Feeling more than I can express the responsibility of the position in which I am now placed by your partial kindness, I trust that what I shall say may be not unworthy of careful meditation, and that it may ripen in this generous soil with no unwelcome growth. I address the literary societies of Amherst College, and my subject will naturally bear some relation to the occasion and to the assembly. But though addressing literary societies, I feel that I should inadequately perform my duty at this time, if I spoke on any topic of mere literature, without moralizing the theme; nor could I satisfy myself,--I think I should not satisfy you,--if I strove to excite merely a love of knowledge, of study, of books, or even of those classics which, like the ancient Roman roads, the Appian and Flaminian Ways, once trod by returning proconsuls and tributary kings, still continue the thoroughfares of nations. These things I may well leave to the lessons of your able instructors and to the influences of this place; nor, indeed, can I expect to touch upon any topic which, under the mingled teachings of the pulpit and the chair, has not been already impressed upon your minds with more force than I can command. Still, I may not vainly indulge the hope, by singling one special theme, to present it with distinctness and unity, so that it will be connected hereafter, in some humble measure, with the grave and the pleasant memories of this occasion. To you now standing on the threshold of life, anxious for its honors,--more anxious, I hope, for its duties,--nothing can be more important or interesting than the inquiry, what should be your aims, and what your motives of conduct. The youthful bosom throbbing with historic examples is stirred by the praises lavished upon those who have gone before, and pants for fresh fields. The laurels of Miltiades would not suffer Themistocles to sleep. Perhaps a kindred sleeplessness consumes the early thoughts of our day, and, in those visions which it is said young men shall see, Fame and Glory too often absorb the sight. Turning the attention in this direction, we may, perhaps, ascertain the true nature of these potent attractions, and to what extent they can be justly regarded. * * * * * My subject is FAME AND GLORY. As I undertake this discussion, I feel that I enter upon a theme which has become a commonplace of declamation, while it has filled the aspirations of many of the noblest natures that have lived. The great Roman orator, whose essay _De Gloria_, surviving the wreck of antiquity, was lost in the darkness of the Middle Ages, cannot claim exclusive possession of the topic he had fondly made his own; nor is there enough in the chapter _De Cupiditate Gloriæ_, by the Roman historiographer,[186] to supersede inquiry, especially in a Christian age, when a speaker may hope to combine lights and illustrations which had not dawned upon the Heathen.