Morning journal and courier., 1886-06-28
Monday, June 2s, 1886.
PRES PORTER,S BACCALAUREATE
CONCLUDED FROM FIRST PAGE.


 and culture is refutation of these concep tions. Both are the workmanship of living men, the joint products of their individual freedom, and of the education and opportu mites of the men who went before and who lived with them. The result is truth and beauty as reflected in the individual minds and accepted by the consenting and approv ing generations of individual souls. But what the individual soul shall be is deter mined very largely by its religious creed and
 aspirations.
 A few examples may suffice to show what
 we mean and to confirm it's truth. The spec
 ulative thinking of modern times is repre-
 sented by such names as Descartes, Spinoza,
 Locke, Leibnitz, Hume, Rousseau, Reid,
 Adam Smith, Kant, Schelling, Hamilton,
 Hegel, Comte, Mill and Spencer.
 Modern physics is represented by Newton, Brewster, Young, Davy, Farady, Tyndall, Helmholtz, Herschell, Kirchhoff and null titude more. Modern culture by still
 greater host such as Cowper, Byron, Words | worth Coleridge, Goethe, Schiller, Tenny- | son, Macaulay, Carlyle, Emerson and Mat l thew Arnold. In speculative philosophy which would seem to be most withdrawn from personal inhuences-nothing is more obvious than that the personal faith of each | leader of thought has been potent factor in determining the range of the philosophical relations which he recognized and the rela- tive place which he assigned them in his system. The mystical skepticism of Kant; the semi Christian pantheism of Schleerma- cher; the decorous conformity of Locke; the keen pyrrhonism of Hume and the conf dent and imposing agnosticism of Spencer, reveal quite as much of the individual per sonality of each of these men as of any plas- tic energy in their environment. Of the physics of modern times we may say truly that they have been formed very largely by the pervading influence of that monothe- ism, that Christian doctrine of living and personal God which Christianity has made the faith of Europe. We might show also that aside from logic and mathematics which were the gifts of ancient thought our modern metaphysics and physics, our physiology and psychology, our ethics and politics, jurisprudence and our social science are the products of Christian faith and of Christian ideas. When we turn to literature we need only ask the question where were our Dante and Milton, our Spen- Ger and Shakespeare, our Scott and Cole ridge, our Goethe and Schiller, our Tenny- son and George Eliot, had there been no per sonal faith in the story of the supernatural Christ and no kindling and unexhausted pa thos in his life and death? More than this is true we fearlessly assert that in every Christian nation in connection with every great advance in science and letters in mod ern life, and generally preceding it, there has been an awakening of religious faith and a revival of spiritual fervor, and that every such excitement has given the nation and generation new and more ardent intellectu- al life. We know, from our own observa- tion and in own time, that the moment when Christian truth takes strong hold of
 any gifted soul it invariably gives to what
 men call genius unwonted energy of imagi-
 nation and emotional power. Not unfre
 quently it works like inspiration in soul re- puted narrow and dull, it so increases the range and strength of it's thinking and kin dies such new aspirations! Let but the
 breath of God st any time move a college of gifted youth to the beginnings or renewal of the Christian life, especially if the commu- nity had been abandoned to atheistic dearth or epicurean frivolity, or selfish culture, and it will reveal an intellectual energy that was
 before unthought of We do not say that
 Christianity can of itself create or inspire
 genius, though in some cases it has almost
 seemed to do this; but we do say that, other things being equal, it has enormous resour ces of creative energy, and that for quicken ing power nothing can take its place. We assert also that the atheistic tendencies of modern science, and the frivolous but deco rous temper of modern culture, would effectually dry into barrenness and compara- tive impotence the youth of any college in which they should rule, were it not for the counteracting influence of the healthier faith of the community without. This leads us to observe:
 f. That vigorous Christianity is re- quired in our colleges and universities to counteract and overcome tendencies which are active in the science and culture of our time.
 These tendencies are the natural outgrowth of science and culture when pursued for selfish ends and uncontrolled by the higher aims of religion and love to man. Science estimates and rewards the love of power. 1t tasks individual effort and rewards it with the pleasure of Interpreting natures secrets, of understanding her laws and initiating or sympathizing with her skill. So long as sci ence recognizes these powers and laws as the thoughts and actings of God, so long does she open the gateway to worship and faith. So long as her devotee is trained to the docility of little child is it almost the same whether he knocks at the door of the hall of science or at the door of the kingdom of
 heaven. But as soon as the investigator be-
 gins to imagine himself to be the creator, the
 interpretations of the scientist are mistaken
 for the plan which was devised and the agent
 which executes So soon as the order and
 unfolding of the plan sets aside both thinker
 and actor, then emerges the scientific Titan
 ism of our day. which dethrones the living
 God in the name of that which enforces his right to be honored supremely by science the self-existent thinker and self-moving force of that philosophy or that faith in which all science stands.
 Modern culture exalts to the highest place that which was designed to be the attractive servitor of duty and selfsacrifce. Culture in art and manners, in speech and letters, has in the progress of comfort, wealth and ease become to many the chief aim of existence and final standard of worth. So soon as it usurps this highest place with an individual, clique, or community, it be comes religion-a religion that is false and idolatrous while it excludes the living God and disdains the self sacrificing and man loving Christ; religion which tests and measures the aims of life, the movements of ntxr 1a1l dixyiI o1 al ments by fastidious and limited standards | that satisfy neither the noble capacities of man nor the severer judgment of God.
 It can be no secret to the observer of our times that these anti christian tendencies are no idle fancies, but potent and formidable facts. It is equally clear that the arena which is most favorable for their successful manifestations would be college or univer sity, could it be cleared of all religious and ! ethical restraints. On such field would present themselves, in the fairest forms the \ most insidious temptations that can assail the noblest minds-the love of knowledge combined with and disguised as the love of power, ennobled by the aspirations of duty and dignifed by the associations of competition with splendid and able rivals Here, too, culture would display her fascina- tions-confessed to be divine, if anything human can be-l1fting man above sensual \ and sordid qualifications and needing neither I justification nor palliation with the heart | which be touched by beauty or grace, whether in form or motion, in sound or color, | or in the harmony of all. Culture in letters | and speech and art also allies itself to sci ' ence and both exact leisure and freedom \ from sordid cares, while they promise to en- gross and satisfy the heart and life. Where \ else can there be needed so much diviner Il power than either in this very home of | science and culture? Who can be, or bring, that power if it be not the Christ who has | been honored by so many generations of \ Christian scholars, as they not only stand ! full high advanced, as inferior to none in | science aud letters, but are lustrous with that | peculiar grace which is known as Christian-t an epithet which suggests more than it de- II fines?
 Truth compels us to add, in conclusion (5), | that Christianity must control the college | in: order toEexclude it's antagonist: or rival in the form of some false religion. In the present state of speculation, university so far as it is not positively Christian tends to- ward atheism or agnosticism. One or two generations ago college might more consis- tently and safely than now dispense with re- ligious truth and influence by simply leaving alone all questions of faith. If this were