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

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the swirling gulfs of skepticism, while his knowledge of them enabled him to station warning signals for those who came under his instruction in after years. It would be impossible to say to what extent the tirm stand of the Southern Presbyterian Church on vital questions to-day is due to Dr. Smith's teaching and intiuence. All felt that he-unlike so many professors of Theology and writers on Theological themes, who with the word reverence continually used, yet remorselessly trample under foot the most sacred verities of Scripture-could say with Paul, XYe it 1sE1.112v13, and therefore speak. Une of the greatest services which Dr. Smith rendered to the cause of minis- terial education, for which he did so much in many ways, was his energetic work in securing a linancial basis for the continuance of the work of Union Theological Seminary just after the Civil XVar when its resources were so seriously affected by the general wreck and havoc of that unhappy era. Few 111611 knew more people or had more intiuence over them. Knowing of many in the North who would, in all likelihood, be glad to extend a helping hand to the prostrate institution, he did what few Southern men, in their sore-heartedness and humiliation, could have done. He went to these friends and made known to them the facts of the case. A generous response was the result. His old friend, Cyrus H. McCormick, gave 330,000 for endowing one professorship, and Mrs. S. P. Lees, Hr. Henry Young, Mr, H. K. Corning, besides many others, gave generously for the rehabilitation of the Seminary. Among these donations should be mentioned that of Mrs. lirown, of Baltimore, for the erection of the new library building, an enterprise to which Dr. Smith's energies were earnestly directed for several years. lt is thus referred to by Dr. XV. XV. Moore in a historical sketch of Union Seminary: It has already been noted that the Brown Library Hall was erected in ISSO. The writer, who was then a student in the Seminary, remembers well the laying of the corner-stone with Masonic ceremonies and an address by Dr. Smith. That was a glad day for all the friends of the Seminary, but especially so for the man who had done so much to reestablish the institution after the warg who had watched and promoted the growth of the library with almost parental solicitude, and who had secured the liberal donation by means of which the books were now to be suitably housed and conveniently arranged for future generations of pro- fessors and students. Before the erection of the commodious building with room for 30,000 volumes or more, the 11,000 books already gathered were crowded into bursting shelves in the galleries of the Seminary chapel. XYhen moved into the new building, they were, of course, rearranged and catalogued, a laborious task which had twice before been performed by Dr. Smith, viz., in 1834 and in 1869. In his report as librarian in 1869, after stating that he had again entered all the books in a manuscript catalogue, and also in a well-bound printed and double DI

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before his turn came, and every one declined. XVhen he was called and actually stood up to speak, small as he was. there was a silence which was appalling to so young a speaker. The question was whether the world would not have been better off if Napoleon had never lived. He had prepared no speech, but was determined to do his best, and so said: I think Bonaparte was a very bad man! and took his seat. He remarks that he was never scared afterwards. His capacity for stage fright seems to have been exhausted on that occasion. It scared all the scare out of him. Such was his success in speaking that he was chosen to repre- sent his class at commencement, and at his graduation delivered a flrst honor oration. Feeling assured that he was called to preach the gospel, after teaching two sessions at Milton, N. C., he attended Cnion Theological Seminary, and after finishing his course, and perhaps before, served as assistant instructor in Hebrew. He afterwards attended the Theological Department of the University of Halle, Germany, where among his teachers was the celebrated Tholuc, to whom he seems to have been much attached. After his return to America, he became pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Danville, Yirginia, and afterwards, of Tinkling Spring and XVaynesboro. VVhile in the latter pastorate he was married .to Miss Mary Morrison, daughter of the Rev. blames Morrison. pastor of New Providence Clmrch. She still survives at the good old age of eighty-one. Later, he was called to the pastorate of the church in Staunton, which he served until he was chosen Secretary of Publication, and went to Philadelphia to take charge of this great work. In April, 1854. he was elected professor of Oriental Literature in Union Theological Seminary, Yirginia, and returned to his native State to enter upon that which was to be the great work of his life, training young men for the ministry. It is said that, first and last, during the thirty-seven years in which he taught in the Seminary. nearly seven hundred men received the impress of his moulding hands. As a teacher, Dr. Smith was eminently practical and straightforward. There have been few instructors who have excelled him in impressing on their students a feeling of deep reverence for the Bible as the XVord of God, and in applying plain, common-sense principles of interpretation in expounding it. He combined critical and exegetical methods in a most happy way. His sojourn in Germany had on him an effect the very opposite of that which it has had on many American students. Instead of being carried away with the neological theories so prevalent there, he seems only to have been impressed with the extreme danger of rational- istic principles, and thereby the better prepared for warning others against them. His robust understanding and firm faith stood steadfast amid the currents of tendencies that have swept so many feebler men from the moorings of faith into 20

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interleaved volume, he says: ' It is gratifying to state that, during a period of thirty-five years since the printed catalogue was prepared by me, I find that not over two or three volumes have been lost, and those of no great valuef But friends of the Seminary in Yirginia, also, added liberally to the resources of the institution. In 1877 Mrs. Ann Davidson, of Rockingham County, left, by will, several thousand dollars with which the scholarship bearing her name was founded, and an unknown giver founded the Tabb Street Church scholarship by the gift of 35,000 The largest of these scholarships was endowed by lllr. Joseph Blair lVilson, of Collierstown, Va., who, Hrst and last, gave 334,000 for the purpose. Wfhen we remember that to Dr. Smith's personal inliuence and unceasing endeavors, most of these accessions to the resources of the Seminary were chiefly due, it does not seem strange that he was a busy-looking man. Some may wonder how Dr. Smith and Dr. Dabney, gentlemen and scholars as they were, could bring themselves to the performance of such arduous tasks as their farming, which has been mentioned, involved. One answer is in the word, necessity. The other is that they were real men as well as gentlemen, and where duty called they went. Hoeing corn, pulling fodder, and similar occupations were the duty of the hour for them in 1865 when the labor system had been suddenly broken up, and there was little money in their purses with which they could have employed it if it had been available. Two students of Theology will always remember recitations to Dr. Dabney in the waning light of the evenings of that summer, when, after his day's work in the field, he would sit with them on his portico and examine them, without book, on what they had learned during the day in I-Iill's Divinity, which he had given them as the text-book for the time, though Turretin was the regular text-book studied in the Seminary in connection with his lectures and reference books. Though his hands had been wielding the hoe all day, he could not let them be idle now 5 and while examining his students he was generally engaged in plaiting straw with which to make a hat. It is hard to say now just how, in each case, families lived through the war times and those immediately succeeding. Living on noth- ing a year was a hard problem indeed. A glimpse into the way it was done may be gotten in this hat-making, and in the exhibition of samples of home-weaving by the ladies when in their social gatherings. In addition to their neat homespun dresses, each would have on hand a variety of samples of various patterns which she had woven with her own hands. The writer remembers, as one of Dr. Smith's thrifty devices of the time, the turning of envelopes inside out. Wlieii a letter was received, the envelope was opened by no means carelessly-steamed, possibly-and then turned, made over 22