It is a habit with men and peoples to celebrate the birthday of events. Comparison has come to be the register of progress. To be put in mind of one's former self, to note the change that days bring is good on a scale that is large or small. And the oftener that such comparisons are demanded is a token not alone of self-satisfaction but of unusual vitality of life. Things must show their reasons else advancement becomes a repetition of the past. Natural growth needs a guide for its direction else direction loses sight of its goal. This is a simple process with men, for self-review is easy and needs no listening audience. With peoples the confessional must be public; the larger scale of life makes need of louder self-display to sink the impression on the national mind.

So nations tell their history not alone in books that are for the reader's eye, nor in speeches that are for the cultured ear, but in self expositions that are for all to see and hear and read. *Chapel Oration delivered June 13, 1902

Their frequent repetition forces the vital story home, as printed page and spoken word may rarely do. So the habit of exposition is fixed and their usefulness is a matter of agreement. A people sees its whole self, as it forgets to while about its daily business. A glance at itself and its neighbors shows its progress and its standing.

In no country more than in America has the habit become national. It is only human nature for a people who have not yet passed the time of first anniversaries to hail the coming occasion, to seize it as a landmark of their history. It is a habit that has its greatest use in young states and excess is a long way off; but excuse is slight for mention of those which signalize mere wealth or power. Less than a year ago, we came from Buffalo wondering if the national habit had had its fill, yet there are others preparing, one that marks a larger event, a turning point of years, an opening opportunity in a people's Of such as these is that exposition now making ready at St. Louis. To this, to its significance rather than to the event that it commemorates, the moment can well attend. Its importance is worthy of notice.

The mere facts of the Louisiana purchase may be gained at will from a little reading of books. These are not for rehearsal here. Rather the significance comes to mind of what Jefferson's simple act brought afterward to the country. It marks a turning point of American life. This is not a falsely set point of judgment; in our short years to make every event a centre where things gather to take their bearing, but this is not of that class. Its significance reaches into the past and into the present. The life of a century feels its influence. To the young men who were our grandfathers it was the opening of new paths of labor; to their grandsons of today it is the opening of new paths of thought. The comparison has value for us who are young. The influences that are about young men put a direction to their efforts. Let us look at their time.

With nations too youthful, impressions are borne long in mind. To a young people just emerging from the depression of war, whose seaboard populace had scarce begun their journey inland, whose wealth if measured by the grandeur of its national

capital was the standing ground that nature gave it, this Louisiana purchase was the door to opportunity and influence. A stroke of the pen pushed the western boundaries to a distance that men had hardly reached. To a people of hitherto provincial life there was presented an enigma of possibilities; an opening to seize or pass by, a deliberate choice of the future that is not given to many. Now the story is told and doubt is past, but our grandfathers came to manhood when the time was alive with its needs - when the future was insecure beyond tomorrow. Surely the influence of this event was strong on their lives and the larger life of which theirs was a part. Today and yesterday may compare themselves - grandfathers and grandsons may match their outlooks -- therein is the difference of the times.

They were entering manhood one hundred years ago; this country was not out of its youth a hundred years ago. They faced their majority together. When the question came to one: "What shall be my work?" he answered it in reference to the other. It was a hand in hand life. Separation of interests cannot exist. Indifference to needs must be far away. It was no time for a faltering willingness or selfishness in aims. The end of the two was common, security of life and development of self. Both fought for the needs of existence; both strove to establish its standing ground.

In 1803 the young nation extended its boundary far into the west between coast and mountain was land that was little more than space. The nation saw its work at a glance its material self must be developed. There is need of no recount of the winning of the west. That the task was material is the end of this inquiry. That a government should make its lands secure, alive with people and busy with industry is a necessity of existence. Every nation has had its time of establishment. - ours is forever in mind because of its nearness - this was the task the outlook called strongly to young manhood. Youth made the response. Our grandfathers of Massachusetts looked down from their native slopes over lands that promised things, far out into a distance. Our grandfathers of the south saw stretching fields where every breeze played a song of promise.

The future was in the air - opportunity was rife in the vast newness of the land the call was near at hand.

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Yet farther off in a distance that was seldom reached came opportunity of greater scope - the opening life seized the chance did the double service to country and to self. There was eagerness for a security of east and west. The emigrants moved over the mountain ridges along the rivers and were lost in the indefinite west. The pen that sealed the purchase of Louisiana set a people moving,- elements of strength from our very midst went to level uneven needs. Those in the wilderness cried for companions and the people of Europe were on their way. These things faced our grandfathers. The time of their young manhood was teeming with restless influences. Their entrance to the world of action was shaped to certain necessities. To them was the task of establishment and development. Material aims in life, a people accepted as a birthright of a new land. Our grandfathers met this call till duty grew to inclination. Their outlook was one of conquest, of struggle with forces, of securing life. From them has come the heritage of a broad standing ground, a tradition of developed stability. The west could have nothing but activity that had material purposes. Individual effort is transferred to the character of a nation. The event which set these influences moving, is what we celebrate tomorrow.

But it is to us, grandsons of men that are gone, but heirs of a spirit that is living, that the outlook comes today. The occasion that was the stir of their activity has its anniversary in our midst. Shall its relation to them and to us be merely historical? Shall the event which meant so much to this country's history in its anniversary be a mere reminder of her greatness? Such we have had almost to surfeit. Rather let this have a significance of its own.

A hundred years still finds the country and the young man asking services of each other - the one grown old asks forever devotion to her need - the other forever young asks opportunities. It is the spirit of ready devotion that our grandfathers gave, the same which is in us. Time changes merely the expression of a spirit that is eternal; but time changes also

the manner of its expression. So with them and with us. There are different things to do. Is there a west calling to us with the same potency that drew our grandfathers on? Is there the same necessity of taming Nature to our uses? What was to them an empty space of land is to us the busy seat of industry. The nation has won its standing ground. We are no longer pioneers eager to prove ownership by physical occupation our boundaries are set doubt of their reality does

not prompt the search to find them. These things are assured. These were the toil of our grandfathers. They are their heritage. It is an age of conveniences, in which distance and time are vanished. These things are all behind us the outlook of our grandfathers has become the retrospect of their sons - national necessities are different.

Time shows this change, but our attitude points that the service needed is still the same. The spirit of the old age seems with us as yet. Once we were a people almost land-poor- now our wealth is in its occupation. In the years of establishment, the service asked was manly toil to lay foundations, material labor that delved and hewed. In the time of Louisiana this was the outlook of our grandfathers. Opportunity spread open before them, unused forces waited for their hands, till now response to this early national need has been passed down into a habit. In this material activity, the national eye has focussed itself on one aspect of its life. The nation says to the young man now asking opportunity, "Go to the arid west- there is development awaiting; go to the Philippines - there is commercial wealth; remain in the east there is established industry." The things for emphasis are still held to be material.

This early spirit has a hold on our outlook, but necessities. are not all the same and new services are arisen. The bulk of men will, unheeded, betake themselves to the worldly gods of gain. The country need sound no call to that enlistment. Human nature is now its captive.

The new outlook is not of this sort. Expansion, which put our boundaries farther apart, brought with it the title of material America. The new outlook founded on the new expansion is to take an inward turn. More than one possibility