The Rev. Leroy Hooker gives us his comparative view of some of the poets in the Canadian Magazine as follows: “It may not be too much to say that among the English-writing bards of the century, Tennyson’s only near competitor for the first place is Longfellow; and that Longfellow’s title to a place above Lowell is based not so much to his having projected upon the thought and sentiment of the century a more potent and permanent influence, as upon the fact that he has given us, in ‘Hiawatha,’ the nearest approach to a great epic poem that has been produced within the period—not excepting anything that even Tennyson has written.”
The Rev. E. J. L. Baker, a trustee of the Chautauqua Assembly, died suddenly of heart disease at his home in Pleasantville, Pa., on Saturday afternoon, December 30. He had been a preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church for the past fifty years, and died in his field of labor when seventy-three years old. He was at one time presiding elder, and three times a delegate to the General Conference. Once when the conference met in Boston, Massachusetts, he cast his vote for Bishop Simpson and helped to elect him to the Episcopacy. Mr. Baker was a man of dignified bearing, of exceptional strength and force of character, and, while as a preacher he was not among the most brilliant, yet in his sermons he presented the central truths of the Bible in an interesting and powerful manner. Among ministers he made a fine reputation as a debater in a deliberative body. He was a Christian gentleman, a genial companion, and a workman that needed not to be ashamed. He died full of faith in the gospel that saved him, and that he had preached to others so many years.
A gold, open work C. L. S. C. badge by Henry Hart, of Brockport, New York, is one of the latest inventions we have seen for members of the C. L. S. C. It is a beautiful design, makes a handsome pin, and it is sure to please every eye that loves the gold that glitters.
The attempt to injure the reputation of the lamented President Garfield by publishing the letters that passed between him and Mr. Dorsey during the presidential campaign, is a great failure. Mr. Dorsey is on trial for the crimes he is alleged to have committed as one of the Star Route conspirators. Let him be tried on the merits of the case, and if guilty, let him be convicted, and if innocent, acquitted. But any effort like that made recently to palliate the wrongs of the living, at the expense of the dead president, will be resented by the American people. The verdict of the people is that James A. Garfield was one of our purest and best public men, both in his private and public character. He was tried for nearly a score of years in that political cauldron, the House of Representatives, and never found wanting. Let him rest, for
“The death-wind swept him to his soft repose,
As frost, in spring time, blights the early rose.”