And when the old world gets impatient that we will not do everything in the best way at once, when it is not contented with our material triumphs and that greatest of all triumphs the self-government of thirty empires—not contented that we should move on as the great tide wave moves

-one broad-breasted billow, and not a host of special narrow currents; when the old world, filled with those experts, who have often gained their skill for want of nobler objects, like the prisoners who carve cunning devices in their cells, becomes impatient, we must send over sometimes a man and sometimes a boy to try conclusions with its people in some peaceful contest of intelligence. And this young gentleman at my right, looking as tranquil and breathing as calmly as if he were not half smothered in his laurels, is one of the boys we sent. No! I am wrong. The thoughtful mothers of America would have cried out against us with one voice if we had sent this immature youth, his frame not yet knit together in perfect manhood, to task his growing brain in those tremendous conflicts which made the huge Père Morel, the veteran of the Café de la Régence, strike his broad forehead and beg to be released from the very thought of following the frightful complexity of their bewildering combinations. No! the men, with their ambition and proud confidence in his strength, might have been willing to send him, but the women with their tender love as mothers and sisters and-well-wishers, would have said, " He shall not go!'

He went. It was not we that sent him-it was honor! And when we meet to welcome his triumphant return we know what his victories mean. We have had one more squeeze at the great dynamometer strength of the strongest of the race.

which measures the There it lies in the cen

tral capital of Europe. The boy has squeezed it and it is not

now the index that moves, but the very springs that are broken!

The test is as true a one of cerebral powers as if a hundred thousand men lay dead upon the field where the question was decided,—as if a score of line-of-battle ships were swinging, blackened wrecks, upon the water after a game between two mighty admirals. Where there is a given maximum there is always a corresponding average, and there is not one of us who does not think better of the head he carries on his own shoulders since he finds what a battery it is that lies beneath the smooth forehead of this young brother American.

As I stretch my hand above this youthful brow it seems to me that I bear in it the welcome, not of a town or a province, but of a whole people. One smile, one glow of pride and pleasure runs over all the land, from the shore which the sun first greets to that which looks upon the ocean where he lets fall the blazing clasp of his dissolving girdle,-from the realm of our northern sister who looks down from her throne upon the unmelted snows of Katahdin, to hers of the broad river and the still bayou who sits fanning herself among the fullblown roses and listening to the praises of her child as they come wafted to her on every perfumed breeze.

I propose the health of Paul Morphy, the world's chess champion: His peaceful battles have helped to achieve a new revolution; his youthful triumphs have added a new clause to the Declaration of American Independence!

ADDRESS OF WELCOME

DELIVERED AT AN ALUMNI DINNER, CAMBRIDGE, JULY 16, 1863

B

ROTHERS OF THE ASSOCIATION OF THE

ALUMNI,—It is your misfortune and mine that you must accept my services as your presiding officer of the day in the place of your retiring president. I shall not be believed if I say how unwillingly it is that for the second time I find myself in this trying position; called upon to fill, as I best may, the place of one whose presence and bearing, whose courtesy, whose dignity, whose scholarship, whose standing among the distinguished children of the university, fit him alike to guide your councils and to grace your festivals. The name of Winthrop has been so long associated with the State and with the college that to sit under his mild empire is like resting beneath one of these wide-branching elms the breadth of whose shade is only a measure of the hold its roots have taken in the soil.

In the midst of civil strife we, the children of this our common mother, have come together in peace. And surely there never was a time when we more needed a brief respite in some chosen place of refuge, some unviolated sanctuary, from the cares and anxieties of our daily existence than at this very hour. Our life has grown haggard with excitement. The rattle of drums, the march of regiments, the gallop of squadrons, the roar of artillery, seem to have been continually sounding in our ears day and night, sleeping and waking, for two long years and more. How few of us have not trembled and shuddered with fear over and over again for those

whom we love. Alas! how many that hear me have mourned over the lost-lost to earthly sight, but immortal in our love and their country's honor! We need a little breathing space to rest from our anxious thoughts, and, as we look back to the tranquil days we passed in this still retreat, to dream of that future when in God's good time, and after his wise purpose is fulfilled, the fair angel who has so long left us shall lay her hand upon the leaping heart of this embattled nation and whisper, peace! be still!

Here of all places in the world we may best hope to find the peace we seek for. It seems as if nothing were left undisturbed in New England except here and there an old graveyard, and these dear old College buildings, with the trees in which they are embowered. The old State House is filled with those that sell oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money. The Hancock house, the umbilical scar of the cord that held our city to the past, is vanishing like a dimple from the water.

But Massachusetts, venerable old Massachusetts, stands as firm as ever; Hollis, this very year a centenarian, is waiting, with its honest red face in a glow of cordiality, to welcome its hundredth set of inmates; Holden Chapel, with the skulls of its Doric frieze and the unpunishable cherub over its portal, looks serenely to the sunsets; Harvard, within whose ancient walls we are gathered, and whose morning bell has murdered sleep for so many generations of drowsy adolescents, is at its post, ready to startle the new-fledged freshmen from their first uneasy slumbers. All these venerable

edifices stand as they did when we were boys,—when our fathers were boys,-when our grandfathers were boys. Let not the rash hand of innovation violate their sanctities, for the cement that knits their walls is no vulgar mortar, but is

tempered with associations and memories which are stronger than the parts they bind together!

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We meet on this auspicious morning forgetting all our lesser differences. As we enter these consecrated precincts, the livery of our special tribe in creed and in politics is taken from us at the door, and we put on the court dress of our gracious Queen's own ordering, the academic robe, such as we wore in those bygone years scattered along the seven last decades. We are not forgetful of the honors which our fellow students have won since they received their college parts," their orations, dissertations, disquisitions, colloquies, and Greek dialogues. But to-day we have no rank; we are all first scholars. The hero in his laurels sits next to the divine rustling in the dry garland of his doctorate. The poet, in his crown of bays, the critic, in his wreath of ivy, clasp each other's hands, members of the same happy family. This is the birthday feast for every one of us whose forehead has been sprinkled from the font inscribed “Christo et Ecclesia." We have no badges but our diplomas, no distinctions but our years of graduation. This is the republic carried into the university; all of us are born equal into this great fraternity.

Welcome, then, welcome, all of you, dear brothers, to this our joyous meeting! We must, we will call it joyous, though it comes with many saddening thoughts. Our last triennial meeting was a festival in a double sense, for the same day that brought us together at our family gathering gave a new head to our ancient household of the university. As I look to-day in vain for his stately presence and kindly smile, I am reminded of the touching words spoken by an early president of the university in the remembrance of a loss not unlike our own. It was at the commencement exer