"It is of the second of these, the school, that we are now called to speak. The service we essay is connected with an educational institution, using the term in the specific sense; a fact, it may be said at the outset, which of itself dignifies the occasion. Not to insist on those affinities and mutual influences just adverted to, and of which there will be further occasion to speak, there is a view of education, a large and comprehensive one, which gives to it the very grandest elevation. It is the end, next to that which the good old Catechism makes chief, and subordinate to that, of all the divine provisions and arrangements. God is the great Educator of the universe. More glorious in his didactic offices is He than even in creation; nay, creation was for these. Earth is our training place--time is our curriculum; eternity will but furnish to the true pupil the higher forms of his limitless advancement. We have our lessons in all providence, in all beings and things, God teaching us in and through all. No mean vocation, then, is that of the earthly educator; no unimportant theme that now in hand. Yet even of the school in the more technical sense of the term, we cannot speak at large, except as in touching on any one department we more or less affect every other. Our thought may be fitly limited to that class of institutions which these ancient halls of learning and these inauguration solemnities naturally bring before us. The college is my subject, considered in its proper functions and characteristics.