appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. All I dare hope is, that if, in executing this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of my fellow citizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be palliated by the motives which misled me, and its consequences be judged by my country, with some share of the partiality in which they originated.

Such being the impression under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being, who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute, with success, the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. And, in the important revolution just accomplished, in the system of their united government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, can not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seems to presage. These

reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be supprest. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence.

By the article establishing the Executive Department, it is made the duty of the President "to recommend to your consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances under which I now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject further than to refer you to the great constitutional charter under which we are assembled; and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges, that as, on one side, no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests-so, on another, that the foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; and the preeminence of a free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world.

I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire; since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists, in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness-between duty and advantage between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity-since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of heaven can never be

expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself has ordained-and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people. Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain with your judgment to decide how far an exercise of the occasional power delegated by the fifth article of the Constitution is rendered expedient, at the present juncture, by the nature of objections which have been urged against the system, or by the degree of inquietude which has given birth to them. Instead of undertaking_particular recommendations on this subject, in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good. For I assure myself that, while you carefully avoided every alteration which might endanger the benefits of a united and effective government, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience, a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen and a regard for the public harmony will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the question how far the former can be more impregnably fortified, or the latter be safely and more advantageously promoted.

To the preceding observations I have one to add, which will be most properly addrest to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself, and will, therefore, be as brief as possible.

When I was first honored with a call into the service of my country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed. And being still under the impressions which produced it, I must decline, as inapplicable to myself, any share in the personal emoluments which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the Executive

Department; and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the station in which I am placed may, during my continuation in it, be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require. Having thus imparted to you my sentiments, as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave, but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the human race, in humble supplication, that, since He has been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity, on a form of government for the security of their union and the advancement of their happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this government must depend.

A TALK TO GRADUATES*

One of the greatest figures of mythology, you remember, was Prometheus, who brought fire from heaven that men of skill and industry might begin their long journey toward truth and power. He was the fire-bringer. Every great or useful man and woman since his time has been a light-bearer; and the rank of a man depends on the clarity and power of light which shines from him on his fellows and his time. As we look back over the long course of history, we are able to see the way by which we have come, because so many men and women have lighted the darkness of ignorance. As you approach a great city, there is first a faint glow on the horizon, then a kindling brightness; then long lines of fire rise into view, and presently the splendor of the city is before you. Looking back from the brightness of to-day, we can trace the waxing light to its far beginnings, as the long lines recede and grow fainter

* By kind permission of The Outlook, New York.

against the darkness. We can see the lamps lighted in the valley of the Euphrates thousands of years ago; the kindling of the lights in the valley of the Nile; the glory of the Light of the World as it revealed itself in Judea; the splendor that streamed from Athens across half the globe, across our time, shining to the very end of the ages; the powerful ray that fell from Rome; the flaming of the torches of Florence and Venice; the lighting of the lamps at the earliest universities, at Salamanca, Salerno, Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Cambridge. The first intimation of the New World to its discoverer was a faint point of light on its shore; now, from Cambridge, on the Atlantic, to the University of California, at the Golden Gate, the torch of knowledge has passed until there is a line of fire across the continent.

These lights have been kindled with infinite toil and selfdenial; they have been fed with sacrifice, aspiration, heroic work, with beautiful and unfailing courage. Many torches have been kindled by them, and in turn have augmented their splendor. This it is which gives the famous schools their hold on the imagination of the world, and makes lesser schools dear to our hearts-they are all homes of light. Every school is a torch from which other torches are to be fired. Generation after generation dips its torches in the fire and goes its way down to the future to make the highway brighter for those who come after.

To-day there are lamps in all our hands; but some are faint and intermittent, like the glowworms on a summer night, and others shine like the stars. The great and beautiful spirits have very radiant spirits. Dante was "a spiritual splendor;" and there are many over whose ashes might well be written that greatest of epitaphs which marks the grave of Fichte, in the cemetery at Berlin: "The wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars, for ever and ever." The prophets, saints, martyrs, poets, and teachers, heroes of science, makers of states, men of genius and character in affairs, helpers of their kind-these are the torch-bearers of the past. You have been lighting and