fore stone is laid upon stone. It may not be realized quite as we see it, but we, all of us, are stirred by the outlook toward the shaping of an instrument great and good, for the worldwide service of God. These plans do not stir our pride; their magnificence has something awful in it, which sends us to our knees. Are our material resources adequate to their fulfillment? Hardly, yet. Is our physical strength sufficient? Doubtless, as long as God needs us-and then the next relay of men will come on. Is our mental power healthful and competent? We have not already attained but we follow after, if that we may apprehend. Is our personal influence and moral sensitiveness and spiritual energy ample stock for our great business? These are questions that we ask ourselves. And we are giving no self-confident or jaunty answers. We know that we can do nothing, as we ought to do it, without God.

2. It must be therefore an era of faith. We cannot go into it without belief in the realities-in the reality of God, in the revelation through Jesus Christ, in the forgiveness of sins, in a supreme power for setting wrong things rightto the last stubbornness of heart, the lowest depth of infamy, the very end of the world-in the real triumph of righteousness. We need faith in our opportunity-no prostrating fear of it-expectancy, in every aspect of it, because God gives it to us. We need faith in the message of Jesus, which is our gospel; in the worth of his character, and the essential necessity of his salvation;-in the conquest of self, and the reproduction of his life, in its simplest elements, under the greatest variety of conditions and circumstances,-in the possibilities germinating in ourselves and our neighbours, which hold the promise of a redeemed world, and make it both desirable and certain that human life shall at length be filled with the divine, and controlled by it.

3. It must be an era of efficiency. Dreamers may still have their part to play, but it must be to inspire the doers. Idle dreams are ignoble. It is the patient, faithful, efficient doers of the work that justify bold dreams. We must train men to master the technique of their art. It cannot be done by simply applying high pressure to the spiritual life. Patient, quiet, steadfast work, in study and practice, is the channel of expression for real spiritual life, and no mean one, when it signifies knowing your business. You want men who can do things, and we want to produce them, but the process cannot be hurried, and it takes concentration of purpose and long,

hard work. The reason why some ministers are inefficient is that many ministers have too low a conception of efficiency, and know too little how efficiency can be attained. You, who know, will not blame us for trying to make our training mentally severe. It is the condition of efficiency.

No doubt some things are more important than others. We are constantly revising our judgment of values, and acting accordingly. I should like to set before you, if there were time, our present view of a curriculum in theology, under the three rubrics of the essential gospel, the situation in the world which needs the gospel, and the means by which the gospel may be brought home to the world. Think these subjects through and see if your thought of training for the ministry does not gain unity and insistence. This great establishment must be put to the largest and most intelligent use for the Kingdom of God. We ask you to encourage us in making our new era an era of efficiency.

4. It is an era of fellowship. We want fellowship with all Christians, and with all earnest people who are not Christians, in their work for righteousness, as far as they will let us have it. "He that is not against us is on our part." Our business is too high for rivalry. We seek fellowship and sympathy on all hands, and especially with all with whom Christ holds fellowship, or would have, if they would permit it. We have no hostilities or bitternesses or grudges to cherish-as far as we understand ourselves. We may have prejudices but we hope they are like "that salutary prejudice known as love of country"-salutary prejudices known as love of the Seminary, and what we think to be the truth, and love of liberty, and love of Jesus Christ, and desire to be like him, and to see a world of people like him. If we have meaner prejudices we are not proud of them. This is the kind we wish to have. But these do not destroy our sense of fellowship-in which small party names and sectarian distinctions are merged and lost-it gives our fellowship value and fulness.

Your fellowship, who have now come here, must be with each other, and with us whose duty is here, and our fellowship must be with each other and with you. We can do

great things by helping each other and holding together. But true fellowship is not at all content with the like-minded and congenial. Christianity is weighed twenty times a day against other religions, old and new. We shall honor them all for whatever they do to lift men towards righteousness and God.

And if anyone of them proclaims as its essence the obligation of each man to share the richness of his life and not to hoard it, and lives this out in the simple strength of God, by the practice of men's days, busy and hard beset, it is Christ's religion, under another name, in its unalloyed product. The only advantage that Christianity then has lies in a broader and deeper practice of fellowship with God and man, giving oneself loyally to them both, as Jesus Christ did and does forevermore. We shall never be afraid of any religion's seeming too much like that of Christ when we are once convinced that the world of people will have entered the divine fellowship, with knowledge, heart and purpose all together-when every religion is made entirely Christian, after Christ's manner, and the world has grown a brotherhood, in rich exchange of the earthly gifts and treasures of the soul-to the glory of God, the Father.

The Seminary lives in its alumni. It is strengthened, more than you know, by your presence here, and your generous loyalty. If you were not full of large plans for God, and great faith, and efficiency, and the spirit of fellowship, the Seminary would be an empty name. Help us, brothers, to make it more than an empty name. Help us, by your own ardent service of Christ and his kingdom, to realize the possibilities of the new era-to train new generations even better than you were trained, to bear testimony to the heroic life, to take our share in the divine conquest of the world.

2.

The Claim of the Kingdom upon the Seminary

By the Reverend Henry H. Stebbins, D.D.

Mr. President of the Alumni, Mr. President of the Faculty, undergraduate students and fellow Alumni of this dear Seminary that is exciting so many delightful and hallowed memories and that is inspiring so many Alumni to unprecedented hopes :

The claim of the Kingdom upon the Seminary is, as I at least conceive it, that the Seminary should interpret the Kingdom of God as revealed in the Old and New Testaments of

the Word of God and should train all applicants for the service of the King.

To such end the Kingdom would venture to submit the four cardinal points of a compass, as it were, whereby the Seminary may steer her course to the desired heaven.

I. The first cardinal point is the Seminary herself.

The Kingdom recognizes the Seminary as the institution, above all others, that should unfold the Kingdom in all its bearings, whether the Kingdom that cometh within, the Kingdom that cometh not with observation, or the Kingdom visible.

The Kingdom reminds us that, humanly speaking, the Seminary is the supreme resource of the Church; that the Church looks to the Seminary to turn out ministers thoroughly furnished to go into all the world, near or distant, and to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom to every creature.

The Kingdom claims that the Seminary should be the repository of all possible information about the Kingdom, information concerning its nature, its scope, its subjects, its present day demands, its prospects and its consummation in heart and life, in the individual, in society, in the state, in the world, to the end that God's Kingdom may fully come in the doing of his will on earth as it is done in heaven.

Further, the Kingdom claims that the teaching force of the Seminary should be second to none, either as to acquisition or ability to impart, and in popular fashion a force that should teach with authority and not as the scribes.

The Kingdom claims that the Seminary should blaze the way, should take the initiative, should, under the impulse of a faith that is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, anticipate the demand as commerce anticipates the market, so that as the servants of the King go about their appointed work, they may stab wide awake the social consciousness and the social conscience of those with whom they have to do, thereby attracting in growing numbers those who shall spend and be spent in the active, practical propagation of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, who shall discern readily any given environment, who shall be instant in season, out of season, in knowing what is to be done and how to do it most feasibly and permanently, and who, in a word, shall incite to a militant altruism in the service of the King.

2. The second cardinal point in the proposed compass is the federated church.

While the Kingdom would have the Seminary recognize herself as, providentially, the first of institutions for meeting

the demands of the Kingdom, it would have her recognize the Church as the supreme instrumentality, humanly speaking, for the promotion of the Kingdom, not, however, by any means, to the exclusion of other agencies, but to their distinct subordination.

There is vital reason, the Kingdom contends, for the preaching of the gospel of the Kingdom, the preaching, backed by the authority of "Thus saith the Lord."

The Kingdom claims that it springs directly from the bosom of religion, in distinction from mere philanthropy or humanitarianism; that it inculcates, first of all, the most comprehensive love to God, and along with that and separable from it, love to man, and that the Church is the obvious means to that end.

The Kingdom sees the Church as the exponent of the Christianity of Christ, as His divinely designed successor, and that accordingly she is true to the fullness of her mission only as she looks at the world as Jesus looked at it and stands, in relation to men, as Jesus did, and ministers as Jesus did to the manifold ills and limitations of human life.

And the Kingdom appeals to the New Testament, to say nothing of the Old Testament, which abounds in teaching and injunction about the Kingdom, for overwhelming evidence in corroboration of its claim as to the primacy of the Church as the instrumentality for the diffusion of the laws of the Kingdom, in their manifold application to the individual and to society.

In this connection the Kingdom congratulates the Church upon the following resolution adopted by the Presbytery of New York:

RESOLVED, that we recognize the gospel of Christ as the supreme remedy for every form of evil, and the church of Christ as the agency by which the world is to be regenerated and saved, and, therefore, we believe that the moral teachings of Christ must be applied to every sphere of life, and that the church should bear her testimony for righteousness and purity in all human affairs.”

So with renewed assurance the Kingdom maintains that the Church needs to be exploited, that she needs to come to her own, needs to be stimulated to make her calling and election sure in the world realm of social service; that she needs to be socialized, and to become a radiating social center, exemplifying brotherly love, a love aiming to fulfill every jot and every tittle of the laws of service and sacrifice.