Daily Kennebec Journal

BY TELEGRAPH.
Associated Press Telegrams to the Daily Kennebec Journal.
MAINE DISPATCHES.
BACCALAUREATE
Address Delivered at Brunswick by President Chamberlain.
Brunswick, July 9.
The following is an abstract of the Baccalaureate address, delivered on Sunday afternoon, July 9th, in the Congregational church, by President Chamberlain:
Text, Matthew vi 10.
"Thy kingdom come."
This is the prayer of history. It speaks of a work not yet finished, but in progress towards a consummation. It confesses imperfection, but predicts perfection. It is a work to be wrought on the earth, and its end is an assured triumph in which the divine will is to be done here as in heaven. This is, indeed, a kingdom within the hearts of men, and "not of this world" in respect to its ruling ideas, its sources, motives, measures, aims and ends. But its subjects are beings dwelling on this earth, this is the theatre of its glorious manifestation. This prayer speaks of a mastery and rule. This is to come through the revelation to the souls of men in Christ, and a regenerative power working in the life, which is the redemption from sin and its sequences. This is the great deliverance from the evil, and the victory of the atonement. Christ came not to set up a new system of religion, but to reveal to man his part in the divine, and by his own obedience to open the way for reconciliation with the Father. He came to render service to man, and that service is a salvation:-"God in Christ reconciling the world to himself."
There is danger, however, in regarding the kingdom within solely in that aspect, as a power essentially subjective, invisible and mysterious. This divorces religion from life. It makes christianity a religion rather than a life. It would shut men up in self, rather than set them towards the larger life that is lived for others and in others. It is the Pharisee who cares more for religion than he does for humanity. The Christian spirit is in its very essence unselfish and outgoing. It is a new life put into the soul, and a new soul into the life. It works in every sphere of human activity. Not centered in the thought of saving self in some future heaven, it acts in the present, the visible, the material. It would reach out world-wide, and redeem, uplift and ennoble life here as well as hereafter for every man, woman and child. The argument set forth is given in bare outline as follows:
1. The world needs such a regenerating power. Nothing else can save men. Civilization never has done it and never can.
2. It is the spirit and life of christianity alone which can bring the longed for deliverance.
3. It is a coming kingdom. Christianity is to do greater things than have yet been done. Its power has been manifested, but its full fruits have not been reached.