20 The Fundamentals. wide dominion. But now, we are told (and it is true), that within a single generation the framework of our educational systems has been so changed that the language which expressed the abiding convictions of our ancestors sounds as strange in the atmosphere of our great universities as the language of a “different race of men,” uttering the formulas of some “out landish savage religion.” Whether the change is for the bet ter or for the worse is not, for the moment, in question. What we wish to impress upon our readers’ minds at this point is simply the fact that a tremendous change has taken place, with amazing suddenness, and in regard to matters that are of vital importance to the whole world, and particularly to the Eng lish-speaking people. EFFECT UPON PLASTIC MINDS. The effect upon the plastic minds of undergraduates of such words as those last quoted can easily be imagined. They art fully convey the suggestion that these young men are, in re spect of their philosophical notions, vastly superior to the men of light and learning of past generations, and that it is by the repudiation of Christianity and its “lively oracles” that they furnish convincing proof of their intellectual superiority. There are few minds among men of the age here addressed, or of any age—except they be firmly grounded and established in the truth—which could resist the insidious influence of such an appeal to the innate vanity of men. Such being then the influences to which the students at our universities are now exposed, is there not urgent need of im pressing upon Christian parents (there are yet a few remain ing) the warning of our text, and exhorting them to beware lest their children be despoiled through philosophy and empty deceit ? A GREAT PERIL. What does this sudden and stupendous change portend? Is not the very existence of Christianized civilization (t. e., the
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