Fredericksburg College - Quips and Quibbles Yearbook (Fredericksburg, VA)

Page 27 text:

QUIPS AND QUIBBLES Alexander Pierce Saunders the Southern Presbyterian church, where these wards of the church should be trained and educated for future usefulness. He first brought his plan before the Synod of Virginia in October, 1892, but as it developed, he decided to transfer it to the General Assembly. This body at its session in April, 1893, at Macon, Ga., adopted the institution as planned by Dr. Saunders, appointed a Board of Trustees and decided that the school be opened in the following autumn. Dr. Saunders acting under these directions, organized and opened the “Fredericks¬ burg Collegiate Institute, ” from which at a later day grew “Fredericksburg College.” During the six years that he was associated with this institution it would be impossible to estimate his influence upon its future destiny, and upon the character of the students gathered within its walls. As one of the students of the College wrote of him at the time of his death: “ He had won us all by his love for us, and in each of those battlefields there is a monu¬ ment—a monument that will live as long as we do, which Page 19 will always remind us that there was one person who gave his life to make our lives worth living. Thus enshrined in our hearts is the memory of the purest, kindest, noblest man we ever knew, to whom we owe the debt of a world of love.” It was but too true that in imitation of his Master he gave his life for others. The pressure of heavy responsibilities and financial anxieties proved too much for a body always frail. He was com¬ pelled to give up active work and seek a change of climate, and after nearly two years of lingering suffering, borne with unfaltering courage, and unfailing sweetness, he entered into rest at Wytheville, March 21, 1900. By his own request he sleeps in the historic cemetery of Fred¬ ericksburg. The students of Fredericksburg College should ever hold in loving remembrance the noble-hearted founder of their Alma Mater. And surely we may prophesy a long and prosperous career for the institution whose foundations were laid in faith and whose cornerstone was love.

Page 26 text:

Page i8 QUIPS AXD QUIBBLES Alexander Pierce Saunders [Founder of the Assembly ' s Home and School, and Fredericksburg College] LEXANDER PIERCE SAUNDERS was born June 12, 1865, in the beautiful Cripple Creek Valley of South-western Virginia. He was educated at Emory and Henry College, the University of Virginia, and Union Theological Seminary. While he was a student at Union Seminary, Dr. Saunders felt the call to devote his life to service in the foreign mission field. In the autumn of 1890 he sailed for Greece, having been married a few weeks before his de¬ parture to Miss Susie Baskerville, of Prince Edward Count}’. The station to which he was assigned was Salonica, where he was associated with Dr. T. R. Sampson. Dr. Saunders was peculiarly fitted by nature for the work to which he had been called. His was pre-eminently a genial and lovable disposition, winning the affection of all with whom he came in contact, and he was overflowing with youthful enthusiasm, ready to do and dare anything in the Master’s service. A career of great usefulness seemed to lie before him, but a year after he had entered the mission it was deemed best by the Assembly to trans¬ fer his work in Greece to the Native Evangelical Church. His health was greatly impaired while at Salonica by a severe attack of smallpox, from which he had only recently recovered w hen he returned to America in 1891. Soon after his home-coming Dr. Saunders was called to supply the pulpit of the Presbyterian church in Alex¬ andria for some months. In 1892 he became pastor of the Fredericksburg church. His work here will long be held in grateful and affectionate remembrance, for not only did he proclaim the gospel from the pulpit with eloquence and earnestness, and win and hold the hearts of his people by his winsome and attractive personality, but in the early days of his ministry in this city he inaug¬ urated the work that stands today as his monument. Debarred from active service in the foreign field, his heart still yearned to aid the work to which he h ad hoped to consecrate his life. In his heart, so full of sympathetic tenderness and enthusiasm for ideal love and goodness, was conceived the plan of founding a home for the children of missionaries and of deceased ministers of

Page 28 text:

P A G E 20 QUIPS AND QUIBBLES Virginia Virginia, mother dear, I love thee well, Thy sacred southern soil and blushing hill. Thy verdant fronted woodland, green and still, Thy gory fields, far famed for shot and shell — My home. Virginia, mother dear, Tlove thy name. All writ in golden words of history ; Td loathe to be a son of aught but thee, Or flash a glinted sword for others blame — My home. Virginia, mother dear, love thy fame , Prolific parent of an endless train Of noble seers, of men without a stain , I ' d lav my life upon thy shrine, thy claim — My home. -G. C. M. 02 .