the peesident's address. 
441 
Till Thou art seen, it seems to be 
A sort of fairy ground, 
Where suns unsetting light the sky, 
And flowers and fruits abound ; 
But when Thy keener, purer beam 
Is pour'd upon our sight, 
It loses all its power to charm, 
And what was day is night. 
* * # * 
And thus, when we renounce for Thee 
Its restless aims and fears, 
The tender memories of the past, 
The hopes of coming years, 
Poor is our sacrifice, whose eyes 
Are lighted from above ; 
We offer what we cannot keep, 
What we have ceased to love." 
Has asceticism cramped that intellect, or pinched that heart ? 
But I must turn from this, its religious use, to what more im- 
mediately concerns us here — its intellectual value ; and in doing 
so, I would ask you to remember that we have no other warrant 
than convenience and clearness of language for speaking of the 
moral nature and the intellectual nature, and of the different 
faculties of the mind, almost as if there were different agents 
existing within us. It is the mind itself which understands and 
wills and remembers, and it is according to the object-matter of 
these different acts of the mind that we call them religious, or 
moral, or intellectual. Asceticism therefore, which in itself is 
merely a discipline, may be directed by the mind to religious, or 
moral, or intellectual uses. Men may become, to use Wordsworth's 
phrase, anchorites of knowledge as well as of piety. For increase 
of knowledge and wisdom then, as well as for moral good, the 
mind may submit itself to rule — may set itself, by the exercise of 
its will, to conquer whatever of bodily passion or of mental disorder 
hinders, disturbs, or distracts it in its efforts to move freely through 
the realms of Truth. It is only by such discipline, vigorously and 
persistently employed, that the mind can acquire and maintain its 
true liberty ; for it is only thus that it can escape from the multi- 
tudinous distractions and allurements of the world, from error and 
from doubt. Such discipline involves the renunciation of much 
that is agreeable and attractive. The love of beauty and of know- 
ledge, and even of goo.l, may be dangerous, if they are not rightly 
