BACCALAUREATE SERMON.

Dr. George A. Gordon, yesterday afternoon, delivered the baccalaureate sermon to the Seniors in Appleton Chapel, taking his text from Matthew, chapter 6, verse 33: "But seek ye first His kingdom, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

Dr. Gordon said: The supreme function of Christianity is the increase in righteousness of life. You who have passed here four years of your life must have often asked yourselves, "What is the greatest thing in this world" And after these years of questionings, the conclusion is forced upon you, that it is the duty of each man to see to it that his own life shall rise to its greatest spiritual height.

But first must be sought the Kindom of God, the vision given to Christ of an ideal society. The fundamental evil of society today is the alienation of two parts. Men overlook the supreme good in their zeal for material success. The note of greatness is absent from our progress, and the organizing power of moral impulse is gone. That we are better than people of a century ago we owe to our fathers, who have left us a goodly heritage of sturdy virtues, and this it is our duty to transmit to our descendants with increased worth.

Nowadays it is often said that if an act be legal it is thereby honest, but there is fortunately another spirit among us which is satisfied only with what is moral. The greatest sin of the old school of economic thinkers consisted in separating entirely the economic from the ethical interests; and even now there is a too common feeling that religion is concerned only with churches and Sunday services, and that it has little to do with the practical running of the mill or the factory.

This is an entirely wrong conception; the moral idea must be sovereign in every sphere. One profession especially in which the ethical impulse is noticeably lacking is that of journalism. It is said that the tone is low because that is what the people want; but this excuse would justify any crime, from the Crucifixion to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The voice of the people is the voice of God only when it accords with the conscience of a good man, and those who preach divorce between business and righteousness are not friends of the republic.

It was said of the Apostles that they overthrew the existing social conditions, but what they really did was to change the relations between religion and material interests. We need reformers of this sort, who will see to it that religion is not placed below business, and that the social order is not inverted.

The University sends you into the world as missionaries, to organize our social interests in Christian order, to put the supreme thing first. Great sacrifices have been made in many homes that you might come here and your careers must be more than mere material successes. Cherish always a vision of the possible life and seek to live up to the ideas which are held of you by those blinded perhaps by parental love. It is the crowning glory of the American college that she exists for the nation; that as she receives recruits from all over the country, in the same way she sends them forth to be good citizens for the benefit of the republic. In the eyes of Harvard the nation is of more importance than the University, which was founded in the service of a Christian state.

You are about to embark on a voyage in strange seas; may God shape your wills to the truth and may your careers be full and bright and contribute to national greatness.