We regret exceedingly that our recent celebration should have caused any feeling of bitterness in any of the invited guests present; that our Autocrat, the most genial of men, and, surely, the most delicate of satirists, should have been deemed the offender; and that the one to whom offense has been given is Princeton's honored head. We understand that Dr. McCosh is aggrieved over the stanza which we print in another column, over the fact that no Princeton representative received an honorary degree, and over Dr. Brooks' discourse of Sunday night last.

The first two causes are, or should be, easily removable. The offensive lines were not directed at Princeton, as they were interpreted, but at the general consternation now prevailing among sectarian institutions. As for the second complaint, it was impossible twice to bestow a degree upon Dr. McCosh, and Professor Young's absence from the anniversary, we understand, cost him his.

So far as these are the causes for bitterness on the part of the venerable and venerated Doctor, against Harvard and Harvard's president and poet, we can only deplore them and wish that the misunderstanding had not occurred, and that it may even now be smoothed over, without permanent ill-feeling. We trust that the Princeton Alumni who are supporting so vigorously - as 'tis said - their president in his mistaken quarrel, will adopt as moderate and pacific a tone as the Harvard Alumni, and devote their energies not to fomenting, but to allaying the strife.

These are the only causes which Princeton has for complaint, and, as they both arose from misconceptions, we can, without loss of dignity, express our deep regret that they exist: but, that Princeton's president should dislike the liberal sermon of Phillips Brooks, the liberal oration of James Russell Lowell, and the liberal tone which characterized the whole celebration here, we can regret - only on his account.

Dr. McCosh knows, and knew when he accepted the invitation to be present at our quarter-millenium, that Harvard had become the exponent of liberality in religious and secular education; he knew that the experiment had proved a success, or at least, that it had proved an apparent success, both in the increased number of students and the increased wealth and influence of the college. He knew all this as well as any man in America; and of all men in America he was most opposed to, and most afraid of it. It was out of the question, therefore, that he could come to Cambridge without hearing much in praise of what we prize as liberal, and what he condemn's as heretical; if he expected to do this he was sanguine - very sanguine.

As it is, we are not sorry that our orators and preachers should have praised what they and we believe best; it was the genuine Harvard doctrine, the one which has proved hitherto, and, as we fondly hope, will prove in the future, the most potent in the destiny of our country. We are not sorry that our doctrines are distasteful to sectarians here, or in Princeton, or in Andover, or in Persepolis; - they are ours, and we glory in them:

It is a great pity that the same friendship which has always existed between the students of Harvard and Princeton, should not extend to their Faculties. It is a great pity that a liberal doctrine can cause strife, or continue it; but there must be no denial of principle, and no sacrifice of dignity on Harvard's part to restore the cooled cordiality.