That is what I have aimed at here. The Christian standard of life is the imitation of God, and all forms of human excellence are summed in this: steadfastness, self-control, purity, integrity, patience, and order—but above all these love. And if I have led your thoughts rightly this morning that highest thing in the Divine life must find its reflection in every life which desires to be Christian—in an active desire to help, and serve, and bless.
England has a great vocation to serve this world, and will be Christian in proportion as she understands and answers to it. But there is a call, of unequalled force and strength, to Englishmen to serve England, not only by fighting her battles abroad, but by service to her great populations at home. I am quite certain that a College Mission, as representing this and giving some opportunity for it, is a feature of real and inestimable value in the life of a College, more valuable perhaps than some which seem more distinctly academic. For it brings the touch of the great world, it adds to College life, so splendid in its opportunities of self-culture in body and mind, its reminder of the great human needs which, after all, all self-culture should help to serve.
This is the way in which I ask you to think of it; not as a beggar, which comes to you for the alms of a terminal coin; not as the fad of a few who have a turn for slumming: not as rather a generous thing which you do by helping a poor parson in a hard place: but as a real part of your College life, which helps to keep it all stronger and truer and better, by giving a definite, prominent, and honoured place in it to that work and spirit of service which is no small part of life after the standard of God.
