shamed me, and what amend can we make for our coldness but to send, at least, dollars to cheer the hearts of the devoted in this rude society where an American cheer and vernacular has almost a benediction.

The city has 40,000 people, street cars, but not any more business than Grinnell with 4,000 people. It takes for the daily potation thirty to forty barrels of pulque (their beer) from the cars doled out around the floral-decked Plaza and fountain; but a limp mail boy brings the letters for a capital city, and there is only one bank near this last city of refuge for the ill-fated Maximilian— shot twenty years ago by the liberals after being cut off from food and water, having impotently declared the death of any orator, or soldier, that opposed his reign. The mockery of his career I found in the Mexican museum-a carriage-the gaudiest of earth, a huge bust, and the Emperor in oil, full size, on a blooded steed.

Mexico-beads, bulls, beggars, burros and banquets, have been minor studies, all overshadowed by the country as God made it, in an air of balm, soil rich, and mountains to kiss the sky. The best as the worst of society is here-say one-tenth seeking power-civil or ecclesiastical; another tenth pleasure any way, and 10,000,000 eager for a bare animal existence, nominally free, but bound to the soil by the bigotry of priests and the poverty of serfdom - yet some very good. But all are rising under the iron ruler Diaz, the visitation of railways, American enterprise and devoted Christian teachers-only one where hundreds could work, perhaps with earlier results in Christian colonies engaged in manufacturing and on the soil.

I attended a dinner, in honor of Americans by the American colony of the City of Mexico-a grand spread, where we sat three hours, in honor of Thanksgiving Day, nursing the loves of the two republics. President, mayor, minister of war, U. S. Consul Moore, bankers of Kansas City, generals of both republics, warmed with the flowing cheer and clink of glasses; yet there was decorum without excess, only less joviality than at our annual banquets. My part was only a minor one at the feast of the gods- -a toast and tribute to the liberality of Americans, spending one hundred millions of money to reach this oldest capital of America, fragrant with the aroma of the flowers of the tropics-a profusion which recalls the fairy tales of childhood and a mirror of Eden, the garden of the Lord.

It is asked, what of Diaz, the president? We shall look to him in vain for high, moral restraining force. He is virtually an uncrowned king, while the constitution confers a ballot for president. The June election, 1888, revealed that he has no rival; for the press has one voice, re-echoed by the army of forty thousand, taken up by miners and railway capitalists, favoring even despotic powers to avert the wastes and woes of anarchy. He manifested a diplomatic turn in taking for his bride the young daughter of a Catholic official. A lawyer, he gained repute at the bar; in the field, the honors of a leader in battle; and he drank the dregs of want as a fugitive while chieftains thirsted for his blood. No ruler of our times has been taught in so many schools of adversity, and I confess admiration for the political wisdom of an Indian of unmixed blood. If plunderers and assassins in the evening are shot at break of day, it is to promote order and give that rare security to life and property, especially railway property, in Mexico now enjoyed. If the army seems large and costly, it is an economical device to prevent the cost and waste of revolution, which would be destructive to credit and to a wise system of internal improvements now attracting immigration, and soon to bring coal and iron ore together, insuring domestic fabrications for the miners, and hardware-making, that there may be here more of the comforts of home. His rule is not measured by the area of an American state, for Mexico is a hundred times as large as Massachusetts. A homogeneous people are not his subjects, but those vexed by European rule, princely adventurers, American rascals of low degree on the border, chieftains of the blood of Cortez, and the large majority of natives, only for thirty years released from under the yoke of slavery. If he wins the stranger by the suavity of a real gentleman, he has a broader claim to the regard of his people by the compulsory education of the children of the republic — a late enactment by the local government of a city of three hundred thousand people, where a supreme presidential voice insures personal safety and protection to property equal to that enjoyed by us. Of my other journeys, to every Western state and territory – once with a memorable company to Yellowstone Park and to see the silver spike driven on completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad- I have no time and room to write.

CHAPTER XXV.

Grinnell Quarter Centennial Celebration- Silver Wedding-A Sermon on Sermons - The Home Library - Tribute to a Life's Companion-Money Making-Words to Children and Grandchildren-Memorial of Faith.

THE first quarter centennial of the founding of our town occurred in 1879. It was computed that there were 10,000 persons presenta park full, cheered by bands of music, and the scream of locomotives. There were social feasts which our people are famous for spreading, making bountiful contributions from the larder and farm, and the best and rarest fruits from many lands.

The late venerable C. F. Clarkson, of Des Moines, gave a grand address on the western advances in the last twenty-five years, and in special compliment to a model town that has no timber, coal, water power, nor a central county-seat location.

It became my office to draw a picture of the changes since the surveyor's lone red flag was planted where it was predicted there never could be a city, by reason of wind exposure and other disadvantages. Then we were found by the Indian trails; now we are reached pleasantly riding on the rail. The deer in herds, whose haunts I disturbed by the grove, are scattered, and prowling wolves no longer howl at night. Walk about the brick blocks, colleges and churches to discover the American pirit, content to draw from the earth by husbandry the luxuriant grains and comely farm-stock. The wide, unshorn prairie garden has given place to homes of taste and business blocks, where tradesmen make facile exchanges with mechanic and farmer, replenishing stocks from the industrial centres of the nation.

Jubilation over material progress did not alone invite the long joyous shout. There was felicitation for intellectual and moral advancement. The roll-call of school pupils whose presence levied a tax on parents only, was ended. A payment to education was no longer assessed by the affluence of a patron in the number of chil

dren, but rated by the acres, stocks and money. A state public school policy had made education to the poor as free as air and sunshine.

Hear and answer! I said. What house in our township has gone up in flame during the last twenty-five years? I recall none; do you? No answer. A college building was burned by the neglect of a student, and a mill by fault of an engineer. Who of all our citizens has occupied the county poor-house? I know of none so unfortunate. "None!" was the response. "None of us rich, yet not objects of public charity."

We have in later years a jail for suspects, tramps and the vicious; but have one of our number looked through the bars? Proud I am that I am oblivious of one exception one who here had birth or domicile. He escaped. "Too smart to be caught," was the response. Not one of our people has worn the stripes of a criminal in our penitentiary. Far are we from claiming to be a people without common passions and temptations. What, then, is the great secret of exemption from society ills? It is the inhibition of a saloon, never tolerated in our city. Had it been, I could not have challenged you to name the victims of crime. I should not have asked you to look at these homes of taste and comfort, a community strong in moral affinities, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars which dram-shop licenses would have sunken. It is a moral and social status which is the pledge of a still brighter halo encircling our homes when our semi-centennial shall be observed by our children, who, let us hope, will not omit just praise for the virtues of their fathers, acknowledging the Divine hand which led

them here.

SILVER WEDDING.

The second notable occasion of home festivity was a Silver Wedding celebration, Feb. 5th, 1877. There was a spontaneous inpouring of citizens and friends from neighboring towns and several cities, on special trains, making an aggregate of one thousand guests welcomed at the Home, of whom seven hundred partook of a banquet at the new hotel. On this occasion, Prof. L. F. Parker, of Iowa City, on behalf of the guests, presented the very numerous silver and other gifts, and made an historical speech; poems by Prof. H. W. Parker, then of Amherst, Mass., and by an Iowa Col

lege graduate, S. Henderson Herrick, Esq., of Grinnell, were read. Conspicuous among the gifts was a Wooten's patent extra grade desk from citizens of the town and officers and employes of the Central railroad, of which gift the recipient in response spoke as "a Centennial product and wonder with one hundred compartments, that may serve a like office to the fortunate user, in business facility and order, to the one hundred gates which gave protection and renown to the city celebrated in immortal song".

It is gratifying that the fairer of the two recipients of this ovation received deserved compliments in the speeches made, for her well recognized worth. As for the other, without recalling to his disadvantage the story of the preacher who boasted that his service cost the people nothing, and was answered that perhaps it was worth nothing, the following volunteer toast from Mr. John W. Cheshire may be quoted as showing that some gratuitous services are recognized as such:

"Here is to the citizen that gave a town for education, ground for a 'college-green', and a cemetery for the dead; a preacher without pay; a university and bank president without salary; president of the State Society of Wool Growers, with the honors of a competitive sheep-shearer at the festival, and paying the awards; of the State Horticultural Society chief officer, gathering by proxy the fruits of the orchard, securing the national medal and award for Iowa, and meeting the bills; a lawyer, waiving fees to make settlements and friends of litigants; lecturer and occasional orator, as a merry pastime; projector and president of railroads only reward given, cheers, resolutions, and an occasional walking cane; spurning combinations to put him in the national Senate, or a governor's chair; a liberal Orthodox in church; an enigma in politics; a devotee to pure blood in animals; a pardonable weakness for the fair and a teetotaler in habits. From silver goblets on this silver wedding day, here's to your health in the cloud-distilled, fashionable beverage of Grinnell."

A SERMON ON SERMONS.

A sermon is a religious discourse with an inspired text. I have many, uncounted, perhaps equal to filling the traditional barrel. They will not find a mention by will or codicil. There are also skeletons preserved, very dry bones of discourses which can