55 



butcher's meat and breadstufFs, when it pronounces him 

 that provideth not for his own worse than an infidel. 



Gentlemen, your patience has let me lead you through 

 this round of your relations, to school-house, town-hall, 

 church and homestead, — in unworthy fulfilment of my 

 humble part in this day's varied and cheerful entertain- 

 ments. When I could not show you illustrious oxen, nor 

 aristocratic poultry, nor even an astonishing cheese, you 

 have kindly condescended to let me try in another way, 

 and do as I could by showing what is in my heart 

 towards your work. If I have seemed to judge your call- 

 ing by too strict a standard, I insist that I thus pay it only 

 the profounder compliment. By my love for it, I am jealous 

 that it realize its inherent and providential grandeur. To 

 brave natures, nothing is so exhilarating as an aim that 

 strains the sinews. Everything, in these times, demands 

 that our manhood, trained in whatever school, be made up on 

 a scale of magnanimous proportions. Everything threatens 

 and scorns a contracted culture, a stationary policy, and 

 an inactive brain. But beyond the common appeal uttered 

 to all modern men alike, it is for you to build up a character 

 that is distinctively professional. Show the world examples 

 that will bear inspection, — let who will be the judges, — of 

 the agricultural type of manhood. Boast nothing, but he 

 so much that boasting shall be excluded. If it be true, 

 that your class is now on the eve of vaster achievements than 

 have ever marked its progress yet, these furtherances are 

 to come only through the intellectual wakefulness, the 

 moral sincerity, the domestic virtue, the religious whole- 

 heartedness of you, its most favored members. 



