.

He bade them understand now, if they had never realized it before, that
from the entrance of educated men and women into the western
wilderness, those real founders and builders of the great commonwealth,
the dream of the Kentuckians had been the establishment of a broad,
free institution of learning for their sons. He gave the history of the
efforts and the failures to found such an institution, from the year
1780 to the beginning of the Civil War; next he showed how, during
those few awful years, the slow precious accumulations of that
preceding time had been scattered; books lost, apparatus ruined, the
furniture of lecture rooms destroyed, one college building burned,
another seized and held as a hospital by the federal government; and he
concluded with painting for them a vision of the real university which
was now to arise at last, oldest, best passion of the people, measure
of the height and breadth of the better times: knowing no North, no
South, no latitude, creed, bias, or political end. In speaking of its
magnificent new endowments, he dwelt upon the share contributed by the
liberal-minded farmers of the state, to some of whom he was speaking:
showing how, forgetful of the disappointments and failures of their
fathers, they had poured out money by the thousands and tens of
thousands, as soon as the idea was presented to them again--the rearing
of a great institution by the people and for the people in their own
land for the training of their sons, that they might not be sent away
to New England or to Europe.

His closing words were solemn indeed; they related to the college of
the Bible, where his own labors were to be performed. For this, he
declared, he pleaded not in the name of the new State, the new nation,
but in the name of the Father. The work of this college was to be the
preparation of young men for the Christian ministry, that they might go
into all the world and preach the Gospel. One truth he bade them bear
in mind: that this training was to be given without sectarian theology;
that his brethren themselves represented a revolution among believers,
having cast aside the dogmas of modern teachers, and taken, as the one
infallible guide of their faith and practice, the Bible simply; so
making it their sole work to bring all modern believers together into
one church, and that one church the church of the apostles.

For this university, for this college of the Bible especially, he
asked, then, th