father in the endowment of the Walcott professorship of the evidences of Christianity, to be occupied by the President of Hamilton College. His father, (who died Jan. 12, 1862,) bequeathed $10,000 for the erection of a new Presbyterian Church in New York Mills. To this fund Mr. William D. Walcott added $20,000, and the Walcott Memorial Church was dedicated in February, 1882. By his will a permanent fund of $8,000 was bequeathed to this church. His gifts to Whitestown Seminary amounted to upwards of $25,000. Mr. Walcott's domestic life was full of enjoyment. He was married September 12, 1837, to Miss Hannah Coe Hubbard of Middlefield, Conn. At their golden wedding, September 12, 1887, all his children and grandchildren were present. They were Mr. and Mrs. W. Stuart Walcott, New York Mills; Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Walcott, Indianapolis; Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin D. Walcott, Indianapolis; Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Pettibone, Chicago; Rev. Dr. and Mrs. W. A. Bartlett, Washington, D. C.; Mr. and Mrs. John F. Calder, Utica. Twelve grandchildren were also present, and all are now living. After a long and busy life, devoted to all that is best and noblest, in life and character, a generous supporter of the church, the state and the school, Mr. Walcott reached the end of his earthly life on Monday, April 1, 1890. Funeral services were held in the Walcott Memorial Church on Friday, April 4, with addresses by Rev. Hugh P. McAdam, President Henry Darling and Professor Oren Root. At a special meeting of the faculty of Hamilton College, held in the library on Wednesday, April 2, the following resolutions were adopted: Resolved, That we place on record this memorial minute in recognition of the very great loss which Hamilton College suffers in the death of William Dexter Walcott, who for 27 years honored the office of trustee of the college by a large-hearted and helpful sagacity in counsel, that forgot personal convenience in his earnest desire to promote the interests of higher education; and who cheerfully co-operated with the officers and friends of this college, as well by his liberal benefactions as by his example of fidelity, courtesy, hopefulness and spotless integrity, in all official duties. The permanent linking of Mr. Walcott's name with one of our departments of instruction we interpret as a prophecy of the lasting gratitude of successive classes of students who will enjoy the benefit of the endowment generously provided by him and his honored father, the late Benjamin S. Walcott. To those who, in the death of Mr. Walcot, mourn the sundering of the dearest of earthly ties, we tender our sincerest sympathy, while we devoutly rejoice with them in the consolation of a long and useful life merged in the crowning glories of the life eternal. MARRIED. MCADAM-TODD.-In Christ's Church, Albert Lea, Minn., Wednesday noon, April 16, 1890, WILLIAM CLIEFORD MCADAM, '77, and CHARLOTTE McGregor, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert McGregor Todd, of Albert Lea, Minn. PERKINS-WORCESTER.-In St. Andrew's Church, Stamford, Conn., on Thursday, April 10, 1890, JOHN THOMAS PERKINS, '77, of New York City, and CAROLINE HANDY, daughter of Mrs. David Freeman Worcester, of Stamford, Conn. The Effects of the Physical Features of Palestine on the PAGE. Its aim is to furnish a Review of our College Literature, a faithful representa- tion of our College Life, and a medium for the communication to the Alumni The "Alumniana" is under the charge of Prof. NORTH, a guarantee of its worth and interest. The "LIT." is furnished at exactly cost price; and, to save the Editors financial loss, must meet with the cordial support of the Alumni. THE EFFECTS OF THE PHYSICAL FEATURES OF PALESTINE ON THE JEWS AND THEIR LITERATURE. A SUCCESSFUL KIRKLAND PRIZE ORATION. PEOPLE unique in history; a land unique among lands; the Jews, chosen people of God; Palestine, home of the Jews! From a strange land has sprung a strange people. Can their coincident diversity be fortuitous? A necessary harmony between man and his environment may not be proved; but that physical conditions influence man, the concurrent voices of science and history affirm; and in the peculiarities of Palestine lies the secret of much that is peculiar in the Jews. True; only in the infancy of nations is this influence. efficient. True; the Jews, contemporaries of Troy and Chaldea, had many centuries on their heads ere Palestine. became their home. But character formed in slavery will not survive emancipation; and whatever their traits prior to the captivity, four centuries amid the flesh pots of Egypt could but vitiate them. Their emancipation was a new birth. They were stirred with the breath of a new life. They entered Palestine a nation, where their fathers had dwelt as nomad tribes. How much depended upon their finding a settled home can not be overestimated. Had they tarried in the fairer fields east of the Jordan, as did Reuben and Gad, their fate would have been the fate of these. Never emerging from the pastoral state, their identity would have been lost in that of those strange, phantom-like figures which course the eastern plains. But it was not to be. In western Palestine lay their des tiny; and there the wanderers found a home, not luxuriant indeed as the eastern territory; but in the very ruggedness of its fertility fitted for the restoration of a debilitated race. With a climate that stimulated energy, its hills and valleys promised abundance to labor; to idleness, naught. That dreamy languor dominating the valleys of the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates, found no place here; and it is to these Palestinian highlands, that the Jews of to-day owe much of that vigor which distinguishes them among Eastern races. Had they contrasted their new-found home with the scenes of their Egyptian slavery, it might, indeed, have seemed bleak and barren. But theirs was a generation nurtured in the wilderness; and Palestine an oasis in a desert of sand. With the passage of the Red Sea still fresh in their memories, with the voice from Sinai still thundering in their ears, they saw in this narrow district, scarce redeemed from the desert by its mountains, a new pledge of Divine favor; in its rugged beauty, God's smile. Its very narrowness enhanced their national pride: and at the same time gave compactness to their social and political organization. Yet in thought they were not a narrow people. From the vantage ground of their highland home they looked beyond those narrow limits, out toward the vast empires on their northern and southern borders, out over the sea, even then whitened by the sails of Tarshish. And as they looked, in their hearts the feeling grew, that these boundaries were not for always, that for them was a broader destiny. Set in the very heart of the old world, whence in the fullness of time their message should spread through the nations, mountain, desert and sea conspired to keep the |