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force would seem to give a new sanction and ground for faith in personal immortality. All the force concentrated in a book, or statue, or noble career originated in, and was imparted by, a person. All the moral qualities that give character to acts and achievements, and stamp their ineffaceable characteristics on the masterpieces of literature and art, originated in, and were communicated by, a creative personality. Genius is the most personal of all elements, a quality that differs with each individual it appears in, always incalculable in its operations, and always a surprise, because it has its source and hiding in the most interior places of the personality, and is the effluence of its life. The genius of Raphael and the genius of Shakespeare are as unlike in their essence and operation as the matchless Madonna of the one is unlike the Hamlet of the other. And can it be supposed that the peculiar personal genius which created either of these masterpieces of human art expired at death, when its achievements outlast centuries?

One of the most wonderful things in life, in literature, in art, is the persistence of the personality in its creations and emanations. The Iliad is not merely so many cantos of inimitable verse, it is Homer. The sad, solitary, grand heart of Dante palpitates in every verse of the Commedia. Every thought of Goethe reflects his personality in its shining facets. The fascination of Carlyle's works consists almost solely in the personal electricity with which they are charged. The charm and power of Emerson's essays reside chiefly in the spirit and aroma of his unique personality; the more colorless they are in themselves, the more perfectly they mirror the features and genius of their author. It is the personal elements in his works that take possession of the reader, and make an indelible impression on the mind. And if these rays shed from his luminous mind shall retain their shining properties forever, can it be that the genius which emitted them, is extinguished in everlasting night ?* The most persistent of forces is personal force. It is the *This selection may end here.

enduring element in all literature, art, history, and religion. Laws and movements and nations perish and are forgotten, but a personality developed by culture and illuminated by genius and inspired by a great faith or noble purpose, stamps its impress on centuries and civilizations. And if the moral influence, which is the subtlest effluence of the personality, of a Moses or a Mohammed shall circulate in widening undulations and results for thousands of years, by what logic or philosophy can it be inferred that the persons themselves have perished? Christian civilization is the brightening and beneficent reflection of the moral image of Jesus of Nazareth in the life of the world. And if the influence of that Person has perpetuated itself in a thousand splendid ways, so that it were easier to expunge half the chemical elements from the globe, than expunge the moral properties He has communicated to mankind and the new type of character He has produced, how can we help concluding that death to Him was resurrection, and earth the ante-room of heaven? We must surrender the doctrine of the persistence of force, or apply its conclusions to the most persistent and potential of all forces, the personality of man.

THE GOLDEN AGE.

Note 45.

RED-LETTER DAYS.

SOME days are memorable by reason of that which has gone into them, of the great histories which are behind them. The cathedral recently completed on the banks of the Rhine represents in consummate flower the work of six and a quarter centuries, the genius that so long ago shaped it in plan, the labor that during all that time has been at work robbing the stone of its weight, and building it into that visible music in the air. When Victor Emanuel entered the city of the Cæsars six months before his more public entry, but when already he was hailed as King of United

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Italy, the tendencies of six hundred years were represented in the fact that he was in the palace of the Quirinal. Back behind Cavour, and Ricasoli, and Garibaldi, and La Marmora, went those tendencies, to the age of Dante and beyond, which there bloomed into exhibition. When our International Exhibition was opened in Philadelphia, in 1876, it represented a hundred years of peaceful industry and profitable invention, of growing taste and augmented opulence, the result of the freedom which the Republic had enjoyed during all that century of time.

Some days are memorable by reason of that which flows from them, of the great and fruitful histories which they initiate. We celebrate thus the birthday of Washington in this country, making the twenty-second of February a redletter day in American letters and American life, because then that majestic spirit touched the planet on whose wisdom and fortitude, on whose majestic strength rested afterward the hope and destiny of the Republic; who gave to the world perhaps the most vital and enduring gift which America thus far has produced, in that illustrious and unsurpassed character of the great statesman and patriot. It is the especial honor of the day on which the Pilgrims landed that it is memorable for both these reasons-for that which went before it, and for that which came out of it. It is not a day to be remembered merely on account of the few voyagers who landed on Plymouth Rock. There was behind them the whole magnificent age of Elizabeth : the age illustrious in the world of philosophy and science by the name of Bacon; the age fascinating to everybody who admires chivalry in character and in action by the name of Sidney; fascinating to all who love high qualities of leadership, in adventure, in letters, in politics, in war, by the name of Raleigh; the age which bears upon its shield, as it marches among the centuries of historic fame, the unmatched blazon of the name of Shakespeare. Out of that age came Hampden, came Milton, came John Selden, came the great Petition of Right. Out of that age came the

Plymouth Colony, just as distinctly and directly as if Drake had commanded the Mayflower, and Raleigh had steered the ship.

We remember all that when we celebrate this day. Men may say that it was an inconsiderable event. Yes! but it was not the eccentric adventure of a few forlorn persons and families seeking another home beyond the sea. The swing of the English spirit which had fought and crushed the Armada, was behind it.

RICHARD S. STORRS.

Note 46.

THE LEGACY OF ROME.

To write the history of the Roman Law for the last two thousand years, is to write the decline of the ancient and the rise of the modern civilization. When Rome had conquered all nations, and had lost herself, her law was yet untouched by that degradation which marked all things else. That still bore upon every feature of its majestic image, the impress of her highest civilization. The signatures of Commodus and Caracalla, those living, bitter satires on the human race, are appended to some of the purest judicial decisions recorded. But when Rome was subdued, when Alaric and Attila with their hordes extinguished the last spark of her civilization, feudalism, that giant offspring of universal war, clasped Europe in its withering embrace. Then the thick darkness of intellectual and moral night brooded over the nations. The Roman Law for ages was buried in the libraries of the monks, and liberty and learning bewailed a remediless loss. Then came the dawning of a brighter day; religion acquired a new vitality, and with the Roman Law as its colaborer, went forth to revivify and enlighten humanity.

From that time the Roman Law has been ever widening the sphere of its domain. It is incorporated into the juris

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prudence of continental Europe; and, underlying the common and statute law of England, it has travelled with the Anglo-Saxon race into every province of their world-embracing domain. Here, where the lost Atlantis of Plato has reappeared; here, where are well-nigh actualized the dreamings of that philosopher, the Roman Law has acquired for itself a magnificent empire. Unshackled by the feudal and ecclesiastical tyranny, the unyielding conservatism which hampers its progress in the old world, it bids fair here to work out to the full its mission of beneficence; to substitute for the ruling of old forms and the mummies of dead theories, the domination of strict and scientific justice. We resort to the books of the civil law as the ancients to the shrine at Delphi; but, unlike them, we hear no enigmatical or lying oracles. Untinged by the subtle scholasticisms of the middle ages, they ever speak clearly and unmistakably the words of political wisdom and everlasting justice.

Such is the Legacy of Rome. And, in truth, is it not a great and noble one? The legacy of Jerusalem has opened the gates of Heaven to man, and given to him who is worthy, a happy and an everlasting life. Athens, the home of all the aesthetic arts, has left a priceless legacy of beauty, which shall be to man 66 a joy forever." And surely, next in value to these is the Legacy of Rome. From woman emancipated, from innocence justified, from humanity ennobled, goes up a ceaseless pæan in its praise. Hand in hand with Christianity, it invades the regions of mental and moral darkness, to conquer, to civilize, and to bless. It is a terror in the path of the oppressor and the doer of evil; and of the down-trodden and wronged, it might say in almost the language of Jehovah, "I have seen the oppression of my people, and I have come to deliver them."

FRANK H. HEAD.