It is now twenty-seven years since I began my college life, a life which stretched out through eight years of good, hard work, four at the classics and four at medicine. During the college period and after it, and again, especially in these latter years as a teacher, I have always been most profoundly interested as a student of human nature and of medicine, in trying to find out what ailed the world about me. Why is it, as I have grown older, that I have come to find out that there is so much misery and unhappiness in the world? Why is it that each successive generation of young men begin to run the life race that is set before them, full of vigor, of fine enthusiasm, and with a determination to accomplish great things, and then one by one, drop back into the same indifference, and the same routine as was done by those who preceded them, the fire and all the enthusiasm gone, content in the end to make a good living and to take good care of themselves.

I well recall my own class, as fine a lot of fellows as you could wish to see, shouting "'77 forever" daily in the assembly room until we were hoarse, and each one certain beyond a peradventure that with our advent into the affairs of the world, the golden era was about to dawn. We each knew individually that we ourselves were destined to do some great deed, and we each looked, too, with secret admiration upon his fellows, picturing in our minds the great future which lay before each one.

A quarter of a century has elapsed and what is the outcome? Untimely death has claimed not a few of the dear boys (boys ever in spite of the added years), and those of us who survive have entered upon life's duties, just as our fathers did before us; good, faithful work has been done, but we have failed to bring about those startling changes which we had fondly hoped would make "77 "renowned forever, and a sad little stone in the old college wall, commemorative of ivy day, and a blighted ivy plant below it seem emblematic of our shattered hopes. What is the reason of the failure? Or was it a failure, after all? Was it then impossible to realize those great aspirations which thrilled us as we entered life's arena? These are the questions to which I will briefly address myself in this short letter to the college men of a younger generation; and in my reply I shall have to adopt the personal individual standpoint.

I would say of my own life that I have both lost something and I have found something. I have lost that which I at first esteemed great, for I discovered as I went on that it was, after all, but a bubble, a glittering semblance of a jewel, evanescent and temporal. But wondrous to relate, I have found in its place something infinitely more precious, eternal, a possession which increases in value day by day, lending a reality and a value to life in all its relations far beyond all possible anticipation of my early years.

Let me look at my life a little more closely; what have I actually lost? I think the loss can be pretty well covered by one word which used to figure largely in our college debates and chapel speeches, a word which covered the one great qualification in a man, which marked him out for success, and that word is "ambition." I remember well setting success in life before me as the one great desideratum, and anxiously analyzing its essential elements, which seemed to resolve themselves into ability, ambition, opportunity, health, and adding various adjuvant qualities, such as judgment, memory, tact, etc. I found, by God's grace, as I went on, that this, after all, was but a selfish scheme of living which, even if I might attain my end, was possible only for a fortunate few; I saw, too, some who were just about to take their fill of the cup of ambition suddenly snatched away by an untimely death, while others with all the other qualifications, were restrained from grasping the prize by the hand of disease; others, again (worst mockery of all), who gained all the world could offer in the way of fame or of wealth, remained, after all, most miserable and dissatisfied with life.

My first aim was, therefore, manifestly a false one. What was I then to do? Conclude that life was naught but a mockery? I thank God that when I found the emptiness of the aims of the world, I also found that He was not so sparing of His best gifts as I had begun to imagine. When I discovered that life and self were failures, I then found in Him more than heart could desire. Having no longer any good thing of my own, and now content to be as one of the servants in His house, I found instead that He had a glorious robe of righteousness of His own providing, and He was willing to set the very beggars who trusted Him among the princes at the gate. The glorious grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, which God in His great mercy has offered, not to a forward intellectual few, but to all men everywhere, came as a blessed solace to one who found on all sides the vanity of setting the affections on the things of this world.

I would like to dwell on this noble theme, for I would that young men everywhere could only see that there is just one thing in the world that is worth making the object of our ambition, and that is to know, to love, and to serve God, and to know Him in the only way we can know anything about Him, through His Son, Jesus Christ. Christ's service is not a theory of life or a philosophy, but a life, a new principle, a new birth, a new creation. Behold, old things are passed away, and all things are made new. And this knowledge, which brings the peace the world knows nothing of, is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who calls out and leads God's people in their earthly pilgrimage.

The great effective instrument of the Holy Spirit by which these truths are authoritatively taught, is the inspired word of God, the old Bible, Satan is gaining great victories in these days by holding men back from a loving, searching study of the Bible. Without this study, Christians remain weak and spiritually in a condition analogous to the bodily condition of a man fed on insufficient food at long intervals; they are often found languishing in Doubting Castle, or like the poor Galatians, confessing a faith in Christ but struggling to eke out an existence by the works of the law. If a man desires above all things, to feed his spiritual man, he will not neglect to eat the daily bread of the Word any more than he neglects his ordinary meals. Who ever hears a man say he is too busy to eat at all? and yet many are too busy to read the Bible.

My own daily life, (if I may be excused for continuing the personal part of the narrative), is as full as that of any man I know, but I found long since that as I allowed the pressure of professional and worldly engagements to fill in every moment between rising and going to bed, the spirit would surely starve, so I made a rule which I have since stuck to in spite of many temptations, not to read or study anything but my Bible after the evening meal, and never to read any other book but the Bible on Sunday. I do not exclude real Bible helps, which always drive one back to the Bible, but I never spend time on simply devotional books. Since making this resolution, God, in His mercy, has shown me that this Word is an inexhaustible storehouse from which He dispenses rich stores of precious truths to His servants as He pleases, and as they are ready to receive them. I have found that faith in Jesus Christ is a wonderful foundation rock upon which stands a marvelous superstructure. I have found that the Holy Ghost is not an influence, but a real, living, active Person, whom Christians must know personally if they will grow in grace and knowledge.
I see wonderful truths relating to Christ in types and prophecies which I never dreamed of before, and "the blessed hope" has a new meaning. The messages of the epistles I once thought full of hyperbole, now glow with meaning. And so I might go on, and so doubtless God, in His great grace and goodness, will lead us all on through the ages of eternity, beholding new glories and new graces in His Son.

What more can I say to arrest the attention of young men ?

Once my interest was in things which will pass away, now I am an actual partaker of the divine nature of Him who made all these things. What are they compared to Him ? He is truth.

"And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of Thine hands:they shall perish; but Thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail." H. A. K.