the practical judgment of his teachers, unworthy ever again to be looked at.

11. We should not be faithful to our well considered and deeply seated opinions, if we did not hail, as a momentous consequence of the general cultivation of Sacred Literature, its ascendancy and final triumph over the classics. These deserve only to be subordinate to that. But now, these are every thing, and that is nothing. Sacred Literature ought to be regarded as indispensable to education; the classics as desirable and appropriate only for the scholar. That is eminently useful, these are merely ornamental, and deserve a correspondent attention; as Trajan honored and patronized Tacitus, Plutarch and Dion Cassius, but disregarded Juvenal and Martial. We desire never to see the day, in our country, when a scholar shall be found so forgetful of both duty and improvement, as like Al Farabi, the Arabian, to read Aristotle two hundred times, or like Madame Dacier, to peruse the Clouds of Aristophanes the same number of times. We envy not for the scholars of our country, the sentiment of De Lille, in the preface to Les Jardins: "Et tous ceux, qui connoissent la langue Latine, savent par cœur le quatrieme livre de l'Eneide. Wo covet not for our

country, that she, like Europe, should be the land of the Classics, and of the Editors of the Classics. Be it her honor, privilege, happiness, to be emphatically and peculiarly the land of Sacred Literature. Let it appear in her schools and academies, in its plainer, practical forms; in her colleges and universities, in a more refined and dignified character; in her theological institutions and churches, in all its majesty and beauty, variety and learning. Athens was called the Eye of Greece. Let Sacred Literature be the Eye of our Country: and we should inscribe on the monument of its glory and usefulness, the patriot sentiment of father Paul, 'Esto perpetua.'

But the deep and extensive influence, which Sacred Literature is eminently fitted to exert over all the other departments of polite learning, is in our view, among the most interesting and valuable of its benefits. We have only time to contemplate one of its most conspicuous features.

A prominent advantage of the ascendancy of Sacred Literature is, that all Literature may be expected to become more intellectual. As the Bible is the noblest and richest fountain of original, elevated and comprehensive thought, the general cultivation of sacred letters must impart its own character to all the departments of Literature. The Literature of Germany and England is more intellectual, than that of France, Italy or Spain. Can we doubt, independently of the influence of other subordinate causes, that the Bible is the paramount reason of the difference? In the Scriptures only, do we find any just views of the character and attributes of God, of the scheme of creation and providence, of atonement, redemption and acceptance, of the being, and nature, and offices of spiritual existences, of heaven and hell, of the trials and sufferings of man in this world, of the immortality of the soul, of its glory and happiness, or of its dishonor and misery in a future world. And is it possible, that these ideas, so grand and solemn, so interesting and affecting, are destined never to have a deep, all-pervading, quickening influence over modern Literature? It is obvious, that in the Grecian authors, sublime and lovely conceptions, relics of an elder, of the patriarchal age, are seen to struggle for life, against the oppressive power of their vicious and absurd mythology. And what are those finer and better thoughts, but the faint glimmerings of tradition, seen by them darkly at a distance, but vouchsafed in the Law and the Prophets, to the children of Israel? Those few imperfect thoughts have done more for Grecian letters, than the whole body of her fabulous religion. This has indeed given beauty and variety to her Literature, but to those only is it indebted for the awful and the majestic. The mythology of Greece never has been and never can be the parent of vigorous, original, versatile thought. The Bible pre-eminently exacts and encourages the exercise of power and freedom, of comprehensiveness and depth of thought. What the profound, ardent study of the Scriptures as an inexhaustible fund of Literature is able to do, may be seen in the unrivaled sublimity and beauty of Paradise Lost, the great poem not merely of English, but of all ancient and modern Literature. Give then to the Bible its natural, rightful influence over the whole circle of polite learning, and we despair not of beholding in our country, a Literature more rich, original and dignified, than the world has ever seen.

The scholars of our land complain of the character of our Institutions, as overcrowded with the simplicity and homeliness of common sense, and of our state of society, as chiefly remarkable for its unpoetical, business-like aspect. In our judgment they undervalue exceedingly the literary capacities and fertility of our country. A nobler and more affecting origin, a more interesting and wonderful progress, a destiny, more sublime, glorious and solemn, we have never beheld. Who, that has a memory to look back over all the past; who, that has a mind to comprehend all the present; who, that has an imagination to embody the dim visions of the future, will despair? Who, that has a heart, to love his family, his state, the nation, the living and the unborn world; and a soul, that ascends in thought to the throne of God, to the mansions of Angels, and the habitations of the just made perfect, will despair of the Literature of our Country? We behold not, indeed, scattered over our land, the beautiful and august antiquities of Greece and Rome. We behold not the Cathedral and the Abbey, the tower and the castle, relics of Gothic grandeur and feudal power. Not a solitary spot in our land is hallowed by the fantastic and elegant mythology of classic Fable. The wild and the terrible, the mysterious and the marvellous of the Enchanter, the Fairy and the Goblin, have no place in our traditions. Popular superstitions, in all their endless variety of the curious and the horrible, are unknown to us. Ours has never been the land of Romance; for the purple light of the age of chivalry has never beamed on our people, in its richness and beauty. But we despair not. We have a strong faith in the destinies of American Literature. We have a faith, strong as a Christian's hope, strong as a Patriot's love. We will not despair. We feel assured, that in the noon-tide of our greatness, we shall look down upon all the nations, that have gone before us. We envy not the riches of their inheritance. The patrimony of the Old World is the heritage of the New; so far as we may choose to avail ourselves of its wealth. We can enter unbidden, the store-house of its treasures, not sword in hand, like Julius Cæsar, but by the Enchanter's Key, the Press, and revel amidst the gathered opulence of all ages and all nations. But our trust is built on better promises and brighter hopes. The living spirit of American Literature must be intellectual. He who does not see that the intellectual will be the essential

character of American Literature, must be blind to the visions, that crowd on the fancy, and deaf to the thousand voices of gratulation and encouragement, that call from the past, the present and the future, through all our land. His are not the deep and delicate feelings of the heart, which sympathize with all that is majestic, lovely and graceful, whether in man, or in the visible world. His can not be that enthusiasm of soul, which invests the grand and the beautiful in nature and in art, with a nobler grandeur, a more attractive beauty. His never will be those sublime thoughts, which live on the great, the wonderful and the fair, in the recollections of the past; which inhabit the whole living world, ever meditating on its history, progress and destinies; and wander through eternity, to contemplate the purity and felicity, the glory and wonders of an immortal state. We at least scruple not-to gaze with a Christian's hope and a Patriot's love. And we have received the reward of that hope and of that love, in the rejoicings that sympathize with all that is American, and in the gratitude which ascending to God as the moral Governor of the World, beholds in our Country the fairest province of his magnificent Empire upon Earth.

The foundations of our hope and our love are laid in THE POWER OF THOUGHT, THE INTELLECTUAL SPIRIT. But the Scriptures only can create, diffuse, perpetuate that spirit. They only can redeem us from the vassalage, without the glory of European Letters. They only can breathe into all our Literature the breath of life, intellectual power. Scatter then the Scriptures with a prodigal benevolence, over all our land. Imbue with their spirit, the child, the youth, the young man, through the whole course of education. Let them be the study of manhood and the meditations of old age. Then, but then only, shall we have reason neither to envy nor to fear the scholarship of Europe. Let the Literature of the Eastern Hemisphere worship in the Parthenon of Athens or the Coliseum of Rome, in the Abbey or the Cathedral of a Gothic ancestry. Let it revel in the beauties of Grecian fable, in the wonders of enchanted castles and fairy bowers, amid the splendor of courts and the magnificence of palaces, amid the glory and gallantry of the age of Romance. American Literature rejoices that hers is a more holy, a nobler, a lovelier land of promise. The shrine of her worship is the Falls of Niagara; the

black gates of the mountains are the portals of her fane; the Father of Western Waters is the majestic stream of her inspiration; the valley of the Mississippi with its giant colonnade, the Rocky and the Alleghany, the temple of her glory. The genius of American Literature walks abroad, through the land of his birth; and beholds an endless diversity of the grand and the beautiful. He looks to the world of Memory, and feels that the wealth of ancient and modern Literature is his. He looks to the realms of Imagination, and rejoices in its visions of glory; for he knows that they are his. He looks to the Empire of Mind, and shrinks not at the mysterious depth of its abyss, or the awful grandeur of its elevation; for his are the power and freedom of thought. In the intellectual spirit, he lives, and moves, and has his being.

Gentlemen of the Society, to most of you I am a stranger; a stranger by the land of my birth, and the pursuits of my life. But though a stranger, I feel that I am not an alien, when I remember that ours is a common country, a common parent, a common fellowship. That country is the bequest of wise and virtuous ancestors. That parent is this venerable university. That fellowship is this society, the bond of our union, in the cause of Literature and Science. Let us not be insensible to the sacredness of that inheritance, to the dignity of that parentage, to the value of that fellowship. Although the Society has hitherto exercised, and perhaps unavoidably, little influence beyond the walls of this College, it becomes us to consider whether important duties do not devolve upon us. To each is allotted his sphere of humble or distinguished usefulness, in private life, or in a public station. To each is assigned, in the order of Providence, his trials and temptations, his calamities or happiness, the honors of a well spent life, or the ignominy of unprofitable years. From all is exacted that duty, which "does justice, loves mercy, and walks humbly with God." From all is equally demanded that usefulness, which lives not only for our family and friends, but for all the community around us; not only for our country, but for all mankind; not only for our fellow men of this day, but of all succeeding ages. Tell me not that such a sphere is beyond the eye or the influence of ordinary men. Few, indeed, are destined to glitter on the radiant heights of Literature, or to wield with master-hand the responsible power of ele