[Illustration: WALTER H. PAGE, Of North Carolina; Sutherlin Medalist;
Editor Atlantic Monthly.]
At the annual meeting in June, 1876, the Building Committee reported the Pace Lecture Hall as being about half completed, with funds on hand to meet expenses of completion. This was the second brick building erected on the campus.
The following received the degree of A. M.: John M. Burton, of Virginia;
Howard Edwards, of Virginia; Robert Sharp, of Virginia; R. Bascom
Smithey, of Virginia.
The President, in his annual report, does not give the statistics as to the number of students in attendance, but the catalogue for the year gives it as 167. He, evidently regarding this as the last he would make, takes the occasion to speak in the kindest and most commendatory terms of his associates of the Faculty. He was on the most cordial terms with them, and his kindly regard was fully reciprocated. Referring to his resignation, which he was about to tender, he said:
"And now I approach a matter which it gives me very great pain to announce. Many reasons combine to make it best, however, that I take the step now; but these reasons I do not propose to open for discussion, because I have become satisfied and decided in my convictions.
"I have worked earnestly, in all good conscience, before God for eight years to promote the cause of Christian education in connection with Randolph-Macon College; nor have I spared myself till my health demanded it. I have done what I could. Eight years ago, in a critical moment in the history of the College, your flattering representations of the service you believed I might render to Christian education induced me to sacrifice my own inclinations and to accept the presidency of Randolph-Macon.
"What has been done is too well known to you to make it necessary for me to recount the familiar facts. My rejoicing in it all is the blessing the College has been to our young men, and the fact that, by abundant labors, I have also had a personal share in the rebuilding and re-establishing an institution whose work is its best witness. In God's providence these labors have, I trust, been blessed unto permanent good.
"But in the meanwhile I have found that to repeat or continue them would be a tax on my health and strength too great for me to bear. I am fully satisfied that the confining duties of College life are entirely incompatible with my future health and consequent usefulness; but I cannot consent to be a nominal president of an institution whose funds are not sufficient for the support of all the active officers she needs. When invitations to more lucrative positions were extended to me I have not entertained them for a moment, simply because I could not allow my duty, as a minister of Christ, in relation to this work to be governed by monetary considerations. But now, when unembarrassed by any invitations whatever, after calm reflection on all the reasons which favor or oppose it, after careful and prayerful meditation upon it as a question of duty as under God's guidance, I am fully persuaded that the moment has come when I may and ought dutifully to return to the position I formerly occupied as a preacher in the church of God. This conviction is too firmly and clearly fixed for me to alter it at present.
"I hardly need to say that my devotion to the College is unchanged. My readiness to do whatever I can to advance its welfare, I know you will believe and appreciate. Therefore, most respectfully, with the warmest wishes for your success personally and officially, I feel it my duty to tender my resignation as President of Randolph-Macon College. This I propose shall take effect at the beginning of the next session, or at the meeting of the Virginia Conference.
"With many prayers for the prosperity of the great cause, which I must now serve less efficiently, but not less earnestly, and with immutable love for Randolph-Macon, I am, most respectfully and sincerely yours,