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PREFACE.

AN article, written for the columns of a newspaper, was the nucleus of these pages. Several alumni desired to have the newspaper sketch in a form more convenient for preservation and reference. Without recasting the original sketch, additions were made, among them records previously published by the College. Although the author of this book, with more propriety, might have made an appendix of those records, they were incorporated in the present form. Graduates and other readers, conversant with the annals of the College, will justly regard this volume a compilation rather than a well-digested history. At best, it is only a sketch. Folios would not suffice to record the labors and achievements of eminent alumni, whose names even, do not appear on these pages. For example, only a brief mention is made of missionary graduates,-" God's Chivalry."

When Samuel Kirkland, himself a missionary, made his weary way into the forest gloom, and subsequently founded in the woods an institution of Christian learning, little did he realize that many, who should tread those walks beneath the poplar trees on College Hill, would afterward, with feet beautiful upon the mountains of distant lands, bring to dying souls, with tongue, pen and press, the same good tidings, and publish the same peace he proclaimed to his dusky disciples. As for those faithful missionaries, they neither seek nor need earthly honor. Are not their names and achievements written in the chronicles of the King, whose they are and whom they serve? There they will shine,

"When the stars are old, and the sun is cold,

And the leaves of the judgment book unfold."

Imperfect as this little volume is, it serves to unbosom its author's love for his ALMA MATER-an Institution associated in his mind and heart with student friends and loved instructors, with home and parents, whose lives were rich in counsel and sweet with tenderness, and but for whose self-sacrificing affection he could not have enjoyed the advantages of the College.

It is hoped that the book will enable widely-scattered graduates, (whose feet have wandered far since, with unexhausted energy, they trod the winding paths of the campus), to stand once more, surrounded by "the boys," in the shadows of the grey halls, from whose windows so many years ago, they eagerly looked out upon life with its untasted joys and unfinished work. Many of them are now "looking out of life's western windows." Possibly a loved name, or pictured college hall, or familiar face in this volume will cause the dimming eyes of some old graduate to "burn again under his white hair as fire burns on the hearth when there is snow on the roof."

"Knowledge is folly unless grace guide it," for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A college without Christ cannot permanently prosper, nor can it be loved as a Christian College is. Hamilton is conservative. True to her motto, Lux et Veritas, she advocates for the mind old-fashioned culture and for the priceless soul, "the faith which was once delivered to the saints." If these pages shall, even in a slight degree, promote the prosperity of our Mother on the Hill, the author will not regret that, for their preparation, he took up the pen which he now lays down.

Pastor's Study, Dayspring Presbyterian Church,

C. E. A.

Yonkers, N. Y., April 15th, 1889.

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