AT 12 o'clock, a procession was formed which moved into the College Chapel,--a spacious apartment, capable of seating fifteen hundred persons,--where, after a hymn by the choir, and a prayer by the Rev. JOHN ROSS, the Rev. ISAAC N. WALTER delivered to the President elect, the charter and keys of the Institution. The ceremony was accompanied by the following address:

      MR. PRESIDENT;

      According to the arrangements of the constituted authorities of this Institution, and the duty assigned me on this occasion, I am to present you the insignia of your office. Rome, with her ivory-crested and cloud-climbing battlements, never presented such a spectacle as this. She had become renowned for her deeds of blood in the destruction of life and of the fairest prospects of man. She had Statesmen, Heroes, Poets, Orators, and men who occupied high positions in her ranks, who had climbed to the pinnacle of fame, and dyed their chaplets in [8] the blood of countless millions. She had her Amphitheatres where gladiators fought to satisfy the morbid curiosity of her citizens. But never did she call her people together to dedicate an institution of learning, to instruct her youth in the great importance of cultivating the human mind, to enable her sons and daughters to comprehend the heights and depths of science and moral excellency, which guide men to goodness and to God, and thereby prepare them for their true destiny of greatness and usefulness.

      I now present you the CHARTER, as the authority by which this College has been erected and its existence is to be forever perpetuated. I also deliver to you the KEYS of the Institution, which give you authority for full possession of all things pertaining thereunto, and by which you are installed PRESIDENT OF ANTIOCH COLLEGE, and I present you as such to this vast assembly and the world.

      Under your administration, may this Institution flourish and grow as the cedars of Lebanon, and as the cloud sends forth rain to fertilize the earth, may the streams of knowledge which go forth from this fountain, enrich the minds of rising generations for ages to come.

      This College, sir, is built upon the highest point of land within the limits of our State; the [9] air is salubrious, the water pure, the scenery romantic, and every thing conspires to make it one of the most desirable and healthy spots on the earth. The place on which it stands, a few years ago, was a howling wilderness, inhabited by the untutored savage, who offered up his sacrifice to the great spirit of storms and darkness. Now we have one of the most magnificent structures, for the purposes of education, in our Union.

      Under your administration, may the standard of literature and pure morals be raised higher, and shine more brightly here than can be found in any other institution in the world, so that science may go forth as a lamp that burneth. And may the blessings of Almighty Gods who upholds the universe by His arm, and feeds the vast family of man from His table, rest upon you in the performance of the duties of the high and responsible station you fill as the presiding officer of this Institution.

      Sir, no history tells us for how many years the cloud of mental darkness hung over the aborigines of this country. May this College be as a rainbow over that cloud; and may its light continue to attract and cheer the seekers after truth and the lovers of duty, until it shall shed its radiance on the evening of the world." [10]

      REVEREND SIR;

      I know too well the laborious and solemn duties of the office with which you now invest me, not to accept it with trembling anxiety. The best part of my life, and the maximum of whatever humble ability I ever possessed, have been devoted to the culture and well-being of youth. But no day of that life was ever passed, nor any effort of that ability ever made, without leaving upon my mind a deeper and a more vivid conviction of the importance and the solemnity of that work of works,--the development and training of a human soul. For, to what end did God, in the beginning, create the heavens and the earth? why was chaos, "without form and void," reduced to such a majestic order as we now behold, on the earth around us by day, and above us in the "hollow gulf of stars" by night? why were man and woman so exquisitely and wonderfully formed? why did God, out of his own empyrean atmosphere, where wrong had never been, breathe [11] into them the breath of life? and why have the annals of Jehovah been illustrated by so many mighty deeds,--by the mission of Moses, the advent of Christ, and by the sublime march of providential events for six thousand years?--why, I say, has all this been, but for the one all-comprehending purpose, that God might raise up sons and daughters to Himself, from children who had been trained up in the way they should go? God loves the soul above all the rest of the creation; and, therefore, lie has subordinated the events of the past eternity to its welfare; and all the sublime annals of His providence are but the history of means and motives to make men wise and holy; and so, by necessity, and not by arbitrary appointment, happy.

      Sir, the work of education, always paramount to all others, sometimes assumes a superadded importance. Its appropriate object is youth, and its appropriate duty is to imbue them with the saving predestinations of wisdom and love. Education addresses itself specially to the young, because the young are always ductile and mouldable; while, under our present methods of human culture, the hearts of men fossilize with a rapidity and a flintiness that have no parallel in natural petrifactions.

      And a youthful community or state is like [12] a child. Its bones are in the gristle, and can be shaped into symmetry of form and nobleness of stature. Its heart overflows with generosity and hope, and its habits of thought have not yet been hardened into insoluble dogmatism. This youthful Western world is gigantic youth, and therefore its education must be such as befits a giant. It is born to such power as no heir to an earthly throne ever inherited, and it must be trained to make that power a blessing and not a curse to mankind. With its mighty frame stretching from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, and with great rivers for arteries to circulate its blood, it must have a sensorium in which all the mighty interests of mankind can be mapped out; and, in its colossal and Briarean form, there must be a heart large enough for worlds to swim in. Wherever the capital of the United States may be, this valley will be its seat of empire. No other valley,--the Danube, the Ganges, the Nile, or the Amazon,--is ever to exert so formative an influence as this, upon the destinies of men; and therefore, in civil polity, in ethics, in studying and obeying the laws of God, it must ascend to the contemplation of a future and enduring reign of beneficence and peace. [13]

      But the perils of this region are on an equal scale of grandeur with its powers. Having great varieties of climate, it teems with the richest productions of each; and beneath its fertile surface, lie mines and minerals immeasurable in extent and incomputable in value. Its soil seems to exhale cities; but cities which do not pass, like exhalations, away. Through five great inland seas,--each one of which is large enough to make a geographical reputation for any other country; through the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence,--what would the Roman river-gods have thought of them?--and through artificial channels, capacious even of a larger volume of trade than those natural outlets themselves, it pours forth its abundance, not only for the Pacific and the Atlantic States, but for the eastern hemisphere; and with each refluent tide it receives the luxuries of all the zones. Here, then, is a place to sow something better than dragons' teeth, and to reap something better than armed men; a place to cultivate the arts of peace; to establish a polity that shall protect civil and religious liberty, until the necessity for such protection shall dwindle to a tradition; a place where man shall be trained upon God's plan of development and growth, until to say that he is [14] created in the image of his Maker shall no longer seem, as it now does, like a ridiculous and scoffing falsehood.

      When parental fondness gives to a beloved son free access to heaps of gold, the danger is imminent that the son will turn prodigal and squander upon appetites and pleasures what he should have transmuted into knowledge or expended in beneficence. How is it when God is the bountiful Father, and a country, enchanting with beauties above and solid with riches below, is the inheritance given? Ah! if we accept the counsels of God with His gifts, there is no danger, but perpetual rejoicings as of birthdays and bridals; but if we grow proud of the gifts and scorn the counsels, then armed hosts, with quivers full of woes, will beleaguer and assail us. How insane, then, is the common boast, that the population of this or that State increases a hundred per cent., or fifty per cent., every ten years. Suppose Tophet should take a census and find that its population had increased in the same ratio, in the same time; would that be cause for jubilation with those who had fathers or mothers or fellow-beings there? Give to such boast the scorn it deserves. It is the character of a people for virtue and intelligence, and not its numbers, that can give joy or inspire [15] thanksgiving in the heart of patriot or Christian. The reign of truth and righteousness is the only reign from which man can derive happiness, or for which God can accept thanksgiving.

      This Western country is increasing in its wealth beyond all precedent in ancient or modern times. It has an annual lake trade of three hundred millions of dollars, and a river trade of four hundred millions, beside its immense traffic upon the Gulf; yet all this, when compared with its undeveloped resources, is only the pocket-money of a school-boy. But without the refining influences of education, wealth grows coarse in its manners, beast-like in its pleasures, vulgar and wicked in its ambitions. Without the liberalizing and uplifting power of education, wealth grows overweening in its vanity, cruel in its pride, and contemptible in its ignorance. Without the Christian element in education, wealth grows selfish in the domestic circle, tyrannical in the State, benighted and bigoted in the Church, everywhere impious toward God. If a poor country needs education, because that is its only resource for changing sterility into exuberance, a rich country needs it none the less, because it is the only thing which can chasten the proud passions of man into humility, or make any other gift of God a blessing. [16]

      You have been pleased, sir, to say that in selecting a site for this Institution, you have chosen the highest point of land within the limits of this great State. If I did not misinterpret your manner, you intended to convey some subtle innuendo of an expectation that this local elevation should be typical of an elevation of a nobler kind. To such an intimation words are no fit reply. If answered at all, it must be answered in deeds.

      Yet, I trust it is neither vain nor arrogant to express the hope, and even to avow such an intensity of purpose as is some augury of its own fulfilment,--that the waters which pour down from this elevated point toward all parts of the compass, may bear on their bosoms, whithersoever they flow, some influences of sound knowledge and Christian character, which, mingling and co-working with those of kindred and much-valued institutions around us, may help this State to earn for itself the glorious reputation that, though wide in extent, exuberant in resources, and abounding in every aid and stimulant of worldly grandeur, it is yet greater, richer, and nobler in the sons and daughters whom it rears. Abolish knowledge, and Ohio,--the Beautiful, as its name imports,--is again a wilderness, and your children degenerate into [17] new tribes of Shawnees and Wyandots. But perfect education, and your children cannot but rise to an elevation, as yet unknown in your annals, and unprophesied in your hopes. It has been said that Oliver Cromwell was the greatest thing England ever did. Among all the noble achievements of this State, may noble men and women be its highest.

      Sir, our enterprise and mission are on the earth, but the fountain whence we draw our spirit is above. I have no hope of any human endeavor which is not founded upon the eternal Law. But for all efforts founded upon that law, I have immortal hope. In that hope, I live and strive. [18]

[DAC 8-18]