And if the life of a minister who, for twenty years, occupies the same chair in a school of learning, lacks the variety which gives to biography an interest to the general reader, still less can the history of that school be offered as a work of entertainment. Something more may be said for the part edited by Mrs. Carr. Whatever lack of merit her collection of essays and poems reveals, may be charged to the paucity and immaturity of the material in her hands. It is fair to conclude that she gave us the best that the alumnae gave her; and the impression that most of it might just as well not have been preserved, is dissipated when we are told that President Rogers was anxious to have the writings of his girls published as his memorial, even if no word be said about himself. Viewed, then, not as literature, but as the fruits of his instruction, these writings, breathing the deepest piety, and revealing both learning and grace, hold their fitting place in the memorial to the Christian teacher.

But it is because this Part Third reveals the mind of her who edits it, that it is of moment to our biography. In the first chapter she gives us an indication of what she regards as of the utmost value in a woman's life:

"In looking over the scores of letters I have received from the Alumnae of Christian College, I find that I have written on the envelopes of about nine out of ten, the word, Christian; on two out of ten, the word, teacher; and on each without exception, the golden word, home-worker. In this statistical catalogue of three words, is found the grandest record of Christian College. That the life-work of its Alumnae has been chiefly confined to the church, and the school-room, and the home, is its honor and renown."

Mrs. Carr thus sues for toleration of "a wrong spirit" manifested in an essay on the "South." "Though the author evinces a little bitterness, we should forgive her. She wrote at the close of our sad civil war. When she writes vigorously and touchingly of 'A Washington, a Jefferson, a Calhoun, a Clay, a Breckenridge, a Benton,' when she proudly says, 'Behold on Virginia's consecrated ground, noble Bethany College, and Virginia's magnificent University,' when she turns lovingly to 'Kentucky University, one of the proudest in the Union,' and when, in the full bound of her loyalty she clasps to her heart her 'own Missouri University,'—then indeed we forgive, and our heart rejoices with hers in a common love."

Mrs. Carr thus introduces her third chapter: "If no George Eliot was found in the previous chapter, so no Elizabeth Barrett Browning will be found in this. If the reader be generous, he will find some very sweet poetic thought expressed in verse; but he will feel no deep stirrings of an angelic genius, that looks through Casa Guida window up to the very gates of heaven. He will find only the rhythmical outpourings of ambitious girlish hearts; and if he laugh at their imperfections, he will only prove that his heart is old—" Reader, let us not delve into these ambitious poems, lest we laugh and prove ourselves no longer young. Let us come away, after noting this comment on a poem entitled 'Longfellow.'

"Having once met him in his poet-home," says Mrs. Carr, "having felt the warm pressure of his hand, heard the low music of his voice, looked into the clear depth of his poetic eye—having felt, in short, the benediction of his presence, I find in the following simple dirge, a peculiar charm. That the modest author so tenderly loved her nation's poet, whose song like his own flower-de-luce, shall 'make forever the world more fair and sweet,' evinces both a refined taste, and a cultured heart."

Gone, now, that good white poet, to mingle in the poesy of the past; and vanished is she who felt the warm pressure of his hand, and looked into the clear depth of his poetic eye. But the world is here as when they trod it beneath its daily sun; and here are you and I. Happy are we, if we find the world more fair and sweet because of those who have breathed their influence upon it.

So we lay aside this Memorial, the joint work of Mr. and Mrs. Carr, the only book they ever produced, and go on with the story of their lives—a story full of incessant work, its routine broken by some such adventures as is suggested by the following from Anthony Haynes to Mrs. Carr: "You are invited to read a paper before the State Teachers' Association which meets at Sweet Springs, March 22-24, 1886. Your cabinet is just the thing we wish to see at the Display—bring it."

From Mr. Carr to Mrs. Carr, June 6th—showing that Mrs. Carr has her eyes unalterably set upon the future: "There is no advertisement of phonography in the Cincinnati Enquirer or the Courier-Journal. So you have learned the shorthand alphabet! Well, I am sure it will require a great deal of practice to report verbatim. I do want you to take a rest this summer, whether you learn phonography or not. The truth is, you ought to be resting now."

But the report of the Fourth Annual Convention of the Women's Christian Temperance Union shows that Mrs. Carr was doing anything but resting. The "Irrepressible Conflict" of this year, shows her laboring sturdily for temperance. Further letters show her struggling at spare moments with shorthand. What will she do with that? This from Mrs. S. E. Shortridge of the C. W. B. M., suggests a new activity: