Some of the best elements of our day have been profoundly at work among the Methodists. Many of the denomination have been in the vanguard of the march to better things. But it is fair to the course of Hesperus University, which has sometimes halted, to say that sagacious vigor and a knowledge of the best--τὰ Βέλτιστα--were not in every case the claim to distinction of its Methodist head. “Aus Nichts,” says Fichte, “wird nimmer Etwas.” But mediocrity--or worse--did not always prevail. Under absolutely pure and true conditions a man would be chosen for his fitness to fill the office of Chancellor, no matter what his religious bias, unless, indeed, that bias marred his scholarship and access to men, and thus really became an element in his unfitness. In a perspective of the University of Hesperus it is necessary to consider these various controlling forces as well as the spiritual light of its students. And yet to those who have faith in its growth in righteousness there is an ever-present fear. The greatness of the institution will be in inverse proportion to the reign of politics, materialism, and denominationalism in its councils, and the fear is that the people may not think straight and see clear in regard to this great fact. Upon spiritual lines alone can its spirit grow, and if an institution of the spirit is not great in the spirit, it is great in nothing. Its vigor and vitality are of truth in its young men and women. One boy or one girl may differ from another in glory, but each comes trailing clouds of light, and of their loyalty and stout-heartedness and courage for taking life in hand too many pæans cannot be chanted, or too many triumphant ἰώ raised. They have been the reason for the existence of the institution now more than a generation. Their spiritual content is its strength, and is to be more clearly its strength when guidance of its affairs shall have come to their hands. Their spiritual content, we say--it should reflect that life of theirs when heaven seems dropping from above to their earth underfoot--in addition to the labors and loves of men and women, a procession of joys from the February morning the cardinal first whistles “what cheer.” While dog-tooth violets swing their bells in winds of early March bluebirds are singing. The red-bud blossoms, and robins carol from its branches. Then the mandrake, long honored in enchantment, opens its sour-sweet petals of wax. Crimson-capped woodpeckers test tree-trunks and chisel their round house with skilful carpentry. The meadow-lark whistles in mating joy. Purple violets carpet the open woods. Trees chlorophyl their leaves in the warm sun. The wild crab bursts in sea-shell pink, and sober orchards shake out ambrosial perfume. Soft, slumberous airs puff clouds across the sky, and daylight lingers long upon the western horizon. Summer is come in.