FRANKLIN tells us that "he often sat up reading, the greater part of the night, when a book borrowed (he means _stolen_) from booksellers in the evening, was to be returned in the morning lest it should be found missing." In proportion as men make full proof of books, they become alike _inside_, in real communion with great authors, in information, taste, mental capacity, mastery of speech,--accomplishments which cannot be lost, and which render each one more equal and congenial with his fellows. Men will still differ by God, not by man. What then is the Free Library less than the key stone in our Republican arch? When we would show attention to strangers, it has been a Madison custom to take them into our cemetery. That grave yard is well worth showing. But in time to come I trust we shall rather exhibit our Libraries, and say; "These are our jewels." Not tombs, but living shrines that on the living still work miracles,--the shrines where all the relics of the saints full of true virtue are preserved, where the dead live and the dumb speak--the dead sceptered sovereigns who still rule our spirits from their urns. This sun of our intellectual worlds is "Made porous to receive And drink the liquid light, firm to retain Its gathered beams, great palace now of light, Hither as to a fountain countless stars Repairing in their golden urns draw light." Let us rejoice in it all glorious within, even as our Capitol and University parks are without.