r this closing college year with all its problems
and duties, its conflicts and fears, it is with something of this same
sense that we have not half known the powers which were on our side.
Sometimes we have thought the enemy too strong for us, and it looked as
if cares and fears, troubles and misunderstandings were likely to
defeat us, and the battle of life might be lost. The {223} problems of
the world about us have seemed very grievous, and the perplexities of
the life within very perilous. And now God comes to us at last and
opens our eyes, and we look back and say: "What a good year, after all,
it has been." There never has been so good a year for the college as
this. There never has been so good a year for the world. With all the
social problems and agitations that seem so threatening about us, this
is, after all, the best year that God has ever made. And in our
personal conflicts, how plain it is that the forces of heaven have been
behind us. No man has thought a true thought, or done an unselfish
deed this year without a backing which now discloses itself as very
real. Behind our doubts and fears have been the horses and chariots of
fire. Lord, open our eyes, that we may see these spiritual allies and
enlist ourselves in the ranks of their omnipotence.

{224}

XCI

THE WORD MADE FLESH

_John_ i. 1-14.

(END OF COLLEGE TERM)

I do not enter into the deeper philosophical significance of this great
chapter, but any one can see on the very surface of it the general
truth on which Christianity rests its claim. God's government of the
world is here described as operating through His word. God simply
speaks, and things are done. God says: "Let there be light," and there
is light. The universe is God's language. History is God's voice. By
His word was everything made that is made. Then, when the fullness of
time has come this language of God is made life. What God has been
trying to make men hear through his word, He now lets them see through
his life. His word becomes flesh. The life becomes the light of men.
That is the most elementary statement of the doctrine of the
incarnation. It is the transformation of language into life.

{225}

Let us take this great truth into our own little lives as we part on
this last day of common worship. God has been speaking to us His word
in many ways through our worship here; in our silence and in our song,
in Bible and in prayer, in the voice o