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I! d 3'5 F Highland‘l’arkNews.‘ Then the picture or series of pie- tures, of his home, his antecedents. his deeprootedness in the old and best New England soil, the flavor it gave to all his keen wit and spark. ling humor, hie dialect poems, his shrewd and broad commonsense view of things. as well as his high moral tone and the rare purity, evenness and beauty of his life. all these. and more were admirably stated. But what most deeply impressed us was Prof. Rolfe’a delineation of Lowell's growth lira upt to greatnesa and then to its rounded complete- ness. We never felt the fragmenta: riness of his work, as he stated it, it always seemed to "H so grand and great. that minor defects were un- noticed. In our early academic days the first number of the Atlantic Monthly came to our desk. the only copy in the town, and we. devoured it. after every fellow student was in bed or off on a lark.-â€" all but Emerson'a awful poem. Lowell was its editor. he set the pace and the standard. and maintained it. It was a literary phenomenon, and the edu- To our mind l’rof. Rolfe's lecture M onduy evening, on Lowell was the strongest one yet delivered. and we‘ believe will prove to he the uhlest one of the lot. With Hawthorne our greatest literary genius. Lowell was our greatest literary mun : empha- size the “main" As Prof. Rolfe so forcibly stated, he was an all-around man. first in scholarship, in literary, humor. intellectual acumein fore» Bight, moral penetration. patriotism. culture, diplomacy, and citiieuship. His many Sidedness and his superi- ority in all, was one of the best and strongest features of the lecture. VOL 'V. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. I. '~ 5‘5“" HIGHLAND PARK, ILL.) DE SEMBER 2, 1898. ‘ NO 1. cated world at home and abroad was i ‘ on the qui vive with every issue, for , ' every article was unsigned and the , Hpublishers blue pencil was held Well i in chuck Then came those charm- V ‘ ing essays on Chaucer, Spenser, etc, in the stately North America till it fell from its ancient stateliness to a low material commercialism. Then Lowell’s patriotic and semi- political papers and addresses, some i of the finest in our language; finest not only in style, ’ but in the! moral yloftiness of their patriotism; in the V: transparent integrity of their pur- ‘ pose, and in the statesmanlike breadth of their grasp. Then his T 7 great poems, briefly sketched, and r last, and in some respect, the best of , all. his unrivalled letters. Taking the general fiheme of Thanksgiving for his discourse, Mr. Welcott devoted himself chiefly in the late war; the features and ro- sults of which call for special grati- tude from‘lhn American people. First is our self rvvvlation: that is It is a most admirable plan that unites all our Protestant congregaâ€" tions in a Thanksgiving church ser‘ Vice. but it is not so admirable for the Baptists or Presbyterians “or Episcopalians to calculat he other folks will fill the house, 1 d so they stay at home. We expect the preach- er to “lay himself out," for the oc- casion; he has a right to expect us to lay ourselves out to attend. Such a lecture as that is a part of a liberal education in its powerful stimulus and guidiugthought. We are glad to have lived in Lowell’s day and to have read his great works as they came from his pen. RECTOR WOLCOTT’S SERMON , It, was a discourse conceived on broad lines. worked out, with care, of rare insight. comprehensive in its scope, porvatlvd by a healthy opti- mistic spirit. No land hunger. no war for conquest. nu “remember the Maine»" spirit of revenge, but a (‘hristinn loyalty to follow where Gml by his prnviilvnt-vaunmistakably lmulsi Third. God’s hand is so markedly in the war lifting us as a people out of century-old ruts, and ouroldcom- monplaceuess into new, broad and highly responsible positions of world wide relations and duties that a new unlooked for era of vast influence for good is open before us, with prob- lems for the highest Christian states- manship. It is God‘s work, for he has a-grand purpose in hand for our nation. Hence the new unity ofour own people, of the English speaking peoples and the divine call toa high- er, broader and nobler citizenship. the occasion of the war, sympathy for suffering Cuba: the response t) the call for troops was a proof of a universal and lofty patriotism and the purpose of the war, to liberate Cuba, showed our noble national ideals in their best light. All these revealedthe honesty, pure patriotism and national integrity most clearly. The American people are honest the great overwhelming masses of them are thus honest and patriotic. Second is the mighty impulse giv- en to moral unity of the Anglo Sax- on English speaking races and nations Wide seas may roll between us, but we who speak the tongue of Shakes- peare and Milton, and read our Bibles in King James version, are one for the weal of the world.