DR. PHILLIPS BROOKS ON "THE CLAIMS OF BIOGRAPHY AS A STUDY."

A very interesting lecture was given on the 4th inst. by Dr. Phillips Brooks of Trinity Church to the students of Phillips Academy, Exeter, a school intimately connected with Harvard, and of which an ancestor of Dr. Brooks was the founder. We have only seen a partial report of the lecture in one paper, the Journal, but that is more than sufficient to create a strong desire either that the whole lecture should be published, or that the Reverend lecturer, who is so warmly esteemed and honored at Harvard, would deliver either the same, or a similar one, before the undergraduates. A few brief extracts from the able address will doubtless be interesting to all readers of the "CRIMSON."

"Since the noblest life on earth is always human life, the literature which deals with human life must always be the noblest literature; and, since the individual human life must always have a distinctness of interest, which cannot belong to any of the groups of human life, biography must always have a charm which no other kind of history can rival."

"It must always be a noteworthy fact that the great Book of the world is a story of life. The New Testament is a biography. Make it a mere book of dogmas, and its vitality is gone. Make it a biography and it is the Book of life. Make it the history of Jesus of Nazareth, and the world holds it to its heart forever! Not simply His coming or going - not simply His faith or His death, but his living. The total life of Jesus is the world's salvation, and the Book in which His life shines, orbed and distinct, is the world's treasure."

"If a man talks about his true self you are interested. Be sure of this, there is not one of us living to-day so simple and monotonous a life, that, if we be true and natural, our lives faithfully written, would not be worthy of men's eyes and hold men's hearts. Not one of us, therefore, who, if he be true and pure and natural, may not, though his life never should be written, be interesting and stimulating to his fellow men in some small circle as they touch his life." Who can fail to feel the truth of those few simple words and the encouragement they give us all, and especially the young, who are just beginning the battle of life to be "true" and "pure," to be themselves manly men, and so help their class-fellows and comrades to be the same!

E. R. H.