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

Page 26 text:

r.f,Y ,, b fs.:- f 95 YS' .1 jjrvpfvk V 5. xi . 2 as, - 18' Er. IG. HH. Smith. Ham' nlim 111c111z'111',vsv jniulvif. '.,a 'E '., NE who was on the Hill, as the site of Hampden-Sidney College g Q i' and Union Theological Seminary has been familiarly called from ag time immemorial, from the fifties to the seventies of the last pg! as 'EM Century, frequently saw several well-known figures now passed Sk 'i 2 away from human view: Professor Martin, picturesque, with long grey beard Hoating on the wind, going to meet a Latin or Greek class-a little lateg Professor Holladay, on an afternoon stroll with a favorite pointer: Dr. Atkinson, with earnest face and stalwart frame, taking long strides through fields and woods in easy conversation with some student who loved him and wanted to learn from him: Dr. Dabney, in his garden working with the same determination and vim in taking his exercise and recreation as in his greater sphere of the lecture-roomg Dr. Peck, wearing gold spectacles and taking 18

Page 25 text:

rejected them, if ignorant of what citizenship in this country means. lt was one of these who proclaimed him an ' Injunf So this duelist in field and forum, this secessionist fore and aft, went to New York, direct from the held of battle, and the tire of the elements in him con- sumed opposition, burned away barriers and opened to him the position of justice of the Supreme Court in the metropolis of the Empire State of the Empress Republic of the earth, and ll- is called there: .X gentle, gracious, kindly gentle- man of the old school-kind in the home, kind on the bench. A country boy of the poor lands of Diuwiddie and the old fields and simple homes of Nottoway, editor. politician. special ambassador, member of Congress of the United States and of the Confederate States, General in the Southern -Xrinjx private soldier, prisoner. peuniless and countryless man. lawyer, judge, justice: in the retrospect of this chequered career, the thing he recalls with most satisfac- tion is, that instead of succumbing under the ruin in which the war involved him at the age of thirty-seven, in middle life, he equipped himself for a new profession, and although poor and with a large family. he struggled with such patience and industry, that in a strange and then hostile community, he has achieved a fair measure of success. May his merciful God and the faith of his fathers preserve his remaining years in peace and usefulness, free from 1ife's cares and trials, and shielded from its storms and battles. REV. T. P. Eiflzs, D. D. Blackstone, Virginia. . . - ff 195 , Qifaf if . - ii I f! .eS'fui. ' ' . f' E1 l4 ff3? fiiqi-fiat. . we . Q '-i'.'os--2'- mg, H , -rw-f:,,f,:::f w'E:QQfl: fg ' ' KA ,,.. ' '.EQ .3,!ji!f, q --- Q-.-- 17

Page 27 text:

his constitutional walk with measured step, in somewhat the same exact and care- ful way as that in which he led his students along the paths of Church History and Polity. But there was no form more familiar to the eye than that of Dr. Smith, who never seemed to walk for recreation, exercise, or any such frivolities. but always because he had to go somewhere to do something or to see that some- thing was done. He was one of the busiest of men-busy in the lecture-room, in his study, on the road. and wherever he happened to be his hands seemed always full. His course of instruction was by no means lightg yet in addition to this, the affairs of the Seminary of many kinds fell largely to his charge: while the duties of his copastorate of College Church, a wide correspondence, and the care of a little farm and his family imposed an additional burden. It is not strange then, that, whether you saw him with his portfolio under his arm, going to his classes, or on horseback. going out to visit his congregation, or on foot, starting out to look after his farming operations. you always said to yourself, Here is a man who has much to do, and he is doing it with his might. In the hard times just after the war when the resources of the Seminary were destroyed or unproductive, and there was little or no salary, especially during the summer of 1865, Dr. Smith, like Dr. Dabney, could be seen daily going forth to. or returning from, the fields in which, with his own hands he tilled the land to secure food for his household. His busiest time of all was probably that during which he was writing his commentary on the Psalms and the Proverbs, as his part of the work now known as The Bible Commentary of Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown. The Hebrew students of that time will ever bear a vivid remembrance of the recitations in that language before breakfast on dark winter mornings to which the sleepy procession went down, each with lamp in hand, to find a professor who was himself quite wide-awake and very quick to catch the dilatory student napping. Dr. Smith was born at Montrose, Powhatan County, Virginia, June goth. 1811. His mother, who was widowed in his early childhood, had the sole responsibility of directing his conduct and shaping his character, and such was her character, that to his dying day, her memory was cherished by him with the tenderest reverence and filial affection. He was graduated at Hampden-Sidney College in 1829, and though only eighteen years old, divided the first honor with tl1e late Chancellor Garland of Vanderbilt University. He has left interesting and humorous accounts of his first experiences at college, when as a boy of fourteen in roundabouts he began his course. He had declaimed at school, but delivering a speech of his own he found quite another matter. He tells of his first debate in the hall of the Union Society soon after he entered college. His name beginning with S., many were called on T9