of life. Let our spirits bathe in the fountain of living waters,
while the chords of our hearts are swept with entrancing melodies.

"Then th' inexpressive strain
Diffuses its enchantment. Fancy dreams
Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves,
And vales of bliss; the intellectual power
Bends from his awful throne a wandering ear,
And smiles."

As a theme worthy of your consideration to-day, I have selected

"_Culture and Christianity: Their Relation and Necessity_."

The Greek word for man, [Greek: anthropos], signifies etymologically to
_look upward_. Man is the only terrestrial being capable of looking
inward and upward. In this there lies between him and the animal
creation an impassable gulf. Man alone can look into his inner nature,
and thereby make his very failures the stepping-stones to a higher
life. God designed that man's progress should be upward; hence his high
destiny is attained, not by creation, but by development. The ladder at
whose foot he begins his immortal career rests upon the eternal throne.
This is not a development _into_ man, but a development _of_ man. The
theory of development into man is of the flesh; but the development of
man is of the spirit. Since man is destined for eternity, it is not
befitting that he should attain perfection in time. Hence he does not
develop as the beast of the field, or the fowl of the air. They soon
learn all that they ever know. They soon enjoy all they are capable of
enjoying. They soon attain to the perfection of their being, and
fulfill the end of their creation. The swallow builds her nest and the
beaver his dam precisely as they did in the days before the flood. Nor
can it ever be otherwise. But it is not so with man. This life is too
short and this world too small for his development. He but begins to
live in this world. This life is simply a state of probation. Our
faculties but begin to unfold on the things of time when we are called
hence. This unfolding of our faculties, this development of our inner
self, is the result of culture--a culture not of the flesh, but of the
spirit; not of the outer, but of the inner man.

Culture and Christianity, properly considered, are inseparable. He who
relies on culture apart from Christianity misconceives the end of his
being. He appreciates not his high destiny. Animals have minds
susceptible of a high degree of cultivation, but not of a culture which
reaches beyond time. Their cultu