Williams College - Gulielmensian Yearbook (Williamstown, MA)

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30 The Gulielmensian two books from his pen, Handbook of Missions , and Missionary Memorials . Nor did hc forget the college during these busy days. He sent two of his three sons to be educated at his Alma Mater, one in tl1e Class of 1876 and the other 1879. After his retirement, in the evening hours of his life, the interchange of cour- tesies from the college pleased him exceedingly. The last commencement he attended was that in 1901, but the Society of the Alumni never gathered in Wil- liamstown after that without sending him the greeting of all Williams alumni. The most notable of these was sent on the occasion of his one hundredth birth- dayg an illuminated parchment bearing the names of tl1e president and secretary of the Society, with those of a local connnittee of graduates. This centennial celebration was widely mentioned in the press and is believed to be one unique in the 2Lll11tl.lS of American colleges. WVhen in 1910-11 an appeal went to all the classes for contribution to the 1Villiams Professorship fund, Dr. Rankin, representing' the class of 1831, respond- ed with a generous contribution. Last May he represented the college at the Centennial of the Princeton Theological Seminary. To his age was added soundness of mind and good health till the last, but tired out, his faithful heart stopped beating 011 October 20, 1912, and in his one hundred and third year Dr. Rankin departed to renew old acquaintances. John Adams Loire . Q ' 5' ,wx-wg-snr --., . 5 -, . ,, I . ,- l ,,',n75---. . - . pm, ,Vial BERKSIIIRE Q UAD RAN GLB

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32 The Gulielmensian The College and the Civil War HE young men in charge of the publication of the annual of the college have thought it well this year to dedicate the book to the honor of those who, either before or after membership in 5 Ck Iii.: 3' the college, enlisted i11 the service of our country during the Q civil war. Beginning in 1861 and ending in 1865, the war was, V wi' 4V i'fl E so to speak, at its middle point, its climax in '63. It may then be said that 50 years have passed since we, as a nation, were in the sharp agony of that crisis, and this publication may be said to com- memorate the semi-centennial of the relations of our beloved Alma Mater to that momentous conflict. It was in 1863, at the fiftieth anniversary of the grad- uation of the class of 1813, of which class he was for a time a member, that a poem, written by William Cullen Bryant, was read of which the following lines are a part. Fierce is the strife, As when of old the sinning angels strove To whelm, beneath the uprooted hills of heaven, The warriors of the Lord. Yet now as then God and the Right shall give the victory. For us who fifty years ago went forth Upon the world's great theatre, may we Yet see the day of triumph which the hours On steady wing waft hither from the depths Of a serener future: may we yet Beneath the reign of a new peace, behold The shaken pillars of our commonwealth Stand readjusted in their ancient poise, And the great crime of which our strife was bor11 Perish with its aceursed progeny! Bryant saw after 'two brief years the fulfillment of his prayer and died thir- teen years after the close of the war, having witnessed and shared in the distress- i11g agitations that accompanied the reconstruction of our beloved republic. It was of course the classes that were graduated either not long before the conflict or while it was actually going on which gave the largest quota of men to