Trinity College, Jan., 1888.
It was the winter wilde
While the Heaven-born childe
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in aw to him
Had doff’t her gawdy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize;
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the sun her lusty paramour.
Onely with speeches fair
She woo’s the gentle Air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
And on her naked shame,
Pallute with sinfull blame,
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw:
Confounded, that her Maker’s eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.
But he, her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-eyed Peace;
She, crown’d with olive green, came softly sliding
Down through the turning sphear,
His ready harbinger,
With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing,
And, waving wide her mirtle wand,
She strikes a universall peace through sea and land.
No war, or battails sound,
Was heard the world around;
The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The hooked chariot stood
Unstain’d with hostile blood;
The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;
And kings sate still with awfull eye,
As if they sure knew their sovran Lord was by.
—Milton.
A merry Christmas and a happy New Year! So the phrase goes and many a time has it just been uttered, who knows whether with meaning or unmeaning lips? Christmas, part and parcel of America’s glorious inheritance from Old England, is the sovereign festival in the South. The North may keep its gaudy Fourth of July, the birth of a nation; but, as for us, we will observe the day commemorating the birth of the King of the Universe, a day hoary with centuries of associations.
No one knows the dreariness of Christmas at College but the unfortunate wight condemned to suffer it. The lonesome buildings and quiet streets would bore even a well-regulated ghost, while thoughts of home with trains of recollections paralyze all gayety.
By an oversight the holidays are long drawn out. While several of the exchanges utter touching appeals for more time, Trinity is suffering from too much vacation. Rumor has it that next year will find both terms and holiday readjusted.
THE BULLETIN BOARD.
The new year opens with some sound financial regulations, the carrying out of which will help considerably to improve the condition of the College treasury. Hereafter, tuition fees will be collected at the end of every month. Only sons of ministers will receive free tuition, and time and credit will be allowed only to such as are found to be actually incapable of paying their bills regularly. Students not otherwise excused, who fail to pay monthly bills due the College, will not be entitled to any further instruction.
The first monthly payment will be due Saturday, Feb. 11th, 1888.
Books and stationery will be sold for cash only.
A discount of 5 per cent. will be made on bills paid a full term in advance.
Superintendent Finger will lecture on “The Public School Problem” on the night of the 18th of January, in the College chapel. Admission free.
Entrance examinations to the College classes will be held in May at Winston, in June at Morehead City, Raleigh, and Trinity College. The Oxford examination
will be held at a date to be announced later. The date of the other examinations has not yet been definitely fixed.
The President’s class in Social and Political Science with the Seniors (elective) engages in informal discussion followed by systematic inquiry in official documents and specific treatises. A prize of $25 in books will be awarded for the best original thesis upon any of the assigned topics.
The Juniors begin Hallam’s Constitutional History of England as a text, with Green’s Shorter History or Bright’s School History as collateral reading (required.) The term’s work will end with an oration and a prize of $25 in cash is offered for the best one.
Encouraging reports are coming in from those who went home to secure help for the new building. There is no doubt of its speedy erection, if the Alumni respond to the proposition of “Alumnus.” The students are determined that this building shall go up. They are ready to make sacrifices, and are making them, to accomplish their purposes. Contributions should be sent
to Prof. J. L. Armstrong, who will acknowledge them in the Raleigh Christian Advocate and in The Archive.
Several of the larger classes in the preparatory department will be divided on the basis of scholarship.