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..irarn YSLUMS 3SVEN NUMBER FIFTY-ONE A GREAT LEADER S FALLEN Dr. Henry Wise Tribble President of Columbia College, Lake City, Meets Tragic Death at Rodman. The State and Columbus in Tears. L Baptist Convention at Ocala, where the cam paign for the endowment of Columbia College had just received the glorious “launching gift” of Twenty-seven Thousand Dollars. Covering the distance between the main line and Rod man (where he was pastor for two Sundays in each month) his motor-car collided with a log train, and his leg was broken. In the home of Henry S. Cummings, the widely-known Christian saw-mill man, who was so devoted to Dr. Tribble and his work, with heart and purse, the great educator and preach er received every attention which love, skill and money could provide, but heart-complica tions set in and, on Tuesday, with the coming of the morning light, and in the full triumph of Christian faith, which he had preached to oth ers, President Tribble entered into the glories of God’s everlasting day. He Sleeps on the Campus. Before his body was laid to rest on the lake girdled campus of the college, to which he was giving his life, one of the most beautiful and impressive funeral services we ever witnessed was held. The pall-bearers the trustees, the ministers, the family, the faculty, the students, marched in silent, solemn, sorrowful procession to the college chapel, where the citizens and public school children were waiting. The music seem ed an echo of angel voices—“ Face to Face” al most lifted the veil —the prayer of Pastor Keith, of the Presbyterian Church, seemed to put all hearts “in tune with the Infinite.” Dr. L. B. Warren, with gentle grace, was in charge and those making brief addresses were Dr. Tribble’s life-long friend and former pastor, Dr. A.. J. Holt, of Kissimmee; Dr. S. B. Rogers, Secretary of Missions, Gainesville; Dr. C. W. Duke, of Tampa, a college-mate of Dr. Tribble, and Wm. D. Upshaw, Editor of The Golden Age._ In substance, Mr. Upshaw said: Upshaw Pays Tribute to Tribble. My heart feels helpless in such a tragic, ten der hour. When I try to speak the deepest things that I feel about Dr. Tribble and his un timely going “somehow within my bosom the prisoned words stick tight. ’ ’ Perhaps, it is fit ting that a voice from a sister state should have some part with Floridians in the loving memo rials of this hour, for the greater part of his IKE a lightning stroke from a radi ant sky came the telegram announc ing the death, last week, of Dr. H. W. Tribble, the great and beloved President of Columbia College. He left his home at Lake City, Fla., Saturday morning, February 3rd, in unusually high spirits—for he had just returned from the Florida TABERNACLE BIBLE CONFERENCE—Page Four ATLANTA, GA., FEBRT 1 Y 15, 1912 royal, unselfish life was spent beyond the bor ders of Florida —and I loved him for the sake of his own great heart and for the sake of his heroic work for God and humanity in the cause of Christian education. Why? —that eternal “why” which so often challenges the highway of our faith, struggles up from our hearts and trembles on our quiver ing lips. Gov. John Johnson, the honest idol of the common people of Minnesota, died when it seemed he was on his march to the White House. Henry Grady, apostle of peace and na tional fraternity, “finished his work at ten o’clock in the morning” of life’s wonderful day; and Henry Wise Tribble, though past his meridian, seemed “rejoicing as a young man to run a race,” as he fronted the mighty task be fore him when suddenly he fell — fell upward in the day-dawn of our hopes, and the noon night of our grief! From a fruitful field in his native Virginia, Dr. Tribble was called to Columbia College, in the high and ardent hour of her need and her opportunity. Napoleon, with his consuming ambition, “like a vaulting devil in the human heart,” went over Europe “tying crowns on his head with heartstrings,” and wading through slaughter to a tottering throne; but Hik i mp! DR. HENRY WISE TRIBBLE. Henry Wise Tribble, in the short space of two years, had waded through the arduous but beautiful fields of love and labor to a throne se cure in Florida hearts —for the sunshine of his smile, the warmth of his handclasp, the hearti ness of his laughter, the brightness of his intel lect, the poise of his judgment, the prowess of his arm, the wealth of his energy, the richness of his eloquence, and the splendor of his pow erful personality, all — all were consecrated with inspiring devotion on the altar of the college he was building for the glory of the God whom he loved and served so well. That he should have been stricken when we thought he was needed most —stricken at the very beginning of the campaign for endowment —stricken when the wife of his bosom and the children of his hearthstone were thirsting most for the crystal draught of his fellowship and the guiding wisdom of a father’s hand, rushes us afresh, tearful but trustful, into the presence of Spurgeon’s beautiful truth, “where compre hension stops let faith take hold!” In an hour like this we love to think — “God’s plans, like lilies pure and white unfold, We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart— Time will reveal the calyxes of gold, And if by patient toil we reach the Land Where tired feet with sandals loose may rest — Where we shall known and understand 1 think that we shall say ‘God knew the best.’ ” Our beloved leader will call with “beckoning hands” and a n.ew voice from his Heavenly Home —a sacred, wooing, compelling call to consort and children to catch his fallen mantle, follow his starry ideals and multiply his useful ness; a call to the great-hearted trustees to find a new way to lay on the altar of Columbia College a practical loyalty which, otherwise, perhaps, they could not have known; a call to the faculty, to close ranks and put into italics more than ever the vital truth which Tribble taught his students—that education without re ligion is like a flower without fragrance—like a statue without a soul; a call, a heart-breaking call, to the student body to remember that Henry Wise Tribble lived in vain so far as their individual lives are concerned, if a single stu dent goes beyond the campus gate at commence ment, without having laid the foundation stone of life’s pyramid on the Rock of Ages. Somehow, I feel that God will overrule this mysterious Providence to the spiritual and ma terial good of the institution, which our great leader loved so well. It is an old, old story, but ever inspiring in its heroic coloring—how the Scotch Crusaders (Continued on Page 5.) ONE DOLLAR AND FIFTY CENTS A YEAR » FIVE CENTS A COTT