live through an old age of honor, and that by its means they may be able to attain to everlasting happiness.  I, myself, according to my disposition, shall not be slothful in sowing the seeds of wisdom among your servants in this land, being mindful of the injunction, “Sow thy seed in the morning, and at eventide let not thy hand cease; since thou knowest not what will spring up, whether these or those, and if both together, still better is it” (Eccles. xi. 6).  In the morning of my life and in the fruitful period of my studies I sowed seed in Britain, and now that my blood has grown cool in the evening of life, I still cease not; but sow the seed in France, desiring that both may spring up by the grace of God.  And now that my body has grown weak, I find consolation in the saying of St. Jerome, who declares in his letter to Nepotianus, “Almost all the powers of the body are altered in old men, and wisdom alone will increase while the rest decay.”  And a little further he says, “The old age of those who have adorned their youth with noble accomplishments and have meditated on the law of the Lord both day and night becomes more and more deeply accomplished with its years, more polished from experience, more wise by the lapse of time; and it reaps the sweetest fruit of ancient learning.”  In this letter in praise of wisdom, one who wishes can read many things of the scientific pursuits of the ancients, and can understand how eager were these ancients to abound in the grace of wisdom.  I have noted that your zeal, which is pleasing to God and praiseworthy, is always advancing toward this wisdom and takes pleasure in it, and that you are adorning the magnificence of your worldly rule with still greater intellectual splendor.  In this may our Lord Jesus Christ, who is himself the supreme type of divine wisdom, guard you and exalt you, and cause you to attain to the glory of His own blessed and everlasting vision.

HENRY M. ALDEN

(1836-)

Henry Mills Alden, since 1864 the editor of Harper’s Magazine, was born in Mount Tabor, Vermont, November 11th, 1836, the eighth in descent from Captain John Alden, the Pilgrim.  He graduated at Williams College, and studied theology at Andover Seminary, but was never ordained a minister, having almost immediately turned his attention to literature.  His first work that attracted attention was an essay on the Eleusinian Mysteries, published in the Atlantic Monthly.  The scholarship and subtle method revealed in this and similar works led to his engagement to deliver a course of twelve Lowell Institute lectures at Boston, in 1863 and 1864, and he took for his subject ‘The Structure of Paganism.’  Before this he had removed to New York, had engaged in general editorial work, and formed his lasting connection with the house of Harper and Brothers.