The Opening Service of the Year.

Seldom has the seating capacity of Appleton Chapel been put to a greater test than at the opening service last night.

Rev. Brooke Herford opened the meeting with prayer. He was followed by Rev. Phillips Brooks who delivered a grand sermon peculiarly adapted to the first service of the year.

Dr. Brooks chose for his text the latter part of St. John x, 10. "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. After first welcoming to the college new students he said:

Christ meant first to live; deficient vitality not excessive vitality causes the mischief in the world. More life and fuller is what we want.

I know that life is undefinable and undiscoverable yet it may be defined as effectiveness. The live tree is the effective tree, and so it is with men.

Everywhere there is a life giver, a man that inspires his companions to better and fuller lives. Especially is this true at college. When we rightly understand such a man then we can understand Christ, for at the head of all life-givers stands the life giving Son of Man.

The things he did and the words he said are only indications of what he was. He hated death everywhere.

He is always religious, all life is God's life. Sometimes he called it by different names, faith and affection; but it is always the same, your life must be open with God. You must obey God.

Obedience means mastery and wealth. A man who comes here with the fixed purpose not to obey goes away after four fruitless years with his heart empty.

The two great principles are first, the necessity of life; second, obedience. These are constantly denied. Men are afraid of too much life, and each soul asserts itself against obedience. In the perfect world of which we dream there will be two elements, life and obedience.

Skepticism is a sign of deficient vitality, and Christ crowded all the need of action in the parable of the talents.

What is the use of selfishness? A single wheel detaches itself from the belt of a great engine to revolve for a short time and then to fall in the sand and die, fortunate if the hand of the master takes it up again and refits it in a forge of pain.

The world has lavished money on this place that we value so highly and expects to see men here abounding in life and enjoying, finding and obeying the masters of their souls. If any man at this University grows timid or reckless, if he becomes either skeptical or profligate he was no up to Harvard College, he should not have been sent here.

Rev. Leighton Parks followed Dr. Brooks, speaking from the text "O sing unto the Lord a new song." The perfect religious man. said Dr. Parks, in perfect accord with the Lord, to grow in harmony with God, and to keep others, is worth the trying for every son of man. Each man is here with his own religious traditions, gotten in his family connections. What is one to do with this tradition? Here at Harvard other traditions are heard, and then will come the discord, and so it will be necessary to sing a new and better song. The greatest benefit in college is to develope and strengthen the mind, to allow a new religion, of which the old was a root, to enter. If it is not in harmony with the old religion, look to see if there be not a discord in the old religion. Above all, these words of the text must be pondered on by those who come to college for the first time, for a new and truer life opens before them. They will not exhaust, in four years, the meaning of life; but they will meet with a new aspect of it, and though the old religion may not entirely disappear, it will be broadened and changed in the new. At college the new comer enters into a year which nothing that ever lived will bring back. Do not be afraid of truth or discussion; nothing will ever sorrow you as the old tradition, the old song sins away while you learn a new one, and as God reveals himself to you.

Dr. Parks was followed by the Rev. C. C. Everett who referred first to the departure of Dr. Brooks and the gratitude which the college owed him. He then spoke of the great influence which the chapel exercises held over the students, and requested all members of the University to assist earnestly at the exercises and show their appreciation of the work which the board of preachers was trying to perform.

Professor Lyon, as chairman of the Board of Preachers in the absence of Dr. Peabody, made the concluding remarks.

The choir sang the following: O how amiable are Thy dwellings - West; I will love Thee O Lord - Gilbert; Peace I leave with you - Roberts. Mr. George Parker was the soloist.