The record-union., 1896-11-15

There are indeed tendencies in Amer
lean university life that awaken anx-
i,ty In the minds Of all earnest people.
Speaking for Princeton, her honored
President cOnfesSes that he does not
know what part that university will
play in the movements of the future
which Will open the twentieth century,
but urges that whatever be it's place in
tine sphere of religious intellectualis1n
Princeton may keep the place she has
already neld, remembering that no part
of her work is more important than that
which addresses itself to the divine side
of mans nature 1t is to be hoped that
these weighty words will be needed.
Culture needs the cross more than the
cross needs culture. Men need to hear
of way of salvation as we'll as way
of truth. Accordingly, all Christian
people nHsy fittingly join in the prayer
that braafhed in the concluding words
of President Patton's vigorous sermon
when he expressed the hope that the
day may never come when it can be
said of those who hold high places In
Princeton University that they are
ashamed Of the gospel of Christ.
1TOIGSSOT w OouTOW w llSOU
true note in his Grafton last week at
the Princeton quicentennial," says the
"Watchman" (Bapt) of Boston, when
he remarked that it is a chief function
of the university to bring the influences
and attainments of the past into rela-
ton with present life. 'Unschooled
men, he said, have only their habits
to remind them of the past, onlv their
desires and their instructive judgments
to guide them into the future; the col
lege should serve the State as its Crgan
Of recollection, it's seat of vital MEM
Ory.' In our discussion of education we
ere too apt to overlook this function of
the college. We are never weary of
insisting that the information and dis
c.pline which the college imparts are
CT the highest worth We do not al
ways remember that it is through the
college that the student comes most
effectively and vitality into relation
with the results of human thought and
experience tested on the broadesc fields.
Perhaps there is no graver peril in our
national life than the self-sufficiency
which leads great masses Of our people
70 assume that the past has nothing of
value to teach us; that the sociai and
economic laws are as unexplorad as
the virgin soil of a Western prairie.
that the whole world is before US, and
there is nothing in the past worth seri-
Gus attention"
THE custom Of baptism seems to be
Passing away among Unitarians, says
the Christian Register" "Unit.) of Bos-
ton. THE beautiful rite of the con-
secration of children still exists, though
not to the extent of former times 1t
is frequently annoying to Americans III
Europe, who may wish to be married
there, or to place children in public
schools, to be compelled to produce GER
tilcates OF baptism or to explain why
they are such heathens as never to have
been christened. 1t is inexplicable to
the Lutheran, the Catholic and the He
brew that infants are allowed to grow
UP without some religious rite which
shall unite them to their parents
church. Protestants, as a rule. baptiZe
Adults in admitting them to the church,
If the ceremony has been omitted in
childhood Baptists, of course, admin
ister the rite to adults alone, or to
children of responsible years. Unita-
rians are satisfied with the simpler
method of inscribing the new church
members names in a book, or giving
them the hand of fellowship But they,
perhaps, lose more than they realize in
dispensing with a rite so simple, yet so
full of sacred and tender associati tions."
'The most tiresome books in a theo-
logical library are apt to be it's COM
mentaries upon the Revelation Of st.
john" says the Interior" (Pres.) OF
Chicago ITO us the most useless la
Dor is that spent upon the endeavor to
identify it's visions with this or that
event; for as we view it, it is not
panorama of an age. but of a world.
1t is not a -Raphaelite painting
with every eyelash distinct: but glo-
rious Corot, bright with auroral glo-
ries or resplendant with sunset hues,
showing only the outlines and figures
of men and women silhouetted against
Gods sky. We have never pretended
to know much about the Apocalypse,
any more than about a flower, or a
cloud, or a star. Some of our commen-
tators would reduce it to an algebra.
We prefer to know it Is a rainbow"
Lord Salisbury as an Orator.