inspire them with the
love of all truth. Professional knowledge brings most profit to the
individual; but philosophy and literature, science and art, elevate and
refine the spirit of the whole people, and hence the university will
make culture its first aim, and its scope will widen as the thoughts and
attainments of men are enlarged and multiplied. Here if anywhere shall
be found teachers whose one passion is the love of truth, which is the
love of God and of man; who look on all things with a serene eye; who
bring to every question a calm, unbiased mind; who, where the light of
the intellect fails, walk by faith and accept the omen of hope; who
understand that to be distrustful of science is to lack culture, to
doubt the good of progress is to lack knowledge, and to question the
necessity of religion is to want wisdom; who know that in a God-made and
God-governed world it must lie in the nature of things that reason and
virtue should tend to prevail, in spite of the fact that in every age
the majority of men think foolishly and act unwisely. How divine is not
man's apprehensive endowment! When we see beauty fade, the singer lose
her charm, the performer his skill, we feel no commiseration; but when
we behold a noble mind falling to decay, we are saddened, for we cannot
believe that the godlike and immortal faculty should be subject to
death's power. It is a reflection of the light that never yet was seen
on sea or land; it is the magician who shapes and colors the universe,
as a drop of water mirrors the boundless sky. Is not this the first word
the Eternal speaks?--"Let there be light." And does not the blessed
Saviour come talking of life, of light, of truth, of joy, and peace?
Have not the Christian nations moved forward following after liberty and
knowledge? Is not our religion the worship of God in spirit and in
truth? Is not its motive Love, divine and human, and is not knowledge
Love's guide and minister?

The future prevails over the present, the unseen over what touches the
senses only in high and cultivated natures; and it is held to be the
supreme triumph of God over souls when the young, to whom the earth
seems to be heaven revealed and made palpable, turn from all the beauty
and contagious joy to seek, to serve, to love Him who is the infinite
and only real good. Yet this is what we ask of the lovers of
intellectual excellence, who work without hope of temporal reward and
without the strength of heart wh