tion and political influence. Doctor Laws is justly held in honor for the work he accomplished during this long term — work which resulted in making the state university of Missouri a leading institution in the Southwest. Three years later, in 1893, he was unanimously elected to the chair of Christian Apologetics in the Presbyterian Theological seminary at Columbia, South Carolina. He served in this capacity until 1898. He has several times been moderator or president of the church courts of his denomination, the Presbyterian church, South.
By appointment of President Garfield, he was a United States Visitor to the West Point military academy in 1882. In the Pan-Presbyterian Council of Europe and America, which met in Washington, District of Columbia, in 1899, he was a delegate, sent by the General Assembly of the South to represent the Synod of South Carolina; and he participated in the discussions. He has, also taken part in the public conferences and conventions in regard to education, emigration and other matters pertaining to the public welfare.
He has published enough to make several volumes, but his productions have usually been written to meet current exigencies, without any ambition to be known as an author. Among them are addresses on "The Philosophy of Christianity," "The Presbyterian Church," "Sovereignty in the United States Political System," "The Dual Constitution of Man" or "New Analysis of the Cranial and Spinal Nerves," "Life and Labors of Louis Pasteur."
Washington and Lee university, Virginia, conferred on him the degree of D.D., and Westminster college, Missouri, in 1871, gave him that of LL.D. He is not a partisan in politics. He is a Presbyterian by conviction and ardent in his feelings regarding the high and noble nature of faith. He says, "the Christian faith is a life business." His "desire in early life was to excel, but not to surpass, except as an incident." "Do the best possible for others as well as for self." Acting on this principle, he says, " When I awakened to God's claims they seemed perfectly rational, natural and worthy of every possible aspiration." He mentions as the three teachers who most effectually influenced him, Erasmus Darwin McMasters, the president of the college where he was graduated; and Doctors Charles Hodge and Joseph Addison Alexander, in the seminary at Princeton.
Doctor Laws says he looks on his life as a success, and thinks the chief explanation of our successes and failures is to be found in our opportunities, qualifications, and limitations. He feels with Daniel
