nce as a Christian school, to train up men who shall be penetrated
by the spirit of unselfishness, possessed by the feeling that their lives
are to be consecrated to the common good.

Societies differ very widely in the type of character they impress.

Here and there we see a society, here and there a school, which has
somehow acquired the power to stamp on those who go out from it a certain
impress of nobility.

They go forth like the knights of our famous English legend--imperfect no
doubt and erring, but each one of them inspired with the consciousness
that his life is a holy quest.

There are other societies and schools among them which seem to possess
everything but this one power.

What, then, are we to say of our hopes? What is to be the mission of our
generation here? Shall we contribute anything to raise the common type?
Or shall we drift on as the world drifts, a little better, or a little
worse?

Shall we not rather pray and hope as we begin once more to weave the web
of mutual influence, that you may grow up here not altogether like the
herd of common men, but emancipated early from the life of selfish
desire, feeling the spirit of Christ within you, remembering your
baptismal vows, with eyes open to heavenly visions, and not disobedient
unto them?

XII. THE SOWER AND THE SEED.

"A sower went out to sow his seed."--ST. LUKE viii. 5.

It is significant that the first of the Saviour's parables is the parable
of the sower, that the first thing to which He likens His own work is
that of the sower of seed, the first lesson He has to impress upon us by
any kind of comparison is that the word of God is a seed sown in our
hearts, a something which contains in it the germ of a new life.

It is no less significant that He returns so often to this same kind of
comparison for the purpose of impressing us always with the primary fact,
that our relationship to God, the Father of Spirits, in other words our
spiritual condition at the present moment, our hope for the time to come,
does not depend upon some body of doctrine, but on our having received
into the secret places of the heart the seeds of a new life.

This is suggestive of a great many considerations which touch our life
very closely; but I will not turn aside to them at this moment, as my
desire is to fix your thoughts for the present on this one fundamental
thing, that the principle of moral and spiritual life in you is a seed,
and as