wise, so stern and rigid a tyrant was my conscience. I am not intending to say that I was then, or that I have always, since then, been prompted to do what is right. The special fact I wish to make clear is that, when I have been led to judge one course rather than another to be the right one it has been imperative with me to go as this judgment directs.

For a while I was forced to bear severe punishment from my class-mates because of my "obstinacy." I was, for some weeks, practically companionless and friendless. I declined to receive the laudations of the enemies of my friends, though I had wrought victory for them: and, with my former friends avoiding me, I was necessitated to "go it alone."

But, the pleasant fact of which I have spoken, as being true after other like crises in my career, became evident in that College trouble before the day of our graduation had come. All my old time, particular friends voluntarily resumed their friendship with me; and, in my ClassAutograph books I read, now, more references to that unfortunate incident, and more protestations of personal friendship because of it, than are connected with any other of our personal relationships. One class-mate, who had seemed for a while actually embittered because of his disappointment, wrote:

"Let me now say with all truthfulness that your conduct in the political line last session is worthy of all praise."

Another wrote," When we were about to bestow upon you the honorable appellation of Class Poet, you, from right motives, no doubt made another sacrifice of interest to those good principles which have ever characterized your course in College."

Another wrote, "On one occasion you have been a sub

1¦

ject of which some would have made political capital. But from the dilemma in which you were placed-you escaped with great honor to yourself-though it may have been with personal sacrifice."

Still another apologized for his temporary alienation, saying, "You know my circumstances and it is unnecessary to bring up again the unpleasant associations of the past,"

And yet another wrote,-"In behalf of one having no claims upon your sympathy, or support, you voluntarily sacrificed honor which awaited you. I will ever associate," etc., etc.

But I need not repeat farther what this classmate wrote, or continue these tributes. I recall the details of this College affair that it may illustrate the particular statements I have thought it pertinent to make here,-statements which I should like my friends to bear in mind when some other events in my career of much greater personal, and even of public, importance meet us in the pages to come.

Whatever qualifications I may have had for the honorable office which my classmates were to have given me, the only candidate for the position, I have never believed made me worthy of the offered distinction,-certainly not of the title, "poet;" but I was fond of putting my thought into verse then; and the liking has never wholly failed me. So here, as another bit of self-gratifiaction in the making of this personal souvenir, I wish to embody an illustrative item of those days in College, which, unexpectedly, has happened to become available while I am writing this chapter.

Because of some correspondence I had been having last year, (1913), with an old friend in Boston, the following letter and its sequel came to pass. I am now pleasantly surprised at finding the correspondence and more in print

in the "Phi Kappa Sigma News Letter," of March, 1914.

I take the liberty of "lifting" it for these pages.

'DEAR BROTHERS OF PHI KAPPA SIGMA,

Alpha Mu Chapter,
BOSTON, MASS.

In the winter of 1861-62 our Beta Chapter was active and flourishing at Princeton College (now University). I was then eighteen years old and was a Junior in the College, transferred from Dickinson College, where I had been a member of the Epsilon Chapter of our Fraternity. During the winter of 1861-62, so I think, an anniversary banquet was held by the Beta Chapter at Princeton in the hotel then opposite the west campus gate, and I had been appointed to propose "the toast of the evening." Being somewhat addicted to verse-making I perpetrated "a pome" for the occasion, laboring hard to make it a worthy offering to our Fraternity and to the devotion of the Phi Kap devotees. What became of the finished effort I do not know.

Some months ago, more than a half century after this effusion was displayed to the Beta votaries at our Phi Kap Shrine, I happened, in looking over some old papers, to find, to my gratification, an early and well advanced draft of this metrical achievement of my boyhood. Of course, "the find" interests me as a production of my enthusiastic youth, and I have dared fancy that it might be worth while to transfer it to some of the Twentieth Century Phi Kaps as a bit of our history when the young Brotherhood was feeling its growing power and worth. As I am more closely associated now with the Alpha Mu Chapter than with any other, and the dear old Beta is only a memory, because of college discipline, I have taken the liberty of sending this relic of long ago to the brethren of Alpha Mu, with my love and best wishes.

I have copied the verses from the old yellowed sheets almost verbatim et literatim, so that "the pome" reads. now practically as it was read then, the only serious change being the dropping out of about a dozen lines which were

guilty of containing too many repetitions, and the doing away of some badly mixed metaphors. For the rest, the production is just as I gave it to the devoted group of happy Phi Kap boys, when I was a boy with them, at a dinner we ate one winter night in Princeton, at least fifty years ago. Most of the boys are now either very old men, or have left this world. As a matter of personal gratification, and also of love for "our dear Fraternity," I send this old-time tribute to the Brotherhood of this generation, who may care to keep it.

Fraternally yours,

Tokyo, Japan, August 10, 1913.

CLAY MACCAULEY.

OUR SHRINE AND OUR FRATERNITY.

A TOAST.

1861-62, Princeton, N. J.

Old Father Time again with kindly hand
Unites us at this feast-a Brother band;
A band connected by the strongest ties
Which in our Shrine of hallowed friendship rise;
A band in which the bonds of sacred Love
With every thought and rite are interwove,
And in whose Symbols bloom the choicest flowers
With which to brighten e'en the darkest hours.

Our Shrine is nobly raised, on Union based,
While quick-eyed Honor, faithful guard, is placed,
To watch with jealous eye its vestal flame
And keep our holy Altar free from shame.
There Secrecy stands veiled in mystic guise,
Bearing an incense we must ever prize.
And Sympathy is ready with her balm ;-
Concordia Semper, too, with potent calm;-
Both oft assuage our harassed, tempted hours,
With peace far sweeter than the breath of flowers.

The Star, see! how it sheds its brilliant rays
Full on our Ensign, where amid its blaze,
'Mid gleams so bright as almost dazzles sight
Are seen three letters writ in living light,—
"Phi Kappa Sigma," showing every hour

Our treasured "Knowledge" as the "Key to Power."
The Hand there points us from a path of harm
Towards the Serpent, with whose subtle charm
We start renewed from 'neath the Pillared Arch,
'Round which it twines; thence onward take our march
O'er Wisdom's ways about our noble Shrine,

And gain the Sceptre,-Power's royal sign.

Though hoar antiquity may not make boast
That she can scan the ages gone and lost,
And claim she planted there the corner-stone,
And raised our mighty Shrine;-yet it has grown
Today to such proportions massive, that its walls
Are reared aloft on deep-laid pedestals

So firm that ocean's waves could better shock
And dash into oblivion the stubborn rock,
Than Persecution, though with fiercest blame,
Could hope to sweep from earth its potent flame,
Or Slander vile, though full with malice fraught,
Could crush to earth and bring it down to naught.
It firmly stands, high-domed, full-towered still,
Has stood unscathed and proved invincible.

Its votaries are a host,-one Brother band,--
Whose chiefest joy is going hand in hand,—
Strong with the weak-each helping each in love
O'er all the ways in which their footsteps move.
Their aims are pure, and holy is their cause;
Their deeds are ruled by ancient, holy laws;
Those laws, the worthiest gifts to man e'er given,-
The Guide for him to God, to Peace, to Heaven.
These are the ways in which they seek to go,
This is the life they wish this world to show,-
Their words as bonds, their oaths as consecrate,
Their love sincere, their thoughts immaculate.