Young Gentlemen:— You have come from far to this ancient seat of learning to find out if possible what is the value and true meaning of life. When the motto of Harvard University, Christo et Ecclesice, was adopted, the truth must have been perceived that education should train the minds of men into conformity with the mind of Christ, so that their lives might therefore be influential in behalf of the Christian church. This, at any rate, is the truth we emphasize in Christian Science, and I esteem it a privilege to speak to you concerning spiritual things, and the ability of man to know and to prove the truth Christ Jesus taught. A good many years have gone since I was related to college men as a teacher, but the kindly interest engendered by that experience will remain always. It is inspiring to think of the perpetually renewed classes of earnest seekers who throng the halls of our colleges, most of them clean of countenance, pure-eyed, zealous, eager to know what wise men think to be worth knowing, ardent in ambition to express in life-work the gain of knowledge. But they find the standards of knowledge unfixed. Text-books once authoritative are obsolete; for ten or a dozen years only they live. And so desire awakes in every student's breast for something abiding and true which is both rest and strength to the mind.
Tennyson compares knowledge with wisdom thus:—
Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail
Against her beauty? May she mix
With men and prosper! Who shall fix
Her pillars? Let her work prevail.
