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Caption: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1886
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175 BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS. D E L I V E R E D IN THE UNIVERSITY CHAPEL, BEFORE THE GRADUATING CLASS, S U N D A Y , J U N E 6, 1886, BY SELIM H. PEABODY, P H . D., L L . D., R E G E N T O F THE U N I V E R S I T Y . R e n d e r u n t o Caesar t h e t h i n g s w h i c h b e Caesar's, a n d u n t o God t h e t h i n g s w h i c h b e G o d ' s . L u k e 20:25; Matt. 22:21; Mark. 12:17. Jerusalem has ever been renowned as the capital city of a peculiar nation, but never more remarkably than when Christ dwelt therein. From sovereignty to captivity, and from captivity to empire her people had oscillated during a long history and especially during the six preceding centuries. They had been conquered by the Mede and the Persian, the Greek and the Egyptian, and at Christ's advent, although the world's peace was symbolized at .Home by the closed doors of the temple of Janus, for Judea the peace was the peace of captivity, the quiet was that of subjugation under the yoke of the Roman imperators. An hundred years had passed since the city had been captured by Pompey, and nearly ninety since the temple itself had been plundered by Crassus. In the meanwhile the conquerors had done much to mitigate the severity of their rule. They had builded again the razed walls of the city. Herod had restored the temple with a magniticence far exceeding its glory at any former time, and the daily sacrifice was maintained in its fullest grandeur, and with its most significant solemnity. Still the Jews mourned their subjugation. Still they hoped to regain their autonomy. Still they looked for the Messiah who should restore their temporal power; who should found an empire more illustrious than those to whose glory they themselves had been compelled to contribute. In their minds and to their hearts these expectations stood with all the ceptain assurance of prophecy—the counter part of all the grand predictions which had actually been fulfilled. Scarcely, at the final and utter destruction of their city, a generation later, did they learn that the hopes and the expectations which they cherished were but the baseless fabric of a dream. We can scarcely be surprised to find that when Jesus of Nazareth appeared in Jerusalem, one whose wondrous personality, whose miraculous powers and whose confident assertions claimed kinship
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