be to witness the shame and confusion of over-confident friends. But in any event we shall still believe, first in God, and second in Alma College. I have been good naturedly warned against the dangers besetting an Inaugural Address. And when we remember that six hundred wise men recently gave one day and a half of their valuable time to the consideration of one of these performances, and when we are assured that "the end is not yet," we may well "take" not "to the woods," but take to the warning kindly.

Let me seek to escape censure by speaking not my own thoughts or exhibiting my peculiarities of faith or opinion; let me rather endeavor to voice the mind of those who have established among us this center of Christian learning, and who by prayer, and gift, and toil and sacrifice have made it what it is.

1. The first sentence with which Alma College greeted its friends was, "In the name of God, Amen." This has more recently been inscribed upon its seal. It stamps us with a "credo." This college has a faith. It is the largest and freest possible to man. It is farther removed from sectarianism than that of Harvard. It is more Catholic than that of the Catholic University at Washington. We may look upon it as the charter of our liberties. Under its protection we may work out the true ideal of education, the harmonious unfolding of body and mind and spirit. We shall not be trammeled here with the dogma that the Bible is a sectarian book. No Wisconsin or Michigan judge will ever enter these doors and tell us that the Bible must be removed from Alma College. "Hands off, gentlemen." This institution dug deep for its foundations. The church laid its corner stone-upon its walls "Salvation" is written, and upon its gates "Praise." We shall be free to study here the philosophy of Plato: we shall not silence here

the voice of Paul. We shall drink of the "ancient founts of inspiration" flowing from the Iliad of Homer; we shall not deny ourselves here those waters of life to which we are invited by Isaiah. We shall declaim here the Philippics of Demosthenes; we shall not be ashamed of reciting the "Sermon on the Mount."

This institution will never grant a divorce to science and religion. When it is asserted that "there is no theology in mathematics, no religion in chemistry," we must always protest and deny. If true to the founders we must continue to maintain that "the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." "No religion in chemistry?" Then Prof. Cook, of Harvard, is wholly mistaken in the title and contents of his remarkable work on "Religion and Chemistry." Then Prof. Drummond's position that natural law sweeps upward into the spiritual world is wholly a mistake. Then there never has been and there never can be a science of Natural Theology. When instituting an experiment in the presence of his class, Prof. Henry of Princeton once said: "Gentlemen, I am about to ask the Almighty a question: let us severally hear the answer." That should be the attitude of every teacher of youth. The experiment is man's question to the Creator. The discovery is God's answer to the

creature.

2. It was still further the prayer of the founders, that Alma College may become a recruiting station to the army of Christ's ministers. Three thousand vacant pulpits in three denominations was not a hopeful spectacle. What to do for the waste places at home became a question hardly less serious than what to do for the unsaved millions abroad. There was a prophecy of a coming famine in the ministry. Unless the thoughts of educated young men could be turned toward the

It

work of the pulpit and the church, the coming days would be dark indeed. Public discussion soon brought into clearest light this truth, that while the state could educate soldiers, and sailors, and farmers, and physicians, it could not educate ministers of the Gospel. That is possible only where church and state are united. If we had a Church of America as there is a Church of England, we might ask for a theological faculty in every State University; but in our free church life what kind of a faculty would you have? is manifest that religious instruction to any considerable extent is impossible in state institutions. So long as Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, Presbyterian and Episcopalian are taxed equally, the only consistent course is not to offend any. Hence the well nigh irresistible trend to secularize our system of public instruction. This is logical, consistent and just. But it is death to an educated ministry. Doubtless God could call his servants from the most unfavorable environments, but the fact is he does not. He could plant a lily bulb in the desert and make it bloom, but he does not. If any truth is written upon the pages of inspired and ecclesiastical history, it is that God calls to the pulpit young men trained in Christian colleges and schools. Four years ago Rev. Dr. Henry Darling, then president of Hamilton College, published what he called "A study of catalogues." The catalogues were those of our theological seminaries. The tabulated results of the study were, that while the colleges planted by our church furnished candidates for the ministry to the following extent, viz. :-Princeton 46; Washington and Jefferson 44; Wooster University 42; Hamilton 28; Lafayette 20; Wabash 17; Hanover 15; Park 15; Maryville 9; Blackburn 7; Lake Forest 7;-the record of the great universities was: Harvard 2; Yale 2; University of Vermont 1;

Michigan none; Cornell none. Is anything more needed to convince the most skeptical that if we should have in our pulpits an educated ministry the church must maintain her own colleges and schools? This argument convinced the synod of Michigan. It shall be my constant purpose, my prayer "in season and out of season," to have the moral and religious influences of this college so strong that in every class there will be those who will say, "Woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel."

3. There are certain marks of distinction which some of us greatly covet. We are ambitious that Alma should be widely known as "the poor man's college," as the "cheapest" of the "best." We proudly announce to the world as did the founders of Edinburg Review, "We cultivate literature on oat meal," or better, on "Indian meal." We will insist upon being worthy of respect though our dress and food shall remind men of John the Baptist.

"What tho' on hamely fare we dine,

Wear hoddin gray and a' that;

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,

A man's a man for a' that."

We may be obliged to wait for years for the erection of a gymnasium on College Hill, but we will not suffer our muscles to be dwarfed in the meantime. We will develop them upon sawbucks and with hammers and beetles. The young men will prove that the race of the Lincolns and the Garfields is not yet extinct. Before the gymnasium arrives let some noble and generous man establish a factory or a kind of industry in this community, a form of work in which facility is easily acquired, in which those who choose can engage for two or three hours each day and thereby pay for their education as they proceed. Would not this be

benevolence wisely directed? Do you not think, my friends, that there are hundreds of young men, strong, ambitious and poor, who if they knew that such an opportunity of self-help were within reach, would quickly seize it and make the most of it? If there are such, we want them here. We do not expect to see in the near future in large numbers the children of wealth. They will say of this college, "It is small and cheap." They said so of Dartmouth when one Daniel Webster registered his name there. They said so of Williams when young James Garfield left it to become a preacher in an obscure sect. They said so of Amherst and passed on to Harvard, although Richard Storrs and Henry Ward Beecher were among the students. They will say so of us and pass on to spend their money in Harvard or Oxford or Berlin. We shall not complain. Give us the honest farmers' sons, the plain mechanics' daughters, give us the brain and the brawn of the children of toil and we shall be satisfied in the present and confident of the future.

4. It would be unbecoming in me not to make grateful mention of the progress already achieved by Alma College. You are still but at the beginning. You have made no boasts, you have marched under no false colors. You have been modest in your claims and truthful in your promises. At four years of age you have the satisfaction of graduating the first class, trained throughout the course by your faculty. What some colleges have failed to do after twenty-five years of existence, you have accomplished at the end of the fourth year. During this time you have erected your library building and filled it with the treasures of wisdom gathered from all lands. The training department for kindergarten teachers, founded by Miss Matilda Ross, you have strengthened and it has leaped into fame