Bowdoin Prize Dissertation.

A good sized audience filled Sever 6 last evening to hear Mr. Hamilton's prize dissertation on "Boniface, the Apostle to the Germans." Mr. Hamilton began with a brief review of the general condition of Europe in the eighth century. Society was imbued with the rankest spirit of barbarism. There was no security from the lawless bands of robbers. Pillage drove all who had any feelings of duty to the monasteries and cloisters. The glory of Rome as a nation was gone and the bishop of Rome saw an opportunity to raise a powerful church out of the ruins of the Caesars. The ravages of the Huns and the Vandels had made Germany more than other countres the home of desolation. Boniface, fired with an early love of religion and spiritual things, was a young child in one of the cloisters of southern Wessex. He had shown great capacity for study, but his religious nature soon drove him to wider and nobler fields. He took up the cause of Rome in Friesland, but soon felt that he must go to Rome and there obtain the papal sanction for his work. In the Eternal City, he found his desire for spiritual work increased until his whole soul became fired with holy passion. From Rome under papal protection he went to his work in Germany. There, with indefatigable industry and love, he pushed his-noble work which took eight centuries and a Luther to undo. He became arch-bishop and papal legate. From his home in Britain came zealous men and women to aid him in his work. At last he fell a victim to his ideal and died a martyr's death, killed by the men he was attempting to save.