My brother: From this great northern belt of states, where these your people live, if I mistake not, are to come the strongest type of men into the great centers of life of this nation. By their sturdy manhood they are to give a vigor and moral tone that is needed in these great centers of power. If you will train and send out from this Seminary preachers of the Gospel of Christ among these people, who shall hold up the Gospel in its simplicity and yet in demonstration of the Spirit and with power from God, you will not only do a work for your countrymen that will be welcomed by them, and will result in bringing them and us nearer together as a people, but a work for our country that needs more than ever to be done _now_. You will help to make the nation's life throb with the pulsations of a faith in God that is seen to be the foundation of a great brotherhood gathered out of these different nationalities, and made one by the breaking down of dividing barriers. This, if I mistake not, is the mission of your department in this Seminary: Not to give these people a new Gospel--they have the same Gospel with us--but to bring them into fellowship and co-operative work with us in making the moral force of their life felt with ours, in keeping this nation in the way of righteousness, and of faith in God. This department in this Seminary may yet become in its influence upon the religious life of the Northwest, second to none in the results achieved. North Dakota perhaps stands first to-day of all the States, in its successful fight in overthrowing the power of the open saloon; and this has been achieved largely by the power of the Scandinavian vote which is on the side of law and order. Our fathers coming over the sea left behind them in large measure the forms of church life of the old countries from which they came, but they kept their faith in God. They shaped for themselves the forms of worship as they thought best adapted for the conditions of their new life. They drew them fresh from the Divine Word. They have built up for themselves and for us a church life and a national life, that have grown together into the life we now have. Shall we not expect that coming into our political and social life, these Scandinavian peoples will also readily assimilate our methods of religious worship and work? It is ours at least to place before them an open door and invite them into that liberty, that equality, that fraternity in Christian life and doctrine, which as a people it has been our privilege under God not only to proclaim, but I trust also in some degree to make real. May the blessing of God be with you in this work and upon the Seminary of which you now become an installed professor. INAUGURAL ADDRESS. A NATION IN THE LOOM. THE SCANDINAVIAN FIBRE IN OUR SOCIAL FABRIC.