In my lectures on modern history, and especially on the Reformation period, and the events which led to the French Revolution, there were various things throwing light upon our own problems, which served my purpose of arousing thought. My audiences were large and attentive, and I have never, in the whole course of my life, enjoyed any work so much as this, which brought me into hearty and close relations with a large body of active- minded students from all parts of our country, and especially from the Northwest. More and more I realized the justice of President Wayland's remark, which had so impressed me at the Yale Alumni meeting just after my return from Europe: that the nation was approaching a ``switching-off place''; that whether we were to turn toward evil or good in our politics would be decided by the great Northwest, and that it would be well for young Americans to cast in their lot with that part of the country. In the intervals of my university work many invitations came to me from associations in various parts of Michigan and neighboring States to lecture before them, and these I was glad to accept. Such lectures were of a much more general character than those given in the university, but by them I sought to bring the people at large into trains of thought which would fit them to grapple with the great question which was rising more and more portentously before us. Having accepted, in one of my vacations, an invitation to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa Commencement Address at Yale, I laid down as my thesis, and argued it from history, that in all republics, ancient or modern, the worst foe of freedom had been a man-owning aristocracy--an aristocracy based upon slavery. The address was circulated in printed form, was considerably discussed, and, I trust, helped to set some few people thinking. For the same purpose I also threw some of my lectures into the form of magazine articles for the ``Atlantic Monthly,'' and especially one entitled ``The Statesmanship of Richelieu,'' my effort in this being to show that the one great error of that greatest of all French statesmen was in stopping short of rooting out the serf system in France when he had completely subjugated the serf owners and had them at his mercy.