with access to the bath. A gymnasium gives opportunity for physical development, so often overlooked in such institutions. The seminary offers unrivaled opportunities for theological research, as well as a broad culture in science and literature, not usually joined to a theological course. While the seminary is intended principally for the ecclesiastical province of St. Paul, and draws its students from the dioceses comprised in this province, still it is open to students of all sections of the country, and from the first its fullest capacity has been tested. The Right Reverend Monsignor Caillet, a pioneer in Minnesota religious life, was its first rector. On his death the Very Reverend Patrick R. Heffron, a young man of unusual attainments and brilliancy, became its rector. Two Protestant colleges in the environs of St. Paul owe, in a large measure, their prolonged activity to Mr. Hill's generosity Macalester, a Presbyterian institution, and Hamline, of the Methodist denomination. Indeed, scarcely a church of St. Paul has appealed to Mr. Hill in vain in its financial crises; and many towns along the lines of his road show with pride some church, educational, or philanthropic institution which he has built or helped to build.

In Mr. Hill we have the seer, with all the nineteenth century improvements. In him the highest imagination is yoked to the lowliest common sense; the vision is followed by the deed. Mountains, seas, continents, wars, and empires are pawns in his game; but each spike which holds his rails is considered as carefully as though it were to serve for the axis of the universe.

His imagination is not of the lawless order which runs riot to no purpose; it is the masterful architect, which directs his nimble intellect as it builds. His mind's eye is telescopic, looking far beyond the range of ordinary human vision, and seeing things not so much as they are, but rather as they may be. He saw the great Northwest, lying imprisoned like the prince in the Arabian Nights, half man and half marble, and has set it free in its own proper shape, with all its possibilities restored. His faith, moving mountains, both literally and figuratively, has led the world's superfluous population into the wilderness, to behold and to work miracles. They have felled the forests, tilled the soil, dug mines, built houses, banks, churches, and colleges, under the delusion that these

enterprises were of their own suggestion; but, like Alice and the red chessman in "Wonderland," they are merely acting a part in the White King's dream.

12

THE VICTORY IN DEFEAT.

EARLY a hundred thousand Romans are assembled in the Colosseum to see the hated Christians struggle for their lives with the wild beasts of the amphitheater. The grand spectacle is preceded by a duel between two rival gladiators, trained to fight to the death to amuse the populace. When a gladiator hit his adversary in such contests, he would say "Hoc habet" (He has it), and look up to see whether he should kill or spare. If the people held their thumbs up, the victim would be left to recover; if down, he was to die. If he showed the least reluctance in presenting his throat for the death blow, there would rise a scornful shout: "Recipe ferrum" (Receive the steel). Prominent persons would sometimes go into the arena and watch the death agonies of the vanquished, or taste the warm blood of some brave hero.

The two rival gladiators, as they entered, had shouted to the emperor: "Ave, Cæsar, morituri te salutant" (Hail, Cæsar, those about to die salute thee). Then in mortal strife they fought long and desperately, their faces wet with perspiration and dark with the dust of the arena. Suddenly an aged stranger in the audience leaps over the railing, and, standing bareheaded and barefoot between the contestants, bids them stay their hands. A hissing sound comes from the vast audience, like steam issuing from a geyser, followed by calls of "Back, back, old man." But the gray-haired hermit stands like a statue. "Cut him down, cut him down," roar the spectators, and the gladiators strike the would-be peacemaker to earth, and fight over his dead body.

But what of it? What is the life of a poor old hermit compared with the thousands who have met their deaths in that vast arena? The unknown man died, indeed, but his death brought Rome to her senses, and no more gladiatorial contests disgraced the Colosseum, while in every province of the empire the custom was utterly abolished, to be revived no more. The vast ruin stands to-day a monument to the victory in the hermit's defeat.

No man fails who does his best, for, if the critical world ignore him, his labor is weighed in the scales of Omniscient Justice. As there is no effect without cause, no loss of energy in the world, so conscientious persistence cannot fail of its ultimate reward.

One of the first lessons of life is to learn how to get victory out of defeat. It takes courage and stamina, when mortified and embarrassed by humiliating disaster, to seek in the wreck or ruins the elements of future conquest. Yet this measures the difference between those who succeed and those who fail. You cannot measure a man by his failures. You must know what use he makes of them. What did they mean to him? What did he get out of them?

I always watch with great interest a young man's first failure. It is the index of his life, the measure of his successpower. The mere fact of his failure does not interest me much; but how did he take his defeat? What did he do next? Was he discouraged? Did he slink out of sight? Did he conclude that he had made a mistake in his calling, and dabble in something else? Or did he up and at it again with a determination that knows no defeat?

"I thank God I was not made a dexterous manipulator," said Humphry Davy, "for the most important of my discoveries have been suggested to me by failures."

"God forbid that I should do this thing, and flee away from them," said Judas Maccabæus, when, with only eight hundred faithful men, he was urged to retire before the Syrian army of twenty thousand. "If our time be come, let us die manfully for our brethren, and let us not stain our honor."

"Sore was the battle," says Miss Yonge; "as sore as that waged by the three hundred at Thermopylæ, and the end was the same. Judas and his eight hundred were not driven from the field, but lay dead upon it. But their work was done. The moral effect of such a defeat goes farther than many a victory. These lives, sold so dearly, were the price of freedom for Judea. Judas's brothers, Jonathan and Simon, laid him in his father's tomb, and then ended the work that he had begun; and when Simon died, the Jews, once so trodden on, were the most prosperous race in the East. The temple was raised from its ruins, and the exploits of the Maccabees