THE CITY OF GOD, AND THE TRUE GOD AS ITS HEAD
COMMENTS BY PROFESSOR HOWISON
A task now falls to me, ladies and gentlemen, and
fellow-members of the Union, which for its difficulty
I would gladly decline, but which the Union will
expect me at least to undertake. As younger
students of philosophy, you my associates in the
Union have called upon me to be your elder adviser;
and on such an occasion as the present, which marks
an epoch in your philosophical intercourse, you
naturally look for me to put at your service any
larger experience than your own that I may chance
to possess in these fields, however insufficient it
may prove when compared with the wide and deep
reaches over which your speakers have carried you
to-night.
The impressive close of the argument by the venerated man who has but just now ceased addressing you is such as must awaken a deep response in every human heart not touched with apathy. It is one of those rare outbreaks of accumulated expectation, hope, and longing, into which, at the contemplation of the reason that is apparently struggling to get a footing in the world, human nature pours forth all its commingled doubt and faith. Such is the impas-
