32
THE BATTALION.
Scurry arrived from Austin to-day. The governor was
formerly a member of the board of directors of the college
in its early history, but he has not been here since 1880. He
Ms delighted with the progress which the college has made
and he and General Scurry both spoke in complimentary
^ terms of the corps of cadets which passed before them,
headed by the college band, en route to the big mess hall.
Rev. J. M. Alexander, presiding elder of the Beeville
district, West Texas M. E. conference, delivered the an
nual address before the college Y. M. C. A. to-night, his
theme being “The Spirit of the Age.” He characterized
this as the century of light, the true golden age as corn-
compared with the past. He said this is the best century
the world has ever known in a material as well as a moral
sense. Light, he said, is but another name for civilization,
and ours is the age of reason, when men must do their own
thinking. The body of truth is larger than ever before in
any age, and the truth accumulated is held more in a spirit
of toleration than ever before. This is the age of morality
as regards the civil rights of man toward his fellow men
and as regards temperance reform. The age of orthodoxy
and sociological problems; the age of personal character
and of moral energy. Neither the fear of hell nor the hope
of reward now weighs in the balance as a motive for right
living with the love of the God who gave his son to die for
the sins of the world. The church is not now as much
concerned about its own perpetuity as about the salvation
of men. This is the missionary age also the speaker de
clared, and there is now no nation where the missionary is