History of Randolph-Macon College, Virginia Part 31

[Ill.u.s.tration: PROF. R. E. BLACKWELL, A. M.]

Changes were made in the chairs to be filled, viz., one to be that of English and Modern Languages, and the other that of Latin and Greek. To fill the first Robert Emory Blackwell, A. M., was elected, and to the other Prof. Charles Morris, M. A., of the University of Georgia. Prof.

Blackwell was in Europe at the time, taking a course at Leipzig. He took his degree of Master of Arts in 1874. He had served as a.s.sistant in the School of English under Prof. Price, and was recommended by him in the highest terms. He was the first of Prof. Price's graduates, of a long list, to be elected to a chair of English.

Prof. Morris was, when elected, Professor of Latin and Greek at the University of Georgia. He, also, was highly commended to the Board by Prof. Price, who was a fellow-student with him at the University of Virginia. A more whole-souled, ingenuous man never lived than he, and his character was beaming from his face. Though a member of the Episcopal church, he threw his whole soul into the religious work of the College, and no one would have known that he was not a member of the Methodist church.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARLES MORRIS, M. A., _Professor of Greek and Latin, 1876-1882._]

The scale of salaries was changed. The salary of the President was fixed at $2,000: of professors, $1,600. Dr. T. H. Bagwell was elected College physician, in place of Dr. H. M. Houston, resigned.

In parting with Prof. Price, the Board expressed for him the kindest and highest appreciation of his long and distinguished services.

Complimentary resolutions were also adopted in regard to Prof. Harrison.

As a part of a great educational advance, the following extract is given from Professor Price's letter of resignation:

"You have used me to do one piece of work that was so bold, and timely, and wise as to draw the attention of educated men throughout America to our College, and to win for your system of education the hearty applause of all that love the culture of our young men.

"In establis.h.i.+ng the chair of English you have taken a bold step and wise innovation. You have pushed the whole system of Virginia education distinctly forward, and you have given to your system of collegiate education a firm basis in the needs of our people. I have felt the sweetest joy of my life to have been permitted to help in this great work. I have seen the School of English, from session to session, bear richer fruits in the development of our whole student cla.s.s and in the growing power of the College over the educated opinion of the State. I beseech you now, in parting from you, to take the chair of English under your fostering care, not only to uphold it, but to develop and expand it as the characteristic and special glory of the College, and to bring it to pa.s.s that every alumnus of Randolph-Macon College shall be, to his own benefit and to your honor, as soundly and correctly educated as man ought to be in the knowledge and use of his mother tongue."

At this meeting Dr. W. W. Bennett, chairman of the Building Committee, announced to the Board the completion of the Pace Lecture building, at a cost of about $11,000.

At the annual meeting of the Board of Trustees, held June, 1877, the reports made by the President and Treasurer showed great embarra.s.sment in financial matters, which, as a matter of course, affected the prompt payment of salaries to the members of the Faculty.

The patronage for the year was reported to be 132.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PROF. W. A. FRANTZ, A. M., _Prof. English, Central College, Missouri._]

The degree of A. M. was conferred on William Abner Frantz, of Virginia.

At the June meeting, 1877, Thomas Branch, Esq., resigned the office of president of the Board. Resolutions of regret at his action, and expressive of the kind regard of the Trustees towards him, were adopted.

Dr. J. A. Duncan was elected to fill the vacancy.

William Willis, Jr., resigned the oflice of Treasurer of the Board on account of ill-health and defective eyesight. This was accepted with great reluctance by the Board, and resolutions of sympathy for him in his afflictions and thanks for his faithful service were adopted.

Prof. W. A. Shepard was elected Treasurer _pro tempore_.

When the Board adjourned, it closed its last meeting in connection with the president who had inaugurated the College at Ashland, and had presided over it for nine years.

A few days after the opening of the session of 1877-1878 he pa.s.sed away, after a brief illness. The record of the journal made by the Secretary, and enclosed in black lines, is as follows:

[Transcribers' note: In the original book, the following paragraph is also enclosed in black lines.]

On Monday, September 24, 1877, at 4 o'clock A. M., Rev. JAMES A. DUNCAN, D. D., President of Randolph-Macon College, died at the President's house, Ashland, Va., after a brief illness. On Tuesday, the 25th, a brief funeral service was conducted in the College chapel by Rev. Leroy M. Lee, D. D.; after which the corpse was conveyed by a special train to Richmond. Funeral service conducted at Broad-Street Church by Bishop D.

S. Doggett, D. D.; a procession formed to Hollywood, and the body of this faithful and ill.u.s.trious servant of G.o.d buried there, in the hope of a glorious resurrection.

"This writer was a student at Randolph-Macon when Dr. Duncan was a little boy, not yet in his _teens_. He was then as full of fun and mischief as a boy could be, which, with his sprightliness, made him an uncommonly interesting boy. He was a scholar in the first Sunday-school cla.s.s he ever taught, and along with him were d.i.c.k and Gib Leigh and d.i.c.k Manson. He was intimately a.s.sociated with him in re-establis.h.i.+ng the College at Ashland, he beginning his presidency, with this writer as treasurer and chairman of the Executive Committee. Then, from 1870 to his last illness, he sat under his ministry in the old ball-room chapel, whose walls echoed to the tones of his wondrous voice, such as cathedrals rarely, if ever, have heard. This ought to render him competent, in part, to write of this most gifted man.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILBUR F. TILLETT, A. B., D. D., _Sutherlin Medalist, 1877; Dean Theological Faculty, Vanderbilt University._]

But others have written tributes so much better and worthier of the subject that he will let them speak. The first tribute to him was given by Prof. Thos. R. Price, LL. D., who has more than once expressed to this writer the great remissness of the Methodist Church in not having had prepared a memoir of one of its greatest preachers and wisest men.

The following is Prof. Price's sketch of Dr. James A. Duncan:

"THE GREAT PREACHER."

"The bitterest hour for them that mourn their dead is not when the breath rattles in the throat nor when the clod rattles on the coffin. It comes when, after all the stir and turmoil of death and funeral are over, the family go back to the ravaged home, and grope their ways, blinded with tears, through the rooms that the dead man has left forever empty. Not even the sudden jar of the final separation strikes so deep a wound as the growing sense of loss, as the acc.u.mulating despair of unsatisfied longing. So, in all the many regions where Dr. Duncan, the great apostle of Virginia, was known and loved, the deepest grief was not felt when all those thousands followed the hea.r.s.e and sobbed around the open grave under the stars at Hollywood. A deeper sorrow comes to us now, after taking up again the task of life, when we feel, amid our pleasures and our business, that the great advocate of G.o.d, who lived Christ among us as sublimely as he preached him, has been withdrawn forever from among the potencies of our time; when we remember that, in evil days, when many bad men are seeking to break down the honesty and to dull the moral sense of the Virginia people, we are left without the mighty aid of that one man who knew best of all how to stir the hearts and to guide the acts of our people to good. Yet with the calmness of the deeper sorrow comes, too, the calmness to think out the secret of the dead man's power over the great ma.s.ses of the Southern people, for that power was one that reached far outside of his church and of all churches deep down into the moral life of Virginia. Thus even for us laymen, for us that have no right to preach and no theology to teach, the character of this wonderful man has an abiding interest. It is worth while for us all to know what were the means by which he worked. As his life did such immense good to so many thousands of our people, the contemplation, and, if possible, the understanding, of that life, can hardly fail to do good to the great communities that are now mourning for him.

"On the first meeting with Dr. Duncan, were it only a hurried talk at a street-corner or a few minutes' conversation on a railway train, the first impression that came to the stranger from his sweet eyes and tender lips was the sense of a strange and overpowering love and loveableness in the man. The face and voice stole their way to the heart and mastered the affections. All the children were drawn to his caressing hands by a charm that their little hearts could not withstand.

The negro servants in the houses that he visited could be seen to hang upon his words and to strive to catch his smile. The belle of the springs, on her way to the ball-room; the roughest mountaineer loafing on the skirts of a camp-meeting; boys and old men, the ignorant and the educated, had to yield themselves to the fascination of the fresh and guileless love that emanated from his beaming eyes and tender, penetrating voice. Whether he was moving with his exquisite grace, smiling and talking, through a parlor, or standing all aglow in his pa.s.sionate eloquence beside his pulpit; whether he spoke to one man, soul to soul, in the quiet of his study, or faced the thousands of eyes that looked up to him from a great city church, or from the green hillsides of a rustic amphitheatre, the power that went forth from him, winning all hearts and softening all hardness, was the power of an exquisitely loveable nature, giving love richly and pleading for love in return. But as you listened to him, as you watched the play of his mobile features, and took in the rich, sweet tones of his voice, this first impression of the man's intense loveableness was deepened by the impression of his marvellous intellectual power. The shrewdness of his observation, the penetrating keenness of his intelligence, the splendid precision of his thought and of his utterance, took instantaneous possession of the hearer's mind. His knowledge of human character as men moved before him, his ready insight into the tangled web of human motives, was almost infallible. In spite of his boundless charity and graciousness, he was a man that could not be deceived or cheated. He took men in at a glance. The smile that curled around his lips, the light that sparkled in his eyes, showed to the dullest, as to the wiliest, that the secrets of their character were seen, that the very depths of their soul lay unveiled before him. Thus, when you talked with him, you were sure to feel that, while his love opened his heart to you, his intellect opened yours to him. In managing men, above all, in wielding the discipline of a college, the amazing quickness and penetration of his intellect made him the fittest of all men to control both character and conduct. The offender who came to hide his sin beneath a lie, found the lie impossible, and flung himself with pa.s.sionate tears upon the love of the man that both understood and pitied his weakness. Even in great audiences, when he spoke to thousands of G.o.d and goodness, the veils of self-deception fell away before the glances that he shot into the souls of men. In all the history of Christianity no man ever pleaded for Christ before men with a mightier control over the secrets of human hearts, with a sharper penetration into the weakness and badness of each human soul. It was this union of moral with intellectual force, this union of the attractive power of love with the penetrative power of understanding, that gave to Dr.

Duncan his unrivalled and irresistible control over the heart and intellect of the Virginia people. The world is so bad that we are apt to confuse amiability with silliness, and to see a sign of intellectual weakness in a good man's love and care for his fellow-men. But here, at least, it was one man as strong as he was good, a man that joined to the charm of a tenderly loving heart the power of a splendid genius and of an incisive intelligence. Thus he rose on the hearts of men to be a living power in our State and time. Thus to each man that saw much of him, to every human being that was exposed for long to the influence of his words and actions, the man, simple and kindly, and great in all his deeds, shone forth as the revelation of a higher life, as the proof and example of what Christ's teaching meant.

"The mystery both of the moral power and of the intellectual power of this great man lay in his astounding unselfishness; for the egoistic habit of mind is a hindrance not only to the moral but also to the intellectual progress of the man. A selfish regard for one's own interests, the bad trait of regarding all things and all men as subordinate to one's own designs, not only deadens the moral sensibility, but it even distorts and discolors all intellectual insight into the world. If we fail to care for other men's good by being so busy about our own, we fail equally to penetrate into their characters and to see the good and evil that is in them by being unable to remove from our intellectual vision the beam of our own desires and designs. From all these obstacles, to n.o.ble acting and to accurate thinking, Dr. Duncan was sublimely free. He had resigned himself so fully into the hands of G.o.d that he had ceased absolutely to care for his own advantage or to be perplexed by the contemplation of his own aims. Thus he moved through the annual courses of his serene and glorious activity, preaching and teaching and helping all good causes, with a mind unperverted from great things by any care for little ones, with a soul ready for any sacrifice, and, what is harder still, ready to throw itself into full and instantaneous sympathy with any soul that opened to his approach. In all his dealings with men, as friend with his friends, as preacher with his congregations, as teacher with his pupils, the loveliness and warmth of his affections were equalled only by the pliability and penetration of his intellect, by his wisdom in advising, by his discretion in helping.

"All the ordinary temptations to self-seeking fell off powerless from the supreme unselfishness of his nature. When the fame of his eloquence spread over many States; when he was acknowledged as the greatest orator of his church, and, perhaps, of his country; when the richest churches of the greatest cities offered him vast salaries to leave the struggling people and the impoverished college that he loved, he clung fast to poverty, and put aside, without a struggle, the temptations of ease and wealth. Even when temptation a.s.sailed him in craftier forms; when men told him of the mighty congregations that New York or St. Louis or San Francisco would pour forth to catch from him the words of life, he said that 'he loved his own people best, and must stay to help Virginia along.' Like his Master, he chose poverty rather than riches; like his Master, he chose to work in a little village, among a small band of disciples, rather than among the splendors and plaudits of cities; like his Master, he made of life one long series of sweetly-borne self-sacrifices. Before the spectacle of such sublime self-depression all words of common praise are unseemly. But to them that lived with him, who saw the great soul take up so bravely and bear so lovingly the burthen of poverty, trouble, and suffering, the life he led was a miracle of beauty and holiness, making the world brighter and n.o.bler by even the remembrance of him.

"In his preaching, as in his life, the same blending of love with wisdom, of childlike simplicity with manly power, was revealed. There was no fierceness, no affectation, no struggling after oratorical effects; but, as the powers of his mind got into motion, as the thoughts rolled on, clear and ma.s.sive, the words and sentences grew rich and lofty, the sweet voice swelled out into organ tones, the small and graceful figure swayed to the pulsations of his thought, and the beautiful face glowed with all the illumination of love. There was no theology in his sermons, no polemical divinity in his conception of divine truth. To love G.o.d, and to love men was for him, as Christ taught him, the sum of all righteousness. This power of love was the agency through which he did his work in the world. As the warmth of the sun controls all the processes of nature and commands all the movements of the universe, so warmth of love, as the central fact of G.o.d's moral government, was for him the source of all power, the means of subduing all wrong, and of bringing the world back into harmony with G.o.d's laws.

"No human life ever lived in this world of ours was attuned more fully to a loftier harmony. As we think of all the good deeds he did, of all the wise words he spoke, of his solemn yet tender warnings against evil, of the love that charmed so many souls to do right, of the sublime unselfishness that made his life a sacrifice to other men's good, we can feel that to us, in our own State, born of our own stock, in full sight of us all, a man has been given to live for our good, as nearly as man may, up to the life-story of the Christ himself.

"_University of Virginia._ T. R. PRICE."

The following is taken from the Minutes of the Virginia Conference, and was written by an old college mate, Dr. J. C. Granbery, now bishop:

"James Armstrong Duncan was born in Norfolk, Va., April 14, 1830. He was dedicated to G.o.d from his birth and trained in piety by his father, the venerable David Duncan, who has been prominent through two generations in the education of the youth of the Southern States, and who accepted the chair of Ancient Languages in Randolph-Macon College while James was a child; and by his mother, a woman of saintly character, who preceded her son by a few years to the heavenly land. In his boyhood he was a universal favorite, and displayed the gifts of mind and genial spirit and grace of manner which became so conspicuous in his riper years. We may mention his overflowing humor and gaiety, tempered with a kind and generous nature; and a wonderful power of mimicry, which furnished unbounded amus.e.m.e.nt to his comrades, and, indeed, to persons of mature age, but was never used to wound in feeling or reputation. In 1847, during one of those gracious revivals with which our church has been signally blessed year after year, he sought and found Jesus. In one of his latest and most effective sermons, he has described his conversion and affirmed that the vow of consecration then made had been the controlling principle of his ministry and the motive of those labors which his brethren sometimes thought excessive.

"He was licensed to preach probably the next year. The people of Mecklenburg still speak of his first sermons, in which they saw the prophecy of his future greatness. Having graduated in June, 1849, he was immediately placed in charge of a society in Alexandria, which had just organized in connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. From that hour his popularity and success as a preacher and pastor began, and they steadily waxed fuller and more l.u.s.trous until his death quenched a star than which none shone with a purer and more brilliant radiance in the whole firmament of Methodism. A great revival attended his labors during the few months before the session of our Conference and the prosperity of the church was secured. He was kept on our northern border for nine years, in Fairfax, Leesburg, Alexandria and Was.h.i.+ngton--everywhere beloved with enthusiasm, everywhere successful in his ministry. Then followed nine years of faithful labor in the city of Richmond. In 1857 he was sent to Trinity, one of our oldest and most important stations. There had come a crisis in the history of that church. Its prosperity was already impaired and seriously threatened by the unfortunate location of the house of wors.h.i.+p. The young pastor soon had the building crowded with an eager congregation. The eloquence of his discourses and the charm of his social manners were a theme of general comment throughout the city. Two series of sermons to young men and women proved peculiarly attractive, and resulted in extensive and lasting benefit. He took front rank among the pulpit orators of the land. All denominations flocked to hear him, and delighted in his company and friends.h.i.+p. These honors he bore with modest dignity and consecrated with G.o.dly simplicity to the service of the Master. A little band from Trinity determined, under his leaders.h.i.+p, to build a handsome and commodious church on Broad street near the Capitol Square. In 1859 he was appointed to this new charge, and preached in a rented hall until the church was completed. It was dedicated in March, 1861, and, with the exception of two years, he continued in pastoral charge until the Conference of 1866. All this time his influence widened and deepened. He was a power in that city. When it became the capital of the Confederate States, and was crowded with representatives from all parts of the South, his faithful, spiritual, eloquent preaching entranced, edified, encouraged, and impressed with a saving efficacy an untold mult.i.tude, whose number eternity must reveal. No man in our day has accomplished more for Methodism or for the cause of Christ in the capital of Virginia than James A. Duncan.

"In addition to his pastorate, he edited the _Richmond Christian Advocate_ from the fall of 1860 to the fall of 1866. With characteristic generosity he did this work without money and price--a free-will offering to the church, except the two years he devoted his whole time to the paper. The readiness and versatility of his talents were admirably shown in this office, for, with many other claims upon his time, he wrote not only the editorials, but much of the most popular and enjoyable correspondence with which the _Advocate_ was enriched during those years. Great curiosity was aroused to find out the anonymous authors of series of letters published in the paper; but few, if any, suspected that they came from the fertile brain of the editor.

"Two years he was pastor of the Was.h.i.+ngton-Street Church, in Petersburg.

Such men as D'Arcy Paul loved to speak of the rich spiritual feasts on which he fed them from the pulpit, and the no less precious influence of his pastoral visits. In that city he suffered a severe spell of nervous fever, his first illness since childhood.

"This brings us to a third era of nine years in his eventful life. After the war Randolph-Macon College re-opened and feebly struggled for life.

Dr. Duncan was among the strongest advocates of its removal from Boydton to Ashland. The Board of Trustees resolved on this critical movement in the summer of 1868. The Faculty resigned, and an election was held to fill the vacant places. Dr. Duncan was unanimously chosen President. He signified promptly a disposition to accept the responsible post, but demanded a few days in which to carry the question in private prayer to the G.o.d whose he was and whom he served. Repeatedly and emphatically he declared the singleness of purpose with which he entered on this office, and that he would not remain one day in it if it were not for the conviction that he was thereby serving most efficiently the church of Christ.

"No one who knew the man doubted his sincerity and simplicity of aim. He never sought self. He was indifferent to wealth in a degree which some even censured as extreme. He served not ambition. The esteem and approval of good men he must have prized, but never, so far as we know, did he exhibit any undue concern about such things. He belonged to Christ, and to the church for Christ's sake. He went in the courage of faith and the spirit of consecration to the College, and devoted himself to the duties in the chair of Moral Philosophy and in the presidency.

The halls were filled with a larger number of students than had ever sought its advantages in its palmiest days before the war. He governed by his personal influence, by the love and confidence with which he inspired the young men, and diligence and good behavior were the rule with rare exceptions.

"The reputation of the inst.i.tution for a high grade of scholars.h.i.+p and thoroughness of culture was inferior to that of no other college in the land. Young preachers, often numbering more than forty in a single session, sat under his special lectures in theology, and were moulded by his example and his teaching. With the authority of a prophet, with the gentleness of a father, he preached to the students, week after week, the word of life, and saw many of them accept with glad heart the yoke and burden of Christ. In private they revealed to him all that was in their hearts, and sought his sympathy and counsel. In public, whatever the occasion on which he spoke, they hung breathless on his lips, and received what he said as if from an angel of G.o.d. Those who have attended the Commencements can bear witness to the outgus.h.i.+ng of love, the wise and n.o.ble utterances, the manly frankness and boldness, and the tenderness, almost motherly, with which he bade those young men farewell in unstudied words of genuine eloquence, and the beaming faces, the streaming eyes, the thunders of applause with which they responded. Nor were these his only labors. Often during the sessions he hurried off to preach in city or country at the call of the churches of the Virginia and Baltimore Conferences, or in order to raise money for the College.

The summer vacation was no rest to him, but his busiest period.

Incessantly he travelled through the two Conferences, speaking on Christian education, and speaking at District Conferences, at protracted and camp-meetings. He was in labors more abundant, not sparing himself, never reluctant to help in any good work. Everywhere he was sought, everywhere he was welcome. Thousands ascribe to him, under G.o.d, their first impulse to serve Christ, their revival from a lukewarm and languis.h.i.+ng state, or their fuller consecration and seeking of a higher spiritual life. We may safely affirm that no man of his own generation has so powerfully impressed the religious character of an equal number within the bounds of these two Conferences as James A. Duncan. He was elected to the General Conferences of 1866, 1870, and 1874. That of 1870 he did not attend, his duties at the College not allowing his absence.

He lacked only a few votes to be chosen bishop at that session, several delegates of this body, who held him in high admiration, and thought him in every way worthy of the honor, withholding their votes because they believed him essential to Randolph-Macon College. From that time the mind of the whole church turned to him as the fittest person to be elected to the episcopacy. In 1876 he attended the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church as one of three fraternal messengers from our General Conference, and his address on that occasion was marked by its catholic spirit, fervent love for Christ, and grand and thrilling eloquence.

"In the summer of 1874, exhausted by ceaseless toil of travel and preaching, and exposed to a malarial atmosphere at a camp-meeting, he was seized with a fever, which took a typhoid phase, and he lay for weeks at the point of death. For one year he was scarcely fit for any work, and though he afterwards rallied and resumed his course of untiring labors, the seeds of disease lurked in his system, and often developed in severe spells of sickness; yet he worked on, cheerful, energetic, consumed with zeal. The past summer he spoke and preached with an ardor, power, and success equal to his happiest efforts in the years of his vigorous health. Sunday, September the 9th, he was in Baltimore, to preach at the re-opening of Trinity, and this he did, in the forenoon with great power, despite intense physical pain. On his return to Ashland it was found that his jawbone was decayed, and poison diffused throughout his frame. Erysipelas attacked his face. His sufferings were great, but borne with patience and sweetness. He sat up, however, a part of each day, and seemed not to suspect that his end drew near. Monday morning, the 24th, he fell asleep in Jesus.

"Oh! the surprise, the shock, the grief of heart, the sense of loss, the feeling of desolation, which that news produced. Crowds attended his funeral at Broad-Street Church, which, by a marble tablet, acknowledges him its founder, and Bishop Doggett p.r.o.nounced his eulogy. Memorial services were held in Richmond, Petersburg, and Baltimore. Resolutions of highest praise were pa.s.sed by Quarterly Conferences and by the faculties of colleges and universities. The secular and religious press honored his memory with heartfelt tributes; but all these honors fell far short of expressing the reverence and love with which he is cherished in thousands of hearts and thousands of homes. We yield to our sorrow of personal bereavement, and then chide ourselves for the selfishness when we ought to be grieving over the loss to the church. We think with sadness and almost with despondency of the bereavement of our College, and Conference, and Church, and tears fill our eyes, and a sword pierces our heart, at the unbidden suggestion of the void in our own life which the death of this dear, this n.o.ble friend and brother has made.