Hampden Sydney College - Kaleidoscope Yearbook (Hampden Sydney, VA)

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and rendered it possible for us to live under the benign influences which we now enjoy. As Governor of the State, he proved himself equal to the exigencies of the times when difficult problems had to be solved, and how satisfactorily he settled the State debt and also how the oyster laws were made effective in adding revenue to the coffers of the treasury, and many other measures of benefit to the Common- wealth are well known and will go down in history reflecting luster upon the good management of him who sat at the helm of state. As a soldier, he entered the army early in the war. and fought gallantly at the head of the company of which he was captain. and when severely wounded he asked to be transferred to post duty at Danville, Virginia, where he performed valuable services till the end of the war. The great secret of ex-Governor McKinney's success in life depended upon a combination of natural endowments that were well balanced. Nature was pro- fuse in her gifts-she gave him a stately, commanding figure. a countenance beaming with intelligence and love, an eye sparkling and confiding, the index of his soul, a soft gentle voice, musical in its tones, and a memory stored with anec- dote. all of which made him a charming conversationalist. He was a natural orator and by practice in his early years of college and political life learned to modulate his voice so as to sway at will the multitudes that flocked to hear him speak. But the gift that crowned his life with imperishable luster was the gift of the Holy Ghost. W'hile Governor of Virginia. encumbered by the arduous duties of his office, he found time to render service to his God. He loved to sit at the feet of Dr. Hoge and regularly, while governor. attended his church. Private letters from Governor Mcliinney while in Richmond to the author of this sketch breathe the spirit of a true Christian. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church in Farmville. The late home of ex-Governor Mcliinney contains the forms of two, as its inmates, that were the idols of his heart-his desolate wife, lonely and sad, and his daughter, little Frankie, deprived so early of her father's love and guidance. May a merciful Providence send a ray of light to these sorrowing hearts. 26

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manhood the prophet is considered without honor in his own country. These difficulties K' Phil. as everybody called him, had to contend with and successfully overcame. Educated at an old-field school at New Store, his home and native place in Buckingham County. Virginia, by good instructors he early was prepared for college and it was at Hampden-Sidney that the writer had the privilege and the honor of first knowing his classmate Phil XY. McKinney.-a difhdent blushing youth of seventeen, gentle in manner, courteous to all, Huent and attractive in conversation, a good speaker and such were his oratorical gifts that he easily carried off the prize as best speaker in our graduating class of ISSI. Wihile at college, I had the best of opportunities to know Phil McKinney. XYe often N prepared our recitations together, took long walks in the groves and around the campus grounds, and after we left college he induced me to take a school at New Store and I lived in the same room with him for years and I can say neither at college nor during all these fifty years that have passed in which we have been thrown frequently together i I have never known him to take even a drink of ardent spirits or utter an oath, or bet at a game of chance, and his lan- guage has been always chaste and refined. Cf how many public men of I these days can this truthfully be said? As a member of the legislature from Buckingham County he distinguished himself as a man of ability. and as a member of the legal profession, even in his early career, his reputation became established as a champion in criminal prosecution. and I well remember how the'older members of the bar took pride in the rising star of Buckingham and also on one occasion how United States Congressman. the Hon. E. XY. I-lubard. against whom he was pitted in a political discussion, complimented the noble effort of one so young and so promising. It was his scathing denunciations of wrong that sometimes fired him to flights of oratory and invective that would do credit to men of national reputation and while he was Commonwealth's Attorney for Prince Edward County in those dreadful times of reconstruction, in his mas- terly efforts in this direction, put the people of the county under lasting obliga- tions to him for driving out the carpet-baggers that controlled all the local offices. PHILIP W. MCKINNEY 25

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1Robert TL. Etabneig. BY THOMAS C. JOHNSON, or UNION SEBIINARY, vmorum. QBERT LEXYIS D.-XBNEY was born in Louisa County, Virginia, on the fifth of March. 1820, of good old Hanover lineage. In june. 1836, he entered the Sophomore Class, half advanced, of Hampden-Sidney Col- lege. He completed the remaining part of the Sophomore, and tl1e junior course, and left the College in 1857. He then taught a country school for two years. In December, ISSQ, he entered the University of Yirginia, from which he retired in July of 1842 with the degree of master of arts. He again taught a select private school for more than two years. In October, 1844, he entered Union Seminary in Virginia, took the full three years' course in two years and was licensed to preach in May. 1846. He spent one year as a missionary in his native county, at the end of which time he was called to be the pastor of Tinkling Spring Church in Augusta County. Here he performed for a considerable time the functions of the pastorate to a large church and those of the head teacher of a classical school. After a pastorate of over six years he was elected to the chair of ecclesiastical history and polity in his alma mater, Union Theological Seminary, which he filled until 1870. Meanwhile, in 1869, he had been appointed adjunct professor of theology, and he was made full professor in this department in 1870. He con- tinued to dignify this important chair until 1883, when owing to bronchial troubles he was warned by his physicians to seek a milder climate. Accordingly he accepted an invitation to the chair of mental and moral philosophy in the Univer- sity of Texas, at Austin, the capital of that State. This position he continued to fill with unfiagging ability, notwithstanding the increasing infirmities of age and the total loss of his eyesight. till 1894. Since he retired from that position he has given special courses of lectures at different institutions and has been active with his pen. During his long term of service in Union Seminary he was for sixteen years co-pastor of the College church, with the Rev. Dr. B. M. Smith. During the 27