Columbia Theological Seminary Bulletin, Unknown

Safe Investments in the
Prosperous South

BULLETIN

Columbia Theological
Seminary

Published Quarterly by the Board of Directors of the Theological Seminary of the

Synods of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Florida of

the Presbyterian Church in the United States.

[Entered as Second-Class Matter July 11, 1908, at the Postoffice at Columbia, S. C,
Under the Act of July 16, 1894.]

FACULTY

THORNTON WHALING, D. D., LL. D.,

PRESIDENT OF THE SEMINARY,
PROFESSOR OF DIDACTIC AND POLEMIC THEOLOGY.

WILLIAM M. McPHEETERS, D. D, LL. D.,

PROFESSOR OF OLD TESTAMENT LITERATURE AND EXEGESIS.

HENRY ALEXANDER WHITE, Ph. D., D. D., LL. D.,

PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT LITERATURE AND EXEGESIS.

RICHARD C. REED, D. D., LL. D.,

PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY AND CHURCH POLITY.

R. G. PEARSON, D. D.,

PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE.

JAMES O. REAVIS, D. D.,

INSTRUCTOR IN HOME AND FOREIGN MISSIONS.

PATTERSON WARDLAW, A. B, LL. D,

INSTRUCTOR IN THE PEDAGOGY OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.

ROBERT E. SPEER, D. D.,

SMYTH LECTURES 1912-13.

Safe Investments in the Prosperous

South

The Developing South Atlantic States.

Our own section of the country is commanding today world-
wide attention as a remunerative field for the investment of capital.
The States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Florida are
now undergoing a material and industrial development which prom-
ises to surpass the phenomenal growth of the West during the past
generation. No department of business life fails to share in this
unparalleled prosperity. Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, in
every form, are striding forward with leaps which it tasks statistical
skill to measure. Avenues of investment open on every hand and
compete in the eagerness with which they present their invitations.
Millionaires are not very plentiful as yet, but fortunes which would
have been regarded as princely in ante helium days are not uncom-
mon. Meanwhile the general distribution of this gratifying pros-
perity amongst all classes in this South Atlantic section is cause for
devout gratitude. Socialism and other evils have little reason for
existence in this favored region.

George Washington and Educational Investments.

But our future welfare requires the strengthening of the highest
forces of civilized life, that our moral and spiritual well-being may
keep pace with our advancing industrial development.

Amongst these higher forces the Christian colleges and the theo-
logical seminaries hold a unique place. Money invested in them
yields a revenue in cultivated and serviceable manhood, which inures
in every way to the benefit of the State and the Kingdom of God.
Such money, judged by all standards, is "put into bags," which do
not "wax old," and the income is likely to be more permanent than
even with the safest of ordinary business investments. To give a
practical illustration, over a hundred years ago George Washington
was voted by the Legislature of Virginia one hundred shares of
James River stock in token of the State's appreciation of his services
in the behalf of liberty and patriotism. He declined to receive the gift,
unless he was allowed to appropriate it some way which he regarded

as most likely to advance the cause of morality and true freedom.
Upon securing the consent of the Legislature, after much reflection,
he designated Liberty Hall, at Lexington, Va., the school of the
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of the Valley, as the recipient of this
stock, amounting in value to $25,000. From that day to this that
school, which became in succession Washington Academy, Wash-
ington College, Washington and Lee University, has received every
year $2,000 interest upon the amount mentioned. When the final
sum of all things human is made it may well be that it shall appear
that the father of his country rendered his greatest service to man-
kind by this gift, which for many generations will doubtless con-
tinue to pour its rich tide of trained manhood into the life of our
nation.

The Typical Case: of Harvard.

In further illustration the following extract from President Eliot's
book on "Educational Reform" (p. 245, et seq.) will be of interest:
"No smallest gift made to Harvard University for a permanent
purpose has ever been lost. Thus in 1727 the Rev. Thomas Cotton,
of London, gave 33, 8s. 6d. towards the president's salary, and the
president still receives between seven and eight dollars a year from
that fund. In 1681 Samuel Ward gave the college an island in
Boston harbor, called Bumkin Island, and to this day that gift yields
a rent of fifty dollars a year. It may in time to come yield a great
deal more. Two ministers, Nathaniel Appleton and Henry Gibbs,
both of whom became members of the Corporation in the first part
of the eighteenth century, left small legacies to the college for the
benefit of poor students. A lineal descendant of both these men, a
descendant in the fifth or sixth generation, the son of a farmer,
receives his tuition free in the Law School today, because of the
benefactions of these two remote ancestors. Seventy-five years ago
Abiel Smith gave to the college twenty thousand dollars, wherewith
to establish a professorship of the French and Spanish languages
and of belles-lettres. That professorship has been successively held
by George Ticknor, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James
Russell Lowell. Who can estimate the amount of service which
that single modest gift has rendered to American literature? Who-
ever gives wisely to a strong university plants the most fruitful of
seed, which will fructify for centuries."

Unexcelled Opportunities for Investment at Columbia

Seminary.

We of the South need to learn the importance of making these
investments, both by gifts while living and by bequests in our wills
after we are gone. Dr. Moses D. Hoge used to point out that there
was at least one defect in that splendid old civilization of the ante
helium period, which some glorify as golden and perfect, viz., it
furnished few individuals who gave largely to the cause of educa-
tion. The South of this new and truly golden day must reverse its
educational habitudes. What better memorial could any man erect
than to endow scholarships in a seminary of learning, which for all
the future would prepare youth for high and efficient living? What
finer monument could be raised to the memory of some one whom we
may have "loved long since and lost a while," than in their names
to provide the means for perpetuating and enlarging the influence
and work of our own Theological School at Columbia?

One thousand five hundred dollars will endow a scholarship which
will maintain some young man during his period of preparation for
the ministry.

Three thousand dollars will found a fellowship which will give
the advantage of post-graduate study to some scholarly and promis-
ing young man.

Ten thousand dollars will establish a lectureship, commanding the
choicest talent of the Christian world for the treatment of special
themes.

Twenty thousand dollars will erect a fire-proof building, ensuring
the safety of the invaluable and unequalled seminary library.

Thirty thousand dollars will endow a professorship of English
Bible or of Christian Ethics.

Form op Bequest.

"I give, devise and bequeath to the Directors of the Theological
Seminary of the Synods of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and
Florida, usually known as Columbia Theological Seminary (here
insert the estate devised and bequeathed), for the use and benefit of
said Seminary." If desired state whether this amount shall be used
to found scholarship, fellowship, lectureship, professorship, or for
general endowment purposes.

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2012 with funding from

LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation

http://archive.org/details/columbiatheologiOOtheo