on the pulpit seat
and the other on the book-board the while he illustrated, by means of a
roll of bills, his conception of the trumpet call to the Last Judgment.
These men and a host of others we might put into a correcter shape
to-day.

Now it is not contended that gifts are not to be trained, or that it is
undesirable to teach and practise a certain self-restraint. No doubt
buffoonery has often masqueraded as originality; and the great results
which have undoubtedly attended ministries in which extremely bad taste
and irreverence have been prominent have not been in consequence of
these things, but in spite of them, and by the power of a passion for
souls underlying them all. "Other times, other manners," is a proverb
we must not forget. That there are risks in courses of study imposed
without distinction upon one and all alike cannot be denied, but
abundant and convincing reasons support their adoption notwithstanding
the risks. It is an old objection to ministerial colleges that they
spoil able men and are unable to do much for feeble ones. We hear,
often, that such and such a man "is not half the man he was when he
left home to keep his terms." There may be truth in it all; but it is
equally true that a polished instrument is better than a blunt one;
that in the hands of a wise man every atom of knowledge means more than
an atom of power. Moreover, it can never be proved that a man who
comes from college to fail, would not have failed, even more terribly,
without the training he there received. Again, it _can_ be proved that
out of our colleges have come men whose ministries have been of
incalculable blessing to the Church. In the end, after all, the
preservation of a man's individuality rests with himself. The fact is
that often we lack the necessary courage to be ourselves, and as a
result, we give in too soon and too readily, to what appear to us to be
demands to sacrifice our soleness that, thereby, we may become
something higher and better than we are. In this way men degenerate
into imitators and echoes. Such a man is a power and has such a
manner. He moves us deeply, shows us heights we have never seen and
reveals to us visions of which we have not dreamed. We are not content
to appropriate his donation of truth and rest satisfied with the
intellectual and moral stimulus he bestows. God did not make two of
him, but _we_ think there ought to be another, and we try to be he.
The attempt is a