of the
Government for the first time in the history of the Christian world.
There is a too common opinion that a college or university which is not
denominational must therefore be irreligious; but the absence of
sectarian control should not be confounded with lack of piety. A
university whose officers and students are divided among many sects
need no more be irreverent and irreligious than the community which in
respect to diversity of creeds it resembles. It would be a fearful
portent if thorough study of nature and of man in all his attributes and
works, such as befits a university, led scholars to impiety. But it does
not; on the contrary, such study fills men with humility and awe, by
bringing them on every hand face to face with inscrutable mystery and
infinite power. The whole work of a university is uplifting, refining
and spiritualizing: it embraces

whatsoever touches life
With upward impulse; be He nowhere else,
God is in all that liberates and lifts;
In all that humbles, sweetens and consoles.

"A university cannot be built upon a sect, unless, indeed, it be a sect
which includes the whole of the educated portion of the nation. This
University will not demand of its officers and students the creed, or
press upon them the doctrine of any particular religious organization;
but none the less--I should better say, all the more--it can exert
through high-minded teachers a strong moral and religious influence. It
can implant in the young breasts of its students exalted sentiments and
a worthy ambition; it can infuse into their hearts the sense of honor,
of duty, and of responsibility.

"I congratulate the city of Baltimore, Mr. Mayor, that in a few
generations she will be the seat of a rich and powerful university. To
her citizens its grounds and buildings will in time become objects of
interest and pride. The libraries and other collections of a university
are storehouses of the knowledge already acquired by mankind, from which
further invention and improvement proceed. They are great possessions
for any intelligent community. The tone of society will be sensibly
affected by the presence of a considerable number of highly educated
men, whose quiet and simple lives are devoted to philosophy and
teaching, to the exclusion of the common objects of human pursuit. The
University will hold high the standards of public duty and public
spirit, and will enlarge that cultivated class which is dist