Richard Irby

“ In managing men, above all, in wielding the discipline of a college, the amazing quickness and penetration of his intellect made him the fittest of all men to control both character and conduct. The offender who came to hide his sin beneath a lie, found the lie impossible, and flung himself with passionate tears upon the love of the man that both understood and pitied his weakness. ”

“ Dr. Duncan, while not technically trained as a teacher, yet showed himself a great teacher. What an inspiration he imparted to the band that gathered around him! How he lit up every dreary field of text! Blessed, yea, thrice blessed, was that school of young prophets. While himself the finest of models, nothing was farther from his thought than to make little 'Duncans' of every student. Bring up a boy in the way he should go, according to his bent, this was his idea. He would never have been guilty of putting the toga of Cicero upon Charles Spurgeon. ”

“ All the ordinary temptations to self-seeking fell off powerless from the supreme unselfishness of his nature. When the fame of his eloquence spread over many States; when he was acknowledged as the greatest orator of his church, and, perhaps, of his country; when the richest churches of the greatest cities offered him vast salaries to leave the struggling people and the impoverished college that he loved, he clung fast to poverty, and put aside, without a struggle, the temptations of ease and wealth. ”

“ There was no theology in his sermons, no polemical divinity in his conception of divine truth. To love God, and to love men was for him, as Christ taught him, the sum of all righteousness. This power of love was the agency through which he did his work in the world. As the warmth of the sun controls all the processes of nature and commands all the movements of the universe, so warmth of love, as the central fact of God's moral government, was for him the source of all power, the means of subduing all wrong, and of bringing the world back into harmony with God's laws. ”

“ Eight years ago, in a critical moment in the history of the College, your flattering representations of the service you believed I might render to Christian education induced me to sacrifice my own inclinations and to accept the presidency of Randolph-Macon.
"What has been done is too well known to you to make it necessary for me to recount the familiar facts. My rejoicing in it all is the blessing the College has been to our young men, and the fact that, by abundant labors, I have also had a personal share in the rebuilding and re-establishing an institution whose work is its best witness. ”

“ The reputation of the institution for a high grade of scholarship and thoroughness of culture was inferior to that of no other college in the land. Young preachers, often numbering more than forty in a single session, sat under his special lectures in theology, and were moulded by his example and his teaching. With the authority of a prophet, with the gentleness of a father, he preached to the students, week after week, the word of life, and saw many of them accept with glad heart the yoke and burden of Christ. ”

“ I feel that in your straitened condition, having to make a new appeal for students and for friends to re-endow your College, you are entitled to every possible advantage in your arduous undertaking. A son of the College, I love her too well, and the church which has founded and supported her in the past, to stand in the way of any possible effort that may give prestige to your labors to put her once more on the high road to prosperity. ”

“ A deeper sorrow comes to us now, after taking up again the task of life, when we feel, amid our pleasures and our business, that the great advocate of God, who lived Christ among us as sublimely as he preached him, has been withdrawn forever from among the potencies of our time; when we remember that, in evil days, when many bad men are seeking to break down the honesty and to dull the moral sense of the Virginia people, we are left without the mighty aid of that one man who knew best of all how to stir the hearts and to guide the acts of our people to good. ”

“ Nothing but a most natural and remarkable modesty prevented him from becoming as conspicuous as he was well entitled to be, unless it was that he spent his long life in the South, the Nazareth of the nation, out of which few "prophets can come," if we judge by The Cyclopedia of Biography, which side-tracks such men as Garland and Duncan, whose names will shine "forever and ever" when thousands of those given in full, with portraits, shall have been forgotten, as if they never had lived. ”

“ COLLEGE HISTORY AFTER THE WAR. THE period immediately succeeding the surrender of the Confederate army at Appomatox was one of the darkest and most discouraging that any civilized people was ever called to face. Virginia had been for four years the battle-ground over which great armies had marched and counter-marched and fought. Every home had felt the torture that "tried men's souls." Widows gathered their fatherless children around them to share the last crust of bread together, not knowing whether even that much could be found to-morrow. ”

“ The belle of the springs, on her way to the ball-room; the roughest mountaineer loafing on the skirts of a camp-meeting; boys and old men, the ignorant and the educated, had to yield themselves to the fascination of the fresh and guileless love that emanated from his beaming eyes and tender, penetrating voice. Whether he was moving with his exquisite grace, smiling and talking, through a parlor, or standing all aglow in his passionate eloquence beside his pulpit ”

“ In resigning my office as Financial Secretary, I do not abate one jot or tittle of my interest in the College. No! I love the College as I love the church; and fidelity to the church enjoins upon me and upon all fidelity to the interests of this institution. Be assured of my hearty prayers and co-operation in the future as in the past. As a member of this Board, I shall stand shoulder to shoulder with you to make Randolph-Macon a permanent and ever-increasing blessing to church and state. ”

“ Christianity is our birthright. It is the richest inheritance bequeathed us by our noble fathers. Are the guardians of public education alone 'halting between two opinions'? Do they think that, in fact and for practical purposes, the truth of Christianity is still a debatable question? Is it still a question whether the generations yet to rise up and occupy the wide domain of this great empire, to be representatives of our name, our freedom, and our glory before the nations of the earth, shall be a Christian or infidel people? ”

“ I am glad that these follies have passed away, that faculty and students treat each other as gentlemen and friends, and that the public sentiment of the College would not tolerate any rudeness, though disguised under the name of fun. It is well to appeal to the conscience, gentlemanly propriety and honor, and generous and kindly sentiments of young men, rather than resort to espionage and multiplied restraints. ”

“ Before the spectacle of such sublime self-depression all words of common praise are unseemly. But to them that lived with him, who saw the great soul take up so bravely and bear so lovingly the burthen of poverty, trouble, and suffering, the life he led was a miracle of beauty and holiness, making the world brighter and nobler by even the remembrance of him.
"In his preaching, as in his life, the same blending of love with wisdom, of childlike simplicity with manly power, was revealed. ”

“ Olin, the first President, a man of great head and heart, would send for an idle or offending student, place his feet on the chair where the delinquent sat so as to hold him, a close prisoner, and talk to him faithfully, yet tenderly, until with burning cheeks and floods of tears the youth promised never again to offend. It was a memorable event when the great man preached; solid thought in vast masses was driven to the mark with resistless power. ”

“ Richmond, the capital city, after withstanding two sieges successfully, had been, in large part, made a bank of ashes. Petersburg, beleaguered so long, was a scarred and battered wreck. Fredericksburg, Winchester, Norfolk, and many other towns, were little better off. Some of the railroads were stripped of their rails—all of them in bad plight and almost without any equipment for business, if any business were to be found. The labor system, which had for centuries been used to cultivate the land and gather the crops, had been at one stroke subverted, and virtually destroyed. ”

“ Others have equalled, none surpassed him in diligence and fidelity; but who can compare in charm, in breadth and tenderness of sympathy, in aptness to guide and comfort, in power to draw forth trust and love? Place him in any parlor, at any table, among the rich or poor, and he would be the centre of attraction—every eye fixed on him, every ear attend his voice. ”

“ HISTORY OF RANDOLPH-MACON COLLEGE EARLY EFFORTS OF METHODISTS TO FOUND SCHOOLS. JOHN WESLEY, the founder of Methodism, was in every sense a highly educated man. His education began at the knee of one of the wisest and most accomplished women that ever lived to bless the world. It was continued at Oxford, but did not stop there; for he believed, and acted on his belief, that a man's education should continue as long as his intellectual energy survives. ”

“ The world is so bad that we are apt to confuse amiability with silliness, and to see a sign of intellectual weakness in a good man's love and care for his fellow-men. But here, at least, it was one man as strong as he was good, a man that joined to the charm of a tenderly loving heart the power of a splendid genius and of an incisive intelligence. ”

“ To his particular friends, who were often indignant at the hard speeches uttered against him, he would reply, "Never mind, I keep my heart right before God." Believing that he was acting for the best he went forward like a true and earnest man in what he regarded as the path of duty.
Having seen the removal of the College determined upon, to relieve the Trustees of all the embarrassment in the election of a Faculty, he generously came forward and tendered his resignation, and soon after started to the West, the scene of his early labors and successes. ”

“ Walton no less wisdom than of generosity and tenderness. The helps to the successful carrying on of Greek study are becoming year by year more numerous and more masterly, but, unluckily, more costly, too. To use them is indeed necessary for every earnest student, but to buy them is oft-times to the student impossible. To meet this necessity is the object of Mr. Walton's gift, while his prize will serve to stimulate and reward Greek study; in all the classes of our school the Library will, year after year, as it widens, open to students that are more advanced the treasures of Greek learning. ”

“ The College was the child of the Methodist Church, established, in large measure, to educate young men for the ministry in accordance with the ideas and usages of the church of that day. Religion was the first and foremost consideration—religion as taught and emphasized by the Methodist Church—religion allied with education. At the first opening of the College a chaplain was appointed for it by the Conference, a man who was as complete a model of the Methodist minister as could be found, William B. Rowzie, a walking, living epistle of Christ, "known and read of all men." ”

“ A broad smile always foretold his sally of wit, and sometimes it was so slow coming that the victim would have time to "cut." Dear, dear "Old Pad," as we called him, it was hard to say whether he enjoyed most his fun with the boys or his ancient languages, with the love of which he seemed to be fully saturated. A kinder heart never beat in human frame. ”

“ In proportion as virtue is more valuable than knowledge, pure and enlightened morality will be regarded by every considerate father the highest recommendation of a literary institution. The youth is withdrawn from the salutary restraints of parental influence and authority and committed to other guardians at a time of life most decisive of his prospects and destinies. The period devoted to education usually impresses its own character upon all his future history. ”

“ He probably valued college education as highly as he did because he felt so keenly the need of it. He was, however, in the best sense, an educated man, and a man among men. From his early manhood his brethren and fellow-citizens manifested their appreciation of him by calling him to the highest positions in the church and in the state. The latter, however, were not accepted by him. It may be safely said that no man ever lived in Virginia who was more intimately or more widely known than John Early. No man ever knew more men. Few ever had more seals to their ministry. ”

“ Professor Thomas R. Price, a name synonymous now with scholarship, was in the chair of Ancient Languages. Harry Estill filled the chair of Mathematics. Professor Richard M. Smith brought the ripe wisdom and experience of his distinguished life to the chair of Natural Sciences. W. W. Valentine held the keys of the Modern Languages.
"It has been said that what a university needs is not so much an endowment as a man. Randolph-Macon had men, and Dr. Duncan, a man among men. The Faculty itself was an endowment. Good material gathered around them as students. ”

“ In the good providence of God, he was permitted to act as trustee for many years, and to exert a great influence in saving the College from financial wreck. At the time of his election he was a leading Methodist in his city, and probably the most prominent layman in the State. As a merchant, he had been very successful, and enjoyed the unbounded confidence of the business world. His liberality towards all church and benevolent enterprises was such as probably had never before been witnessed in Virginia. ”

“ My anxiety to prosecute thoroughly and with an undivided attention the study of a profession is such that neither my desire to promote the interests of education, nor even the temptation of the honorable post which you have offered me, and the agreeable society which I should enjoy in Virginia, are sufficient to withdraw me from a course in which my father has had the kindness to yield me his acquiescence. ”