Western Maryland College - Aloha Yearbook (Westminster, MD)

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Objective is not a very broad one, and his conception became visible in the Vtfestminster Theological Seminary, which he organized in 1882, and of which he became the first president. It was in the discharge of the duties of this position that his rare executive ability first found a Held for its display, possibly first emerged from sub-consciousness in himself, and it was here, too, that he under- went the preliminary training which was to fit him for the exercise of that ability in an older and larger institution. In June, '86, the venerable Dr. VVard who, from the beginning of the College, had been its faithful, self-sacrificing president, asked to be relieved of duties which he felt to be outgrowing his strength, and Dr. Lewis was the choice of the trustees as his successor. Apart from the confidence felt by the retiring president in the capacity of this successor to carry on the work to which he had devoted nineteen years of his life, the appointment of Dr. Lewis must have been, on personal grounds, particularly acceptable to him. He had been the young Lewis' teacher, he had followed, with affectionate interest, his pupil's career both in and out of College, and he had given him his only daughter in marriage. The expectations formed by the friends of the College about the new admin- istration were more than realized. Debts which had long been a source of embar- rassment were speedily paid, the reputation of the school grew higher, there was a steady increase in the number of students from year to year. building after building arose to meet widening needs, and early graduates coming back to commencement rubbed their eyes and wondered where they were at. After Dr. Lewis had been president for five years he found that the strain' of work and the burden of responsibility were beginning to overtax his strength and threaten his future usefulness. A long rest and an entire change were deemed? necessary for his recuperation, and as these could best be secured by travel, leave off absence was granted by the trustees, and in September, '91, he turned his office over to Professor Reese, who had been chosen acting-president, and started on a tour around the world. In the course of this journey, so rich in pleasant memories, Dr. Lewis visited Honolulu, Japan, China, India and Egypt, and, returning through Europe, arrived home in February of 1892, with health restored and with renewed vigor for the work which has unceasingly occupied him ever since. The record of this work belongs to, and is indeed a large part of, the his- tciry of Western Maryland College, and it is there only that it will fittingly find a p ace. l

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ev. Cbomas Bamilton Lewis, D. D. F, when the Freshman Class appeared for its first recitation, in September, ,7I, there had been pointed out to the professors a lad among them who was destined to be, some day, the president of the College, they would doubtless have watched his student life with a very peculiar interest. But the teachers saw, at first, in the boy who was registered as 'lfhonias H. Lewis, of Easton, Md., only a Freslnnan neither more nor less fresh than his twenty-seven classmates. ln the school world, however. a redistribution of atoms soon takes place, it is never long before some member of a class is its acknowledged head, and by a happy provision it is not the scum that, under academic conditions, rises to the top, but always the cream. .Xt the end of the year it was found that young Lewis had led in all the studies of his class and aroused the expectation that he would be its valedictorian. Diligent student as he was. Lewis was not a recluse. .He took an active part in pretty rnnch all that was going on in the College, and especially was he faith- ful to his obligations as a member of the XYebster Society, which chose him one of its orators for the contest of '7.t. Ks had been anticipated, he carried off the highest honors oi the Class of '75, and graduated with the valedictory. The writer well ren.embers the impression made on the large commencement audience by this, the lastspeech he delivered as a .vfmivzzl ofXl'estern Maryland College. For a Collegian it was, in fact, a remarkable piece of eloquence, and the deep emotion which stirred him as he uttered his farewell words to Alina Mater elicited, tinmistakably, a sympathetic response in the hearts of all his hearers. At the time of his graduation, Thomas Hamilton Lewis was twenty-two years and a-half old, having been born near Dover, Del.. on the iith of December, 1852. As his studies had been all along pursued with a view to the ministry of the Methodist Protestant Church, he entered, very soon after leaving College, upon what, at that time, he looked forward to as the work of his life-the work of the preacher and the pastor. The First two years of his ministry were spent in Cum- berland, Md., but in 377 he was called to a more conspicuous position as assistant to Dr. Augustus Xlfebster in St. johns Independent Church, Baltimore-. The resignation, by reason of advancing years, of his chief, soon left the young preacher alone in this arduous and exacting charge, but he proved hiimself equal to its demands, and when, in 1882, he withdrew from St. Iohn's, it was only because he saw a new and, as he believed, a more useful outlet for his activities. Mr. Lewis had for some time been impressed with the disadvantage his denomination labored under from lack of special training for its ministers, and a plan for meeting this need began to take shape in his mind. Now to a meta- physician of the type of Lewis the dividing line between the Sizibjectiw and 9

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