Thus passed and ended our Christmas holidays. Thus delightfully began our New Year. And as each season has appeared, it has brought the memory of those scenes with it, and pleasant memories indeed they've been to us. And now, Reader, receive our holiday greeting-we wish you heartily -as gems set in the golden joys of the coming vacation-a truly Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. A. B. Vale. “Οὐχ οἱ τόποὶ τοὺς ἄνδρας ἐντίμους, ἀλλ ̓ οἱ ἄνδρες OUR Alma Mater! Yale, time honored name! Illustrious once, but canonized by time,- The pride and bulwark of our native land. When Goths and Vandals burn each classic hall, In goodly row see yonder buildings stand VOL. XVII. With untold treasures scattered at its side, Here points to Heaven the unpretending spire Kind hearted guardian, without much to please, Who gains thee comes to durance vile at last, Beethoven's fame demands a passing word, Henceforth in silence and contempt shall die; The organ's swell shall drown each grumbler's voice, A moment glance along the aisles below, With bell surmounted, and with turret crowned, 12 Restraint relaxed, and for the moment free, All thoughts of fizzles, flunks, and boring, flee. The Athenæum next in all its glory, Our notice waits, nor should it vainly wait,- Thou noble structure, Palace of the Nine, To burn and glow, forever pure and bright, And scatter darkness with their radiant light,— Now may the Muse who makes my song her care, Thou Band of Brothers! glorious, firm and strong, And age shall bring no wasting slow decay. Be banished strife; though not the self-same hall And thou, our Sister, youngest of the three, Be hushed the song; for time alike would fail, But glory crown with laurel-wreath her brow, L. The Things which Life is Like. LIFE! Human Life!—that bitter-sweet reality which all men know and none can comprehend, so long the hackneyed composition-theme of every school boy writer, the suggestive subject on which every poet has displayed his powers, the important topic of all sermonizers, the daily thought of physicians and the constant study of metaphysicians,— has thus assumed in mens' ideas almost as many appearances as the 'human face divine' possesses in reality. Its aspects ever vary, for it is, like a Proteus, endlessly changing its shape, or like a Chameleon disguising itself in coats of many colors. Sometimes it even seems as if men looked at Life through spectacles of different tinted glass or varying magnifying powers. One man has ob tained the genuine "glorification glasses," and to him our Life on earth seems ineffably magnificent, while a neighbor underrates its value because his lorgnette has been perverted and reversed, and therefore lessens every object. Another thinks that Life is dark and disagreeable, and all because his glass is of a smoky hue; to another all around seems ‘blue,' or naught appears save through a sea-green medium. The glasses of another awkwardly distort, from their imperfect manufacture, all that is seen by their assistance, and others are so formed as only to allow a very narrow field of view, so that only portions of Life can be examined by their aid. We are also sure that there must be glasses of a double refracting power, some men are so used to "seeing double." One thing is fortunate, these so-called "Helps to See" may at any time be changed. It is however very curious to observe how the various ideas of Life have been expressed at different times by different kinds of men. Some lymphatic being says that Life is nothing but a winter's day, a journey to the tomb, an empty dream, a vision, or a fleeting show; to another Life is a mystery, a puzzle, a riddle to be guessed or a problem to be solved; and again we hear it likened to a prison bond which must here be worn and will hereafter be removed, a gem which must here be carefully preserved and polished, and hereafter prized. The plausibility of our belief in a future life has been shown by comparing the days of man to the life of the worm, the chrysalis, the butterfly; and our present existence has been likened at other times to a flight over a yawning gulf,' a 'day's labor before the rest of heaven,' 'a preface' to a book which is to be written in another world; 'a cup' of sorrow or of joy which we are mingling now, to be drunk hereafter. เ 6 Solomon likened Life to 'the silver cord' and the 'golden bowl;' Paul often compared it to a warfare, and the Great Teacher told us that the days of man were as grass, as a flower of the field, so he perisheth; Bunyan pictured Life as a long and wearied Pilgrimage up the Hill of Difficulty and through the Plains of Ease; Dr. Johnson compared it to an Eastern Caravansary; and we believe it is 'Poor Richard' who has a verse denoting Life as like ‘an Inn,’— 'Who goes the soonest has the least to pay ;' the poet Pope says Life is 6 a taper wasting the instant it takes fire;' the painter Cole glowingly pictured upon his canvas the protracted 'Voyage' of Life; Tupper declares that "Life is a strange avenue of various trees and flowers, Lightsome at commencement, but darkening to its end in a distant massy portal," |