"Father," came little Maggie's voice, so strained and low, as she grasped his arm and looked up into his face with wide, wild eyes, "did-did,-oh, father! what is it? Don't look that way--it's—it's-the water, father,—-we-"

Madge, Madge, quick! Come!" called a loud, imperative voice at the window; and, at the same moment, Stephen McConnel's strong arm dashed out the rotting window frame, and his strong, commanding face peered into the half-lighted little room. "Quick,—quick, girl. Come here! In a moment your house will go!"

"Father, come," cried Mag, turning to the old man, and pulling him with all her strength toward the little opening. But he only looked at her with a great dread in his eyes, and stood perfectly still.

"Promise me, Mag," gasped he, "promise me!"

Madge!" and Stephen McConnel's arm grasped her and drew her towards him. A dizzy quiver ran through the little cottage. The old man tottered forward, his arms outstretched. "Father, father," and with a bound little Mag was in her father's arms, and Stephen McConnel was high up on the bank-alone. A. L. L. '81.

A PLEA FOR A CREED.

Curiously enough, it is not those who deny creeds and say, "I have none," who need to be converted to the adoption of some definitive articles of faith; for, if they did but recognize the fact, their refusal to formulate their belief makes the nucleus around which they wind the threads of at least a negative faith. I preach only against that great crowd of wavering mortals, whose faith has not even backbone enough for negation.

Granted, as my opponents would insist, that adherence to formal statement is a sign of limited comprehension, it does not follow, as this same disclaimer would have us believe, that the statement itself limits understanding. If, indeed, a kind fate had generously ordained that the intellect of man should embrace at once the whole of truth, the feeblest mind might easily comprehend that limitations would be superfluous. But, however unhappily, this is not the case; and the somewhat limited intellect of the human race, as well as the expansive goodfeeling of the would-be creedless, must be taken into account in any discussion of the question. I mention good-feeling because I believe there are two general principles on which the advocates of undefined license in belief base their arguments,brotherly love, and a desire for the truth-grounds, it must be confessed, which, in themselves, are not open to the charge of excessive definiteness.

Now brotherly love is 'commendable in its way, but is its way that of creeds? Upon careful consideration, I think not. A love of truth is in every way desirable, but is this furthered by the absence of a creed? Candor compels me to answer in the negative. If I am not mistaken, it is in the province of religion that brotherly love is supposed to be most conspicuously promoted by the absence of specific statement. I say religion, because that is the only one of the great activities of the human mind in which intellect is avowedly subject to the feelings. In science we must be critical, in morals reasonable, but in religion" as a little child." Here, then, the absence of a creed is supposed to be most favorably felt, though it is difficult to see just why, when we remember that it is precisely with the emotional part of religion that a creed has nothing to do. Creeds are the boundaries of denominations, the lines which separate the church into its different zones, from the torrid belt of fiery Calvinism, to the frigid regions of inconsistent Rationalism. But all denominations are one in their worship of God, in love of their fellow-men, in the inculcation

of charity, of good-will, of generosity, and all the list of virtues which are rather the outcome of instinct, than of accurate reason. Only in the region of intellectual conviction does the church insist upon a dogmatic statement of its doctrine; and with this brotherly love has no connection. Doctrinal points are simply questions of opinion, which the absence of a creed would not indeed annul, but which are made much clearer and more precise by its presence.

But there still remains the argument that a creed, from its office as a boundary line, comes to be a barrier and a hinderance to the liberally disposed, in their search for truth. I repeat that this might be so, if one mind were capable of embracing every side of even the smallest truth; but, since it is not, a creed serves simply the purpose of defining that particular side which its professor does comprehend. Instead of narrowing his conception, it only serves the purpose of making clearer to himself and others its extent and order. Instead of restraining breadth of mind, a creed is one of the stepping. stones to a wider faith; for, until a man can say definitely, “I know this," he lacks one of the most effective aids to a more comprehensive knowledge.

In religion, then, a creed gives all the exactness of a definition to our faith, and all the added confidence and beauty which come with expression. Faith is, indeed, the soul of the church; but a creed is her body, and must continue to be so, as long as she is the church militant, and not the church triumphant.

Even science, an infant in years, when compared with the church, feels the necessity of a creed. If we think, we must think in a specific direction; and so the scientific world splits up into Darwinites, into followers of Huxley, into devotees. of Agassiz. In the department of Ethics, it may, with some show of truth, be said that, although that science is the foundation of society and the basis of human effort, it yet possesses no creed. But this deficiency, instead of being an outcome of

ethical knowledge, is only a sign of our ignorance and narrowness in this direction. The ethical science has no creed, because the number of exact and demonstrable truths in its department is so small that the facts which we do know must inevitably serve as common data, until our knowledge has become wider. A knowledge whose field is only broad enough now for its disciples to follow each other in one straight and narrow way, as it increases in extent will surely be cut and crossed by the diverging paths of those whose differing abilities or varied opportunities force them happily into separate roads. Happily, I say, because, in ethical, as in military science, it is true that a large army distributed in detachments will be more effective than the same body marching in unbroken order. And it is now more than every necessary for the workers in ethical science to seek out new truths and establish them beyond dispute. The present is an age when the great body of the people are becoming inaccessible to religious truth, and its place must be supplied by something which appeals to an essential quality of our common nature. Nothing is so universal as the instinct for moral truth, nothing offers a wider field for the efforts of an exact thinker.

Now, when we have owned that creeds are a beneficent fact in the church, are found to be essential in scientific research, and inevitable as a consequence of thought in ethical science, have we not established their application to the two essential departments of human energy, religious and scientific thought? I would be far from obstructing the current of fraternal affection in the church or the cordial relation of brothers in science; but is it not true that even such parts of our nature are subject to certain restrictions and limitations, and that even brotherly love is discriminating?

M. F. H., '84.

De Temporibus et Moribus.

A conversation that took place one evening in Cambridge about three years ago will, I think, deserve a place in the history of woman's education. Said the old professor as he parted with his friend, "This is something we shall not forget. We have founded a university to-night." The talk had been long and earnest, and this had been its theme: how, in the interests of economy, can a part of the surplus power of Harvard College be utilized for the benefit of women?, The reply to this question, so far as it is answerable to-day, is announced in the modest little circular which offers "Private Collegiate Instruction for Women in Cambridge, Mass." The founders of this institution gave it a name of truly royal length; but the public is short for time, and dubs it the "Annex." By this name it is generally known, though its friends and students are careful to enclose it in protecting quotation marks. The name is not inviting. It suggests an ephemeral structure at a country fair, provided for the overflow of onions, squashes, and premium bedquilts: a building bare, unpainted, with a strong fragrance of fresh boards. It is true the "Annex" has not as yet great architectural pretensions; it is waiting hopefully for its endowment. In the meanwhile, it has taken up its abode in the four front rooms of a plain, unobtrusive house in the classic neighborhood of the Appian Way. One of these rooms has been cosily fitted up by the lady managers as a parlor or reading-room. Here are several