The Golden age. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1906-1915, June 28, 1906, Page 5, Image 5

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Among the Schools of Mississippi. Clinton. One Thursday night at Clinton will always be a refreshing memory. I was walking for the first time on historic ground. For more than half a century Mississippi College has been the Mecca for young men of Baptist parentage, while hundreds of others have been blessed and enriched by breath ing that classic, inspiring, Christian atmosphere. For a long time, President Webb was the “patron saint,” so to speak, of all that country. R. A. Venable, too, fought his way up from the bottom to where he married the President’s daughter, and got to be President himself. For several years Dr. William T. Lowrey, of the famous Lowrey family in Mississippi (after serving Blue Mountain Col lege as President for more than a dozen years) has been laboring with conspicuous success as Presi dent of Mississippi College. I was peculiarly struck with one thing, showing, after all, the superiority of men over equipment and the trappings of wealth. The buildings of Mississippi College are neither large nor imposing, but three hundred and fifty young men this year are receiving that expansion of life which comes from contact with a strong and powerful faculty. But the buildings are also coming. President Lowrey is just closing a suc cessful campaign for raising $75,000, which, sup plemented by the conditional $25,00 offered by the general education Board of New York, will make a round hundred thousand dollars for enlargement and endowment. I shall never forget that pecu liarly inspiring audience of over four hundred at prayer meeting at Clinton; nor the privilege of talk ing “just as much as I pleased” at Chapel next morning; nor that other great audience at my lec ture the following night, when Mississippi boys and Hillman College girls called to me with beaming faces “to do my best” for their sake—today, to morrow, and “to-morrow’s to-morrow.” Dr. Pro vine, the acting President, was the soul of hospi tality, and the memory of President Lowrey’s home like home and an hour of fellowship with that grand old patriarch in Israel, Dr. H. P. Sproles, linger with me like a fragrant breath from “Beu lah Land.” Starkville, and A. and M. College. Perhaps no town in the South of two thousand people has given more truly great men to the world than Starkville, Mississippi. This community has never allowed a saloon run within its borders since it became a town. One time a “dare devil” sort of a fellow tried it, but the sturdy citzenship of the community appointed themselves a committee to call on him, and when that dignified, but businesslike conversation was over, he read their blazing fiat on the ceiling of his sky, and the saloon was closed forever-more. Out of a citizenship like this grew such men as W. C. Lattimore of Texas, Fred D. Hale of Wilmington, N. C., President Tom Hale of the Southwestern Bap tist University, Jackson, Tenn.; Prof. J. Freeman Sellers, Dean of the Pharmacy School at Mercer Un iversity, and other great men whose names would elude me, but who, with these, are sweeping human ity upward. A Sabbath day in the home and church of M. K. Thornton, Baptist pastor there, enjoying the fellow ship of his delightful family and his cultured and consecrated people—such a day put into shining italics an affirmative answer to the hoary-headed question— “Is life w’orth living?” There it was I learned the story of the brave girl working as a compositor in the office of a Starkville paper, who refused to put a liquor advertisement in type. The Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical Col lege is situated on a beautiful, rolling campus, em bracing several hundred acres just outside of Stark ville. This school is larger than our own “Georgia Tech”—but then, it has had much longer to grow. Here that grand old Confederate chieftain and Christian patriot, General Stephen D. Lee, wrought for twenty years, leaving the inspiring splendor of Jiis great personality behind. The Golden Age for June 28, 1906. Now President J. C. Hardy, a Christian educator of powerful mold, is shaping the lives of more than eight hundred young men who are going out as the chief artisans of Mississippi’s future commercial life. What an inspiring privilege to speak to such a multitude when I kept on remembering that each student before me was “some mother’s boy.” But the deepest and highest joy came when, among those who lingered to shake hands after my lyceum lecture, came a bright member of the senior class, saying with troubled face: “I had almost lost my grip.” I pointed him to Christ the best I knew how. That young man was happily converted that night in the room of a Christian student and has since united with the M. E. Church. Here I met in the faculty two friends of other days—Prof. Condray, whose genial face I first saw at Ouachita College in Arkansas, and Prof. R. R. Ray of North Carolina, who is “a bachelor, a preacher, a scholar and a gentleman.” The equipment of this great institution is superb in every particular save one—the Legislature ought to build an auditorium that would accommodate that vast and growing student body, plus their widening circle of friends, can attend together the inspiring public occasions at the “A. and M.” At Acker man I had only an hour or two between trains, but I must needs spend it with Prof. Berry and his bright boys and girls at the public school. Blue Mountain Giris. Blue Mountain College! In the language of Gus Greene’s speech on “Scotland,” when I was a boy, at old Crew Street School, Atlanta, “There’s magic in the sound!” Blue Mountain! And beauty and honor and romance and inspiration gather about the name! I had dreamed about that “enchanted spot” for almost a decade. For years I had kept on file an invitation from President B. G. Lowery. And that night when I faced my first Blue Mountain au dience composed of the flower of Southern woman hood in her more than four hundred girls, the chiv alry of young manhood in the students of Mississip pi Heights Academy, and the added charm of Blue Mountain’s cultured and generous citizenship, a wave of inspiration swept the chords of mind, heart and soul, such as my being has seldom known. And those girls—bless their merry hearts! How the stars shone in their winsome faces and peals of mirth went round and round when I told them how the greenness of the trees grew greener, the fresh ness of the breezes blew fresher and the blueness of the skies looked bluer as my tardy train rolled near er and nearer Blue Mountain—because—.because, maybe, I remembered that a Georgia brother of mine married a Blue Mountain college girl, under circumstances highly romantic, and the thought kept coming to me that maybe—maybe—my broth er’s brother might do the self-same thing! W. D. U. Tennessee Division of the U. D. C. The Tennessee Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy held a recent annual meeting at Memphis. Mrs. A. B. White, the President, read an interesting and elaborate report of the work of this State Branch which included the following sub jects : Work of the Different Chapters; Work of the History Committee; Visit to the Confederate Sol diers Home; Descriptions of the Chapter Houses in Various Sections; Funds for Caring for the Con federate Graves and Building Monuments; Estab lishing a Tennessee Room in the Confederate Mus eum at Richmond; Organization of Children’s Aux iliaries; the Preparation of a Confederate Cate chism for the use of the Children’s Organizations; and Donations for the Sam Davis Monument Fund. This Chapter is, apparently doing excellent and active work and must form a most important part of the United Daughters Organization. In the hands of the younger generation lies the preserva tion of the Confederate spirit and the U. D. C. as well as the U. S. C. V. are doing all in their power to preserve and to create the best and highest in terests of the order they represent. Southern Memorial Association. Another branch of Confederate work is being regu larly carried on by the Southern Memorial Associa tion of which Mrs. W. J. Behan of New Orleans is president. At the last Annual Reunion of the U. C. V. held in New Orleans the Memorial Association also met and much good work was planned for the coming year. Committees were appointed to act on the following questions: Monuments; Finance; Membership; Relics; Floral Designs for Memorial Day; Soldiers Home; Memorial Book; Badges. At the meeting referred to Miss A. Lobrano of the Relief Committee presented to the Association a handsome sword which was given to her father on the Battlefield of New Orleans by Gen. Andrew Jackson. No “New” South. There is no “New” South. The South of 1906 is the same South which freely offered her blood and treasure upon the altar of freedom erected by the colonies. The South of 1906 is the pure lineage of the South of 1776, and upon her fair face the bright light of the past shows no stain of dishonor. Conscious of her patriotic rectitude, she cherishes alike the memories of Yorktown and Appomatox. To the American Union the South gave Washington, Jefferson and Jackson and a fond mother she points also to Lee, Davis, Jackson, Gordon and Wheeler and says: “Those are my children.” The South of 1906 is the same South of ante-bellum days, the seat of culture and of chivalry, adjusting herself to changed conditions and developing her unmeasured resources, but proud of the records of her heroic dead, of her scars and ruins. Yes, give me a land with ruins widespread Where the living tread light on the hearts of the dead. “Yes, give me a land where the battle’s red blast Has flashed to the future the fame of the past. Yes, give me a land that has legends and lays, That tell of the memories of long cherished days. Yes, give me a land with graves in each spot And names in the graves that shall ne’er be forgot. '*l* For out of the gloom future brightness is born, As after the night comes the sunrise of morn. And each single wreck in the warpath of might Shall yet be a rock in the temple of right.” —Columbus Enquirer-Sun. Georgia Division of the U. D. C. It is said that the Georgia Division of the U. D. C. have aroused severe antagonism by proposing to erect a memorial tablet at Andersonville to Capt. Henry Wirz who was executed after the w T ar. An other tablet is proposed to be erected to Union Sol diers who were permitted to go North but who re turned to Andersonville prison in compliance with their promise. The recent issue of the Confederate Veteran con tains many interesting articles of historic value re garding the “Unwritten Chapters” of the great War Between the States. Among these are recol lections of the two great battles, one of Franklin and one of the Wilderness—the former is by Dr. C. G. Phillips (sur, 22nd. Miss. Reg.) of Lexington. Miss., and the latter is by Jacob Heater. All such contributions are of special value as having direct historic significance. Let not thy mind run on what thou lackest as much as on what thou hast already.—Marcus Au relius. You will find that the best defense against gossip is to fill your mind with higher and better things; to keep your brain and your hands busied with useful and ennobling work.—Ex. 5