EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS OF REGRET.

From Joseph Perkins, LL. D., Cleveland, class of 1839. Mr. Perkins died shortly after his return from the trip to Europe which is mentioned in the letter, and his death was mourned by the whole city of Cleveland.

MY DEAR MR. GATES:-There are many reasons and sacred associations, which would draw me to accept your hospitality as proposed. But I am just off from a sick bed (six weeks fever), have not resumed any business duties that I can avoid, and am arranging for a summer's absence if I can find myself able to start and make the trip; will be getting off about the 1st of July, so I am compelled to decline your most kind invitation. I have a most vivid and delightful remembrance of Marietta days, and would greatly enjoy meeting with the friends of those days if it was a possible thing. I am most sincerely yours,

Jos. PERKINS.

From Hon. Daniel B. Linn, class of 1840, Zanesville, O.

I had hoped to be with you the present week to increase by one the attendance upon the exercises connected with the College Commencement. I find, at the latest moment, I am to be denied that pleasure. Fate, cruel, inexorable fate, has so decreed and I must obey. I have all along promised myself a week's most enjoyable recreation and now that I am to be disappointed I am like a disappointed child, heart-sick, pouty,—the outlook is all gloomy. I am sure our dear Alma Mater has not a son who feels a deeper affection or cherishes higher regard for her than I do, or who rejoices more in her welfare and prosperity. I trust that in future years the sons that go forth from her halls will prove as true to life and duty and as faithful to the obligations which the positions they may hold will impose, as have those in the years gone by. My class-mates, Adams, Fay, Lindsley, I doubt not they will all be present. How I would rejoice to see the "old boys once more and how gratified to grasp each by the hand. Be pleased to extend them for me the warmest greeting that language can convey, and assure them each and all, that though long

years have intervened since we separated, I still retain the most lively recollection of the days when "we clamb the hill thegither."

Most sincerely yours,

From Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, Elmira, N. Y.

D. B. LINN.

Indeed I do remember the four trips made by a little boy and his hair trunk with brass nails from Cincinnati to Marietta; and all the villages of the river in those anti-railway days come easily to his mind-Maysville, Ky., Portsmouth, Hanging Rock, Gallipolis, Guyandotte, Parkersburg, Pt. Harmar, and Marietta. The old College building with its cupola and bell; its rooms with turn-up bedsteads. The professors-Maxwell, my instructor; Smith, the near-sighted, and wife, nearer-sighted, whom we boys used to watch and see them pass unrecognizing. Jewett with gold-bowed glasses, immaculate. Lindsley, the President, with his fatherly talks. Allen, tall and slender. And among citizens-Mills the merchant, father of Martha; Bingham, Luther Bingham, the minister in the old two-towered yellow frame meeting-house. Thomas, who lived next door to Bingham. Deacon Nye, black-eyed Sunday School Superintendent. Dr. S. P. Hildreth, who also had a daughter. Old Mr. Slocomb just opposite the college, and the Steeles-Bob Steele-next door. The freshets that covered the flats to give us a chance to go rafting over the fences and look into the new brick Baptist meeting-house. The Point "--with its horse-posts along the brink of the river jump-off. The wharf-boat below the island bar! The island with its tangle and swimming places on the southern side!

Wouldn't I enjoy visiting these scenes, to mourn over their disappearance? But I cannot. A visit to Milwaukee and services already promised there on the 14th of June make a second trip impracticable.

The world is not to-day what it was then. I was ten years old when I matriculated [in the preparatory] and thirteen when I skipped out to Zanesville and Putnam. I've not yet forgotten my alpha, beta, gamma that I learned to write with pride on the black-board: all the rest of my Greek is gone! I can extract square and cube roots still, and translate with accuracy, E Pluribus Unum- thirteen eggs set, one hatched an experience not peculiar to young hens sitting in February.

Graduated by Illinois College in '43, [of which his brother, Dr. Edward Beecher, was president,] I still account my Marietta attainments the more valuable, because more difficult and fundamental. In Marietta I weighed sixty to seventy and was shaped like an angle-worm hungry. Now I carry about with me two hundred and five pounds and shall never have the tooth-ache again. My Marietta mates-Geo. Maxwell, Frank Washburn, Bill Foster, Bill Thomas, Charley Foster, Bob. Steele, Sol. Fay, Sam. Fairbanks, Fred Homes; the well I helped to dig on the hill, ninety feet and crooked thro' the sand, and the terrace I helped lay up and sod with Prof. Maxwell, and by his house-oh my! where are they; how fare they? You perceive that I am getting old for these memories

shine out through the intervening fogs and storms. Well, I'm glad of it; for to become again as a little child is the ripening for the Kingdom of God. Again assuring you of my longing to visit Marietta and my regret in view of my inability, I have done the next best thing, by allowing my garrulity to prove to you that I remember, I remember,

and that you woke up the right passenger when you called me to the Semi-Centennial of Marietta College. If, when the day comes, any old man shall say, Oh yes, I remember little Tom Beecher," give him my love, send me his name, and tell him that Tom Beecher remembers him. THOS. K. BEECHER.

From Rev. Edmund B. Fairfield, D. D., LL. D., Manistee, Mich.

My dear President:-O that I had plenty of money and about thirteen months in the year, and I should surely be with you, D. V. I want to, beyond all words to tell. The old friends are very dear to me. If I don't see them this summer, I shall not be like to do so till we meet in the city that hath foundations-and there not to know them without an introduction! I don't like to think of it! Twelve years ago I met Maxwell, and didn't know him at all! If I do come, I hope he will be there; and Tom Beecher; and Charley Goddard, or has he left us?

I think if somebody makes me a bequest of the, money, I will manage about the extra month! But with three boys in college, (the Lord be praised for six boys-well and stout-sana mens in sana corpore, every one,) it is not easy to go everywhere.

But once in fifty years! You and I will be away at the next semicentennial, come to think of it! I shall try to come. If not there, give to all who are especially of the ancients-the heartiest greeting from one who was of the class of 1842!

Yours always,

EDMUND B. FAIRFIELD.

From William H. Goddard, Esq., class of 1844, Washing-. ington, D. C.

I regret that I cannot be present at the exercises in observance of "the fiftieth anniversary of Marietta College," an occasion of interest to all the Alumni and friends of the College, present and absent, and especially to the surviving few of the earlier Alumni, of whom I am one. I trust that the attendance will be full and the exercises most enjoyable.

Yours very truly,

W. H. GODDARD.

From Hon. Willard Warner, LL. D., class of 1845, late U. S. Senator from Alabama.

I very much regret to say that business engagements, which I cannot defer or neglect, will prevent my presence at the Alumni meeting.

I am greatly disappointed as I long to meet friends and associates of

my boyhood, most of whom I presume have had the audacity to put on gray hairs or bald heads and assume to class themselves with elderly men. But those whom I have not met since leaving college are still boys to me, as they were when I went to Marietta in 1842 from a farm and a log school-house, with my gray "round-a-bout on.

The first boy to notice me and to address me kindly was Charley Goddard, as I stood in the college yard looking lonesomely about; and then began a friendship between us—earnest and true and lasting and to last with life.

With heartiest and kindest greetings to all of my friends and to the Alumni generally, and to your venerable and noble President Andrews, I am yours respectfully, WILLARD WARNER.

From Hon. E. W. Wilson, Governor of West Virginia. I have delayed writing, until this late date, hoping that my official and professional engagemets would permit the pleasure and satisfaction of being with you, on the 1st proximo and that I could so write. I find though that it is impossible for me to attend the Semi-Centennial, and can but express my most sincere regrets, because of my inability to be present upon such an tnteresting and enjoyable occasion.

From Professor George H. Howison, LL. D., class of 1852, Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley, Cal.

With great regret I have to say that it will be impossible for me to cross the continent this summer, in order to attend our Alma Mater's cel ebration. Bear my heartiest good wishes to my brethren, and especially to my class-mates of 1852. Dominus salvam faciat Almam Matrem. G. H. HowISON.

Fraternally yours,

From Professor Addison Ballard, D. D., formerly Professor of Mathematics at Marietta.

Please thank your Committee of Arrangements for me for their kind invitation to be present at the exercises of your Fiftieth Anniversary the ensuing week, and my sincere regret that I shall not be able to attend. My former connexion with the Faculty gives me a deep interest in the College and a warm personal attachment to my former colleagues which I have ever since felt and which I shall always cherish. Allow me to congratulate the Trustees, the Faculty, and all the friends of the institution for the honorable name which the College has won, for the half century of thoroughly good and truly great work which the College has done; and especially, also, to congratulate your noble President to whose exceptionally long and faithful service the prosperity and usefulness of the College have been so largely due. I wish for Marietta a permanent and ever growing success, such as I am sure it is but reasonable to ex

pect from an institution which was planned and has been nurtured with so much Christian wisdom and with such unselfish devotion and liberality. Very truly yours, A. BALLARD.

From Irving J. Manatt, PH. D., Chancellor of the University of Nebraska, formerly Professor of Greek in Marietta College.

Thanks for invitation to Marietta's Semi-Centennial. If anything terrestrial could induce me to venture upon the journey to Marietta, it would be an occasion like this. Possibly I may work myself up to the point, but the decision must wait. If absent in body, I shall assuredly be with you in the spirit; and trust the dear old College may find the golden birth-day a beginning of new life. Very truly yours,

IRVING J. MANATT.

From Hon. Charles W. Potwin, Zanesville, O.

Rev. I. W. Andrews, D. D., President Marietta College:

My dear Sir:-I regret very much that I could not attend the meeting. Unfortunately for me, my business in Kansas usually requires my presence at the season of the year when the annual meetings are held. I had hoped that you would be in a condition of health so as to continue service as President of the College, and that there would be no present necessity for your insisting upon being relieved. With personal regards, I am truly yours, C. W. POTWIN.

From Rev. William H. Willcox, D. D., LL. D., Malden, Mass.

Your invitation to me to atttend the semi-centennial of Marietta College on June 28th is received. It would certainly give me great pleasure to be present on that occasion and mingle my congratulations and rejoicings with the alumni and friends of the college over the work the institution has been enabled to do and the prosperity it has enjoyed; but whether I can reasonably hope for the enjoyment seems now very doubtful. But if when the time draws near I find the way open to accept your kind invitation, I will certainly do so with thankfulness.

I am very glad to see by the papers that Marietta is to receive such a generous bequest from the estate of Mr. Erwin. May many more such wise friends of Christian education bless and gladden our hearts.

Yours truly,

From Hon. William Hyde, Ware, Mass.

Rev. I. W. Andrews, D. D.

WM. H. WILCOX.

My dear Sir:-I thank you for your invitation to your semi-centennial. I should like to visit your place and see the scenes of your life-work, but I am too far advanced to make plans so far ahead.