nfess the Christian faith. Henry Wilson,
then senator, afterwards vice president, was among them. The
influence of the meetings was wonderful and far-reaching." We
are assured that he "would go nowhere unless the Evangelical
Christians of the place united in an invitation and the ministers
were ready to cooperate." But the whole affair was of course
intensely distasteful to unemotional people; the very fact that
a man could be converted argued his instability; and it is
unquestionably true that Boston's attitude toward Mr. Durant was
reflected for many years in her attitude toward the college which
he founded.

But over against this picture we can set another, more intimate,
more pleasing, although possibly not more discriminating. When
the early graduates of Wellesley and the early teachers write of
Mr. Durant, they dip their pens in honey and sunshine. The result
is radiant, fiery even, but unconvincingly archangelic. We see
him, "a slight, well-knit figure of medium height in a suit of
gray, with a gray felt hat, the brim slightly turned down; beneath
one could see the beautiful gray hair slightly curling at the ends;
the fine, clear-cut features, the piercing dark eyes, the mouth
that could smile or be stern as occasion might demand. He seemed
to have the working power of half a dozen ordinary persons and
everything received his attention. He took the greatest pride
and delight in making things as beautiful as possible." Or he
is described as "A slight man--with eyes keen as a lawyer's should
be, but gentle and wise as a good man's are, and with a halo of
wavy silver hair. His step was alert, his whole form illuminate
with life." He is sketched for us addressing the college, in
chapel, one September morning of 1876, on the supremacy of Greek
literature, "urging in conclusion all who would venture upon
Hadley's Grammar as the first thorny stretch toward that celestial
mountain peak, to rise." It is Professor Katharine Lee Bates,
writing in 1892, who gives us the picture: "My next neighbor,
a valorous little mortal, now a member of the Smith faculty, was
the first upon her feet, pulling me after her by a tug at my
sleeve, coupled with a moral tug more efficacious still. Perhaps
a dozen of us freshmen, all told, filed into Professor Horton's
recitation room that morning." And again, "His prompt and vigorous
method of introducing a fresh subject to college notice was the
making it a required study for