the broad prairies,
or among the park-like forests of the Sierra, or in Puget Sound, but you
will never forget this day. These familiar walls; this pulpit and font
and chancel decked with flowers; this service, made _for_ you and in
part _by_ you--you will never forget it. And because you will always
remember it, I want to have it throughout just as beautiful, just as
pure and inspiring, as possible. The flowers will do their part; they
never fail to speak sweet, pure words to us. Your Superintendent always
does his part well, and I hope you will all thank him in your hearts, if
not in words, for his faithful and laborious interest in you. And your
teachers and others who have brought together this wealth of beauty,
this glory of color and perfume, this tribute of sweetness from
mountain-side and field and garden--they have done well; and you will
remember it all years hence, and when far away, and perhaps some tears
will start for "the days that are no more."

But this occasion would not be complete to my mind if there were not
linked with it some noble and inspiring trutn. I want to make all these
flowers and this music the setting of a truth, like a diamond set round
with emeralds, or an opal with pearls. _You_ have brought the pearls and
the emeralds; _I_ must bring a diamond or an opal to set in the midst of
them. I am very sure that I have one in this old story--a diamond very
brilliant if we brush away the old Hebrew dust, and cut away the sides
and let in a little more light upon it. I am not sure, however, but I
ought to call it a pearl rather than a diamond; for there is a chaste
and gentle modesty about it that reminds one of the soft lustre of a
pearl rather than of the flashing splendor of a diamond. St. John, in
naming the precious stones that make the foundation of the heavenly
city, omits the diamond--and for some good reason, I suspect--while the
twelve gates were all pearls. Now, I think David stood very near one of
those gates of pearl at the time of this story. To my mind, it is nearly
the most beautiful in all this Book; and I know you will listen while I
tell it more fully.

I have this impression of David--that if you had seen him when he was
young, you would have thought him the most glorious human being you had
ever looked on. He was one of those persons who fascinate all who come
near them. He bound everybody to him in a wonderful way. They not only
_liked_ him, but they became absorbed in hi