[ORATION.]
To-day is the festival of our fraternity, sacred to learning, to friendship, and to truth. From many places, remote and near, we have come together beneath the benediction of Alma Mater. We have walked in the grateful shelter of her rich embowering trees. Friend has met friend, classmate has pressed the hand of classmate, while the ruddy memories of youth and early study have risen upon the soul. And now we have come up to this church, a company of brothers, in long, well-ordered procession, commencing with the silver locks of reverend age, and closing with the fresh faces that glow with the golden blood of youth.
With hearts of gratitude, we greet among our number those whose lives are crowned by desert,—especially him who, returning from conspicuous cares in a foreign land, now graces our chief seat of learning,[154]—and not less him who, closing, in the high service of the University, a life-long career of probity and honor, now voluntarily withdraws to a scholar's repose.[155] We salute at once the successor and the predecessor, the rising and the setting sun. And ingenuous youth, in whose bosom are infolded the germs of untold excellence, whose ardent soul sees visions closed to others by the hand of Time, commands our reverence not less than age rich in experience and honor. The Present and the Past, with all their works, we know and measure; but the triumphs of the Future are unknown and immeasurable;—therefore is there in the yet untried powers of youth a vastness of promise to quicken the regard. Welcome, then, not less the young than the old! and may this our holiday brighten with harmony and joy!
As the eye wanders around our circle, Mr. President, in vain it seeks a beloved form, for many years so welcome in the seat you now fill. I might have looked to behold him on this occasion. But death, since we last met together, has borne him away. The love of friends, the devotion of pupils, the prayers of the nation, the concern of the world, could not shield him from the inexorable shaft. Borrowing for him those words of genius and friendship which gushed from Clarendon at the name of Falkland, that he was "a person of prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of flowing and obliging humanity and goodness to mankind, and of primitive simplicity and integrity of life,"[156] I need not add the name of Story. To dwell on his character, and all that he has done, were a worthy theme. But his is not the only well-loved countenance which returns no answering smile.
This year our Society, according to custom, publishes the catalogue of its members, marking by a star the insatiate archery of Death during the brief space of four years. In no period of its history, equally short, have such shining marks been found.
"Now kindred Merit fills the sable bier,
Now lacerated Friendship claims a tear;
Year chases year, decay pursues decay,