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

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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

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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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with home-made mucilage and sent back with the answer enclosed. At this time, especially, his correspondence was voluminous and envelopes were probably quite dear. The making of lilibusses was another scheme for doing away with the use of matches then under a heavy stamp tax. The old letters, instead of being burned after reading, were torn in strips and skilfully rolled in a graceful spiral so as to form excellent lighters for lamps, while they were not unornamental to the mantelpiece, standing in a Hower-vase, as they generally did. He had the same disposition to keep his hands busy as Dr. Dabney. Though he did not, like him, make cart-wheels, doubtless many a sermon or lecture was shaped in his mind while these I' filibusses were rolled in his deft fingers. XVhere he got the name I never knew. XYalker's tilibustering expedition of some years before may have suggested this as a mode of harmless tilibustering on the domain of the match manufacturers. We can think of few greater contrasts than that between the work of these fingers and that of the mind which was subconsciously, or half-consciously, moving them. Dr. Smith was at this time striving to save the Seminary and to set it on a new career of usefulness. Through these years of stress and struggle he could say of this great work, 'A This one thing I do, though minor occupations were continually claiming his attention and receiving their relative share of it. Not only did he succeed in retrieving the losses occasioned by the war, but in preparing the institution for a larger work than it had ever accomplished before. Wliilst one of the most conservative of teachers in the best sense, he was at the same time progressive and enterprising in securing the best means for keeping abreast of the times and equipping the Seminary with the best appliances for furthering the knowledge and culture of the students. The progress of archae- ology, which has become so marked a characteristic of our times, was compara- tively in its infant stages then: but it enlisted his deep interest-especially every- thing in it connected with the newly-deciphered cuneiform inscriptions. This can be illustrated by another extract from Dr. Moore's sketch, He sought help in this line from those able to give it. Among the donations of this period were an inscribed brick from Babylonia, two valuable casts of other cuneiform tablets in the British Museum, and a set of fine photographs of the cities of the seven churches in Asia, all presented in 1879 by Mr. XV. R. Reynolds, of Norfolk, Ya. In 1883-84 the same liberal gentle- man made another generous gift to the library, a plaster cast facsimile of the celebrated black marble obelisk of Shalmanezer H f85O B. CJ, with its wealth of bas-relief sculpture and cuneiform text, About the same time, at Dr. Smith's 23