41 
lectual, moral, religious, social, material, and political -existed Bach as never existed 
before. Some of these will continue, others will undergo material modification. 
The intellect through scientific discovery and liberal culture will probably become 
more keen and more intense in its activity. Social conditions and relation- will 
change as they are changing now. The rich will become relatively richer and the 
poor perhaps poorer. \ greater mastery will be obtained over the powers of nature. 
subordinating them to human control and to I an utility. The visible embodi- 
ments of the collective will in civil government executive, legislative, and judicial 
will be determined by the moral and religious ideas and convictions which prevail. 
It there he wholesome, vital, intense, ami Strong social ami political convictions, 
the relation of the individual to the community, of the citizen to the State, will be 
(let em lined by honest and rational means tor t he attainment of high and honorable 
ends. Upon the moral and religious life of the future will depend the future great- 
ness of the greal Republic. The vigorous beliefs in which the lathers and the 
mothers of the olden times were brought up have without doubt changed, [a it for 
the better or for the worse? Let us hope that human elements only have been 
eliminated and all that is divine is retained; that the dross and tin have been purged 
and that the gold remains. lint somehow the shadow of a doubl sometimes crosses 
the mind that not the form only but the essence has changed, that — 
" Now there are new religions, many the codes and the creeds, 
Many the quibbling changes to lit with our fanciful needs, 
All of them waxing milder, waning in strength and tone; 
NOiie of them stern and sturdy; none of them stand alone. 
None like the old religions — those that the fathers made, 
Built on the fearless hasis — the God of the unafraid. " 
The moral and religious tone of the country upon which the greatness of the nation 
will depend will he influenced largely by the moral and religions tone which pervades 
the colleges and universities which compose this association. Let us see to it that 
the (loil of our fathers, reliance upon whom carried them through the throes and 
perils of the birth of the nation, is not forgotten; let us see that "the divinity that 
Bhapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will," is still recognized and reverenced — 
conscious that amid human affairs there is a power that works for progress and 
for righteousness and that the great lesson of all history, specially emphasized and 
exemplified inourown, is the realizing Of the divine in the human; of the infinite in 
the finite; of the eternal in the temporal; that — 
"Not in vain the nation's strivings 
Nor by chance the current's flow, 
Error mazed yet truth directed 
To their destined goal they go." 
We can picture to ourselves ere the close of this century a nation of seven hundred 
millions of people, Christian, peaceful, rich, and happy; with realized industrial, 
agricultural, and; commercial wealth, tenfold that of the present; with a predominant 
influence in the councils of the world; with a fiscal system light in its burdens, with 
income balancing expenditure, with laws just and equitably administered; with igno- 
rance banished, crime restrained, and pauperism nonexistent; with the relations of 
wealth and labor rightfully adjusted; and above all with a deep, all-pervading sense 
of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. 
AVe can fancy These colleges and universities with endowments counted by millions 
and students by tens of thousands, recognized as the prime factors in individual and 
national wealth and greatness; venerable abodes of learning diffusing through their 
sons and daughters an enlightenment and culture pervaded by a deep religious sense, 
enlightened by science, and a science leavened and glorified by religion. We can 
think of them as the depositories of discovered truth whence the pilgrims of every 
kindred and clime recruil their stores for the enlightenment of mankind; as beacons 
whose illuminating beams irradiate every continent ami transcend every sea. Then 
shall we realize the vision of the Hebrew prophet: "Who are; these that fly as a 
cloud and as doves to their windows? Their sons shall come from afar and their 
daughters shall be nursed at thy side, * * * and I will make the place of thy feel 
glorious." 
1 hippy land, happy people, yea happy is that people whose God is the Lord. 
The convention at 9.30 p. m. adjourned. 
