At last the eventful morning came, and we rose early to see the first comers. An old dalesman, in reply to a question in regard to the weather, said: "Weel, weel, the top end'll be fine, but the back end mebbe'll be wet, but naebody at Girsmere sports cares for wet." The roads are now alive with coaches, spanking teams and gay turnouts of the gentry, carts of all sorts, horsemen and footmen, for the nearest railway station is eight miles away. Horns are tooting and all are merrymaking. They are coming from Furness Abbey, Coniston, Bowness, Paterdale, Langdale, Penrith, Keswick, and Cockermouth, over the hills and moors, and a walk of twenty miles is a common thing. It's a glorious sight, this pilgrimage through the charmed circle of the Lakeland hills, where nature and man have united to work that magic of

A world in miniature; a land

Wrought with such curious toil as though in mirth

Nature has thrown thee from her dextrous hand

To be a sportive model of the earth.

Every rood of ground has been consecrated by the life and love and song of

the noblest men and women the world knows: Faber, Wilson, Southey, Coleridge, Wordsworth and his sister, Hartley Coleridge, Dr. Arnold, Mrs. Hemans, Matthew Arnold, and Ruskin have shed a luster over this land

The gleam,

The light that never was on sea or land, The consecration, and the poet's dream. As we pass into Red Lion Square we find every hotel and private house has prepared to entertain guests—and a hungry lot they will be. Tables are set in every available spot in the house and garden. Our landlady expects to serve dinner to three hundred, and asks us if we would not like to take our lunch into the fields, or to the island in the lake; but we say nay, as we wish to see the crowd in all its activities. At the old-lich gate of the churchyard we buy some of Sarah Nelson's famous gingerbread, some banbury cakes of a huckster, a programme of one village lad, a ticket of another, and we are ready for the day's sport. As we take our seat upon the highest of the six rows which surround the field-now filled with an eager, merry, and motley throng—

Rows of

the scene is an inspiring one. carriages surround the amphitheater of seats, smaller carriages first, then the larger, and at last the coaches, making a second series of seats; while below the crowd begins to select seats upon mackintoshes spread upon the ground. The Queen's Royal Lancashire Band is playing national airs, and the old crier is making ready to announce the events.

"What a parson's pleasure-ground is this!" says Canon Rawnsley. "Deans, canons, bishops, and archbishops are seen in the happiest and most unprofessional of moods. There is at least one parson in the Sports Committee, and around the ring they may be counted by scores. One is not sorry that this is so. The more our spiritual shepherds meet and mingle with such simple country shepherds' sport as Grasmere provides, the healthier and happier the tone of English amusement." The Canon himself is one of the Committee, and has done more, perhaps, than any other man to make these sports what they are.

As we sit here waiting for the sports to begin, the eye wanders over the peaceful vale, still preserving all the beauties which a century and a half ago charmed the poet Gray and led him to write, "One of the sweetest landscapes that art ever attempted to imitate. No flaming gentleman's house, or garden walks, break in upon this little, unsuspected paradise, but all is peace, rusticity, and happy poverty in its neatest and most becoming attire."

Two objects stand out as touching memorials of the kind of life with nature that has been lived here, and which, humble as they are, yet shed influence over the English-speaking world: Dove Cottage, where the poet, who enjoyed these simple pastimes, lived and loved and sang; and the quiet corner in the little churchyard of St. Oswald's, where, beneath the fir-trees planted by himself and Dr. Arnold, lie the ashes of the poet and his beloved wife and sister,

No heavier thing upon his gentle breast Than turf starred o'er in spring with daisy eyes.

The Rotha murmurs a sweet undersong as it glides quietly by on its way to the lake.

Keep fresh the grass upon his grave,
O Rotha, with thy living wave!

Sing him thy best! For few or none Hear thy voice right, now he is gone. Wordsworth's own description of the vale on his return to Dove Cottage after a long absence suggests itself to us who have returned here after a period of several years:

Mild and soft and gay and beautiful thou art,
Dear valley, having in thy face a smile
Though peaceful full of gladness. Thou art
pleased,

Pleased with thy crags and woody steeps, thy lake,

Its one green island, and its winding shores,
Thy multitude of little rocky hills,

Thy church and cottages of mountain stone,
Clustered like stars some few, but single most,
And lurking dimly in their shy retreats.

Thus lost in reflection, we are called back to the present by the bell and shout of the Crier, as we hear, "All ye who have entered for the leaping mak reedy and coom oot!" and again, " If ony of ye chaps have entered heavy weight wristling, coom intil ring!" Wrestling will continue all day, for there are fifty six entries for heavyweights, and forty-four for lightweights. The judges now appear, properly decorated with badges, and as some get in the way of the onlookers, the cry is"Tell the oompire to staand aboot!" The bobbies (police) are pushing the crowd back, and ordering them "Doon, doon, on the mackintoshes, sit doon!" when one young fellow gets a bit saucy, and the bobby says: "Tut, tut, now, no bad language!" While the first pair are wrestling, one of the contestants gets a bit hot because his opponent seems to be getting the best hold, and the crowd shouts (in condemnation of it) to the other, "Go on, Jackson, neever ye mind temper, knock him mad, blow him oot.”

Leaping being over, the cry is, "All ye mak reedy for the toog o' war!" and so it goes on through the various contests until two o'clock is reached, the hour for the guides' race. Now those who have been opening hampers and cracking ale-bottles at lunch suddenly are on tiptoe, for this race is one of the unique features of the sports. At the sound of the bell there step forward twelve lusty dalesmen who know every hill and dale, every beck and tarn, in the district. They come from Braithewaite, Skelwith Bridge, Outgate, Moor How, Blackburn, and Troutbeck, and know what mountain-climbing means. They are to leap the stone wall six feet

high, run across the flat one-half mile, and up Silver How, 1,200 feet high, over rocks and becks, through bracken and heather, and return to the sports-field. We notice particularly one slim-limbed, broad-chested runner, whose name reveals a bit of history. Caradice is his name, and Canon Rawnsley tells us that it is still a somewhat common name in Westmoreland, and is evidence that he descended from the old British chieftain Caractacus or Caradoc. While we are talking, they are off like a pack of hounds; each, selecting his own path, makes for the fellside. It is a hardy feat, this, but up they go, pass the flagman at the top, and start for the return, now jumping from rock to rock, now swinging from bough to bough, and now crawling like mountain goats over slippery stones and through tangled thickets. It is a closely contested race, not a hundred yards between the first man and the last at the finish; the time is fourteen minutes and forty seconds, over a distance of nearly two miles, mostly mountain-climbing. ing. I asked an old dalesman near me if there were ever any accidents in these races, and he replied: "Na, na, not often, but if a gay good un [the leader] should brak his lig or tummel and. hurt hissel' they would give him a prize, tak care of him, and pay the doctor." It is interesting to note here that several of those who were in the guides' race entered the mile race shortly after. Now the welcome cry is heard, "All maak reedy for the hound trail!" This is the contest for which we have been waiting, and all eyes are turned toward the line as the hounds, twenty-two in number, are led forth. Here come Royal, Duster, Welcome, Ruby, Comrade, Crazy Jane, and all the rest. They are thin as rakes-splendid condition for the ten-mile run over the fellside. Their caretakers are giving them, from bottles, soup or tea, so that they may not be thirsty, and may run without pausing at the becks to drink. The runner of the trail, who started over the course in the morning, dragging a rabbit-skin saturated with anise-seed, now comes in by Easdale, and we know what the run is to be. the hounds catch the scent, each breaks forth in baying, and the chorus echoes and re-echoes over the hills. Some have to be held in arms, others by both hands, as they tug at the leash,

As

Every eye is eager and sparkling, every ear intent, and every voice at its best. At the signal they are off, and “Awa' wi' tha!" is heard from hundreds of spectators. How they leap across the field and over the wall! Up the side of Silver How they go in speckled lines, filling the valley with their music. We now raise the glasses to our eyes and follow them in their gay sport. Comrade is leading by Red Bank, and the motley crowd is close upon him; on they rush by Loughrigg Fell and Rydal Water, around Rydal Mount and under Nap Scar; Fairfield and Helvellyn send back their baying; Greenhead Ghyll and Michael's sheepfold glisten with the moving multitude as they emerge into the open; now they leap the Raise and are on Helm Crag; Easdale gives us their voices; and now the leaders are to be seen on the crest of Still Fell, where they stop for a moment as if they had lost the trail. All is excitement lest they loiter, but it is only for a moment, for on they come over the beck and down the rocks, eyes sparkling with joy, and voices still fresh and clear; all so intensely human.

The crowd rush on to meet their favorites and cheer them home. Ruby leads,

with Miller second, and Comrade third; but all seem pleased alike, conquerors and conquered. They have run the trail in thirty-nine minutes.

This completes the sports for us, and we wander away by the lakeside until the evening shadows fall and the valley resumes its wonted repose after another eventful day. Returning by the poet's house, we hear the voice of a disciple of Wordsworth as he utters our own feelings: “Behind Helm Crag and Silver How the sheen

Of the retreating day is less and less. Soon will the lordlier summits, here unseen, Gather the night about their nakedness.

The half-heard bleat of sheep comes from the hill,

Faint sound of childish play is on the air. The river murmurs past. All else is still ; The very graves seem stiller than they are. Afar though nation be on nation hurled,

And life with toil and ancient pain depressed, Here one may scarce believe the whole wide world

Is not at peace, and all man's heart at rest.

Rest! 'twas the gift he gave; and peace! the shade

To him his bounties are come back-here laid He spread, for spirits fevered with the sun. In rest, in peace, his labor nobly done."

O

N the twenty-third of January last, Phillips Brooks House, the new religious center of Harvard, was formally dedicated and transferred to the University. Following the presentation exercises, a "mass-meeting" of students gathered in Sanders to show their loving respect for the memory of the great preacher and sympathetic friend of young men whose name the building was to bear.

The simple three-story structure of brick and stone, thus introduced to the University, stands on the northwest corner of the Yard, very near the daily ebb and flow of student life. It harmonizes in architecture with the other old buildings close by, and when the newness of the brick has worn off in the wind and rain, and the ivy has crept over its walls, it will be one of the most attractive buildings in the Yard. Under this one roof are now housed Catholics and Protestants of every denomination, all co-operating heartily in their common work of increas

ing the religious life of the students. On the ground floor are the common reception-rooms-whose broad, open fireplaces and polished floors add to the quiet, subdued atmosphere-the library, and the office of the Student Volunteer Committee, the central philanthropic organization. Upstairs are suites of rooms for the different religious societies, and a hall, holding two hundred and fifty, for larger meetings.

The opening of this home for the relig ious societies marks a new epoch in their existence, by giving them a standing and recognition in the eyes of the University. It is thus another move in the gradual solution of the problem, How far and in what way shall our religious feeling find outward expression? It is the same problem of religion which is being grappled with everywhere. We are in a transition age, when old forms of expression are being outgrown, and the new forms which are to take their place are not yet plain. Beliefs are no longer accepted like a

family name. Religious meetings must appeal to the manhood in men if they are to draw. Harvard, as befits her, is in the forefront of the movement. Here, if anywhere, this burning question of religion is being keenly felt and seriously faced.

To a superficial observer it might seem that this unrest-this discontent with old forms-denoted irreligion. Nothing could be further from the truth. Passive acceptance of creeds, not the uncertain groping after better, is dangerous. At least, nowhere is there a franker interest in religious problems than at Harvard. The frequent lectures and addresses given before the University on ethical and religious topics are well attended-as, for example, the annual Ingersoll lecture on the Immortality of Man, given this year by Professor Royce, which had to be repeated, on account of the large numbers turned away from the hall the first night.

Of course, in such a large and heterogeneous community as ours, it is impossible to make generalizations of universal validity. All types of men are to be found. There are many who are heedless and frivolous, not a few who are depraved and vicious-just as there are everywhere. But in general the undergraduates are

dignified, true-hearted, and thoughtful, less prankish and more mature than in most colleges. The typical Harvard man looks at life seriously, tries to do whatever he does well, and wishes to make the most of his life. Moral standards are high. In all intercollegiate contests fairness and sportsmanship are the rule. It is almost impossible for any one to attain prominence among his fellows who is not a thorough gentleman and a manly man. In short, if religion be held to consist, not in church-going and adherence to creeds, but in a faithful discharge of duties, an intelligent interest in vital problems, an earnest longing to make life better, a reverent attitude toward all that is sacred to men, and a steady faith in the value of life-then the Harvard spirit may be said to be truly religious.

That this spirit expresses itself in true, manly lives is much. But men in all times have felt the need of a more directly religious expression of this attitude toward the world. To fill this need the University provides daily services in Appleton Chapel, and, in addition, various groups of students hold religious meetings of different kinds. By no means all of the most promising young men of the University care for these services, but they neverthe