DISCOURSE MEMORIAL 



BY 



REV. SAMUEL BAYARD DOD. 



"I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of 

 God abideth in you." — I John ii. 14. 



The beloved Apostle, in giving unto each class of his readers a 

 word in season, uses the language fit' cur text in addressing the 

 young men, pointing them to the abiding of the word of God in 

 their hearts as furnishing the necessary elements for the formation 

 of a strong character. I shall try to point out to you how the word 

 of God meets the necessities of human character in the period of 

 youth, and what special value it has for the young, in correcting 

 the errors incident to that period of life, and in supplying the 

 elements needed for the formation and fixing of character. 



Perhaps no one thing contributes more to retard the growth and 

 permanent progress of our character than the changes and fluctua- 

 tions of feeling through which we are continually passing. 



The mere progress of life, by enlarging our views and bringing 

 us into new associations, works a great change in our feelings. The 

 mountains of our youth arc but hills in the eye of manhood; its 

 palaces are transformed into plain houses; its suns dwindle into 

 stars; its visions splendid "fade into the light of common day;" 

 its ardent and generous impulses arc tamed into a cool worldly 

 wisdom. 



Beside this more general and permanent change, there are fleeting 

 clouds of feeling, (puck changes of sunshine and shadow continually 

 passing over us. What alternations of hope, fear, anxiety, joy, 

 melancholy we pass through in a single week! How, with cadi 

 aspect of the mind, the outer world seems changed, according to the 

 medium through which we view it. 



♦This Sermon, delivered in the College Chapel, Princeton, X. J., on tin- 19th 

 of May, 1ST*, (the Sunday following Professor Henry's death,) was published in 

 the "Princeton Memorial." 



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