I

EDWARD COLLINS DOWNING.

F it be true that the color of our life is generally such as the first three or four years in which we are our masters, then, in that period did the subject of this sketch draw the outline of the picture and become the limner of his future years. His life did not begin in melody or under the inspiration of song or muse; it began in work, in sorrow, in study, and progressed in conflict.

Edward C. Downing is the son of the late Judge Joseph H. Downing, of Wooster, Ohio, and was born February 24, 1862. He graduated at the High School of that city in the class of 1880, and at the University of Wooster in 1885, taking the classical course and receiving the degree A. B. Soon after graduation, he was invited to the superintendency of the Public Schools of Wolcott, Iowa, where he remained for a year, and where he acquired a most enviable reputation as a teacher. His labors had been more satisfactory than those of any of his predecessors, and that his services were highly appreciated is evinced by the fact that the Board tried to retain him by a tender of increased wages; but Wolcott did not supply a field sufficiently extensive for his equipments and abilities, and a proposition, offering him the professorship of Greek and Latin languages in Carthage (Mo.) College, being received, he accepted it, and there he labored for two years with credit and honor to himself. It was a source of profound regret to the Board of Trustees and students, when, in 1888, he resigned, to take charge of the Toulon (Ill.) Academy. It will be observed from the foregoing that Mr. Downing has been a successful teacher; that he has built up the various institutions over which he has been called to preside, and has fostered the spirit necessary to exalt their standard and character.

Mr. Downing first sought the Parnassian shades before his twentieth year, his earlier verses being read at school and on social occasions. During his college years he composed numerous original poems and translations of Horace, Latin hymns, etc., many of which were published in the college or city papers. "The Angel Spirit,” a mosaic of beauty, and worthy of the pen of Willis, first appeared in the Indianapolis Journal, and the press gave it a welcome reception and flattering circulation. He has furnished both local and editorial matter for the press of Toulon and been correspondent for The Jacksonian and Wooster (Ohio) Republican, and some of the standard metropolitan journals. Upon his arrival at Toulon, he became the editor of the Lumen Litterarum, a literary magazine, whose columns were enriched by his thought. He

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is at present engaged on a work, entitled, "The Dative with Verbs," which will no doubt be a valuable emanation of his pen and illustrate his technical scholarship. In 1888 he published, at Wooster, a small volume of poems, entitled, "Minutes with the Muses," that received a most cordial and appreciative attention from the local public.

On the paternal side, Mr. Downing is the product of an American ancestry for several generations; but on the maternal side, is of Scotch-Irish ancestry-a mingling of the Wallaces, Douglasses and Campbells-adherents of the United Presbyterian Church, defenders of the Westminster confession and creed, and eminent for their piety, simplicity of life, and firm unfaltering religious zeal. He possesses a versatile genius, and can be humorous and sportive, sentimental or matter-of-fact, imperturable or emotional, vivacious or serene, sunny and bright or serious, sombre, and severe. He is a worker, a student. In the arena of prose, he is strong and graceful; but his preëmptions are in the field of poesy. B. D.

I AM TOO FOND.

I AM too fond: I know I am. Sometimes I wish it were not so; And like one with less of heart,

I should be happier, I know.

I am too fond: When I look down Into the depths of her brown eyes, And they do not look back my love, There is a pain in the surprise.

I am too fond: If day goes by Without some tender word or kiss, Without some token of her love,

You cannot tell how much I miss.

I am too fond: Give me no love,
Or give it to me full and free.
There is no medium between
No love and perfect love, for me.

BESIDE YOU.

I DREAMED, and I think I have told you,
I sat by you, darling, one night,
And looked in your eyes that were sparkling
Like jewels that blaze in the light.

And while we were sitting there talking,

And listening to what each would speak,

In grateful expression of goodness, You laid your dear face on my cheek.

Oh, that was a drink in the desert,
Of water as sweet as there runs,
A flash on my soul of the morning,
A golden light down from the suns

Oh, sweet be that dream to me ever,
So long as the stars above shine,
When I thought I was sitting beside you,
And you laid your soft cheek upon mine.

FRATERNITY.

THERE is something we feel that we cannot express
That teems in our hearts with a sweet tenderness.
The grasp and the greeting, the smile and the tone,
Are positive proof you are one of our own.
I cannot see how any frater could fall
From the love of the frat that is dear to us all.
He may grow Platonic and careless and cold,
Till he finds a warm welcome again in the fold;
Then he gathers new strength and appreciates more
The ties that he honored and cherished before.
The winter may tarry, the snow may be deep,
But the violets under are only asleep;

The buds that we thought were all chilled in the blast
Will grow into blossom and fruitage at last.
They bloom at the banquet in laughter and fun,
As apples grow beautiful under the sun.
The ripened fruit falls and we gather it up,
And run its wine over our mirth-giving cup.
The music of viols and vibrating strings
Is nothing to that which the heart-robin sings.
O player, thy tunes have no feeling like ours
That well from our hearts like the perfume of flowers;
Thy art is in vain when above it there rolls,
From our eyes and our lips, the glad song of our
souls.

MAY.

There are many days that are full of cheer,
In the summer sun and the winter snow;
But the sweetest time of all the year
Is when the apple blossoms blow.
Oh! then I think that nature seems
Decked out like a bride with orange flowers,
And the high ideal of lovers' dreams

Has then come down to this world of ours.
-Apple Blossoms.

A

AMELIA B. WELBY.

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MELIA B. COPPUCK was born at St. Michael's, Md., in 1821. Her father removed to Louisville, Ky., in 1835, where two years after, when scarcely seventeen years of age, Miss Coppuck was married to Mr. George B. Welby, a merchant. Her first poems, over the signature of “Amelia,” were published in the Louisville Journal, then edited by that genial poet, George D. Prentice. Her productions were universally admired, and she soon became famous. When a volume of her poems appeared in 1844, it quickly passed through several editions, and many of her songs were set to music. She has repeatedly been pronounced the sweetest of all our singers. Poe was among her many admirers, and one of her warmest friends. When she died, in 1852, a feeling of keenest regret swept over all the land, for the name Amelia" had become as a household word. Not a line had she ever written that did not tend to uplift and ennoble. One of Nature's sweetest children, living near to the gentle mother-heart, she interpreted, as but few have done, the voices of breeze and brook, the songs of the birds, and the murmur of the waves. Her love poems are among the best. Totally devoid of passion-whose mission is to degrade her song carries all thought and feeling with it upward. Her personal appearance, as described to the writer by one who knew her, was, "Of medium height, slender, fair, with brown hair, a thoughtful, refined face, and beautiful eyes. She was quiet, unaffected, retiring, almost shy, warm hearted, and, above all, a devout Christian." If she had not died so young, she would, no doubt, have written much that was even better and stronger than what she has left behind her. That she wrote so much in the few years she lived, shows that she wrote as rapidly as she did gracefully. M. P. S.

PULPIT ELOQUENCE.

THE day was declining, the breeze in its glee,
Had left the fair blossoms to sing on the sea,
As the sun in its gorgeousness, radiant and still,
Dropped down like a gem from the brow of the hill:
One tremulous star, in the glory of June,
Came out with a smile and sat down by the moon,
As she graced her blue throne with the pride of a
queen,

The smiles of her loveliness glad'ning the scene.

The scene was enchanting! in distance away Rolled the foam-crested waves of the Chesapeake

Bay,

As I traced its green windings, a murmur of prayer,
With the hymns of the worshipers, rose on the air;
And, drawn by the links of its sweetness along,
I stood unobserved in the midst of the throng.
For a while my young spirit still wandered about,
With the birds and the woods, that were singing
without;

But birds, waves and zephyrs were quickly forgot
In one angel-like being that brightened the spot.

In stature majestic, apart from the throng,
He stood in his beauty, the theme of my song;
His cheek pale with fervor, the blue orbs above
Lit up with the splendors of youth and of love;
Yet the heart-glowing raptures that beamed from
those eyes,

Seemed saddened by sorrows, and chastened by sighs,

As if the young heart in its bloom had grown cold, With its love unrequited, its sorrows untold.

Such language as his I may never recall,
But his theme was salvation, salvation to all;
And the souls of a hundred in ecstasy hung
On the manna-like sweetness that dropped from his
tongue.

Not alone on the ear his wild eloquence stole,
Enforced by each gesture, it sank to the soul,
Till it seemed that an angel had brightened the rod,
And brought to each bosom a message from God.

He spoke of the Savior-what pictures he drew! The scene of His sufferings rose clear on my view; The cross, the rude cross where He suffered and died,

The gush of bright crimson that flowed from His side,

The cup of His sorrows, the wormwood and gall,
The darkness that mantled the earth as a pall,
The garland of thorns, and the demon-like crews,
Who knelt as they scoffed Him: "Hail, King of
the Jews!"

He spake, and it seemed that his statue-like form
Expanded and glowed, as his spirit grew warm;
His tone so impassioned, so melting in air,
As, touched with compassion, he ended in prayer.
His hands clasped above him, his blue orbs up-
thrown,

Still pleading for sins that were never his own, When that mouth where such sweetness ineffable clung

Still spoke, though expression had died on his tongue.

There's a charm in delivery, a magical art

That thrills, like a kiss, from the lips to the heart; 'Tis the glance, the expression, the well-chosen

word,

By whose magic the depths of the spirit are stirred; The smile, the mute gesture, the soul-startling pause,

The eye's sweet expression, that melts while it awes,
The lip's soft persuasion, its musical tone-
O, such was the charm of that eloquent one!

The time is long past, yet how clearly defined,
That bay, church and village float up on my mind!

I see amid azure, the moon in her pride,
With the sweet little trembler that sat by her side;
I hear the blue waves, as she wanders along,
Leap up in their gladness and sing her a song;
And I tread in the pathway half-worn o'er the sod,
By the feet that went up to the worship of God.

The time is long past, yet what visions I see!
The past, the dim past is the present to me;

I am standing once more 'mid the heart-stricken throng,

A vision floats up, 'tis the theme of my song.
All glorious and bright as a spirit of air,
The light like a halo encircling his hair,
As I catch the same accents of sweetness and love,
That whisper of Jesus, and point us above.

How sweet to my heart is the picture I've traced!
Its chain of bright fancies seemed almost effaced,
Till memory, the fond one that sits in the soul,
Took up the frail links and connected the whole.
As the dew to the blossom, the bud to the bee,
As the scent to the rose, are these memories to me!
Round the chords of my heart they have tremblingly

clung,

And the echo it brings is the song I have sung.