ommand, self-government, and that
genuine self-respect which has in it nothing of mere self-worship, for it
is the reverence which each man ought to feel for the nature that God has
given him, and for the laws of that nature. Then came an appeal, into
which the speaker's whole heart was thrown, for the intellectual dignity
of the Christian ministry. If argument failed to the great Christian
tradition, he would set small value on the multitude of uninstructed
numerical adhesions, or upon the integrity of institutions and the
unbroken continuity of rite. "Thought," he exclaimed,--"_thought is the
citadel_." There is a steeplechase philosophy in vogue--sometimes
specialism making short cuts to the honours of universal knowledge;
sometimes by the strangest of solecisms, the knowledge of external nature
being thought to convey a supreme capacity for judging within the sphere
of moral action and of moral needs. The thing to do is to put scepticism
on its trial, and rigorously to cross-examine it: allow none of its
assumptions; compel it to expound its formulae; do not let it move a step
except with proof in its hand; bring it front to front with history; even
demand that it shall show the positive elements with which it proposes to
replace the mainstays it seems bent on withdrawing from the fabric of
modern society. The present assault, far from being destined to final
triumph, is a sign of a mental movement, unsteady, though of extreme
rapidity, but destined, perhaps, to elevate and strengthen the religion
that it sought to overthrow. "_In the meantime_," he said, in closing this
branch of his address, "_I would recommend to you as guides in this
controversy, truth, charity, diligence, and reverence, which indeed may be
called the four cardinal virtues of all controversies, be they what they
may_." This was followed by an ever-salutary reminder that man is the
crown of the visible creation, and that studies upon man--studies in the
largest sense of humanity, studies conversant with his nature, his works,
his duties and his destinies--these are the highest of all studies. As the
human form is the groundwork of the highest training in art, so those
mental pursuits are the highest which have man, considered at large, for
their object. Some excellent admonitions upon history and a simple, moving
benediction, brought the oration to an end.

Blue caps as well as red cheered fervently at the close, and some even of
those who had no