This, indeed, appears to be the course of God's moral government on earth, which it is the part of wisdom as well as piety to recognize, in contemplating the various factors for good and for evil which confront each other at this point of the history of civil liberty in America; and, since civil liberty and civil rights are among the noblest fruits of Christianity, that warning voice should ever be in the ears of His chosen disciples of the State, 'What I say unto one, I say unto all, Watch.'"
The student, who was scarcely less impressed by the humor than by the gravity of the seer with whom he was permitted to converse so freely, asked, after a moment's pause, whether the duties of the American press were usually of the grave character which his caustic wit, at the opening of their conversation, had rendered so amusing.
"Oh! no," was the reply, "I must relate, before we separate, a curious incident, in connection with the foremost man in the Republican class,—to follow my figure of the school,—who was about to graduate with its highest honors. One day he went to New York; and while in the society of his friends there, he received from a zealous advocate and admirer, who familiarly styled his old classmate the 'Plumed Knight,' a decoction of his own invention which he thought would operate as a sort of politico-Brown-Sequard elixir. Mr. Blaine, without noticing the label, swallowed the contents of the bottle. The next day, upon examining it, he discovered that it was labelled 'Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.' He instantly feared that, in the condition of his own system and of the public atmosphere, this mixture would prove a deadly poison. It was such a whimsical compound, however, that we at first thought no harm could come of it. In a few days we saw our mistake. Mr. Blaine was taken desperately ill. We all got to work, and night and day we used stomach-pumps,—but to no purpose; the mixture had so completely paralyzed the unfortunate candidate for the first honors of the national class that we despaired of his political life. You now see how all the leaders of the press must be forever on the alert for their friends as well as against their enemies. But I must now say adieu. I shall endeavor to obtain the views of our brethren on the subject of the legal status of the civil rights of
