models of nature and of life, he becomes the poet and the artist. Some one of nature's pictures seen, remembered; some one of nature's sounds heard and caught — this it is that moves the tongue, the brush, the pen, and in its feeble imitation excites the wonder of a continent. Does the writer pour from his pen a flood of inspiring words that rouse the heart to faith and duty? It is only the outburst of a troubled storm within. Has the poet a strange spell that transforms the dull and lifeless into a panting, breathing organism? It is only the deeper expression of this hidden spirit of unison with other forces that goads the imagination, that guides the reason, that enflames the zeal of every ambitious soul. It flits in the smoke of Dante's Inferno; it embodies the form of Luther's devils; it inspires the wings of Calvin's faith; it goes with Milton beyond the veil of the highest heavens, and brings to earth things too great for man to utter; it sings in the tumult of Byron's passion, it urges Bunyan's pilgrim on his weary way, it rises from the flames of martyrs. Harmony of color, sound and scent, delicacy of expression, gentleness of touch - all are the manifestations of one grand principle that appeals to our inner and better nature, and guides us to excellence in every sphere. The stroke of thunder is the swell of a thousand pipes, that re-echo in the roar of the cataract and the bursting of the shell, speaking more distinctly in some great deed of man that moves the world of thought or feeling, and finding grander expression still in the conquest of some vice or passion, and the bursting of the bonds of sin. I sometimes wish we had another sense, to unite the functions of those we have in one, and to combine their impressions in a harmonious whole. the most beautiful shades and combinations of color, the most graceful forms, and the sweetest sounds join in an appeal to this new sense, and what rapture would then

result!

And thus combine all that is noblest and best in the

moral world, and we rise into purer harmony than nature yields the harmony of action. The moaning of the wind in the forest, the bleating of the lost lamb on the hillside, the newly-made grave in the church-yard, these do not speak alone; but the aching heart, the generous impulse, the noble deed, unite with these in a full and rounded anthem. As one feels the grasp and pressure of a friendly hand, and gazes into the still depths of a loving eye, whose lid has lifted freely that the tear of sympathy may trickle to the ground; as one sees another's lip tremble with his sorrow and another's breast heave with his distress, he hears a bar of the grandest melody that the chords of human feeling afford. Character is harmony or discord. Feelings of humanity rule the individual, stir society, and ere long will judge in the councils of nations. Man is a unit. The grave-yards of the world are common property; famine and pestilence are common foes.

Give the misanthrope his way; let him wrap himself in his shroud of self-sufficiency, and cast away the slender staff of human sympathy and help; let him steel his heart to the cries of a suffering world; let him pass the soldier wounded on the field, tear down the roof that shelters the widow and her babe; let him scoff at the gentleness of woman and the confidence of childhood; let him see, unmoved, the characters of blood with which death has written his doom upon his door-posts; and let him fling into the face of Heaven the last end of a misspent life. I ask, is this sufficient? Is this the fairest flower that humanity bears? Is this the end of our gropings and yearnings for truth and life? Are the joys of youth, the aspirations of manhood, the faith and devotion, the gentleness and love of mankind, only the scattered rays that render the darkness more terrible? Or is there a sun to which these rays converge, a sequel to this book of problems, that our blind eyes cannot read? Shall we ever reach the notes that we now attempt to strike upon our broken strings?

These are questions that probe the heart like a surgeon's knife. The long corridors of time have never ceased to echo with the cry, "What beyond ? Here reason has faltered and philosophy has failed. Here the Great Architect has erected a wall to hide the mysteries of the eternal world. Like Noah's dove, the soul returns again from its weary flight through a world of uncertainty and doubt.

Now leave the misanthrope in his indifference and come to the scene of conflict, toil, and pain. Draw back the curtain from the throngs of crowded life and gaze upon the sea of conflicting human efforts; grasp the hot palm and feel the quick pulse of fever; smooth the wrinkles of old age; wear the tattered rags of poverty; breathe the dense, foul air that hangs over great cities like the black wing of death; hear the stifled cry that ascends from tenement houses and crowded lanes; penetrate the dens of shame and crime; trace the line of crape that encircles the globe and binds man in his brotherhood of woe; touch the nerve that throbs and stiffens with the heat and cold of life's summer and winter, and then address yourself to the problems that every age presents.

Do

So

Then you are moving in time with the tread of God's great army. Do you feed the hungry and clothe the naked? So does earth, with her thousand products. you cleanse society and elevate the condition of man? do the majestic streams that bear away upon their bosoms the germs of disease and the seeds of decay. Do you train men's minds and hearts in the truths of morality and religion? So does nature in all her forms of purity and beauty. This is the deepest harmony of creation. This stems the tide of opposing interests; this silences the clash of war; this consecrates the din of commerce. This is the song that the angels sang at the birth of the Man of Sorrows; the song that has drowned the groans, the balm that has healed the wounds, of nineteen centuries. The elevation of humanity is the mission and the seal of faith.

With such an end life becomes real, and one contributes his share to the universal symphony of being. He feels for the sorrowing, cares for the suffering, and weeps for the sinful. A barren, desolate future becomes a blessed present, and sacred joy consecrates the sorrows of the past, as the rays of the setting sun tint the clouds that rest upon the horizon.

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT.

BAIRD PRIZE ORATION, BY JAMES MARK BALDWIN, '84.

THE emancipation of the slave in the Southern States was the boldest and most decisive political step that the New World has ever seen. And the results of this step are not yet complete, for questions of the deepest social complexity still agitate the land and demand immediate adjustment. The growth of great moral ideas necessitates corresponding constitutional changes, but these changes never precede the growths to which they belong if they are to be permanently supported and if due provision is to be made for the emergencies that they present. Prohibition is the grandest issue that is now before the country, but neither it nor any other measure for the suppression of intemperance should be adopted until its practical utility is attested and the people are educated to its enforcement. It awaits the popular voice to become, with the abolition of slavery, the crown of social progress in the nineteenth century. Radicalism has been the greatest enemy to the growth of republican principles in France. When ideas of constitutional freedom are forced upon a people who have not indorsed their theory or adopted their practice, revolution and blood are the pen and ink with which they will record their protest.

This is the principle that must guide us in estimating the results of the fifteenth amendment. It may be true that public opinion in the northern States would have been satisfied with nothing less; but it was not the northern States that were concerned. It may be true that maturer legislation could not be consummated and action was imperative; still the great laws of social development cannot be set aside by presidential decree, and the logical results of immature measures cannot be avoided on the ground that maturer measures could not be consummated. It is true that the South was blind to the enormity of the slave traffic and did yet recognize the right of all men to freedom; but universal suffrage did not open her eyes to .the beauties of political justice or elevate her estimate of the negro as a social factor. It was not on the part of the whites of the South, however, that this statute was most premature and its results most perplexing. Private intelligence, political wisdom, and military sagacity were by them exhibited that would speedily have readjusted discordant elements in society and harmonized opposing factions. But the negro was to be provided for; the negro was to be elevated from debasing servitude to the grandest freedom; the negro, who had been educated in the school of implicit obedience, whose arithmetic had been the counting of a hundred stripes and the weighing of his daily cotton; whose music had been the clanging of chains and the baying of hounds; whose religion was the superstition of the African jungle mingled with the most solemn rites of Christian worship- he is to be transformed by legislative enactment into a statesman and a sage, and is to enter the political arena on an equal footing with the descendant of the Puritan! On an equal footing, did I say? Would Heaven it had been so ! The result had not been doubtful. But the race was not equal. Two to one was the proportion of ballots that weighted the same.

In the hands

of the black were all the engines of political power. He