THE NOBILITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 621 



tion free scope as it stretches out into the infinitudes of time, space, 

 and power, carrying the mind on, bound by bound, through the limit- 

 less expanse, until even the imagination refuses to follow, and fairly 

 quails before the mighty form of the Infinite, which rises to confront it ! 

 Remember now that your forefathers, of only a few centuries back, 

 saw there nothing but a solid dome hemming in the earth and skies, 

 and that you are able to look upon this grand spectacle only because 

 great minds have lived who have opened your intellectual eyes; and 

 then answer me, is not this result worth all the labor, all the sacrifice, 

 all the treasure, it has cost ? 



Every educated man, who has not sold his birthright for a mess of 

 pottage, lives a grander and a nobler life, because the great astrono- 

 mers have thought and taught, and this elevation of human life is the 

 greatest achievement of which man can boast. Before it all material 

 conquests appear of little worth, and the lustre of all military or 

 civil glory grows dim. Cherish this intellectual life ; foster it ; sus- 

 tain it ; do what you can by your own spirit and influence, and, if you 

 are blest with riches, give of your abundance to support and encour- 

 age those who, by genius, talent, and devotion, will widen the intel- 

 lectual kingdom. Be assured you will thus help to confer an ines- 

 timable boon on your race and on your country ; and the influence for 

 good will not be felt by the intellectual life of the nation only ; that 

 corruption which is now festering at the heart of our body j^olitic, 

 and threatening its destruction, can in no way be fought and conquered 

 so eflfectually as by keeping constantly before the nation noble and 

 high ideals ; for, where the higher life is cherished and honored, the 

 mercenary and sensual motives of action, which both invite and shield 

 corruption, lose much of their force and power. 



But you may tell me that there is a life higher than the intellect- 

 ual life, and that I have ascribed to science and scholarship influences 

 which come only from a source which I have forgotten, or left out 

 of view. My friends, all truth is one and inseparable, and I have 

 therefore made no distinction in this address between the truths of 

 science and the truths of religion. That grand old word knowledge, 

 as I have used it, includes both, and in just the proportion that you 

 reverence religion, you must reverence also true science. All truth 

 is God's truth, and, in praying for the coming of his kingdom, you 

 certainly do not expect that Nature will be divorced from Grace. If 

 the truths of religion required a special revelation, it must be expected 

 that they would transcend human intelligence. These very conditions 

 imply conflict, but the conflict comes not from the knowledge, but 

 from the ignorance and conceit of men ; and the only proper attitude 

 for the devout scholar is ' to labor and to w^ait.' And what more 

 wonderful confirmation could we have of the essential unity of the 

 two phases of truth than is to be found in the fact that the character- 

 istic of science, which I have been endeavoring to illustrate in this 



