I must close with one remark. It is a great and intense age; it is such an age as has never come to the world before. Some of the preceding ages have surpassed this in some respects, it is true, but men have never achieved as they are doing to-day. This great age demands a great piety; it demands deep, wide-spread spirituality. Let me tell you it again; a great age demands great Christians, Christians like Abram, Christians like Paul, Christians like John. Who will set themselves apart to do battle of the royal sort? To keep step with the spirit of the age? It is an age of culture. Education is the cry. There is such a thing, however, as using up your heart by giving too much education to your head. If you guard your heart with this ideal it will be all right. Oh friends, have your hearts filled with God! Follow this great idea to be perfect before God, that you may stand in the advance of the age, and may even run ahead of it. I say that an age like this, an age of lightning, steam, force, and advance in every department of human knowledge, demands that the men and women of the Christian Church should rise to the loftiest ideal of the Christian life. All the sublime achievements of Christian faith lie in the line of fidelity to your advanced convictions. It is the inspiration of souls, it makes the greatness of life. It is that which has made all the grand Christians in the world. It is that which will make Chautauqua grow from year to year in spiritual development, and surround it with a great light, as an aureola, and place it at the head of this great age.
Men and women of Chautauqua, let an unworthy servant of the Master, my Master the Lord Jesus Christ, whose I am and whom I serve, get down at your feet and beseech you to meet the greatness of this ideal. It is not enough to be a ship, it must be launched. It is not enough to have all these great qualities that God may give to you, you need to be consecrated. Hear the word of God to Abram amidst the din and clatter and roar of this age, hear him say, high out of the clear heavens, “I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou perfect.” And that this may be your and my happy lot, is my earnest prayer.
[MY OWN GIRL.]
By FREDERICK LANGBRIDGE.
Fifteen shillings—no more, sir—
The wages I weekly touch.
For labor steady and sore, sir,