Perhaps some of my relations may think it strange that I have not mentioned them in this final disposition of my effects, especially if they should prove to be as considerable as I hope they may. But, my dearest love, I will tell you my reasons, and I hope you will approve them. For if I can excuse myself to you in a point in which your generous delicacy would be more likely to question the propriety of my conduct than in most others, I am sure my arguments will be convincing to those whose objections may arise from their interest.

First. In a view of justice and equity, whatever we possess at this moment, is a joint property between ourselves, and ought to remain to the survivor. When you gave me your blessed self, you know I was destitute of every other possession, as of every other enjoyment. I was rich only in the fund of your affectionate economy, and the sweet consolation of your society. In our various struggles, and disappointments, while trying to obtain a moderate competency for the quiet enjoyment of what we used to call the remainder of our lives, I have often been rendered happy by misfortunes; for the heaviest we have met with were turned into blessings by the opportunities they gave me to discover new virtues in you, who taught me how to bear them.

I have often told you since the year 1791, the period of our deepest difficulties (and even during that period), that I had never been so easy and contented before. And I have certainly been happier in you during the latter years of our union than I was in the former years;-not that I have loved you more ardently, or more exclusively, for that was impossible; but I have loved you better; my heart has been more full of your excellence, and less agitated with objects of ambition, which used to devour me too much.

I recall these things to your mind, to convince you of my full belief, that the acquisition of the competency, which we seem at last to have secured, is owing more to your energy than my own; I mean the energy of your virtues, which gave me consolation, and even happiness, under circumstances wherein, if I had been alone, or with a partner no better than myself, I should have sunk.

These fruits of our joint exertions you expected to enjoy with me; else I know you would not have wished for them. But if by my death you are to be deprived of the greater part of the comfort you expected, it would surely be unjust and cruel to deprive you of the remainder, or any portion of it, by giving even a part of this property to others. It is yours in the truest sense in which property can be considered; and I should have no right, if I were disposed, to take it from you.

Secondly. Of my relations, I have some thirty or forty nephews and nieces and their children, the greater part of whom I have never seen, and from whom I have had no news for seven or eight years; among them there may be some necessitous ones who would be proper objects of particular legacies, yet it would be impossible for me at this moment to know which they are. It was my intention, and still is, if I live to go to America, to make discriminations among them according to their wants, and to give them such relief as might be in my power, without waiting to do it by legacy. Now, my lovely wife, if this task, and the means of performing it, should devolve on you, I need not recommend it; our joint liberality would have been less extensive, and less grateful to the receivers than yours will be alone.

Your own relations in the same degrees of affinity are few in number. I hope I need not tell you that in my affections I know no difference between yours and

mine. I include them all in the same recommendation, without any other distinction than what may arise from their wants, and your ability to do them good.

If Colonel B******* and his wife (or either of them being left by the other) should be in a situation otherwise than comfortable, I wish my generous friend to render it so, as far as may be in her power. We may have had more powerful friends than they, but never any more sincere. He has the most frank and loyal spirit in the world; and she is possessed of many amiable and almost heroic

virtues.

Mary ********, poor girl! you know her worth, her virtues, and her talents; and I am sure you will not fail to keep yourself informed of her circumstances. She has friends, or at least had them, more able than you will be to yield her assistance in case of need. But they may forsake her for reasons which, to your enlightened and benevolent mind, would rather be an additional inducement to contribute to her happiness.

Excuse me, my dearest life, for my being so particular on a subject which, considering to whom it is addressed, may appear superfluous; but I do it rather to show that I agree with you in these sentiments, than to pretend that they originate on my part. With this view, I must pursue them a little farther.

One of the principal gratifications in which I intended, and still intend to indulge myself, if I should live to enjoy with you the means of doing it, is to succor the unfortunate of every description as far as possible,-to encourage merit where I find it, and try to create it where it does not exist. This has long been a favorite project with me; but having been always destitute of the means of carrying it into effect to any considerable degree, I have not conversed with you upon it as much as I wish I had. Though I can say nothing that will be new to you on the pleasure of employing one's attention and resources in this way, yet some useful hints might be given on the means of multiplying good actions from small resources; for I would not confine my pleasure to the simple duties of charity, in the beggar's sense of the word.

First. Much may be done by advising with poor persons,-contriving for them, -and pointing out the objects on which they can employ their own industry.

Secondly. Many persons and families, in a crisis of difficulty, might be extricated, and set up in the world, by little loans of money for which they might give good security, and refund within a year; and the same fund might then go to relieve a second, and a third; and thus a dozen families might be set on the independent footing of their own industry, in the course of a dozen years, by the help of fifty dollars, and the owner lose nothing but the interest. Some judgment would be necessary in these operations, as well as care and attention, in finding out the proper objects. How many of these are to be found in prisons,—thrown in and confined for years, for small debts, which their industry and their liberty would enable them to discharge in a short time!

Imprisonment for debt still exists as a stain upon our country, as most others. France indeed has set us the example of abolishing it; but I am apprehensive she will relapse from this, as I see she is inclined to do from many other good things which she began in her magnanimous struggle for the renovation of society.

Thirdly. With your benevolence, your character, and connections, you may put in motion a much greater fund of charity than you will yourself possess. It is by searching out the objects of distress, or misfortune, and recommending them to

their wealthy neighbors in such a manner as to excite their attention. I have often remarked to you (I forget whether you agree with me in it or not) that there is more goodness at the bottom of the human heart than the world will generally allow. Men are as often hindered from doing a generous thing by an indolence, either of thought or action, as by a selfish principle. If they knew what the action was, when and where it was to be done, and how to do it, their obstacles would be overcome. In this manner one may bring the resources of others into contribution, and with such a grace as to obtain the thanks both of the givers and receivers.

Fourthly. The example of one beneficent person, like yourself, in a neighborhood or a town, would go a great way. It would doubtless be imitated by others, extend far, and benefit thousands whom you might never hear of.

I certainly hope to escape from this place, and return to your beloved arms. No man has stronger inducements to wish to live than I have. I have no quarrel with the world; it has used me as well as could be expected. I have valuable friends in every country where I have put my foot, not excepting this abominable sink of wickedness, pestilence, and folly,—the city of Algiers. I have a pretty extensive and dear-bought knowledge of mankind; a most valuable collection of books; a pure and undivided taste for domestic tranquility; the social intercourse of friends; study; and the exercise of charity. I have a moderate but sufficient income; perfect health; an unimpaired constitution; and to give the relish to all enjoyments, and smooth away the asperities that might arise from unforseen calamities, I have the wife that my youth chose, and my advancing age has cherished, the pattern of excellence,-the example of every virtue,-from whom all my joys have risen, in whom all my hopes are centered.

I will use every precaution for my safety, as well for your sake as mine. But if you should see me no more, my dearest friend, you will not forget I loved you. As you have valued my love, and as you believe this letter is written with an intention to promote your happiness at a time when it will be forever out of my power to contribute to it in any other way, I beg you will kindly receive the last advice I can give you, with which I am going to close our endearing intercourse. *********** Submitting with patience to a destiny that is unavoidable, let your tenderness for me soon cease to agitate that lovely bosom; banish it to the house of darkness and dust, with the object that can no longer be benefited by it, and transfer your affections to some worthy person who shall supply my place in the relation I have borne to you. It is for the living, not the dead, to be rendered happy by the sweetness of your temper, the purity of your heart, your exalted sentiments, your cultivated spirit, your undivided love. Happy man of your choice! should he know and prize the treasure of such a wife! O treat her tenderly, my dear sir; she is used to nothing but kindness, unbounded love and confidence. She is all that any reasonable man can desire. She is more than I have merited, or perhaps than you can merit. My resigning her to your charge, though but the result of uncontrolable necessity, is done with a degree of cheerfulness,,—a cheerfulness inspired by the hope that her happiness will be the object of your care, and the long-continued fruit of your affection.

Farewell, my wife; and though I am not used to subscribe my letters addressed to you, your familiarity with my writing having always rendered it unnecessary, yet it seems proper that the last characters which this hand shall trace for your perusal should compose the name of your most faithful, most affectionate, and most grateful husband, JOEL BARLOW.

ARTICLE II.-IOWA COLLEGE.

By George F.

Mageren.

THE enterprise of planting a Puritan college in Iowa has differed somewhat from the well-known college enterprises in Illinois and Wisconsin, while it has also had some features in common. Like the Illinois College movement, it was, in part, the fruit of the commissioning of a band of home missionaries. In the counsels and prayers of the "Iowa Band," before leaving Andover Seminary, the idea of a college for the new territory had suggested itself, and at one of their first meetings at Denmark, in the autumn of 1843, the missionaries already on the ground, less than half their own number,-to whom also the idea had occurred, proposed united action. Like the Beloit College movement, on the other hand, it grew directly out of public conventions, called for the promotion of Christian education. The first assemblage of this kind at Beloit, August 6, 1844, had four members from Iowa, and, among other things, it was "decided that a college ought immediately to be established in Iowa." (Beloit Quarter-Centennial Pamphlet, p. 7.) But already, in March of that year, "a called meeting of ministers and others" had been held at Denmark, and another in April, and at the latter the "Iowa College Association" had been formed. In May, Rev. Asa Turner, as agent of this association, had had a conference at Boston with the gentlemen who had just formed the "Western College Society." Five public conventions on the subject were held in Iowa, from March 12, 1844, to June 4, 1847, and at the latter date, trustees for an incorporation having been selected, the College Association dissolved. Like the Beloit College movement, again, the Iowa project at first contemplated the purchase of a tract of land, and its settlement by a colony. These features the Boston conference advised the Iowa pioneers to abandon, which was done, and solicitation at the East, also, was postponed in favor of the 'College Society," not without misgivings on both points then and since. Like each of the older enterprises, that in Iowa originally included both Congregationalists and Presbyterians.

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But in 1852 the Presbyterian partners proposed to found a professorship on condition that it should be "always subject to the control of the Presbytery," i. e., that the appointment of that particular professor should be made ecclesiastical and denominational. The trustees replied, by vote, that the professorship could be filled on the same principles "upon which the members of Presbytery and the Congregational Association united in founding the college, and the rules and regulations usually adopted in the endowment of professorships in literary institutions." Since that vote there have ceased to be-as there still are in Illinois and Beloit Colleges-two denominations sharing the management. There have continued to be, however, trustees and instructors other than Congregational. And like both the enterprises in older States, this has been characterized from the beginning by a spirit of earnest and self-denying piety.

Unlike its sister colleges east of the Mississippi,-which have had a continuous history on the spot of their foundation,— Iowa College has been once removed, and for a year suspended. No rival college has been, by action of Iowa Congregationalists, placed beside it. Unlike them, it is open to women in all its departments. It has never tried the experiment of dispensing with its preparatory department or academy, as they have done for a time. With this it began in 1848,-three pupils attending,—and it has always been dependent upon it for candidates for college classes. Unlike them, it has established a full scientific undergraduate course of four years; Illinois College has one of three years, Beloit College adheres to the classical plan exclusively. Unlike them, it includes in its plan a Normal course, and a Military professorship, but has no connection with a "Business college," as is the case at Jacksonville.

That broad and beautiful tract of country which lies between the two greatest rivers of the State, and which a veteran home missionary once happily styled our Western Mesopotamia, was first seen by white men on the 17th of June, 1673, when MM. Marquette and Joliet floated out of the mouth of the Wisconsin river into the Mississippi. Two or three days afterward they passed between the island of Rock Island-hardly less attractive to-day-and the future site of Iowa College. Hennepin