St. Matthew's Gospel precedes and, in a manner supplements that of the talents) the lamp burns in bright readiness for the day of fulfilment. The burning lamp, says the old commentator, is the talent given for use; the extinct lamp is the talent that lies idle and hidden in the earth. The lesson brought home to us with so special a force on an occasion like the present is, that the talent, or the two talents, or the five talents, entrusted to the student on his entrance into academic life, consists not only of the foundations, more or less deep, which he or she may have already laid of sound learning, not only of the heaven-sent gifts of quick apprehension or clear judgment or imaginative power, not only of the healthy mind in the healthy body that fits their fortunate possessor for work—work, the lot and the blessing in store for every man and woman prepared to claim them. It consists, also, of the
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