which has nurtured the missionary spirit amongst its graduates has been the spirit of Professor Emerson himself." For not only did he bear a leading part in those movements which contributed most obviously to the development of that spirit, (such as the Sunday morning Bible class, meeting in his then new house, for the study of the journeys and labors of the model missionary, St. Paul; as the sustaining of mission Sunday Schools in districts lying all about this town; as the daily college prayer meeting which was established by the old soldiers who came back to finish their course of study, and who had been helped by our revered instructor to see that amongst us boys who were found in the classes in September, 1865, they might work as missionaries, kindling in our hearts a little flame of devotion to the same high ideals which they cherished; as the occasional addresses glowing with patriotic fervor which were delivered by him in the height of the conflict and on notable days of remembrance of that warfare;-not only in these more obvious ways, but through all his daily intercourse with the students, in the class room and elsewhere, he was helping them to pic-. ture to their minds, ever more clearly and influentially, the Christian hero, trustful, courageous, strong, gentle, generous toward all. The same life-current pulses in the college to-day, and more abundantly as the body is larger grown. What is to be its special manifestation in the closing years of this century and at the opening of the next? We cannot surely foretell. Its graduates may not be pre-eminently soldiers, not yet foreign missionaries; but lovers of their country and their kind, in the worship and service of God, we know they will be. For what else could they be who loved the now sainted J. J. Blaisdell, and learned to love others through loving him who in so large and deep a way loved his land and the world! Contributing his giffted personality to the college, a little later than did Chapin and Emerson, Bushnell and Porter, he yet furnished a large share of the vital force which is felt to-day, as far as the sons of the college have gone. He was himself a signal illustration of the "all around" working of the missionary spirit. Recognized as a leader in evangelistic, educational and reformatory movements, he demonstrated in his own person the priceless value, to men considered as social and moral beings, of any one whose nature is widely open to celestial influences. Because he had so fully received the spirit of the Great Master, his own heart glowed with a holy enthusiasm for humanity. Though we may not see again the flash of his eye, nor hear the penetrating tones of his sympathetic voice, may we be always ready like him to suffer with (for that you know is truly to sympathize with) burdened souls, and to rejoice with them that win victories over selfishness and wrong. There are large and difficult problems to be worked out by this generation. * * * For such difficult service is required a spirit of enterprise, of faith, of heroism, of forgetfulness of self, not inferior to that which we feel should animate the foremost of foreign missionaries. Will the sons whom Beloit has nurtured, be equal to this demand? I seem to bear them say, in calm determination, and in reliance upon a strength and wisdom not their own, we will. In such a life of service for others, there may not be so much that appeals to our sense of the heroic and sublime, as shone forth in the unflinching devotion of C. Frank Gates, in the face of Turkish incendiarism, murder and outrage, and in his Christlike ministry through weary months to the surviving victims of that terrific persecution,-a devotion and ministry worthily recognized by the University of Edinburgh. In such service there may not be so romantic a forgetfulness of self as led another of our brothers, A. C. Wright, to leave the last one of his student traveling companions in order to preach the gospel in a remote Mexican pueblo, and then journey alone through the wild Sierras, scaling mountain passes and fording swollen streams in the rainy season, exposed to the rays of a southern sun, for six perilous days, far from human habitation, during three of which he saw not a human being on the trail. But faithfulness to high ideals under the ordinary conditions of a daily grapple for existence, may demand as fine a type of heroism, even a diviner sort of self-effacement, whose worth, although the biographers of famous men may fail to record it, the Masterbuilder of the world and human society will appreciate, and will know how to use, and to reward. "If," says Archdeacon Farrar, "we make of this world, so far as we are concerned, a world 'wherein dwelleth righteousness, so far do we anticipate the fruition of the new world, the new Jerusalem." ་ "And wouldst thou hasten in another soul God's Kingdom, on the earth, of love and peace? Learn first thyself, thy spirit to control; From all that's false and evil in thee, cease, As gently as the dawn its beams has spread; And the whole world rejoices in its light' ADDRESS AT THE UNVEILING OF THE BUST OF DR. CHAPIN. PROFESSOR WILLIAM PORTER. I remember that Dr. Chapin once asked me to find for him a passage in Tacitus, in which the author tells what be thinks of statues made of marble or of bronze, as expressions of loving regard for the honored dead. He does not disallow them, but he thinks there is a finer, a more personal way of doing honor to a true, great life. The sculptor's hand may give back to us almost the living form of one we have known and loved; it may be cut from the purest marble, but after all it was a stranger's hand that formed it, and the material out of which it was wrought is foreign and cold. So Tacitus would teach us that we honor most those whom we love best, by enshrining their living presence in our warm hearts, by letting their strong, pure, brave lives, with their divine touch and more than sculptor's skill, mould our lives into the likeness of what was best in theirs. We pay them the highest honor within our reach, when we catch the spirit of their loftiest aims and purposes, and let them lift us up on the high places where they walked with God. And so we help to make their influence and their lives immortal. For it may well be true, in the economics of God's working, that there is never in any genuine soul a noble impulse, a high resolve, a purpose born of God, that does not register itself in other souls, and so take its place among the great spiritual forces, that never cease to work in human lives. This, we believe to be the supreme significance of such a life as Dr. Chapin's, and this, the truest way, in which to do it honor. Long ago, you know, and far away beyond the seas, it was said, that not by flowers falling from the sky, not by the song of angel choirs, is the teacher honored, but the disciple, who shall fulfill all the greater and the lesser virtues, by him is the teacher honored. Such honor, in generous measure, from multitudes of loving hearts and loyal lives, all round the world, has already come to attest the genuineness of this life, and its abiding influence. And there is nothing that can take its place. Yet we make no mistake, when we gather thus, on this great day, to do this especial honor to the memory of Dr. Chapin. It is right, so our hearts say, it is even the more fitting, because his life is so complete in its rounded perfectness that he needs it less, that we ask the marble and the hand of the sculptor to bring back again, for other generations of students to look upon, the form and the features that so live in our memory. This glad fiftieth anniversary of the College would be less complete without this new reminder of him, who stood so close to the beginnings of its life, and who gave to it so largely its distinctive character. For forty years Dr. Chapin was a part of the best life of this community. For forty years the College was his life. He lived in it and for it. He had faith in it, as a part of the Kingdom of Christ on earth. He gave to it, joyfully and without stint, his best. It was the inspiration of his life to be always at his best that he might give to it a larger service. His devotion was supreme and exacting. He never spared himself when duty called. His life was genuinely and most abundantly a life of service. And it was service rendered graciously and wisely, for it was in his heart to do it; it was the law of his life. So it was of his Master's life. His work was largely out of sight, laying foundations for a growth, that was yet to come. But so clear was his vision |