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you are, in the great and complicated mechanism of human society, face to face with a thousand problems that affect most vitally the destiny and welfare of the race. To turn back or falter now is cowardice. To fail in your duty to the civil and social order which prevents humanity from any backward movement and transmits civilization with all its accumulated blessings to the future, would be pusilanimous. Here you are, touching elbows with countless human beings, every one of whom is as weak and helpless as yourselves, when he undertakes to go alone, but strong and mighty for heroic effort when he has the help and sympathy of his fellow creatures who are embarked with him in the same great enterprise of human life. To neglect or refuse a helping hand to your fellow-workers in God's great mills, to your fellow travellers in the solemn journey to the grave, would be not only to misconceive the object of your existence, but to substitute for philanthropy and generosity, selfishness and meanness.

Above all, you must work for large and enduring ends. Life is too short and too serious to be wasted in pettiness and triviality. I do not mean, of course, that you should demand for every performance a great theatre and a vast audience; nor do I mean that you should desire to make every act of your life, not only spectacular, but of the character and quality by which epochs are made. I refer rather to the spirit and purpose of your activity. The father's provision for his children, the mother's care of an infant, the daily work for daily bread, may be so performed as to become the very stepping-stones to the kingdom of God. Let me remind you that if you work in this spirit your work will remain-it will be for eternity and not for time-for eternity, because it will be taken up into the composite of human experience and be transmitted from generation to generation so long as humanity shall endure; for eternity, because your own souls will be transformed and uplifted by it, and because having entered into the mysterious fabric of character it will be the one substance which you will carry with you beyond the confines of the grave.

I need not assure you that wherever you go, or however you

fare, your Alma Mater will follow you with most affectionate interest. Her wisdom has tried to guide you thus far. Her love has endeavored to find a lodgment in your hearts. In every possible way she has sought to put her impress upon you, and now, as she sends you forth, bearing her honors, she gives you most hopeful and tender salutations and bids you the Godspeed and farewell.

PEACE AND SERVICE.*

Heigh-ho for a cool sylvan dell
And a merry laughing stream,
Two wooded slopes, a nestling lake
Where moonbeams dance and gleam!
No more, no more of the busy world,
No more of toil and strife,

No more ambition's goal, my guide,
No more of that which man calls life;

But here forever I'll abide

Amidst the towering hills,

Peaceful and calm, steadfast as they,
Lulled still by sparkling rills.

I'll watch the furcate swallows' flight
Over yonder crystal lake;

The water fowl shall lend their songs
My thirsting heart to slake;

When scarlet sky and darkening dales
From limous banks shall bring
The silent dwellers of yon depths

To nose the air; when night birds sing
Betwixt two skies with blithesome heart,

My birchen keel I'll ride

And live my dream, my dream of peace,
With longings satisfied.

*Class Poem read in Goddard Chapel, June 14, 1901, by Frank Howe Benedict.

And he trustingly lay him down

On the wave-kissed, moss-clad shore

And watched his camp-fire's dying light
Make mystic forms, galore.

Soft winds caressed his manly brow,

The dew-drops circled there;
Light-fingered night put on his lids,
Her heedful lotion for dull care.

The starry night was well nigh spent
When lo! from cool retreat,

An aged form, grown white with years,
Came forth the hour to greet.

O death-like hour, oppressive in thy calm! Full oft I've wandered here with thee and told The trees, the winds and far retreating hills The longings of my soul, my heart's desires; But they, like hollow caverns mocking me, Return my voice and leave me as before, My heart benumbed with mortal restlessness. Couldst thou but bring me youth, I'd ne'er again Devote my noonday in the search for peace; But liberty and love and life should crown The darkest day. I'd struggle, fight and pray, For those whose love I might secure; action Should glorify my heart and take away The pain of watching, waiting for that time When God shall crown my life with that for which The world hath ever sought, immortal peace.

Men sailed the sea in years agone in search
Of youth eternal, peace, the Holy Grail;
'Twas useless, vain. And man, insatiate,
Still longs and still remains unsatisfied.
The restless sands on Afric's plains, shift north

And then drift back again; but Amen-Rah
Her god is dead. The tumbling waters roar
And bring their harvest to Nilotic fields.

I peer far back into the shadowy past,
But see no vision, no transcendent light
To tell me when the sun first glorified

The east, or man awoke from speechless stone:
I hear no voice proclaiming when nor where
This time tossed bark shall reach the shore;
Nor what the mission of its passage is;
Nor whence the soul shall go when night
Eternal gives it final anchorage.

O dews and zephyrs of this silent hour!
Though you have kissed the massive brow of him.
Who sang on Avon's banks of hearts distressed;
Or soothed the darkened eyes of him who dreamed
Of Paradise; or haply quieted

The Grecian hand that gave to voiceless stone
The power to tell the dreams, the high ideals

And steadfast potent faith of Doric heart;

And though you may have kissed the pallid brow

Of some worn sleeper as you came this way,

Whose cheek but yester-noon was flushed with youth,
But which today is sullen with the gray
Of dissipation and of midnight hours,
Of revelry, whose youthful promise and
Ideals lie wrecked through mortal restlessness;
You tell me not why home at close of day
Beckons to its hearth the toiling throng,
Nor why, amid the burdens that press in
And weigh me down, I feel I once had lived
In heaven, but had strayed and lost my way.

Full well do I remember that sad day
When twilight first did sink about her grave,

Whose love for me can ne'er again be known.
Too early did the shuttle shoot the weft,
The fell, that brought her life's web to its close;
While I, a youth with breaking heart, went forth
To struggle with the sea which social life
Presents each soul to brave, to rise, to drift.

My cup was bitter and my thirsting heart
So longed for peace that this fell solitude

Was sought and here I've lived through dragging years
And found it not. I wander, watch and wait;
Could I but feel again the heat of youth
Pulse through my time-worn veins, I'd say:
"Farewell, farewell! majestic hills, farewell!
Now have you passed, O solitude sublime,
Into a revery, an ungrateful dream,
More full of bitter and unceasing pain

Than those fair days when life had lost its hope.
And though the path of life looked hard, severe,
Yet ever in advance lay victory,

Or else defeat; the one to be assuaged

With cadent tears of those whom most we love,
The other to be crowned with smiles of happiness."

O could I live it all again! I'd choose

The way where action zests each troubled day,

For then I know my heart would be so full

Of love for God and life and man

That there would be no room within my breast

For human longings and the soul's unrest.

Stay, night winds, stay! I feel some presence near!

A longing soul within this solitude!

And measured breathing guides my feet to where

He lies in sweet repose. He sleeps as one within

The sweet embrace of immortality.

But I'll arouse within his passive breast

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