it. But the Christian doctrine is 
 not superior or inferior or equal to any doctrine of Socrates or 
 Thales, being of a totally different nature. He who compares it 
 with such standards may well lament that the loftiest feeling 
 hitherto vouchsafed to mankind is as yet hidden from his eyes.” 
 To those who would patronize the Saviour as only the best of 
 men, there comes the voice from St. Helena, “ Between him and 
 whosoever else in the world, there is no possible term of com- 
 parison. He is truly a being by himself. His truth and the his- 
 tory of his life, the profundity of his doctrine, his gospel, his 
 apparition, his empire, his march across the ages and the realms 
 — everything is to me a prodigy, an insoluble mystery, a mystery 
 which is there before my eyes, a mystery which I can neither deny 
 nor explain. Here I see nothing human.” To those who push 
 by his claims as some ideal or mythical creation, there comes, in 
 
9 
 
 the posthumous Essays of John Mill, a voice from the grave, 
 speaking thus : “ It is of no use to say that Christ as exhibited 
 in the gospels is not historical and that we know not how much 
 of what is admirable has been superadded by the tradition of his 
 followers. Who among his disciples was capable of inventing the 
 sayings ascribed to Jesus or of imagining the life and character 
 revealed in the gospels ” ? To those who talk of a mere law of 
 human progress comes the bold utterance of Lecky, “ It was re- 
 served for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character 
 which through all the changes of eighteen centuries has filled the 
 hearts of men with an impassioned love, and has shown itself 
 capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments and condi- 
 tions ; and has exerted so deep an influence that it may be truly 
 said, that the simple record of three short years of active life has 
 done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the disqui- 
 sitions of the philosophers and all the exhortations of the moral- 
 ists.” What a thorough-going testimony — and how strictly true ! 
 
 Indeed faith in Christ and his religion is a certitude that 
 may be said in our day to have risen in certain aspects to the 
 level of knowledge, in the verification that is before and within 
 us. A seemingly defenceless man once promised to conquer an 
 opposing world by being miserably slain. “ And the mode of 
 the accomplishment,” said the great captain, “ is more prodig- 
 ious than the promise. In this conflict I see all the kings and 
 forces of the earth arrayed on one side. On the other I see no 
 army, but a mysterious energy, no rallying sign but a cross.” Yet 
 by this sign it has gone forth to conquer. He who asks even for 
 miracle has before him “ the perpetual miracle ” of the ever-liv- 
 ing presence and power of Jesus Christ, in the progress of the 
 faith and the government and growth of his church. Imagine, 
 if you can, dead “ Caesar from his mausoleum ” guiding eternally 
 the destinies of Rome ; or dead Alexander from the tombs of 
 the Ptolemies leading his armies on to perpetual victory ; or 
 dead Napoleon from beneath the splendid canopy of battle flags 
 that overhang his coffin, and by some weird and “ midnight re- 
 veille ”, gathering up again for an hour the relics of his vast hosts 
 and the fragments of his mighty empire ! But the crucified Christ is 
 to-day a living, reigning, conquering power on every continent of 
 the globe. Here is your world wide, age-long miracle — gather- 
 
10 
 
 ing within its divine sweep not alone slow transformations of 
 great empires, but sudden revolutions of low savage races, and 
 countless individual regenerations, from Paul and Augustine down 
 to Guergis and Africaner. And, to complete the assurance and 
 raise it in part to the very plane of conscious knowledge, the be- 
 nign influence comes to a man’s own heart and life so unmistak- 
 ably that he can say, “ Now I believe, not because of thy saying; 
 for I have heard him myself and know that this is the Christ the 
 Savior of the world.” 
 
 He that ponders all this “ superhuman agency of Jesus 
 Christ in history ” and in life, — and experiences it too — may well 
 have positive convictions, even “the full assurance of faith.” He 
 can say with stronger emphasis than did Carlyle, that “ the Chris- 
 tian religion, once here, cannot again pass away.” It is here 
 to stay, here to work, here to triumph. He has no apologies 
 for it or any of its belongings, no fears for its fate. And joined 
 with this grand central trust; there must be and there will, faith 
 in the truth and the right, faith in virtue and in work, faith in 
 woman and faith in good men, faith in every righteous cause and 
 faith only in righteous means, faith in prayer and in providence, 
 faith in progress and in ultimate success ; faith to labor and to 
 wait ; faith to toil on in darkness and alone ; faith to struggle and 
 silently endure ; faith to hold on. and hold out; faith even to sit 
 still and see the salvation of our God. 
 
 II. See now the value of a strong positive faith like this — 
 its value, I mean, to its possessor. Its value is felt throughout 
 its entire range, whether in whole or in part, and from the top to 
 the bottom of the scale. 
 
 It is a benign stimulus. The pursuit of a man’s life or his 
 enterprise of the day should carry his interest, and his confidence 
 that it is, for him and for the time, the sphere and the work. It 
 makes cheerful toil, buoyant spirits. Men must believe in their 
 callings, whatever they be, so long as they are honest. A true 
 farmer should have as genuine an enthusiasm as a merchant or a 
 lawyer. Shame on him who is ashamed. When the physician 
 loses faith in medical science, let him depart. When the minister 
 ceases to feel that his work is the noblest, he has a call to with- 
 draw. The first Napoleon used often to say, “ when I was lieuten- 
 ant.” When Carey in India sat as an honored guest at the Gov- 
 
ernor General’s table, and overheard a petty officer inquire, “ was 
 not that man once a shoe maker ? ” “ No, sir”, said Carey, “only 
 a cobbler.” But he knew he had cobbled well. If Irving and 
 Prescott had no zeal for the law, they did well to look elsewhere. 
 When Sterling and Emerson lost faith in the clerical function, 
 nothing became them so well as the leaving of it. 
 
 I do not for a moment concede, however, that a man can have 
 a confidence only in some certain spheres and occupations. Much 
 less would I countenance the not infrequent plea of the young 
 student that he has no interest in certain branches of a well-bal- 
 anced education, no drawing towards them ; therefore he should 
 be released from them. Nay, but he is bound to have both faith 
 and zeal for the things that stand approved by the best wisdom 
 of the past and present ; bound, on that evidence to believe in 
 his mathematics and his science, and especially in his classics as 
 indispensable to the highest training ; and if he have no interest, 
 to awaken one. If he is a true man he will. His antipathies 
 betray his necessities. The principle, “ similia similibus curan- 
 tur,” will never work here. The lacking interest must be roused 
 by faith, — faith in his elders and his betters. A man is not to 
 be tied up by his narrow and callow propensities. Good man- 
 hood lies in the power to throw mind and heart and hand into 
 this thing or that, as Divine Providence may call. And faith in 
 the call shall change drudgery to delight. 
 
 Another function of value is, that such strong positive con- 
 victions give the steadiness of purpose which is a chief element 
 in every high human career. Men live for the day. They see 
 only what is just here. The young student has no controlling 
 sense of the future, and therefore he trifles away the present on 
 which it hangs. The young professional man cannot toil patient- 
 ly till his opportunity comes ; and so, when it comes, it goes. 
 Here and there the man of intense and masterful convictions la- 
 bors and waits, and takes his prize. Sometimes against all 
 probabilites — as when the young adventurer, D’lsraeli, struck for 
 a hearing in Parliament and the Premiership of Britain. But it is 
 with the fixedness of such convictions and with such consequent 
 steadiness of purpose that the scholar, the artist, the discoverer, 
 the professionalist, and above all, the Christian toiler, have 
 achieved their highest successes. Heyne delving at his classics 
 
12 
 
 with but two nights’ sleep a week ; Mendelssohn nine years per- 
 fecting his Elijah ; Webster lavishing time and money on some 
 blacksmith’s case for a fifteen dollar fee ; Schliemann, from the 
 age of seven seeing the ruins of Troy beneath the dust of ages, 
 and struggling towards it forty years ; Kepler willing to wait two 
 hundred years, if need be, for the acceptance of his discoveries ; 
 the Plymouth Pilgrims silently harboring “ a great hope and 
 inward zeal of laying a foundation for the kingdom of Christ in 
 these remote parts, though they should be but as stepping stones 
 unto others for performing so great a work,” — these are the 
 men. And naturally enough it is in the sphere of religion that 
 faith, Christian faith, has shown its marvelous power of steady 
 perseverance ; and the bright catalogue would contain volumes 
 of names from Paul to Livingstone. 
 
 Such men can work and pray — and wait. It is sad to hear 
 the true cause of temperance pushed by false arguments. It 
 was a pitiful thing that some of the men who a generation ago 
 made valiant fight against American slavery, must needs grow 
 so impatient as to wage war upon the Bible and the church, be- 
 cause these were not fast enough for their fiery ardor. And most 
 melancholy was it on the 4th of July 1842, to hear in the Method- 
 ist church in Andover, Mass., William Lloyd Garrison even 
 petulantly wish that the lightinings of heaven might blast 
 Bunker Hill monument. But his voice is silent ; the Bible 
 speaks ; the church lives ; the monument stands ; — and slavery 
 is dead. Faith in God can use God’sappointed methods and 
 await his time. 
 
 It is for the want of clear convictions, alike high and 
 dominant, worthy of being called faith, that so many a gifted 
 man has proved a wretched failure. Benjamin Constant one 
 of the brightest minds of France, yet avowedly without faith 
 in virtue or honor, earned the name of “ Constant the in- 
 constant,” made his life a wail, and his end a conscious 
 abortion. The world is full of such failures, partial or total. 
 While we recognize the brilliant achievments of such men as Poe, 
 Byron, Burns, Mirabeau, we cannot forget how each of them 
 burned out his life with passion and vice before he reached his 
 proper prime ; and, strikingly enough, it is Carlyle who avers 
 that the radical lack of Burns was “ religion,” and says of Byron 
 
3 
 
 that “ Satan was the hero of his poetry and apparantly the model 
 of his conduct.” 
 
 See, once more, how the positive faith brings repose and 
 quietude of spirit. Men rejoice to be well anchored. In pro- 
 portion as doubts run deep and high, is the heavy ground-swell 
 of unrest. Paradoxically but truly has the vacuum of the heart 
 been called “ an aching void ”. And one might almost say, 
 
 “ Great God ! I’d rather be 
 A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn, 
 
 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
 
 Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
 
 Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea 
 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.” 
 
 Hume said he was “ appalled at the forlorn solitude in which he 
 was placed by his philosophy.” Miss Martineau, while boast- 
 ing of her “ freedom from old superstition ”, cannot but speak 
 in the same breath, of “ all the peace and quiet of orthodoxy.” 
 A late atheist writer* avowed the great “ pang ” with which he 
 cut loose from the moorings of Christianity. Later still, Vernon 
 Lee by the mouth of Vere,* confesses that his settled material- 
 ism is “ bitter and abominable, arid and icy to our hearts.” And 
 there are few sadder or more “ haggard ” things than the last 
 days of John Sterling, when having once for all said, “Adieu, oh 
 church, in God’s name adieu ”, three years later, in the last sta- 
 ges of consumption, he wrote to his nearest friend — whom he 
 would not see, — “ on higher matters there is nothing, to say. I 
 tread the common road into the great darkness. Certainty, in- 
 deed, I have none.” For when one who has deliberately parted 
 with all the consoling hopes of the gospel, looks through the 
 high cliffs that part this sea of life from the great unknown 
 ocean of eternity, he may well sing with a deeper pathos than 
 the poet’s, 
 
 “ Break, break, break, 
 
 At the foot of thy crags, O sea ! 
 
 But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
 
 Will never come back to me.” 
 
 *Candid Examination of Theism. 
 ^Contemporary Review, May 1883. 
 
14 
 
 The firm and positive faith, rationally formed, carries rest. We 
 see a semblance of it even in the “ Kismet ” of the Moslem, the 
 “fortunes” of Caesar, and the “destiny” of Napoleon; but 
 the reality in the “ good Providence ” of the trusting child of 
 God. The sailors on the Mediterranean were amazed by John 
 Howard’s perfect calmness under the pirate’s attack ; and equally 
 amazing was the coolness with which at the end of the voyage 
 he shut himself up in a plague hospital at Venice. It was on 
 his high errand of mercy ; and the secret of his calmness may 
 be read in his journal, “ Oh God, my heart is fixed, trusting in 
 thee.” “ Where,” said the pope’s legate to Luther at the begin- 
 ning of his stormy career, “ where will you find a resting-place”? 
 “ Under Heaven,” said Martin Luther. From the vortex of the 
 tempest in its fury, he exclaimed, “ Oh crafty Satan ! But Christ 
 is abler than thou.” And two days before the end of all, he 
 wrote, “ Grace and peace in the Lord, dear Catharine. I have 
 one that takes care of me better than thou, or any of the angels 
 could, one who is seated at the right hand of God Almighty.” 
 He had marched through life to his own hymn, “ Ein feste Burg 
 ist unser Gott.” 
 
 In recent and peaceful times there have been few nobler 
 exhibitions than the composure of Thomas Arnold, under the 
 tremendous storm of public and private obloquy that for four 
 years beat mercilessly around his head, till “ even his personal 
 acquaintances,” says Dean Stanley “ began to look upon him 
 with alarm, some dropped their intercourse altogether, hardly 
 any were able fully to sympathize with him, and almost all re- 
 monstrated. He himself was startled,” continues Stanley, “ but 
 not moved.” He bore all in silence, adhered to his principles, 
 and held on his way. The clue to his composure may be read 
 in his journal, ten years later, written on that last night before 
 his sudden death : “Above all, let me mind my own personal 
 work — to keep myself pure and zealous, and believing .” And 
 the issue of that personal work, the English world now knows 
 by heart. Priceless is the value of such a faith in God and the 
 right. 
 
 III. A strong positive faith is the source of power. 
 
 And here we must distinguish between a faith worthy to be 
 so called, that is, a deep conviction having a high object and a 
 
5 
 
 rational basis, on the one hand, and a mere blind determination, 
 a wilful fixedness of purpose prompted by low aspirations, and 
 founded on no true principle, it may be on positive wrong. There 
 is hot seldom seen such a wilful purpose, and it has its transient 
 power like the force of the bull or the bull-dog, when the one 
 shuts his eyes and dashes on, and the other shuts his teeth and 
 clings till death. Yet the bull-dog has but his day, and the bull 
 in the arena is slain at last. 
 
 Similar is the fate of the wilful and wrongful combination. 
 Every “ ring ” breaks up at last. It fails to bind the right cause, 
 or cripple the right man. In the long run, Cromwell and Wash- 
 ington, Lincoln . and Gladstone are sure to win against their 
 def aimers and assailants. Truth and faith and courage walk 
 through unhurt. 
 
 The nearest approach to the power of a worthy faith may 
 be seen in the influence of the chief illusions of life, and the 
 controlling force of its higher enterprises. Wealth on the brain 
 binds a man, as Rothschild said he would bind his son, “ mind, 
 soul, heart and body,” and wins it, if it can be won. So politics, 
 fame, pleasure. Did the disillusioning process which comes at 
 the end, come at the beginning, what a collapse would the world 
 show. 
 
 It is the strong conviction of the greatness and worth of 
 science that has wrought such results, sending its Pliny into the 
 deadly fumes of Vesuvius, and its Franklin to the fatal ice-cliffs 
 of the North, keeping a Herschell and Darwin on perpetual watch 
 upon the heavens or the earth, a Davy or a Pasteur in courses of 
 life-long experiment. Hence the long patient struggles of the 
 inventor, often in poverty ; hence the great achievements for the 
 world’s benefit, amid discouragement, doubt and ridicule. This 
 spirit has dredged the ocean, tracked the glacier, climbed Chimbo- 
 razo, pierced the dark continent, and weighed the far-off planet. 
 How has a sense of the grandeur of his sphere moved the hand 
 and fired the heart of the great artist as he has said to himself, 
 “ I paint for eternity.” The greatness of his country has loomed 
 up on the sight of the patriot till he would die on the battle-field 
 or pine in the hospital ; and America free and America freed is 
 the double monument of that mighty conviction. 
 
i6 
 
 These things bear pondering. There are sermons in them — 
 theologies. They point us upward to the higher faith — the high- 
 est. For if allegiance to truth and right in their subordinate 
 forms, as loyalty to science and to country, can work such achieve- 
 ments, what should be the power of the supreme allegiance ? 
 Accordingly the world has seen that the difference between a 
 heart vitalized with a great faith in God, and a heart empty of 
 all faith in God or goodness, is the difference between the green 
 valley of the Nile and the desert through which it lies. What 
 one grand achievement, what one great benefaction have all the 
 blank doubt, skepticism or agnosticism since the world began, 
 brought to the world ? Which of the myriad charities has it or- 
 ganized and maintained ? What nation has it lifted ? What 
 community has it purified ? What vicious circle has it reformed ? 
 What one blasted character has it regenerated ? What soul has 
 it raised to the heights of godlike magnanimity? Yea, what 
 enduring monument of highest genius has it erected ? From 
 nothing, nothing comes. Zero multiplied by millions, is zero 
 still. Darkness can not give light. The vacuum of the heart is 
 an exhausted receiver to the life. When Brutus could say at 
 Philippi, “ Oh virtue, I have followed thee through life and found 
 thee at last but a shade ”, let him fall on his sword. 
 
 The best things of Paganism have been found where it ap- 
 proached nearest the verities of true religion. The pyramids are 
 perpetual monuments of a belief in immortality. The finest 
 statuary, the noblest temples, the highest poetry, sprang from the 
 time when the heavens were real to men. The greatest oration 
 of Demosthenes derives its chief momentum from the almost 
 Christian grandeur of its moral attitude. In the dark ages of 
 the church, those splendid cathedrals and noble paintings embody 
 the deep religious sentiment. And in modern times if it be true, 
 as one said, that “ an institution is the lengthened shadow of 
 some man, as the Reformation of Luther, Quakerism of Fox, 
 Methodism of Wesley, Abolition of Wilberforce,” it is also true 
 that the germ of the Institution was the burning faith of the 
 man. Wilberforce speaks for them, one and all, when he wrote 
 in his journal, “ God Almighty has set before me two great ob- 
 jects, the suppression of the slave trade, and the reformation of 
 
i7 
 
 manners ”, and when he wrote to his sister, “ be the love of 
 Christ our talisman.” 
 
 Sometimes we can fix our eye on the time when the power of 
 achievement for good entered the man, with the inflow of 
 vital religion to his soul. There was a time when an indifferent 
 and formal young preacher at Kilmany suddenly waked to 
 the real meaning of Christ’s gospel, and the transformation was 
 as complete as when some great magazine of combustibles re- 
 ceives the torch. For the dry wooden mass kindled and blazed 
 and glowed with a flame that sent its warmth through all Scot- 
 land, and its light to India and the world. It was Thomas 
 Chalmers regenerated, a true believer in Christ. The easy-going 
 kirkmen said “ Chalmers is mad ; ” but it was with the same 
 madness that had infected Paul before him, and the whole com- 
 pany that under Christ have been revolutionizing the world. 
 
 For the world itself, in its present attitude and outlook, with 
 its missions and beneficences and mighty working forces for good, 
 is but the Wren-like monument of such a faith. Men have be- 
 lieved and therefore they spoke ; believed with all their being, 
 and spoke with all their power, with tongue and pen and life. 
 Their cause was as resistless as their faith was bright. They 
 have labored while they lived, and conquered when they fell. 
 For there was an invisible force which dungeons could not hold, 
 sword and cannon could not kill, flames could not burn, nor 
 waters drown. Borne on by such a faith as this — a faith which 
 Christ’s gospel itself inspires and maintains — that gospel has 
 made its way. Despised and persecuted by the despised race 
 from which it sprung, it rose to life as the nation fell. Emerg- 
 ing from its native home, it made for the great cities that hug 
 the Mediterranean, the seats of power and centres of civilization. 
 Without one mortal weapon of offense or defense, it boldly 
 grappled with every wrong. It stood meekly unresisting when 
 the Empire ten times in succession threw its huge weight upon 
 It, and then rose from the crush unharmed. It in turn threw 
 itself upon the Empire, mounted its throne, spread through and 
 beyond its territory ; “ it gathered all genius and learning unto 
 itself, and made the literature of the world its own ; it survived 
 the inundation of the barbarian tribes and conquered the world 
 once more by converting the conquerors to the faith ; it survived 
 
i8 
 
 he restoration of letters ” ; survived the corruptions of the 
 church itself ; “ survived an age of free inquiry and skepticism, 
 and has long stood its ground in the field of argument, com- 
 manding the intelligent assent of the greatest minds that ever 
 were ”, and outwardly controlling the great empires that now 
 control the earth. And to-day it stands girded with youthful 
 strength, waving the banner of the cross for a forward movement 
 all along the line upon the strongest entrenchments of the pow- 
 ers of darkness, hearkening to its Great Captain’s command, 
 “ Go ye into all the world ”, and to his promise “ I am with you 
 alway.” 
 
 Young Gentlemen of the Graduating Classes : 
 
 I invite you, and each of you, to join the goodly company 
 of those who speak and act from profound and positive convic- 
 tions, and especially upon the greatest issues. I invite you to 
 go forth to your life work with fixed and well considered princi- 
 ples, — principles worthy of the name, because they are thoroughly 
 right and true and tried — principles in which you can put a con- 
 fiding faith, and on which you can safely lay out, or lay down, 
 your life. 
 
 Choose a pursuit you believe in, and act out your belief. 
 Honor it, and it will honor you. Prepare for it in quiet trust. 
 In it do a man’s good work, believingly. Come out from the 
 company of idlers and triflers and learn to labor and to wait. 
 Learn that. great secret of success, to “be ready when the oppor- 
 tunity comes.” Here is the sphere for a silent, patient faith. 
 
 In whatever profession, be more than a professionalist : be 
 also a true man, with profound and positive convictions on all 
 high things, which no professional policy shall prevent your 
 speaking out, if need be, “ in words as round and hard as can- 
 non balls.” 
 
 And, above all, let me invite you to ally yourself personally 
 by a living faith to that one central Source of all high principle, 
 holy motive, lofty aim and noble endeavor — to Him who stands 
 out in his divine isolation as at once example, incentive, guide, 
 helper and reward — Him who presents himself to you and the 
 whole world saying, “ I am the way, the truth and the life ” — 
 
9 
 
 Him who is riding forth conquering and to conquor till every eye 
 shall see him move ; — to Him ally yourselves livingly and loving 
 ly, and it shall be your privilege, your blessing and your power. 
 The prayer of that greatest of geniuses, Michael Angelo, is none 
 too lowly or too trustful for you : 
 
 “ My unassisted heart is barren day 
 That of its native self can nothing feed ; 
 
 Of good and pious works thou art the seed, 
 
 That quickens only where thou sayest it may ; 
 Unless thou show to us thine own true way, 
 
 No man can find it : Father ! thou must lead. 
 
 Do thou then breathe those thoughts into my mind, 
 By which such virtue in me may be bred 
 That in thy holy footsteps I may tread : 
 
 The fetters of my tongue do thou unbind, 
 
 That I may have the power to sing of thee 
 And sound thy praises everlastingly.”