Self-culture looks not simply to time, but to eternity. No man is truly cultured who is not cultured for eternity. His culture is but one-sided, and that the most inferior side. The well-rounded and perfected culture, though it may be only partial so far as the culture of this world is concerned, is the culture that prepares one to matriculate in the great university over which God presides, and sit forever in delightful appreciation at the feet of the great Teacher. Let this, then, be the ultimatum of all your efforts.
It is for this reason that you should so highly appreciate this institution from which you go out to-day as honored students. While the various branches of the arts and sciences that pertain to this life, have been carefully and accurately taught you, the great Science of eternal life, if I may so term it, has been, I trust, indelibly engraved on your every heart. A college whose faculty is composed exclusively of Christian men and women, and in which the systematic study of the Bible by both ladies and gentlemen is made one of its most prominent features, will ever be most highly appreciated by those who appreciate true culture, and know in what it consists. I think I appreciate a high standard of education, and I want, if possible, to give my children its advantages; but I should infinitely prefer their never going beyond the common school than to be graduated with the first honors from the most renowned colleges or universities of Europe or America, in which the authority of Jesus is not held as supreme, and the Bible honored as our only divine guide. Other things being equal, we should always honor those institutions most that honor God's word most. For this reason, then, as well as for many others, we delight to honor this institution from whose fostering care you this day go forth.
In conclusion, let me entreat you to be what this world now most needs—men and women. The world is now burdened with "gentlemen and ladies;" but it is perishing for the want of men and women. The world needs men and women that are true to themselves, true to each other, and true to God—men and women who know what manliness is, and what womanly virtues are; who delight in the real, and scorn the counterfeit; who have the courage to do right because it is right; who would rather stand alone on the side of truth, than with the world on the side of error; who are governed by high and holy principle, not by selfish policy. We need men and women that will create a healthier public sentiment, rather than to float on that which exists; who will frown out of countenance the fraud, dishonesty and meanness that now lifts high its head in society; who will not live in fine palaces, drive fast horses, and occupy the first pews in the sanctuary, at ten cents on the dollar. The world needs men and women who have hearts and consciences, as well as brains; who realize that they have a soul as well as a body; who live for eternity rather than for time.
God grant that you may all make such men and women. That you may not only be a blessing to the age and generation in which you live; but that your influence for the "true, the beautiful and the good," may be felt like the gentle dews of heaven upon the earth, generations after you are gathered to your fathers! May you be diligent and faithful in the cultivation of your nobler powers of mind and heart till the world shall bless God that you have lived in it; then laying aside the body, in which you have fought the grand fight for righteousness and truth—a fight on which God and angels have looked with interest and delight—as you would lay aside a worn-out garment, and passing through "the gates ajar," enter on a higher plane of culture, where you will not have to rely upon self, and struggle against adversity as here; but where you will have all the facilities of Heaven, and be forever pupils of the great Teacher!
III.—PLUS ULTRA VS. NE PLUS ULTRA.
[An Address Delivered Before Eminence College, June 10, 1881.]
Ladies and Gentlemen of Eminence College:—It has ever been a delight to me to meet with the faculty and students of Eminence College on these festive occasions. It is but natural that the hearts of those who have gone out from these classic halls should turn on these gala days, and in feeling if not in fact, renew the fond associations of the past. They are oases in the desert; well-springs to the thirsty soul in the journey of life. I should, therefore, be untrue to myself, and unjust to you, were I not to confess to a pardonable pride in the privilege of addressing for the second time one of the graduating classes of this renowned institution. The subject on which I shall to-day address you is
"Plus Ultra vs. Ne Plus Ultra."
Spain is the great southwestern peninsula of Europe. It juts out between two seas as does no other country of that continent. Before the discovery of America by Columbus, the Spaniards prided themselves on the supposed fact that their country was the last point of solid land on the earth westward. Beyond them, they thought, there was nothing but a vast expanse of water—a shoreless ocean—a mystery never to be solved. Consequently the early coins of that country, in order to give prominence to this idea, were indented with a picture of the pillars of Hercules, the two great sentries on each side of the straits of Gibraltar. Encircling these pillars on their coins was the inscription, ne plus ultra—nothing beyond. They imagined, therefore, that they constituted the limits of creation; that beyond them there was nothing. Consequently, as in creation the last is the best, they gave to themselves the preëminence. In this proud idea they rested and praised the Lord. In their own estimation, therefore, they constituted the ne plus ultra of God's favored people. Thus they constituted another proud monument of man's folly and ignorance, from which it is well to take warning. In course of time, however, Columbus conceived the idea of another world west of Spain. After long years of discouragement, sufficient to crush the spirit of all but those of noble impulses and high resolves, he was permitted, with a small fleet, utterly insignificant in this age, to sail westward. He thus discovered the new world whose existence, if ever known before, had faded from the memory of man. On his return, when the Spaniards became convinced that a great continent lay to the west of them, they were compelled, humiliating as it was, to change the inscription on their coins, encircling the pillars of Hercules, to plus ultra—more beyond. This the demonstrated truth demanded. Thus the discovery of America took the ne off of their proud motto, thus teaching them a lesson which should be a lesson to the world. Their negation was changed to an affirmation. Their boasted limit of creation was changed to an acknowledgment of the unknown beyond. Thus it has ever been in man's proud history. Thus it will doubtless continue to be till we know as we are known. "Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away; for now we know only in part, but then shall we know even also as we are known."