close of prayer,
The voice of our well-loved leader
Rings out in its clear-toned might;
"We will give our salutation
To an honored guest to-night."

Then out of the speaking silence
The white wings rise to air,
Faintest of flutter and softest of sound,
Hail to the lilies rare!
Thousands and tens of thousands,
Swiftly the lilies grow,
Till the air is filled with the fluttering flowers,
As the winter air with snow.

Hail to the fair white lilies!
Sweetest of salutations!
The love of a thousand hearts they bear
The greeting of the nations.
The fairest of earth-born flowers
Must wither by-and-by;
But the lilies that live in the hearts they hail
Will never, never die.

O cold blast, spare the lily-bed
That bears the wonderful flower!
Give largely, O sky, of summer sun,
Largely of summer shower,
Till the white flowers born in our summer home
To earth's outermost rim be given;
And the lilies open their cups of snow
In the garden beds of heaven.

At the final meeting of the Assembly in 1877, on Monday evening, August
20th, Dr. Vincent outlined some plans for the coming year,--a large
hotel to replace the tented walls of the Pavilion Palace, a new
meeting-place to be built with walls and roof over the natural
amphitheater in the ravine, some further courses of study, and many
improvements to the grounds. Then he added, "And I shall not be
surprised if--well, I will not tell you--I have another dream I will not
give you." (A voice: "Let's have it.") "No, I am going to hold that
back, so you will want me to come next year. But I believe that
something higher and larger is just out yonder in the near future. Next
summer, if we all live, I will tell you about it." We shall see in the
coming chapter what that new development of Chautauqua was to be,--the
greatest in its history, and perhaps the greatest in the history of
education through the land.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CHAUTAUQUA READING CIRCLE

[Illustration: Flower Girls on Recognition Day]

[Illustration: Flower Girls of 1894

Elizabeth Vincent and Paul Harper leading]

THE "dream" of which Dr. Vincent gave a hint at the close of the 1877
Assembly was