see it, nor bring it up against us either in this life or in the hour of death or in the day of Judgment? Yes, there is-blessed be God, there is! The red lines of Jesus' blood can cancel it all and hide a multitude of sins; his righteousness can be placed in the balance against our unrighteousness; his Spirit can cleanse us from an evil conscience and make our dark and unclean hearts as pure and white as the snow. That blood, that righteousness, that Spirit, may be ours. They are offered to us by the Saviour, and we may have them whenever we will take them in penitence and faith. In a felon's cell there lies a fellow-being whose life is forfeited by an act of murder. There he lies, the fearful record of the past behind him, around him only prison-walls and bars, before him only a little way ahead, clothed with all its terrors as the instrument of justice, the awful form of the gallows. If some competent authority could only enter that cell to-night and say: "Rise, here is your pardon; the past is blotted out; you are free!" would there not be joy in that poor sinful heart? Would he wait long before accepting his freedom? Dear friend, if you are still in your sins your soul is in a spiritual prison, from which escape is more hopeless still. Your own nature is your prison. In memory and character and conscience you may read that judgment is passed upon you, that death is before you. But there is One who has pity on you, who has by untold pains and sufferings purchased your release. It is Christ the Lord; he comes and brings you pardon, offers you freedom, promises entire oblivion of the past and complete restoration to his favor. He comes again at this most solemn time of all the year to press upon you your need of his help and the fulness of his salvation. Accept his offer now, before another neglected opportunity, another rejected warning, is added to the long list of your transgressions! The last hours of the year are passing-a few days more and the account will be closed until the heavens be no more. Oh, let the dear Redeemer write "canceled" across that dreadful catalogue of sins before it is sealed forever, and help you to begin a new year of holy obedience and of Christian trust. Then when God requires that which is past and summons you before him in judgment, Christ the advocate of sinners will answer for you and present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. XLVII ADDRESSES TO GRADUATING CLASSES OF THE ROCHESTER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY FROM 1900 TO 1912 1900 LOYALTY BRETHREN OF THE GRADUATING CLASS: Both you and we have much to be thankful for to-day. We are grateful that we can close the first fifty years of the seminary's work by presenting to the churches the largest class we have ever sent out. You are grateful, I am sure, for the homogeneity and harmony which have made your class-work successful and delightful. You are the Class of 1900. The round numbers signify the ending of the old and the beginning of the new. A new century will soon dawn upon you, with both opportunities and responsibilities such as neither you nor your fathers have ever known. We cannot tell where God may lead you, what intellectual problems you may have to solve, what practical difficulties you may have to overcome. We hope that outward and visible success may be yours; whether you will attain it is known only to God. For only one thing can we offer the prayer of faith, namely, that you may to your last breath be loyal servants of Jesus Christ. Let me say a few words to you then about LOYALTY. Loyal, leal, legal, are all forms of the same root, and they hark back to the word which means law. Loyalty recognizes a law that binds us, a Providence that relates us to others, a supreme Will that lays us under obligation. To be loyal is to be true to any person or principle or institution or cause to which we owe fidelity. But loyalty is not a matter of the head so much as of the heart. It is more than cold legality. It is the warm subjective assent of the will, of the soul, of the whole being, to the claims which our various relationships impose. I have heard the story of a bright young man whom his father and mother sent to college. In their poor country home they delved and spun to provide the means. He made a brilliant record and was much sought after in society. At length the day of graduation dawned, and the parents who had scraped and saved, in order to make his success possible, presented themselves in their homespun in the college town to witness the triumphs of their son. But the boy was ashamed of them in their humble garb; he kept them in the background; no one of all his friends was permitted to know that they were his parents. And they to whom he owed all learned that day how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child. If there is any sin that deserves the torments of hell it is filial disloyalty. On the other hand, frank and generous recognition of our family ties, even though it involves the care of poor relations, is the noble thing. "Am I my brother's keeper? was the utterance of the first murderer. But Ruth, leaving home and country and coming into the land of the stranger, has been an example of filial constancy through all these intervening ages. Early friends and neighbors come next to one's own family. Robert Burns left the belted earl with whom he was walking in the streets of Edinburgh to talk with a rough and hearty countryman from his own county of Ayr; and, when the earl reproved him for companying with one who wore such a coat, replied, "I wasna talking with the coat,-I was talking with the man." All the world loves a lover, it is said. It is largely because we see in him an example of this loyalty : The span o' life's nae lang eneugh, Nor deep eneugh the sea, Nor braid eneugh this weary warld To part my love frae me. Will the true woman betray the man she loves? Not Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, An' the rocks melt wi' the sun. The lark soars into the sky and sings as it soars, but it never forgets its nest and the young ones cradled there. So Wordsworth calls it, "True to the kindred points of heaven and home." Without marital fidelity the bonds that unite us in society would be broken. Not only many a man's faith in man, but also many a man's faith in God, is bound up with faith in his wife, and her loyalty to him enables him to understand the love of Christ: "For I am fickle," Fortune saith, |