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IN MEMORIAM 
 
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 BENJAMIN LAWTON WIGGINS 
 
 VICE-CHANCELLOR 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/memorialaddresseOOuniv 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE SERVICES 
 HELD IN ST. AUGUSTINE’S CHAPEL 
 THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 1909 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 BENJAMIN LAWTON WIGGINS 
 
 M. A., LL. D. 
 
 VICE-CHANCELLOR OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH 
 
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INTRODUCTION 
 
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 B enjamin lawton wiggins was 
 
 born at Sand Ridge, South Carolina, Sep¬ 
 tember 11th, 1861, the son of James and 
 Elizabeth B. (Mellard) Wiggins, and was prepared 
 for College in the Porter Military Academy, 
 Charleston, S. C. He was graduated from the 
 University of the South in 1880, received his 
 M.A. degree in 1882, and became Professor of 
 Greek the same year. In 1883-84 he took a post¬ 
 graduate course in Johns Hopkins University, and 
 in 1893 he was elected Vice-Chancellor of the Uni¬ 
 versity of the South. 
 
 For fourteen years he administered the affairs of 
 the University with consummate vigor and ability; 
 but in 1907 he began to show symptoms of failing 
 health, due, as it afterwards transpired, to an in¬ 
 curable disease of the heart. 
 
 Despite his daily increasing physical weakness 
 he persisted in his work; and when the Board of 
 Trustees met, June 12th, 1909, he insisted upon 
 appearing before them and reading his annual 
 report. 
 
 The following night, Sunday, June 13th, he had 
 a violent seizure and the next day, Monday, June 
 14th, 1909, at 5 o’clock p.m. (at the very moment 
 when his friend, who had consented to take his 
 place temporarily, was making his speech of accep- 
 
 [ 7 ] 
 
BENJAMIN LAWTON WIGGINS 
 
 tance to the Board), Dr. Wiggins quietly passed 
 away. 
 
 The body was taken to the University Chapel at 
 7 a.m. on Wednesday, June 16th, and lay there in 
 state attended by a Guard of Honor. At 7:30 
 a.m. there was a celebration of the Holy Com¬ 
 munion, at which the Chancellor of the University 
 officiated. At 5 p.m. the first part of the Burial 
 Office was read in the Chapel by the Bishops of 
 Atlanta and Florida, and the Bishop of Tennessee, 
 the Chancellor, took the Service at the grave. 
 
 Special trains came from Nashville, Chattanooga, 
 and intermediate points, bringing many friends 
 and representatives of organizations of which Dr. 
 Wiggins was a member. 
 
 On Thursday morning, June 17th, the Com¬ 
 mencement exercises took place in the Chapel, 
 without the accustomed speeches ; and diplomas, 
 degrees and prizes were conferred. 
 
 At 11 a.m. a Memorial Service was held at 
 which seven Bishops were present, and many 
 clergy and laymen, both of the Board of Trustees 
 and of the Diocese of Tennessee, of which diocese 
 Dr. Wiggins had been a representative in the 
 General Convention for fourteen years. 
 
 The Chaplain of the University, the Rev. 
 A. R. Gray, read the Creed and Prayers, and the 
 four addresses here printed were delivered ; the 
 first by the Chancellor; the second by the Bishop 
 
 [8] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 of South Carolina, representing the Board of Trus¬ 
 tees ; the third by the Bishop of Mississippi, 
 representing the Alumni; and the fourth by the 
 Rev. W. P. DuBose, S.T.D., representing the 
 Hebdomadal Board of the University. 
 
 In conclusion the great congregation united with 
 the Chancellor in the recitation of the Lesser Litany. 
 
 Pretiosa in conspectu Domini Mors Sanctorum . 
 
 [9] 
 
ADDRESS OF THE RIGHT REVEREND 
 THOMAS FRANK GAILOR, S.T.D., D.D., 
 BISHOP OF TENNESSEE AND CHAN¬ 
 CELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY 
 
ADDRESS OF BISHOP GAILOR 
 
 * 
 
 HIS University has been created out of the 
 
 lives of men. The hopes and aspirations, 
 
 the thoughts and purposes, the sacrifices 
 and self-denials, of human souls have fed and 
 nourished and sustained it until now; and, when 
 from time to time it has had to say “Good-bye” 
 to one of its loved and loving ones, it has straight¬ 
 way felt in its blood the new vital force, which 
 the spent life had contributed to it. 
 
 And once more Sewanee has had to stand by a 
 new-made grave and assert her faith. Once more 
 the Lord God has seen fit to test the quality of 
 her spiritual fibre, and to put on trial the reality 
 and permanence of her Christian hope. “Other 
 foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which 
 is Jesus Christ.” Brethren : the fierce assault of 
 bitter and stunning grief is laying bare to-day the 
 bed-rock of that Foundation. If it is sure, we 
 need not be afraid. 
 
 May not the very magnitude of our bereavement 
 be taken as the evidence and measure of our Uni¬ 
 versity’s success ? For the great and noble Vice- 
 Chancellor, whose life we are commemorating, 
 was, in every respect of mental, moral and spiritual 
 character, a product of Sewanee. Only forty 
 years has the University of the South been in 
 actual existence, and yet, in that short time, it has 
 borne and bred a son, whose trained intellect, 
 whose scholarly equipment, whose disciplined 
 
 [13] 
 
BENJAMIN LAWTON WIGGINS 
 
 character and lofty ideals, fitted and enabled him, 
 not only to occupy, but to fill, the place of a leader 
 to his own Alma Mater, and that in a manner and 
 to a degree worthy of her most exalted and exact¬ 
 ing traditions and standards. 
 
 His signal ability commanded the respect and 
 honor of the world of learning. His unstudied 
 and unfailing courtesy, his abounding kindness, his 
 loving heart, his refinement of manner and thought 
 and feeling, consecrated by the grace of God, won 
 for him a great army of friends, who mourn for 
 him to-day in every section of the country and in 
 every condition of life. 
 
 Lawton Wiggins was a rare personality,—grace¬ 
 ful and gracious, sensitive and modest, and yet, 
 with it all, firm, fearless, masterful, commanding. 
 “His strength was gentle, his gentleness was 
 strong. ’ ’ 
 
 To this University he gladly, lovingly, simply, 
 utterly gave his life. From that purpose he never 
 swerved. Many exceptional offers of advance¬ 
 ment, many invitations, aye even urgent appeals — 
 to high place and lucrative office elsewhere, he put 
 aside with characteristic persuasiveness and charm, 
 resolute in his faith. He believed in Sewanee. 
 He had invincible confidence in this institution,— 
 in its ideals and its destiny. And he being dead 
 yet speaketh. 
 
 Therefore to-day the University, which made 
 him what he was ; which for nearly thirty stren¬ 
 uous, battling, fruitful years, held his enthusiastic 
 
 [14] 
 
ADDRESS OF BISHOP GAILOR 
 
 and complete devotion; that University has cause 
 to thank God for what she gave our people in 
 Doctor Wiggins’ life and character, and to look 
 forward into the future, with eyes, tearful indeed, 
 but undimmed and unafraid. 
 
 Alas, my Brother: I look back to-day through 
 twenty-seven years of interest and service with 
 him for this University, when we walked together 
 in the House of God as friends. 
 
 And — I shall never look into his eyes again or 
 clasp his hand in mine! God help us; How 
 strange and sad and terrible is the mystery of 
 death! 
 
 Yet the message and challenge of his life is 
 plain. We shall not forget. As we loved him, 
 we shall love Sewanee. For him the struggle- 
 storm is over and the fever past. For him all the 
 burdens have been lifted and all the problems 
 solved: 
 
 A veil betwixt us only; he in the light serene, 
 
 He knows how sorrow blossoms, how peace is won from pain. 
 
 By and by we shall meet him, and be with him; 
 and we shall tell each other of this warfare as we 
 dwell together in God’s peace. 
 
 [15] 
 
ADDRESS OF THE RIGHT REVEREND 
 THEODORE DuBOSE BRATTON, D.D., 
 BISHOP OF MISSISSIPPI, ON BEHALF 
 OF THE ASSOCIATED ALUMNI 
 
 I 
 
ADDRESS OF BISHOP BRATTON 
 
 * 
 
 O choose for one’s self early in life an ideal, 
 
 and to strive absorbingly to realize it, is the 
 
 first necessary step toward the only goal 
 worth attaining in this life — viz., a useful life, a 
 life of ministry for God and for one’s fellow man. 
 The choice of an ideal came early in the life of 
 our beloved Wiggins. Certainly it would have 
 been impossible either for him or for his friends 
 to predict the wonderfully complete measure of 
 the fulfillment of his ideal which the contempla¬ 
 tion of his life to-day reveals. 
 
 I remember well the day on which the ‘ 4 Porter 
 Boys,” as we called them, arrived on the Moun¬ 
 tain, for that day marked the beginning of a friend¬ 
 ship with Wiggins which continued to grow more 
 and more into loving intimacy and confidence as 
 the years passed. From the very start Wiggins, 
 though not the most gifted nor the brightest 
 in our set, was easily the best student, and soon 
 rose to the head of his classes. He was the 
 steadiest, the most regular, the most painstaking 
 student I ever knew, and soon became the most 
 accurate and discriminating classical scholar of my 
 day. In the winter of 1878 it was necessary for 
 me to remain at home for duty during the last 
 scenes of our pitifully tragic Reconstruction era in 
 my native State. Returning later, my former 
 fellow-student was my tutor in the classics, he 
 having been selected by his professor for this duty. 
 
 [ 19 ] 
 
BENJAMIN LAWTON WIGGINS 
 
 This, however, did not in any way interfere with 
 the friendship and intimacy which, after two years 
 of interruption, was renewed immediately. It is 
 not too much to say that as I look back thought¬ 
 fully upon the entire period of my student life, the 
 verdict of my experience is that Wiggins was the 
 peer of the best teachers I ever knew. The boy 
 of the ’70’s had ripened into the young man of 
 the ’80’s, his habits of careful, accurate scholarship 
 and conscientious attendance upon duty fully ma¬ 
 tured. The compelling sympathy and contagious 
 enthusiasm so irresistible to his pupils, combined 
 with his peculiar aptness to teach, made him, if not 
 the very best, certainly the most interesting and 
 inspiring teacher of languages I ever knew—and 
 what he was as tutor he afterwards became in the 
 larger sphere of professor. It was this remarkably 
 successful career as teacher, and the unqualified 
 sense of confidence both in his abilities and charac¬ 
 ter shared by all his former fellow-students, that 
 combined to compass his election to the Chair of 
 Ancient languages through the persistent demand 
 of the Alumni which would not be stilled until the 
 Trustees acceded to their wish. The proceeding 
 was unusual and has never been repeated in our 
 history, so far as I know. 
 
 I do not know if there be any here who know 
 that he once contemplated taking Orders. I well 
 remember our talks on this subject and his final 
 conclusion which launched him upon his educational 
 career from which he never again swerved. His 
 
 [20] 
 
ADDRESS OF BISHOP BRATTON 
 
 call to his Professorship and to the service of his 
 Alma Mater by the unanimous and constraining 
 voice of his fellows was rightly regarded by him 
 as too altogether singular to be without sacred 
 significance. It discovered to him the ideal of his 
 life, and in pursuing it he gave his best self, day by 
 day, to the task. Life to him was ministry . 
 
 From this all-too-brief sketch of his early Sewa- 
 nee life, my brothers of the Alumni will discover 
 the secret of that wonderfully close relation which 
 Wiggins bore to us all. He was our first Alumnus 
 on the Faculty, literally put there by his brothers. 
 He was our first-fruits offered to the beloved 
 Mother. He, the modest boy (he was just 
 twenty-one, I think), in his own eyes the untried 
 boy, shrinking from both the honor and the re¬ 
 sponsibility which his fellows forced upon him, was 
 the first among his brethren chosen to win the 
 victory of high service and deserved distinction. 
 Others had served us in less conspicuous posts, 
 others who were destined to achieve distinction in 
 the world of science and letters and religion. But 
 it was Wiggins, the true, loyal, faithful, able, 
 steady youth of our love and our pride who was 
 thought worthy to be the offering of her sons to 
 the Alma Mater in the day of her greatest need. 
 There are some of us here who well remember the 
 ghastly depression pf that period, of a defeated 
 Board of Trustees and a grandly loyal Faculty, 
 when, but for the devotion of the latter, our doors 
 would have been closed and the splendid ideal of 
 
 [21] 
 
BENJAMIN LAWTON WIGGINS 
 
 our fathers forever lost. It was at this moment 
 that Wiggins was offered both as the pledge of our 
 undying love for our Alma Mater and as the best 
 that we had to offer. This, I know, was the 
 spirit of his great heart’s motive, that he had been 
 offered up upon the altar of love. Was it strange 
 that he should henceforth decline all efforts to lure 
 him away from this Mountain-top ? Was it 
 strange that such a man as Wiggins should find his 
 complete satisfaction in a life of sacrifice to the 
 cause to which both he and his brothers had con¬ 
 secrated him ? 
 
 Many of us doubtless have forgotten, and many 
 more never knew, the sacredness of the tie which 
 bound him to us and impelled his willing service 
 at all times, of the Association of which he was in 
 so signal a manner the heart and light. But he 
 never forgot. Through all the years of struggle 
 with Sewanee’s poverty he did the day’s duty with 
 all his heart and strength and wrested victory 
 where less stout hearts and weaker hands and lives 
 unconsecrated, would have relinquished the une¬ 
 qual contest. From first to last his life has been 
 one of consistent and persistent self-sacrifice. 
 
 Brothers of the Alumni, the example of Wig¬ 
 gins’ life must not be lost to us. Other there are 
 deserving of as much honor and reverence, but 
 Wiggins was one of us. He belonged to us. In 
 a special sense he has represented twenty-seven 
 years of our devotion to our Alma Mater. He is 
 our vicarious sacrifice—a sacrifice which must be 
 
 [22] 
 
ADDRESS OF BISHOP BRATTON 
 
 justified by that which we his brothers shall con¬ 
 tinue in our striving to realize the absorbing pur¬ 
 pose of Wiggins’ life. 
 
 In such a connection I pass over, with a mere 
 hint of the facts, the record of the offices he held 
 in our Association. To him an office was never only 
 what it is in itself—it was the occasion for service 
 and the condition of duty. His life has been an 
 example of steadiness of purpose, of devotion to 
 an ideal, of self-forgetful love for our Alma Mater, 
 of unswerving fidelity to the trust bestowed by 
 his fellow-students. His death is a call to duty, to 
 the re-awakening of love in us, to the renewing of 
 our own consecration to the ideal which our great 
 and beloved Alma Mater represents, and for which 
 our beloved Wiggins laid down his life! 
 
 [23] 
 
ADDRESS OF THE RIGHT REVEREND 
 WILLIAM ALEXANDER GUERRY, D.D., 
 BISHOP OF SOUTH CAROLINA, REPRE¬ 
 SENTING THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES 
 
ADDRESS OE BISHOP GUERRY 
 
 * 
 
 I BELIEVE that 1 am the only one here offi¬ 
 cially connected with the University whose 
 acquaintance with our late beloved Vice-Chan¬ 
 cellor antedates his coming to Sewanee. We were 
 boys together at the Porter Military Academy, 
 Charleston, S. C., in 1876. I have been his friend 
 for more than thirty-three years. I have both 
 studied with him as his fellow-student in the same 
 school, and I have studied under him as one who 
 was proud to be called his pupil. 
 
 It is most fitting then that I should stand here 
 to pay my tribute of love and respect to his revered 
 memory not only because of the long and intimate 
 relations which have existed between us, but also 
 because on this occasion I have the honor to repre¬ 
 sent both his native State and Diocese, as well as 
 the members of the Board of Trustees. I shall 
 not, of course, in the brief space allowed me 
 attempt to give anything like an adequate estimate 
 of his life and labors. That task is reserved for 
 the future historian of the University who, with 
 all the facts before him, shall estimate correctly the 
 permanent contribution which Dr. Wiggins has 
 made to Sewanee and to the great cause of Chris¬ 
 tian education. 
 
 There is, however, one quality of his mind and 
 heart of which I wish to make special mention 
 here, because I believe that it was the most dis¬ 
 tinctive, the most fundamental, and the most 
 
 [27] 
 
BENJAMIN LAWTON WIGGINS 
 
 widely recognized and accepted characteristic of 
 the man. I refer to his large-hearted, large-minded 
 and never-failing charity. He was the most for¬ 
 giving, the most forbearing, and the most uniformly 
 kind gentleman I have almost ever known. He 
 was without malice. He seemed incapable of 
 bearing ill-will or of harboring resentment against 
 anyone. He was truly great in the absolutely im¬ 
 personal way in which he could view any question 
 and discuss any subject solely upon its merits and 
 quite independently of the attitude of mind or 
 character of those who agreed with or differed 
 from him. 
 
 No man ever administered a great trust or 
 occupied his high position with less friction, or who 
 possessed in a greater degree the happy faculty of 
 reconciling differencqs and of enabling men of 
 many different temperaments and points of view 
 to work harmoniously together in one great cause, 
 than our late Vice-Chancellor. His charity was 
 not due to lack of conviction or to mere amiability 
 of disposition, but to a deep and sincere love for 
 his fellow-men, coupled with the greatness of his 
 intellect and the breadth of his sympathies, which 
 gave him his remarkable insight into human nature, 
 and that warm, loving and personal interest which 
 he took in the affairs of all those who were in any 
 way associated with him. I venture the assertion 
 that there is no one within the sound of my voice, 
 who has lived at Sewanee in recent years, who has 
 not at some time experienced his kindness or been 
 
 [28] 
 
ADDRESS OF BISHOP GUERRY 
 
 indebted to him for some act of more than ordinary 
 thoughtfulness and generosity. 
 
 For this reason he was to me the greatest living 
 embodiment of the truth of the words of our 
 motto, Ecce quam bonum — ‘ ‘ Behold how good 
 and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together 
 in unity. ’ ’ Those clasped hands upon the seal of 
 the University surmounted by the cross of the 
 living Christ are a most fitting and most beautiful 
 symbol of his life. 
 
 There is much more that I could say and much 
 more that I would like to say. But to me the 
 thing by which I will remember him longest and 
 for which I love him most is that greatest of all the 
 Christian virtues — Charity. ‘ ‘ Now abideth these 
 three: Faith, Hope, Charity. But the greatest of 
 these is Charity. 5 ’ Surely no words could more 
 fittingly and appropriately be applied to him than 
 those of the Epistle for this week which were read 
 at the early service yesterday morning when his 
 body lay in state in this chapel: ‘ ‘ Beloved, let us 
 love one another, for love is of God; and every¬ 
 one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. ” 
 (I St. John, iv. 7.) 
 
 May we not then venture to believe that because 
 of his great love for his fellow men and for his 
 Father in Heaven, Benjamin Lawton Wiggins is 
 permitted to behold the King in his beauty, Who 
 with Thee, O Father, and Thee, O Holy Ghost, 
 liveth and reigneth ever, one God, world without 
 end. 
 
 [29] 
 
ADDRESS OF THE REVEREND WIL¬ 
 LIAM PORCHER DuBOSE, S.T.D., DEAN 
 EMERITUS OF THE THEOLOGICAL 
 DEPARTMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY, 
 REPRESENTING THE HEBDOMADAL 
 BOARD 
 

ADDRESS OF DOCTOR DuBOSE 
 
 * 
 
 I INTERPRET this solemn function in which 
 we are here to engage as an act of recognition 
 and acknowledgement of the most direct and 
 complete gift of a life yet made to Sewanee;— and 
 again, on Sewanee’s part, as an offering up of the 
 costliest sacrifice of her life that she has yet laid 
 upon the altar of service as she sees it. For the 
 life that has just gone up from our midst was about 
 as completely that of Sewanee itself as it was possi¬ 
 ble for it to have been made; as much of the com¬ 
 plex total of community life here had been drawn 
 and concentrated into it as could have been in 
 one mortal man. Sewanee was himself to its Vice- 
 Chancellor, and as much as he could, he made 
 himself Sewanee. 
 
 This came about, if to a very unusual extent, 
 yet in a very gradual and natural way. Benjamin 
 Lawton Wiggins came here a boy fresh from school 
 and at the earliest age at which he could have 
 entered the University. The day of his entrance 
 was the beginning of that series of eminent services 
 which have just ended—if they have ended. The 
 very first was not the least of these services. I 
 have had occasion to think much, and sometimes 
 to talk, of the Makers of Sewanee. Not least or 
 fewest of these have been students—and I do not 
 mean students after they had left here; but stu¬ 
 dents while they were here. There is nothing that 
 so makes an institution like this as the current 
 
 [33] 
 
BENJAMIN LAWTON WIGGINS 
 
 quality, character, and active cooperation and con¬ 
 tribution of its student body. We have often been 
 able to say things deeply gratifying to ourselves of 
 our student body as a class, as a whole. But 
 there have always been students who have stood 
 out by themselves, as types and leaders and stan¬ 
 dards for the whole; and this, not only in scholar¬ 
 ship, but in action and character, in that finished 
 and rounded personality which is the true goal and 
 end of university life. I am thinking now not of 
 one man but of a number who live in my memory, 
 and whom, with the one or two in this community 
 of my contemporaries of the earlier and plastic 
 days, I gratefully and lovingly recall. Those boys 
 had much to do with the real making of Sewanee, 
 as I know, who lived and worked with them. 
 Lawton Wiggins was an ideal student; all of Se¬ 
 wanee passed into and lived in him. While 
 yet an undergraduate he had acted and suc¬ 
 ceeded in every possible capacity, as tutor, proctor, 
 or what not. The natural steps that followed 
 without break to Assistant Professor, Professor, 
 Vice-Chancellor, efficient, all-absorbent, accepted 
 and acceptable dictator,—all came by such imper¬ 
 ceptible, unconscious, and unselfish, un-self-seeking 
 gradations—out of pure oneness with Sewanee as 
 the only self he knew,—that there was nothing in 
 it strange, or possible to be otherwise, to us who 
 followed the process. 
 
 That mysterious detective knowledge of all that 
 was going on or being thought of in the Univer- 
 
 [34] 
 
ADDRESS OF DOCTOR DuBOSE 
 
 sity or the community — coupled with a secret and 
 kindly tact in dealing with it — which, like a kind 
 of sixth sense, characterized Tutor or Proctor or 
 Professor or Vice-Chancellor Wiggins in his best 
 days, was no great mystery to those who knew 
 how naturally and wholly he had grown into all 
 that was Sewanee, and all Sewanee into him. 
 
 I have not the time — nor is it yet the time—to 
 analyze and measure the unusual personal gifts, 
 powers, and character of Dr. Wiggins, nor yet to 
 balance up the long list of his eminent services to 
 this University. That must be an interesting and 
 important chapter of our permanent history. Nor 
 shall I venture to give voice to the general and 
 common grief and sense of loss that speaks for 
 itself in us all. 
 
 More specially I have been requested to repre¬ 
 sent the Hebdomadal Board this morning, in a 
 moment which must necessarily be fraught with 
 more immediate meaning and concern for them than 
 for any others. I recall the occasion — indeed the 
 exact moment and manner—in which Assistant 
 Professor Wiggins entered and took his modest 
 seat at the foot of the table, around which in one 
 of our primitive rooms, and in those more military 
 days, we sat in strict order of seniority. He was 
 for long a silent, but not long an idle or inefficient 
 member. I watched how quietly and intently he 
 took in and mastered every least detail of university 
 business or interest; how by sheer attention and 
 ability and efficiency he grew into an indispensable 
 
 [35] 
 
BENJAMIN LAWTON WIGGINS 
 
 and necessary factor. He and I were the original, 
 infant, Schedule Committee, sitting constantly in 
 the effort to reduce our somewhat intractable 
 material and chaotic instruction to something like 
 system and order. I contributed what of idea or 
 of practice had been ingrained in me at the Uni¬ 
 versity of Virginia; he did the rest, and was the 
 rest, in that and other matters, until the coming in 
 of the more modern Faculty. What then and 
 always struck me as characteristic of him was an 
 unusual effacement of self, at least of any intrusion 
 or appearance of self, in matters of public interest 
 or business. That may have been a general char¬ 
 acteristic with him, but it was none the less a part 
 of his gradual absorption and loss of himself in the 
 larger life of Sewanee. 
 
 Of Dr. Wiggins’ gradual rise and final long 
 session at the head of the Hebdomadal Board, I 
 need say nothing among ourselves. This more 
 modern Board has been one with no lack of per¬ 
 sonal, individual, even variant initiation and in¬ 
 dependence. There have never hesitated to enter 
 into it all needful differences and discussions of 
 opinion and policy. With a few pardonable and 
 not unamiable or unlovely exceptions, personal 
 feelings, interests, or antagonisms have never 
 entered into it, as occasionally they did in the 
 earlier and harder days. The selfless devotion, 
 the courtesy and consideration, the personal charm 
 and social delicacy and tact of our late Vice-Chan¬ 
 cellor were not among the least causes of a unity 
 
 [36] 
 
ADDRESS OF DOCTOR DuBOSE 
 
 and harmony and single-minded devotion to its in¬ 
 terests which I cannot but think exceptionally 
 characterizes the governing body of this University. 
 
 A pall of gloom rests upon us all; I meet it 
 wherever I turn; I confess that it has so rested 
 upon myself as to have disqualified me for this 
 function. Yet there is another side, on which I 
 think we should sufficiently rise above ourselves to 
 be able to look. There is a dramatic roundness 
 and completeness, an appropriateness and propriety 
 in the moment and the manner of the death we 
 are deploring, which cannot but have impressed us 
 all, which we ought not to overlook or underesti¬ 
 mate. Has not our friend chosen the better part, 
 which shall not be taken from him ? — He elected 
 to spend himself, and he is spent; he elected to 
 give his life, and it is given. I recall the old 
 saying, that only the Death sets its seal upon — 
 completes and crowns the Life. Surely if ever one 
 died as he had lived, died in the very act of the 
 service he had loved and for which he had lived, it 
 was he whom we are here to mourn. His life was 
 given for us,— let us accept it, thank God, and 
 take heart! 
 
 [37] 
 
MEMORIAL ODE BY WILLIAM NOR¬ 
 MAN GUTHRIE, M.A., ALUMNUS AND 
 DIRECTOR OF THE UNIVERSTY EX¬ 
 TENSION DEPARTMENT 
 
MEMORIAL ODE BY MR. GUTHRIE 
 
 * 
 
 First of us, chosen to lead us, 
 
 And followed with faith, 
 
 W e call to thee! —Hearken and heed us, 
 
 Who cheer thee in death. 
 
 II 
 
 No shame if sorrow hath wrung us 
 And anxious fears; 
 
 For wast thou not boy once among us 
 Four happy years ? 
 
 III 
 
 Forest and rock hast thou cherished 
 With filial pride; 
 
 For thee budded and bloomed and perished 
 Our blossom-tide; 
 
 IV 
 
 Glorious for thee our October 
 Burned year after year; 
 
 Wet winter-woods, wistful and sober, 
 
 To thee likewise were dear; 
 
 v 
 
 White moonlight on twinkling branches; 
 
 Stars caught in their mesh; 
 
 The far-spreading plains that enfranchise 
 The eye from the flesh; 
 
 VI 
 
 From the coves the kine-bells’ sweet clanging, 
 Thou hast broodingly heard; 
 
 And the thrushes’ and red-birds’ haranguing — 
 Thy fancy hath stirred. 
 
 [41] 
 
BENJAMIN LAWTON WIGGINS 
 
 VII 
 
 No wonder our heart-beats quicken 
 As we think of thee now; 
 
 Our foremost, unfaltering, stricken — 
 Death’s calm on thy brow! 
 
 VIII 
 
 Thou foughtest our battles bravely. 
 
 And wroughtest for all; 
 
 In peril, thou smiledst gravely, 
 
 At failure or fall; 
 
 IX 
 
 With unfailing fidelity ever 
 Our weakness to hide, 
 
 Silent in steadfast endeavor 
 When doubted, denied. 
 
 X 
 
 To the right, to the left, thou didst look not, 
 But thy life thou didst give; 
 
 And, wonted to serve, thou couldst brook not 
 Thy work to outlive. 
 
 XI 
 
 In the hour of thy weakness not daunted, 
 
 Thy brethren were true; 
 
 And they proffered thee aid unwanted 
 Thy duty to do: 
 
 XII 
 
 But thou hadst thy day’s work finished, 
 
 N or bidding farewell: 
 
 Thou went’st forth with power undiminished, 
 So their cheers were thy knell. 
 
 [ 42 ] 
 
MEMORIAL ODE BY MR. GUTHRIE 
 
 XIII 
 
 Ha, first of us wert thou chosen 
 As faithfullest found! 
 
 Then how shall thy soul repose in 
 Mere hallowed ground? 
 
 XIV 
 
 In us, yea in us, thine abiding, 
 
 Thy spirit and life; 
 
 Still in our councils presiding, 
 Allayer of strife; 
 
 XV 
 
 Alone in great patience sustaining 
 The brunt of the day; 
 
 Thy wisdom, guiding, restraining, 
 With magnanimous sway; 
 
 XVI 
 
 For wrongs — thy large forgiving, 
 For follies—thy grace; 
 
 Yea in us, thou in us art still living, 
 And none shall replace. 
 
 XVII 
 
 So our selfish sorrow we smother 
 For thee who art dear; 
 
 Who hail thee yet leader and brother 
 And heartily cheer; 
 
 XVIII 
 
 By thy faithful spirit new-plighted, 
 Made strong of thy soul, 
 
 We march, thy brothers, united, 
 Unafraid to thy goal! 
 
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