Excerpt from Colleges Religious Institutions: A Discourse Delivered in the Park Presbyterian Church, Newark, Oct, 29, 1851 Before the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West

"The founding of Harvard College, " they say, was an era in the history of the human race. It was the beginning of liberal education for a continent. Without a first College, this continent could not have become what it is. The planting of a first College in Africa will form another era. It will be a work equally rich in beneficial results, and equally honorable to the philanthropy that secures its accomplishment."

I do not find fault with these statements. These are great thoughts, both of the past and the future - just and true thoughts. And it is well to think of things yet to be done, while we reflect upon the past, for instruction and encouragement. It is indeed the grand element and characteristic of wisdom always to be looking onward, and to labor for a worthy end. The end, in thought, is ever before the means. It is that for which all the means are selected, and is therefore first in purpose, though last in attainment. And the means employed for an end are important only in proportion to the importance of the end. The same may be said of the beginning of a thing, the "terminus a quo" as the old theologians expressed it, or the first of a series of means.

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