sued his curious researches into all the realms of nature, and into the mysterious dependencies of the fearfully and wonderfully fashioned human frame, nor when he has spread his renown, nor when he has made his fortune. No; he owes such contributions as he may make to the resources of the excellent art he practices; and he has an office of benevolence to fulfil, wherever he may bring relief to the infirmities of man's exposed and suffering mortal nature. The statesman, educated here, leaves a large and righteous claim unsatisfied, if he allows himself, I will not say, to consult only his own aggrandisement, but to limit his action to any narrow aims; and the man of fortune, if he devotes himself to the indulgence of his ease or his tastes. Such service as either has acquired here capacity to render to the general welfare, and to that truth which in all departments is the great element of the general welfare, such service each has come here under an inevitable obligation to present. The teacher, who has been here instructed, is not to teach, the merchant is not to traffic, without higher views than views of private interest mingling among their motives. They stand indebted to those who meant, that whoever should be indebted to them should in his turn bring others under obligation for wise and generous kindnesses. Each is thus held to do the work, by which he supports or advances himself, in a liberal spirit, using under the impulse of a high sense of duty the opportunities, which his peculiar pursuits afford, for communi cating knowledge, and diffusing happiness, and recommending good habits and good principles to all with whom those pursuits connect him. And the minister of religion, solemn and clear and conclusive as his other obligations are, is to recognise yet an added motive to abound for others in every good word and work, in the implied condition, under which he received so much of whatever power he has of addressing others' reason and feelings. But very far are the forms of effort, in which the good and wise are to fulfil their appointed office, from being circumscribed within the limits of any professional action. The lawyer, or physician, or teacher, does not sustain that one character alone. He is much more, than what the name of his occupation indicates. He is a man ; having all the sympathies and relations of a man ; having endless ways, in his extra-professional walk, of access to human understandings, and control over human character and welfare. All methods of influence, thus opened to minds, which possess any added power of influence by means of their acquisitions here, are to be sacredly employed for others' highest benefit. We are to be true to our vocation in taking care, that whoever is at the trouble to observe any one of us, shall observe the course of a friend to good order; a patron, according to his means, of good objects; an associate and fellow-laborer, a counsellor or disciple of good men ; an inquisitive and honest seeker, a firm and fearless champion, of the truth. If God has given us ability to do any thing to extend the triumphs of truth, we shall regard this as a privilege deserving all gratitude, and a work demanding all devoted endeavour. And, with humility, no doubt, but still with meek confidence in him, who suffers no well-intended service to remain wholly and for ever unavailing, we shall indulge the hope, that something we may have worthily done, in act or thought, may be beneficially felt, though the doer should be all unknown, even by distant men and by other times. III. Once more; if we acknowledge obligations to the worthies on the honored roll of the patrons of this college, the institution through which their bounty has been conveyed to us, the institution which was such a cherished object of their affection and care, should be always an object of affection and care to us. I am not asserting, my friends, that, should circumstances make such a course possible, we are ever to show our gratitude to our college at the expense of our integrity. I know of no gratitude, which cancels that obligation; and sure I am, that such a service our college will never ask at our hands, and will never receive from them, till we are most unworthy sons. I am not saying, that the measures of her administration are never to be canvassed by those, who have been objects of her bounty. It may well be more or less their right and duty, according to different relations which they sustain to her, and to different opportunities possessed by them of information and influence, to have, and to urge an opinion, favor say, But I am able or otherwise, upon such measures. affirming, that they are to be canvassed, when they do come under our notice, I was about to in the spirit of an affectionate solicitude, that they may be found, on examination, to be worthy of approval; but I will rather say, in the spirit of an earnest solicitude, that they may either prove to be of that character, or may eventually be made so. But, leaving this, with the repetition of the single remark, that I am speaking of no gratitude, if such there could be, which should involve any violation of integrity or justice, I urge that the sons of this college, wherever they go, and whatever they do, are not to suffer themselves to forget, that here dwells the nursing mother of their minds; and it is a foolish son,' says the wise man, who despiseth his mother.' If she should ever seem to appeal to us, by a claim of filial duty, for any thing adverse to severer obligations, we may be sure that it is not then her voice that speaks, the blended voice of her wise and worthy through seven generations. But, on the other hand, in evil report and good report, our mother's honor is alike our care; our mother's name is not to be lightly taken on injurious lips, while we stand by and hear. Till we are caitiff sons, we shall not imagine that there is no task for us, when justice, as we deem it, is not done her to the full. If we believe any charges which may have been made against her, on the score of religious partisanship, or the like, to be altogether unauthorized by the fact, we can have no dis pensation from saying so; and that, very freely, unambiguously, and emphatically. If we believe, that an education nearly as good as is to be obtained any where else in this country, or quite as good, or a great deal better, is to be here obtained, in expressing our opinion to this effect, according as it may be, we shall but be acquitting ourselves of a manifest obligation of honorable men, sustaining the relation which we bear. But the credit of our college is not all, for which we are to feel concern, nor shall we have accomplished what in this aspect appears to be its due from us, when we have vindicated its good name, and published and urged its merits. All its interests are to be substantially served by the labors of its friends, and among those friends we are to have our actions take care that our names be recorded. If God blesses us with wealth, I know not, among the public distributions which we may have grace to devise, what more grateful object we can propose to ourselves, than to turn back to pour a filial tribute into our mother's lap, to be dispensed to her younger hopes in ampler bounty, than she could command the means to afford to us. And here, I will even ask, in passing, since the subject leads to the inquiry, whether, while separately many of her children have done virtuously' in this way, it is not time that some more extended and united action of them together should excel them all.' An eminent jurist of the last century called his liberal * Chief Justice Dudley. |