place like this. What is a college for? What tests its work? What justifies its support? One might at first be inclined to answer, "It is education, the spread of information, the acquisition of truths." But that, in reality, is not the real end of university life, nor the great desire of the generations who have founded and perpetuated this work. Not instruction merely, but a liberal education is what they sought to give; and that means an education which liberates, broadens, expands life. Not truths in the shape of facts that can be grasped, but Truth, ideal truth, forever unattained and yet forever beckoning to the scholar's mind, that is the great word which is written on our seal. Does gain in knowledge narrow and hamper a man's higher life? Does it rob him of his power of vision and make of him nothing but an expert, a specialist, a machine? Then it is not the knowledge which liberates, but the knowledge which enslaves. It is a knowledge which, as the Apostle says, puffeth up, instead of building up.

But, on the other hand, as a man lives among us here, does there come to him more

breadth of thought, more sweep of imagination, ideal aims instead of low ambitions, hopes and dreams of life which enlarge the very thought of life itself? Then, in this increase of capacity for vision the work of a great university is fulfilled. Each study is to be tested by this idealizing quality, each teacher is effective as he interprets thus the spiritual significance of his theme. Where there is a shutting out of this world of vision, there academic life will shrivel and decline. Where the higher uses of life are kept clear from day to day, there academic life will be strong and free.

Here, finally, is the place of religion and its forms and methods in a world like ours. Why do we gather in this place from week to week for these brief moments of reflection and withdrawal? It is because life perishes without its visions. We need, once in a while, to see the whole of life in its large relations and scope and end. We need, at times, to hold fast for a moment the thoughts which just brush by us in our busier hours, and to sit face to face with our ideals. Where there is no such chance to pause in the busy rush of the world, there the visions

themselves tend to disappear, and all the color fades out of one's life.

Here, then, we bring from week to week all the varied ideals of our lives, their intellectual ambitions, their spiritual hopes, their high desires, and their humble dreams. From day to day we deal with the parts of life, here the whole of it lies before us; elsewhere we have been engrossed with its routine and detail, here it opens before us into the world of vision. And let us be sure of this, that in this perpetuation of the ideal relationships of life, in these visions which come and pass and which seem so transitory and unreal in the stress of life, lies the permanent need of the soul. They are not the superadded luxuries of contemplation; they are the things without which people now, as in the Hebrew time, perish. It was by no accident that Jesus called his spiritual influence "the bread of life" and "the water of life." It is precisely these things to the soul, -bread and water, the simplest elements, the most wholesome and indispensable food and drink, which the natural hunger and thirst of human nature were meant to use.

When the Apostle Peter wanted to describe

the influence of the spirit of God, it was by this sign that he traced it: "I will pour out my spirit, saith God, upon all flesh; and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams." That is the test to which all life is brought. When people are absorbed in discussions and controversies about religion, or satisfied with the facts and acquisitions of education, it may be something very interesting and admirable which is happening, but it is not an outpouring of the spirit of God. When God's spirit is poured out, men turn to the unattained and are obedient to the heavenly vision. They are supported, not by their achievements, but by their aspirations. The things that are unseen are to them the things that are eternal. They walk by faith, not by sight. That is the secret of academic vitality. It is the result, not of what we have, but of what we desire. Back of all our hopes for better learning and greater achievements in a place like this there lies always the greater prayer, that it may be a place of persuasive and commanding ideals, so that the young among us shall not lose their visions, and the old shall not outgrow their dreams.

XX

THE NEW THERAPEUTICS

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. - Rom. xii. 21.

T is coming to be believed by the medical profession that we are possi

bly on the eve of a great revolution in medical practice. Only a few years ago our methods of surgery were practically revolutionized by the use of antiseptics, so that many operations are now made by surgeons, and many lives are now saved, which were once simply beyond hope. And now the doctors are beginning to say, “It is our turn.” It seems not altogether inconceivable that a few years hence many of the contagious diseases which are now the scourges of civilization - diseases like diphtheria or cholera or scarlet fever - may be robbed of their terrors. It may come to pass that every practicing physician will have his laboratory of bacteriology, just as he now has his consulting-room.

And what is the principle on which this proposed change of practice rests? The prin