128

26

friend and they its most valuable tributaries. Its facul-
ties will be complete and extending beyond a sterile
academic education. The living languages, the natural
sciences, agriculture, all the practical requirements of
modern times, will be entitled to equal rank and equal
honor with the classic lore of antiquity. The most lib-
eral compensation will be awarded to scrupulously se-
lect talent, and there is every prospect that some of
the best minds from every clime will cluster together
on the mountain plateau of Sewanee. A few years ago,
when the project was yet in its incipient stage, one of
the most distinguished Northern professors spoke of it
to the present writer as one of the greatest conceptions
of the age, and intimated that he would feel himself
honored by a call, and that many of his confreres would.
We can conceive how attractive to a vigorous original
mind a national effort like that at Sewanee, must be.
What a magnificent field it offers to an ambitious intel-
lect.

"It must be kept in view that this great seat of learn-
ing is not intended as merely an Episcopal College.
Although originating in the bosom of the Protestant
Episcopal Church presided over by its heads and foster-
ed by its most distinguished and influential laity, the
University is a national and not a sectarian idea. The
Church designs no propagandist policy; it will necessari-
ly control the chair of theology and make that faculty
its principal seminary, but farther than this it is justly
content with the immese accession of moral power
which it cannot but acquire from the glory of having
conceived and embodied the great Southern idea of that
age. A Catholic spirit, embracing all denominations and
free from any purpose of proselytism, will preside over
a patriotic work in which all Southerners of whatever
creed are equally interested."

Although the corner-stone was laid to-day, it is not,
I believe, intended to commence active operations until
next year. In the meantime, active efforts will be made
to procure additional subscriptions until the endow-
ment fund reaches one million dollars. The subscrip-
tions already reach over half a million dollars.

I notice in the office of the Trustees a number of plans

27

for the building drawn by experienced architects in
various parts of the country. No selection has as yet
been made. There is no doubt, hower, that the enlight-
tened gentlemen having the matter in charge will make
a selection worthy the great institution which is to
offer to the sons of the South the highest literary culture
--an institution that shall rival the famous seats of
learning in the Old World. WANEE.

----------------------------

[Correspondence to the Church Intelligencer.]

UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH.

The Corner-stone of the University of the South was
laid on the 10th inst. On the morning of that day the
plateau swarmed with the thousands assembled. Ar-
rangements had been made for the entertainment in a
simple but comfortalbe mode of a very large number of
invited guests. Those for a week had been collecting.
All the dioceses chiefly concerned in the grand enter-
prise were represented, except the Diocese of Arkansas.
Seven of the Bishops of these Dioceses came together to
lay the foundation of the University in whose beginning
and progress they are so gloriously concerned, the Bish-
ops of South Carolina, Arkansas, and Texas, being una-
voidably absent. The venerable Bishop of Kentucky
also came to bid God-speed to the undertaking.

At 12 1/2 o'clock, a procession of more than a thousand
citizens led the way to the site. Opening as they reached
the spot, the Bishops, Trustees, Clergy and invited
guests, passed through in order. The Stone prepared as
the Corner-stone was a highly polished, but massive
stone of two tons weight, of beautifully variegated mar-
ble (as the Tennesseeans call it.) It was quarried in
the county.

The services commenced with the singing of the 79th
Ps. Appropriate sentences of Holy Scripture were read
by the Bishop of Florida. The Bishop of North Carolina
gave the Exhortation. The Bishop of Alabama offered
Prayer. The deposits in the Corner-stone were then an-
nounced by the Bishop of Georgia, viz:

The Holy Bible; the Book of Common Prayer; the