earnest wishes for your welfare. Should they but lead you— higher thoughts apart-to estimate the real value, in the toilsome life before you, of manly self-respect and mental integrity and independence, you will not think so ill, I hope, hereafter, of their simple homely counsels.

And now I bid you, in the name of these your friends and teachers, a welcome to the noble duties you have undertaken, and a God-speed in your efforts to discharge them. They could not speak to you, as I can, of the bright example they have set you, nor call on you to win the honors they have won. But cherishing, as you will cherish, the Alma Mater with whose laurels you are crowned; loving her fame as part of yours, and adding yours in turn to hers; you will not soon forget, I am persuaded, the honored, kindly hands whose impulse sends you forth. Life is not always like a Roman city, to reach whose gates the traveller passed through a street of tombs; nay, to be local in our similes, it is not even like our Druid Hill, where we must seek the fountains and the pleasure-houses far down a ghastly avenue of urns. As you begin its journey joyously-think gladly also, sometimes, of the friends who cheer you on your way.

DISCOURSE

ON THE

LIFE AND CHARACTER

OF

GEORGE PEABODY,

DELIVERED IN

THE HALL OF THE PEABODY INSTITUTE,

Baltimore, February 18, 1870,

AND REPEATED, FEBRUARY 25TH, BEFORE THE

SENATE ANd house oF DELEGATES OF MARYLAND,

ON THEIR INVITATION.

GEORGE PEABODY.

N the 12th of February, thirteen years ago, the Founder of this Institute committed to the hands of his selected agents the noble gift, which, under his accumulating bounty, has since swollen to more than four times its original amount. Upon the same day, year after year, the Trustees whom he so honored have been wont to render him an account of their stewardship, and renew to him the expression of their reverent affection and gratitude. Some months after our last annual address to him, we shared with our fellow-citizens the pleasure of seeing him again among us in person, full, not only of increasing sympathy with the purposes of this Foundation, but of abounding munificence to serve them. Although the hand of disease was then heavy upon him, there was, we thought, reason for the hope that he might be spared for many years, to see the growth of the good seed which he had planted in so many places. We especially looked forward to the return of our anniversary, that we might testify, by some public and appropriate recognition, our sense of his untiring bounty and his cordial personal confidence and kindness. But-blessed as his work on earth was, it had been accomplished, and a higher reward was near him than even an old

We shall never look upon

age, beloved of God and man. his kindly face again, nor shall his lips speak charity and wisdom, any more, to us. The thousands of little children who were gathered round him, as about a father's knees, when he graced the dedication of this building with his presence, will tell to their own children how the eyes of the good man filled and his kind voice faltered, as he uttered the last touching and tender words of counsel, which were among his worthiest gifts to them. But his venerable form they must remember, now, among the pleasant visions of childhood, which fleeted away too soon. He is of the past, to them as to us; and though public sorrow and private affection may mourn over his departure, there is surely no one to repine at the thought, that he has passed over the great gulf, fixed, of old time, between the rich man and Abraham's bosom.

I am here, upon the invitation of my associates in the Trust which Mr. Peabody created in Baltimore, to say something of his life and character. We had selected, as an appropriate occasion, the anniversary to which I have alluded. The change which brings us together to-day, instead, not only gives us the pleasure of welcoming friends and co-laborers from a distance, who could not otherwise have joined us in these offices, but enables us, "with double pomp of sadness,' on the birth-day of our Founder, to lay our tribute on his tomb. I regret, unaffectedly, that the duty which has been assigned to me was not committed, as I wished, to other hands, for there are those among my brethren, far better fitted to perform it, whose age and long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Peabody would have given to eulogy the weight and the force of personal knowledge and testimony. Except,