succession," "unconditional election," getting religion," &c. ; in each of which there is embodied either the living spirit of some human system of divinity, or at least the ghost of some defunct metaphysical speculation which would forever haunt and disturb the repose of Christian peace and union. In fact, it is manifestly impossible to accomplish Christian union without an entire abandonment of every term and expression not found in the scriptures, and a strict adherance to the simple declarations of the divine word in their plain and obvious import. This divine word is perfect. It admits of no amendment. It requires no qualification. It can be safely trusted as it stands, as the only true revelation of "the things which are freely given to us of God," "which things," says Paul, "we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth : comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” one single change, however slight, be admitted, all change must be allowed upon the same principle; and all the verbiage and barbarism of scholastic theology, as well as the contradictions and cant of sectarianism, will be equally canonical with the words of Holy Writ. Certainly, it must be apparent, that if the word "ALONE" may be added to Paul's declaration, "We are justified by faith," so that it shall read, as in the Westminster confession, "We are justified by faith alone," because certain errorists taught that men are justified by works apart from faith; it would be just as lawful for the latter to alter and amend the phraseology of James, so as to have it read: "A man is justified by works alone." Such indeed is, in effect, if not in form, precisely what is done, and divinely inspired teachers must thus be arrayed in contradictory opposition to each other, lest fallible controvertists should be compelled to acknowledge themselves mistaken! Again, if Calvinists presume to qualify the The religious world would seem to simple scriptural term "calling" by have taken such liberties with divine the epithet "effectual," Armenians revelation, from an erroneous view of may as rightfully render this "effec- the position which revealed religion tual" ineffectual. Or, if the former sustains. Because, in regard to natumay define "grace" by their adjective ral objects, men have felt themselves sovereign," to make the scripture free to invent names, to classify, square with a certain theory of re-arrange, and theorize, they seem to ligion, the latter may justly plead the precedent, and substitute for "sovereign" their more liberal adjunct, "free,” in harmony with their own peculiar view of the gospel. It is in this way that men seek to perpetuate their opinions, and the strifes they have occasioned, by engrafting them upon the word of God itself, and it is thus that they pervert the sense of divine revelation, and corrupt, in effect, the only source of spiritual truth. 66 have supposed it their privilege to pursue the same course in religion. Hence the science of theology; hence the innumerable systems of religion; and hence the peculiar dialect or nomenclature of each religious party, which requires a special glossary for its interpretation. But they appear to have overlooked the obvious truth, that while nature is a revelation of THINGS, religion is primarily a revelation of WORDS. The position in which each presents itself is directly The same may be said of such opposite. Hence, while in nature, unscriptural terms as "Sacrament," it is left to man to find words for "Eucharist," "Indulgence," "Trini- things; in religion, it is his business ty:" such barbarisms as "Christian to find things for words. Hence, Sabbath," "Eternal Son," "Episcopal too, it is that in his researches into DELIVERED JULY 4TH, 1849, TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF BETHANY COLLEGE. WITH you, young gentlemen, this is commencement day. The diploma in your hand, just now conferred, is legal evidence of the fact. On receiving it you are not constituted Knight Bachelors, wearing henceforth a shield and a lance; nor are you invested with the toga virilis assumed before a Roman Prætor in a Roman Forum, but are simply constituted BACHELORS OF ARTS. nature he may safely vary his language | BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS, and change his classifications and his theories, since the things of nature remain the same, however variously denominated or arranged. But in religion, since words here reveal things, a change of language necessarily involves a change of things. It implies the absence of a knowledge of the things which the spirit has revealed; and the substitution of things which men have themselves invented, and introduced into the church by a theological christening, and an episcopal confirmation. Nothing but the existence of new things to be divinely revealed to man, could ever require or justify the introduction of new words and expressions into religion. Of what arts do you ask? Not of the mechanic arts; for into these you have not yet been initiated. Not of the fine arts, such as poetry, music, painting, sculpture; for these are not taught in colleges. But beside the mechanic arts and the fine arts we have those properly called the liberal arts. These furnish and qualify man for the attainment of all the useful and ornamental arts of social life. It is in these you have taken the first or bachelor's degree. From this day you commence the life of bachelors of the liberal sciences and arts. its prominence in academic life. It is, indeed, a sort of literary majority. For, as a young man arrived at legal age of manhood is permitted thenceforth to manage his own affairs; so, from this day, according to collegiate and scholastic law, you are henceforth permitted to manage your further improvement and education in those languages, sciences, and arts, constituting that which, by common consent, is called " a liberal education." Hence Hence it is that this reformation, as said before, positively inhibits the use of any word or expression foreign to the scriptures, and that it requires each expression of the inspired volume to be taken, not in an appropriated sense to suit some pre-conceived theory, but in its most obvious grammatical construction. That there may be some differences of sentiment in regard to the precise signification of certain passages is not to be doubted, but it is grammar, and not theology, that must decide the controversy; and it is surprising how slight and unimportant these differences are, when men come to the study of the Sacred Oracles free from the prejudices and prepossessions of religious systems, and only desirous to know the will of God in order that they may obey it. To such persons alone the Bible is an unsealed volume, re- They are called liberal arts and vealing the rich treasures of the divine sciences, not merely because they grace, and the counsels of divine love; free the human mind from vulgar preexhibiting the gospel in its original judices, ignorance, and error, which simplicity and power; making wise they certainly do; but because they to salvation, and rendering the man are general in their character and apof God "perfect and thoroughly fur-plication, and open to us an extensive nished to every good work." R. R. The missionaries in different parts of the world is estimated at 1452; assistant missionaries, 151: native assistants, 2028. acquaintance with literature, science, and art, and thus furnish us with the means of extending our acquaintance with nature, society, and the Bible, to any extent commensurate with the wants of our nature and the limits of our existence. It may, perhaps, in this curious and inquisitive age, be asked, why this degree is called Bachelor of Arts rather than Bachelor of Sciences, or than Bachelor of Sciences and Arts, since it is strongly affirmed that graduates in all colleges are much more conversant with sciences than with arts. It is, however, true that we have a science for every art; and, therefore, as many sciences as arts: for what is science but the theory of art, and what is art but the proper application of theory? Now as utility is the proper standard of appreciation, it is customary, and it is right, to give precedence to the useful rather than to the speculative-to the practice rather than to the theory. Art is, indeed, the fruit of science, without which science is of little or no value. The art of logic, rhetoric, mensuration, surveying, navigation, &c. are to society, as well as to the possessor of them, more important than the theory or science which directs them. Science, too, may sometimes more or less, exist without art; but art cannot exist without science. Much more, then, that is both useful and honorable is indicated by the designation "Bachelor of Arts," than could have been expressed by the designation Bachelor of Sciences. But, my young friends, you need not now to be enlightened on this subject. Our purpose on this occasion is to suggest to you some things for the future, rather than to comment on either the present or the past. There is one science and one art, which, at your time of life, are always interesting; and if not with you severally, or at all, they are with many all-constraining and all-engrossing. This is the science and the art of becoming a great man. It is not our purpose to inquire into the reason of this love of eminence or excellence indicated by the term greatness. The fact that all recognize its existence, and, indeed, more or less, its importance, is indisputable. And that the desire of greatness is often, though not always, the means most essential and direct to obtaining it; nay, that the innate desire of it is itself an element of it, as well as essential to its attainment, are matters so evident as not to call for argument or proof. But as it is a relative idea, and that which it represents is not attainable by all, it is important to propound to your consideration a few thoughts on the subject of a great man, and that with a reference to some, if not all of you, possessing more or less both the desire and the means, as well as the intention, of becoming great men. This being to myself a new subject, and not knowing any author who has ever formally written an essay on the art and mystery of becoming a great man, I feel as if I were about to set sail for some terra incognita, without a proper chart to guide me on approaching its coast. First, then, But if on any occasion it be highly important or essential to define the terms of a great proposition, and thus to show one's own position on a grave question, the present occasion and the subject would seem to demand at my hand a very lucid and definite indication of what I understand to be a great man. what is man in himself, unencumbered with epithets? That I might, gentlemen, do you and myself justice, I resolved, for the first time in my life, so far as I remember, to open a Dictionary to find the meaning of the word MAN. And after reading more than one column of definitions in Webster's Polyglott Dictionary, I rose from the research with more curiosity and incertitude than before. I next turned to Richardson for his antique quotations and definitions ; and after three columns of these, I came to the conclusion that Alex ander Pope was right, when in an easy rhyme he sung When the proud steed shall know why man restrains His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains; Pope's Essay on Man, Ep. 1. While some definitions make man a mere biped animal, others represent him as a god in clay. One thing, however, I am pleased to notice as all-important, as all-pervading the reasonings and dissertations of the more learned and discriminating etymologists, is, that the name MAN is derived from the superior and peculiar powers, mental and physical, bestowed on the species, compared with every other creature known to us. This, his Roman name VIR, more than HOMO, clearly indicates. In the expressive Roman tongue VIRTUE and MAN are ramifications from the same root-vir, from vi, or VIRES, strength; the plural of vis gives us both virility, virtue, and man. So reasons Alexander Pope, and with him we must agree. But can we not yet ascend higher in the etymology of the word man? We trace it up in one of the best dictionaries to the Armenian man or min, indicative of likeness or mien, or to the Hebrew and the Chaldee min, whence our word kind, species, indicative of image, resemblance. -In mien, Adam majestic stood, Bright image of the deity! God called the father of our race Adam, translated man, which is equivalent to mien or image. Thus derived in sense as well as in fact, man was originally a terrestrial image, or species, or likeness of God —a rational, moral agent, susceptible of knowing, loving, admiring, enjoying, resembling, and adoring God. The perfection of such a constitution is the perfection, and therefore, the ultimate destiny of man, as now placed under a remedial system. I will not trouble you with other derivations—of Asiatic, European, or American origin-setting forth man as pre-eminently gifted and endowed with a complex nature-as possessing a life "vegetative, animal, intellectual, moral, spiritual." That he has a sensitive, intellectual, and moral constitution-making him essentially an intellectual, moral, and religious being in the more refined and sublimated sense of these terms, is a matter as well established, I presume to say, in your mind, as any one subject in all the circle of the sciences through which you have just passed. Having, I trust, satisfactorily ascertained what the being called man is, in essence and in form, we will, with some hope of success, proceed to ascertain what enters into the conception of a great man. Here, let me observe, is an occasion when your science of Logic will show itself worthy of the importance which your books and instructors have given it. The subject of inquiry is a great man-but before we can define a great man, we must have a proper conception of man himself, without any adjunct whatever. It is not a part, an attribute, nor an accident of man, but man in his own proper nature, or person, that we are now about to consider. But A scholar, an orator, a writer, a philosopher, a hero, a giant, and a man are not convertible terms. They do not represent one and the same idea. Were they equivalent terms every man would then be a scholar, an orator, a writer, a hero, &c. so far from being equivalent terms, they only indicate some of the properties, attainments, or developments of man. A man, then, may be a great scholar, a great poet, a great orator, a great giant, and yet, in strict logical truth, a little man. Who has not, occasionally, seen an intellectual or a moral pigmy of Herculean physical stature ? I presume, young gentlemen, that you all concur with me in the opinion, that David, at sixteen years old and six feet high, was really a greater man than Goliah of Gath, of a much more brawny frame, and of a more towering stature. You would not spend a moment in deciding a controversy between a Patagonian of eight feet high, and Isaac Watts, or Alexander Pope, of Lilliputian frame, on the question of relative human greatness. In such a controversy you would, with a certain poet, of humble stature, say: "Could I by grasping reach the pole, Or bind the ocean in a span; I'd still be measured by the soul, The mind's the stature of the man.' I need, indeed, but to remind you of the conclusions that yourselves have been accustomed to draw from the great men of the schools, as they are sometimes falsely so called. I allude to them because you have, for some years, been very conversant with them. Grecian and Roman heroes, orators, historians, philosophers, and poets, have long been your constant companions. These great authors have come down to us with the approbation and admiration of ages as men of great renown— models, in many respects, worthy of imitation. But yet, amongst all these, we may not be able, in strict propriety of speech, to find one great man; and, therefore, for you no worthy model. Let us take a few samples, and contemplate them in one or two points. We will, no doubt, soon agree and dispose of the whole subject. Were I to select the Grecian and Roman heroes, and expatiate upon their ferocious tempers, their brutal fury, their dauntless courage, and their mad ambition, we could have but one opinion. We will, therefore, take their more plausible and popular great men their orators, historians, philosophers and poets. A mere sample of each, for illustration rather than for argument, must suffice. And, first of all, the first of Athenian orators: Demosthenes, the orator of Athéns, the greatest of forensic pleaders, for whose towering eloquence in debate Athens decreed to him a crown of gold! Though the greatest of advocates, how unfit for a general. At Chersonea, a coward, he flies panic-stricken from the field of battle. He would not say with Hector : "Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim, The first in danger and the first in fame." Stern in morals, inflexible in principle, eloquent on questions of moral right and wrong while his client's cause required it; but that cause gained, he acts himself the part against which he had so logically, learnedly, and convincingly fulminated a few months or years before. When employed against the Macedonians, charged with bribery and corruption, in the loftiest strains of argumentative eloquence, he expatiates on their moral turpitude and sad delinquency. Yet he himself, on one occasion, at least, is accused, tried and convicted of having received large bribes from Harpalus, the deputy of Alexander. And still more indicative of his moral frailties, this most splendid of ancient orators, in his 60th year, when pursued by the emissaries of Antipater, terminates his own life by poison, administered, too, by his own hand, in the Island of Calauria, and in the temple of Neptune. Was, then, Demosthenes, though the greatest of Athenian orators—a great man ? As irresolute, temporizing, and cowardly was the great Roman orator, first the pupil of the poet Archias; then the disciple of Philo the academic. Cicero, always sceptical, always eloquent, always powerful in debate, second only to his prototype and beau-ideal, Demosthenes. Like him, too, he extolled virtues which he did not always practise, and declaimed against frailties to which he occasionally yielded. His speeches |