THE MEMORIES OF AULD LANG SYNE.

[Full text of a response to this toast delivered at an annual banquet of the Chi Phi Fraternity, at the Piedmont Hotel, in Atlanta, Ga., Friday evening, November 27, 1908.]

There is music and music. But when all the keys have been touched and all the chords have been swept and all the minstrels have sung, it still remains that the sweetest of life's lingering strains is Mother; and next to the mother who bore me on her breast is the mother whose untarnished emblem is glittering on my breast tonight.

I love her for the memories of auld lang syne. I love her for the sacred symbolism of the mystic tie. I love her for the friendships, warm and tender, with which she has enriched my life; and, after wandering up and down the earth, I can say in the seasoned accents of experience that, while many are the friends whom I have grappled to my soul with hoops of steel, the truest friends my heart has ever known-the friends of cloudy days and of wintry skies -whose friendship amid the decay of other joys has been an unchanging evergreen-are the friends with whom I clasped hands in Chi Phi comradeship in the old Athenian days.

Finer than the finest thread in Penelope's loom, yet stouter than the stoutest cord in the bow of Ulysses, are the ties which bind Chi Phies together.

What strikes me in this splendid gathering is this: We come from scattered portions of this great republic. We represent some dozen-perhaps some score of states. We suggest, in our environment and in our lineage, the rival forces which once held Puritan and Cavalier in steeled estrangement. But, wearing the Scarlet and the Blue, we are here tonight, a band of brothers, not only to twine the wreaths of song around our alma mater's brow, but to bespeak the stripe of kindred on our country's flag and to emphasize the truism of the trite old metaphor that, while the drops which mingle in the sea are many, the majestic music of old Ocean's harp is one.

We are told, with an accent of impatience, that the age in which we live is hopelessly devoid of sentiment. But, despite the clang of the forge and the whir of the spindle

and the roar of the mart, it is no heresy to say that I believe in sentiment. The fountain-spring of humanity's best inspiration-it may not appear upon the surface. Like the waters of Arethusa, it may sparkle in concealment. But it feeds the dynamos, and drives the engines, and lights the incandescent lamps of this electric age.

Its work is basic. It pulsates in the finer feelings, it wells from the deeper thoughts, it breathes in the holier aspirations of man. What is home but the spot of earth which sentiment has hallowed? When sentiment dies, dies love. The master-passion itself is only a sentiment; but a sentiment which inheres in man's immortality. It speaks the soul's language. It breathes the soul's breath. It will not, because it cannot, die.

Beside the waters of Afton sleeps Highland Mary. But the flame which she kindled in a plowman's breast turns every lover's heart to Scotland, and a' the world's

"a field around

The castle o' Montgomery."

Then let us call to gentle Robert Burns. Thou merriest of the midnight revellers-who piped the lay of Tam O'Shanter and woke the braes of Bonnie Doon-come, lend us your lilting song of auld acquaintance,

"And we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne."

Brother Toastmaster, the muse of Byron, in "The Bride of Abydos, has raised this question:

"Know ye the land of the cedar and vine

Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine;
Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume,
Wax faint o'er the garden of Gul in her bloom;

Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit

And the voice of the nightingale never is mute;

Where the tints of the earth and the hues of the sky,

In color though varied in beauty may vie?"

Aye, Childe Harold, we know it well. For, often, in heavy seas, we have headed for its light and dipped anchor in its port. 'Tis the Land of Yesterday.

Sir, I accept the toast.

The memories of auld lang syne. Though still on the morning side of the meridian, I am · nothing loath to take the backward look. Nor have I aught to fear from the clutches of Charybdís when the beckoning sirens are the memories of Chi Phi.

What subtle ethers of intoxication-what ineffable odors of Arabian myrrh-steep the sensibilities, when recollections like these stir the aromas of the rose jar and press the magic spring of the alabaster box. We are boys again. Back in the old college town, we gather about the mystic shrine. We renew the old companionships. We revive the old songs. We bend again at the mother's knee; and of all the beautiful pictures

"That hang on Memory's wall

The one of the Chi Phi club-room
Seemeth the best of all."

But hark, I hear a voice that drowns the nightingale's. It quickens the pulse-beat. It thrills the nerve fibre to the finger-tips; and it gives us back the old, old sigh, that perfect joy

"perplexed for utterance

Stole from her sister, Sorrow."

On, Stanley, on. We cannot linger here. For, it calls us, like the Angelus, to another place of worship, and whether it be the balcony of Juliet or the bower of Rosalind, the fair enchantress is the Chi Phi girl.

"Long may she rule, queen of the heart and home
Her loyal subject and her lover sings.

Till Heaven, though little, shall improve her some
And make her perfect with a pair of wings."

The happiest of human lots is not ideal. Longfellow's chant is true:

"Into each life some rain must fall

Some days be dark and dreary."

Upon some of us the crosses weigh. Over most of us the olives bend. What a boon from Heaven to us all is Memory. A well spring in the desert. A song in the night. Aye, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. When

cares oppress and clouds encompass and fever racks the brain, we have only to wake this magic charm and, lo, we are wafted over seas and mountains, over tide and time, to the long deserted but still verdant haunts of youth. The east wind dies in music. The April morning dawns in pearl. The threads of silver turn to gold; and life is beautiful again.

Who can paint like Memory? Though I have wandered with the poets, I have gazed upon no scenes in literature which can match the landscapes of this wizard artist. Not even the enchanted clime of the Byronic stanza. Not the fabled groves of the old Arcadia. Not the whispering emeralds of the Shakespearean shades in the forest of Arden. Not the island valley of the Arthurian legend, hymned by Tennyson in his "Idylls of the King:"

"Where falls not hail or rain or any snow

Nor ever wind blows loudly, but it lies

Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns

And bowery hollows, crowned with summer sea."

The memories of auld lang syne. They have been music to my ear. They have been nectar to my lips. They have been balsam to my wounds; and, striking deeper still, they have been to my enhungered soul, the very manna of the wilderness. They have sunned my days and they have starred my nights-like Petrarch's Tuscan skies. Through the lights and shadows of more than twenty years, they have been my dancing Troubadours, my traveling minstrels. They were with me when, beyond the seas, I wandered from clime to clime. They were with me when, across the continent, I lingered among the blooms of Avalon; and only the God who knows the music of the spheres can tell what melody unspoken they are making in my soul tonight.

Brethren of the mystic tie, it is said that the tired traveler, while lingering at the green oasis, forgets the sultry breath and the burning sands of the desert. I know how true it is; and to fill this heart and to nerve this arm, I could covet no sweeter cup of old Falernian than the privilege of mingling with you in your annual gatherings.

Alas, it may not be. But I am richer for all time to come in the jeweled hours which this night has brought to the sparkling stores of recollection; and, if aught can be added to the faltering thanks of Hamlet, let it be the parting accents of the Bard of Erin:

"Farewell, but whenever you welcome the hour
That awakens the night-song of mirth in your bower
Remember the one who once welcomed it too
And forgot his own griefs to be happy with you.

*

Long, long be my heart with such memories filled,
Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled,
You may break, you may shatter, the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still."

CHI-PHIES AS PEACE-MAKERS.

[Extract from an address delivered at a banquet of the Chi Phi Fraternity, at the Kimball House, in Atlanta, Ga., December 1, 1900, during a national congress of the brotherhood.]

Looking into the faces of my brethren here assembled, I am forcibly impressed with the fitness of the toast to which I am invited to respond tonight. Chi Phies as champions of the olive branch. Impersonating the spirit I have just described, it has been the mission of Chi Phi, not only to disseminate the principles of brotherhood, but to heal the wounds of war engendered by the strife of forty years ago, and to make the flag which waves today above our heads the emblem of one common brotherhood of hearts.

Long before the wreaths of smoke were lifted from the field of battle, she began her work of reconciliation. With her chapters scattered over the entire continent, she set herself to work, pouring oil upon the troubled waters. She knit the ties of brotherhood afresh; and .she healed the breach of separation between the Blue upon the one hand and the Gray upon the other, by mingling on the breasts of each the Scarlet and the Blue. She proclaimed from every chapter hall, as did Lamar above the bier of Sumner: "Let us know one another and we will love one