Let us then regard the study of History, not as something wholly objective but as an unfolding panorama of the human self-consciousness, for history is merely the reflecting spirit of mankind in which we ourselves may have an immediate share, which we all may help to perpetuate and in some way enlarge. Let us remember that History is a constant knowing and learning, the self-knowledge and communion of reflecting spirits in all ages and a perpetual "Know Thyself" to advancing time. There is something indescribably solemn in the historic pausing of Man before the temple of the unknown future and seeking to realize in himself the _gnothi seauton_ or "Know Thyself" of Humanity. He glances backward through the long vista he has traversed and as far as the eye can see, his pathway is cumbered with ruins. Crumbling monuments and fallen columns reveal the wreck of all material greatness, while the distant pyramids but remind him of the more than Egyptian darkness out of which Humanity has been mysteriously led unto this mountain of light which we call the Present or that Living Age. Man sees the immense distance he has come and he remembers the perils and disasters he has encountered in his upward way; he is conscious too of having brought a vast wealth of experience to this temple of the Future before which he now stands, but that which fills and overwhelms the historic consciousness of Man is the feeling that the place whereon he stands is holy ground and that there is a mysterious power in his own soul calling him to self-knowledge and to self-judgment before he may lift the veil of the future. This is the supreme moment of History. The facts of human experience become suddenly transfigured in the light of a divine principle, namely the self-consciousness of reason, that God-given spirit which recognizes the purpose of History to be the increasing self-knowledge of Man. "History is a divine drama, designed to educate man into self-knowledge and the knowledge of God," (Henry James, Sr., on "Carlyle," in Atlantic Monthly, May, 1881.) Tennyson recognized the divine element in human history in that prophetic verse: "And I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns." It is by this "increasing purpose" that God reveals himself in human history. By the widened thought, Humanity is led forward, as it were by a pillar of fire, unto a higher life, and unto a conscious unity with Divine Reason, the Unseen One, who dwells in a temple not made with hands. SOME FACTS CONCERNING THE SETTLEMENT AND EARLY HISTORY OF MISSISSIPPI. By R. W. JONES, M. A., LL.D.