Excerpt from An Address at the Semi-Centennial Commencement of Lafayette College: Delivered June 27th, 1882

President Cattell commenced the Baccalaureate sermon. His text was taken from the sixth verse of the ninth chapter of Isaiah, His name shall be called Wonderful: After a brief introduction discussing the significance attached to the various names applied to the Messiah in the prophetical writings, he discussed the person and character of Christ as given in the cotemporaneous records of His life, which are now accepted as equally authentic with any historic documents that we possess Taking the same point of view from which we regard the lives of all other men - even those whose careers have been most remarkable the historic Christ was shown to be pre-eminently The Wonder among men. His personal force, as seen in all the subsequent history of the world, has been a subject of no less interest. Christianity was not merely a system of doctrines. -the Doctor argued at some length in showing that Chris tianity, in its marvelous progress and triumph, was the development of the personal power of the historic Christ. From the examination of this unique and wonderful power of the Man of Nazareth over the lives of his brother men, His divinity could be as clearly established as by the miracles He wrought. If we do not admit this divinity, which He himself claimed, we are in the presence of an historical enigma that defies solution; but to acknowledge this Wonder among men as Immanuel - God with us - is to accept a divine mystery which, though above our reason, is not against it. N 0 other explanation of the person and character of Christ can satisfy the mind and heart of men. He discussed the Arian and Socinian views of Christ, contending that they had never been derived from a devout study of the sacred Word, and though admitting Christ to be in one sense a wonder, these views had never fully met the religious consciousness of God's people. In conclu sion, he held up Christ to his audience as the Divine Wonder among men, the object of their love and praise and worship, whose life was to be imitated and whose commands were to be obeyed.

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