John i.1-14.

(END OF COLLEGE TERM)

I do not enter into the deeper philosophical significance of this great chapter, but any one can see on the very surface of it the general truth on which Christianity rests its claim. God's government of the world is here described as operating through His word. God simply speaks, and things are done. God says: "Let there be light," and there is light. The universe is God's language. History is God's voice. By His word was everything made that is made. Then, when the fullness of time has come this language of God is made life. What God has been trying to make men hear through his word, He now lets them see through his life. His word becomes flesh. The life becomes the light of men. That is the most elementary statement of the doctrine of the incarnation. It is the transformation of language into life.

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Let us take this great truth into our own little lives as we part on this last day of common worship. God has been speaking to us His word in many ways through our worship here; in our silence and in our song, in Bible and in prayer, in the voice of different preachers, and in the voice of our own consciences and hearts. And now what is our last prayer but this, that this word may be made flesh, that this worship may be transformed into life, that these messages of courage, of hope, of composure, of self-control, may be incarnated in this life of youth; that out of the many words here spoken in the name of God, here and there one may become flesh and walk out of this chapel and out of these college grounds in the interior life of a consecrated young man. The life is the light of men. May it be so with us here. May the spirit of him in whose life is our light, enlighten the lives which have gathered here, and lead them through all the obscurities of life, and brighten more and more before them into a perfect day.