SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 19 



the virtues of the blacksmith's home in the senatorial life. 

 When you feel that the society around you is growing artificial 

 and intercourse is insincere and everything sophisticated and un- 

 real, go back and get in touch again with the simpler and more 

 genuine life out of which you came. As the queen used to go 

 to Balmoral and sit by the ingle of her humble cottagers and 

 learn useful lessons of life; as Mr. Lincoln loved to have a 

 chat with one of the plain men from whom he came; as every 

 wise statesman consults with his constituents back in the country 

 homes; as the divine, learned in rabbinical and patristic lore, 

 gets some of his best divinity and his sermons by talking with 

 his sexton or his gardener — so it is good, it is wholesome to the 

 mind and sanitary to the soul for everyone to keep connection with 

 that life, whatever it may be, which is nearest to nature and reality. 

 Again, we will bid our young aspirants cherish the spirit of 

 youth and cling to the best things gained in youth. Words- 

 worth wished that his days should be joined each to each in 

 natural piety. It were good for us all that the best of each 

 period of life should pass on to the next. It were good to keep 

 as long as possible the ideality of youth. There is, for instance, 

 the college idealism. One who has had the great privilege of 

 being a member of a college has a tie which binds him to the 

 conception of life for which a college stands. And then there are 

 one's church relations. Most right-minded young persons in 

 these times enter into church relations. They do this in those 

 youthful years when conscience is tender and active, when the 

 heart readily responds to the appeals of divine love, and the 

 will rejoices in acts of holy obedience. It is good to hold fast to 

 this early faith. It is not a sign of superiority to lose it, for it 

 is usually lost by neglect. In these stirring times when the 

 trumpet is ever ringing out the challenge, " Who is on the Lord's 

 side ?" it is good to feel that this question is decided, that one 

 is committed, and pledged, and can be counted on in the good 

 enterprises in which the Christian church is leader. 



