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valuable, so glorious? Will they not eagerly surrender all differ-
ences, and sustain those Christian patriots, who have been the first
to see, and the first to plan, and if God will bless, and men will aid,
will be the first to execute, the only grand design of the kind,
which can be compared with the gigantic efforts of the old world to
found enduring institutions of learning?

This great work is not completed: it has been nobly begun, but,
the weight of toil is yet to come. How many colleges, commenced
with fair prospects of success, have failed, because their friends,
too ardent, believed the work to be sure, when it was not half
done! Let not the University of the South be added to this
mournful list. The Trustees, have, indeed, guarded against failure,
as far as possible. They have declared, that to place the Univer-
sity of the South upon a sure basis, and to make it what it ought to
be, as an exponent of Southern intelligence, social and religious
culture, they need three millions of dollars. A large sum this
seems in itself; but, it is not large, considering the resources from
which it is to be drawn, and the purpose to which it is to be ap
plied. A community, whose annual income is more than one hun-
dred and fifty millions of dollars, can certainly afford to endow the
University of the South with a permanent capital of three mil-
lions. What Institution is this capital to endow? Not one, cer-
tainly, which will take away from the value of the resources, which
will supply its wants. Intellectual power enriches, as well as
strengthens and adorns human society. But, the Institution has a
value far higher, one which figures cannot measure. Easier it is to
compute the value of the air we breathe, than to define the worth
of broad, refined, consecrated mental culture. Easier it is to meas-
ure exactly the light of all the stars in space, than that intellectual
[light?], which will endure, when stars shall forget to shine. Express
by algebraic symbols the value of a single human soul; then you
will be ready to show, in the terms of an equation, the worth of a
great, comprehensive University, a central Sun, whose light and
heat shall cause the dormant, eternal energies of the spirit to spring
forth, and to bear perennial fruit.

Consider a University as a bulwark of civilization. The sums
spent to endow it with vigorous activity are too small to be re-
garded, in comparison with its varied, comprehensive uses. When
tribes of wild barbarians trampled on empires, as the laborers of
the vineyard trample on grapes in the wine-press, and broke in
pieces thrones, sceptres and jewelled crowns, as children destroy

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the playthings of an hour, Christians schools of learning stood; and
their disciples taught to the savage hosts the alphabet of learning,
human and divine, until the rude warriors knelt in homage to that
faith, in whose behalf those structures had been reared, which
saved civilization, when castles and mail-clad armies failed.

What sums are expended for naval and miitary service, for the
general defence of the country against foreign foes, to sustain the
national dignity at home and abroad! But, there are enemies
which no armies or navies can reach. They are popular ignorance,
mental indolence, social demoralization. These are the insidious
foes which consume slowly, but surely, the strongest ships which
art can build, which undermine the mightiest fortresses which skill
can make. These are the wily traitors, which guide the helm
astray, till the flag surrenders to the sudden assault, which open
the secret gate to the enemy, at night, till the sentinels are slain
at their posts, and the garrison wakes but to yield. Protect, as
firmly as you may, the organized, material defences of this nation;
protect, if you will, by acts of Congress, the rights of commerce, of
agriculture, manufactures, of property and life; protect, by the
strongest legal enactments, the rights of States, of citizens, of all
the varied interests of the land; yet if you fail to protect the intel-
lectual civilization, the great protector of all that deserves and
needs protection, your labor will be all in vain. Acts of Congress,
of Parliament, of an Imperial Diet, decrees of Rulers, whose will is
law, cannot make nations great, if the people will not use the
means of greatness; but, an instructed, vigorous, Christian peo-
ple can be great, whether rulers frown or favor.

The most dangerous enemies are those within the camp. Against
these a Christian University is a tower of strength. It upholds
social order against wild vagaries, intellectual refinement against
brutal ignorance, Christian truth against infidelity. Strengthen
such a fortress; and far less will be needed to sustain municipal
and national means of defence. A thousand ships of the line are
not so strong for truth and right, as a great University, founded
on Christianity; not a thousand armies or navies can so well
uphold, as she can, a nation's fame, a nation's mind, a nation's
loyalty to God and man. The "wooden walls" of England have
not availed so much to make her strong, and to keep her so, as
the stone fortresses of Oxford and Cambridge.

May this University be the Oxford of America. May her fame
and her power be as great and as good for a thousand years to