where once multitudes assembled for worship, the enduring work of the Oregon Educator will live and be more beautiful as it grows to assume nobler proportions. And centuries hence when the school house and the chapel will have largely accomplished their mission, when literature has winged her flight to the western shores of America, and scholars have made classic the story of Oregon, then teachers and students will make pilgrimages to the shrine on yon little hill where a pathway will be worn across the green to' the grave of him we love. When the little oak which shelters that hallowed spot shall have older grown, fallen and been forgotten, kind hands will gently smooth the sod and plant a vine by the grassy mound where we laid him. There amidst quietude and pensiveness many a flower will be plucked as a memento, and many a prayer breathed at the last resting place of him who contributed his best endeavors to the establishment of common schools; and the pilgrims, when they return to their homes, will resume their labors with renewed determination to emulate the noble qualities found in their fellow beings. Flowers will bloom as beautiful and the birdsong be as gay, men build and occupy, the earth swing through space as safely as if in the hand of God, and the sun, moon and stars sustain their glory then as now; but the undimmed lamp of learning which our benefactor lifted to the Oregon school house spire will shine with increasing effulgence and with glory more resplendent, illuminating the pathway of men, brightening their future and blessing their labors; and the world ever changing, ever improving, ever growing heavenly will be better for the life of this educator, patriot and gentleman, who gave the choicest within him for the betterment of mankind. Sidney H. Marsh A PLEA FOR RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES. (An extract from the inaugural address of Sidney H. Marsh, President of Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon.) There is a necessity which neither profits nor pleasure can satisfy, and for which all art and science are inadequate. It is this want that true and genuine learning would seek to satisfy. We need, as rational and accountable beings, surrounded by the fogs of sinful ignorance, a light that shall dispel darkness. Lost like a traveller amid the tangled jungles of tropical regions, we need a guide to the mountain summi's and the open ways. We need a knowledge of ourselves and our circumstances, of men and things. We need the light that investigations into the laws of language and laws of thought may perchance give us. We need to know what principles, and whence, have governed men in divers countries and different ages, and under varied circumstances; perhaps from such a study of history we may better know ourselves. These studies are indeed valuable for other ends, but chiefly because they tend to satisfy the craving thirst for knowledge, which our souls demand, not for their pleasure, or temporary happiness, but for their permanent well-being. I know that there is much thought and intellectual activity which does not, and cannot satisfy these spiritual cravings, which is a wandering of the intellect to and fro in the earth without any ascension above it. There is much acquisition that is not true knowledge, much theorizing that does not really increase the insight. The history of literary men is full of evidence of misspent power, power misspent for the great purposes of thought, though not uniruitful per : haps in inferior, temporary and temporal good. We have painful evidences of the unsatisfactoriness of thought not rightly directed in minds delicately organized, where the cause of need was perhaps obscurely felt, where the insufficiency of all their efforts wrung tears and groans, clothed though they were in the most lovely garb of imagination and poetry. Such spirits have felt the inaptness of their own theories as an increase of their sufferings and want. Their own thoughts have thus returned to sing them, and driven like the daughter of Inachus, they have sought in vain during a life of flight, a Prometheus to reveal future release from their sufferings. Such have been many among the Germans, who have spent a life in theorizing, and, although ever unsatisfied with their own efforts, have still been compelled to theorize right on. Such have been many among the English, such, many among our own people, who like Shelly and Keats, most sad examples, were "pard-like spirits, beautiful and swift," who "Actæon-like fled far astray, and as they wandered o'er the world's wilderness, their own thoughts along the rugged way pursued like raging hounds their father and their prey." But such misdirections of power, such consequent uselessness of knowledge for all its higher ends, far from disproving its spiritual purpose, indicate rather the connection, the dependence unon, the subservience of the intellect, considered as a faculty, to the spirit and its wants. without some spiritual initiative, all thought in the higher departments has been ineffectual, and a life spent in theorizing has produced no enduring results. For John Buchanan VALUE OF FRIENDSHIP. I care not for station, I care not for wealth, I pray for the blessings of freedom and health, I fear not an enemy's vengeful attack, I fear not the trouble he sends; With Truth for my armor and friends at my back- A true friend's a treasure I value far more Let others choose riches abundant in store, THE WILLAMETTE. Let others incline to sing of the Rhine, I sing of a stream that flows on like a dream For of all the streams 'neath the sun's bright beams, I hail with delight that river so bright, And ever the strain of a glad refrain, Far dearest of all the rivers of earth, And brightly it flows from the region of snows, Till lost in the arms of the sea. |