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DR. MAY'S CHARACTER.

it was not so with Dr. May; his character would bear the closest examination. What Bishop Burnet said of Archbishop Leighton might well be applied to him: "I never knew him to say an idle word that had not a direct tendency to edification; and I never once saw him in any other temper but that I wish to be in at the hour of death." I can add for myself his further remark: "That, after long and intimate intercourse with him, I count my knowledge of him among the greatest blessings of my life, and of which I must give account to God." I never saw him say or do a foolish thing, nor ever ruffled with passion. Dr. May, when weary or troubled at any time, would take up his Bible for refreshment, as most men take up the newspaper or novel. This showed his character. He was like Dr. Keith in his lovely humility. He was, as St. Peter says, "clothed with humility." Like Archbishop Leighton, "he looked upon himself as so ordinary a preacher and so unlikely to do good, that he was always for giving up his place to other ministers.”

There was an atmosphere of holiness about him, so that no one could be long in his company without seeing his calm and heavenly spirit. Rev. Dr. Philip Slaughter has spoken of him in his usual happy style, which I quote:

"He was an example of the believer in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Dr. May's intellectual and moral constitution was so symmetrical that there were but few salient points for criticism to seize upon and emphasize. It was not so much his power in the pulpit and the lecture room as the constant shining of the light and the savor of the salt that was in him. His heart was in sympathy with every form of human suffering, his hand open, his feet swift to their relief. He was indeed a Barnabas, a son of consolation.' The brotherly kindness which beamed from his eye, flowed from his lips and emanated from his whole demeanor, invited confidence, attracted to him all those who were weary and heavy laden and needed some upholding hand beneath their sinking hearts; while his even temper and sound judgment made him the trusted counsellor of the student, and indeed of all who were racked with doubt or troubled with care. The child-like simplicity of his correspondence with our foreign missionaries, weeping with those who wept and rejoicing with those who rejoice, is perfectly beautiful."

He had been from his youth a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. In his eighth year his father was suddenly killed by

DR. MAY'S SYMPATHY.

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an unbroken horse. When fourteen his brother, Rev. T. P. May, the pillar on which he leaned, was taken in the morn of a promising ministry. The next year his mother died, after a protracted and torturing illness. All his affections then centered on a beloved sister who died in his seventeenth year. His own health began early to fail, and then his lovely wife began to fade before his eyes, and she died in 1861. "Oh, what a storm of suffering passed over me in her last days! I was carried away in a sort of delirium," he says. In a letter to me he says: "I am lonely and have many tears. away?"

Is there not a happy land, far, far

His letters of sympathy to me were very touching. He wrote, November 14, 1863, after the death of my son William : "I do remember him as he was, when, with his smiling face he passed me on his way to or from school at Howard, or when he came to my door on an errand. I do tenderly feel for you and his mother. I read your letter with tears. * * * I have shed more tears within the last three years than ever before. Now they seem to be natural and flow unbidden. * * * But there is power in faith. There are in Christ exceeding riches of grace. son seems to have found a present help in his need. This should be a balm to your wounded heart. You may say, it is well with the child."

*** Your

It was a terrible trial to him in May, 1861, to leave the Seminary, in the midst of war's alarms. He writes: "Shall we ever reassemble? You can imagine nothing so sweet and lovely as everything looks. The new buildings are all just completed, the yard all beautifully green, trees in young leaf, with numberless flowers and blossoms. The woods have been raked over and trimmed; the birds seem wild with delight and fill the air with song. Who knows how soon everything may be destroyed? If the tears shed on this hill this week were gathered, what an amount would appear! And yet is not this but the beginning of sorrows?" He bore a heavy heart away with him, leaving a home beautiful without and within, and hallowed by many sacred memories, of students, missionaries and friends.

Thus he labored on, working and praying until he was taken sick in December, 1863, and after seven days' illness God took him. He was hardly conscious during his severe illness; fragments of prayers, portions of Scripture, directions as to duty, formed the staple of his broken thoughts. His sick-bed gave

forth no sign, either of loving farewell, as he took his last look of earth, or of joyful assurance as he gazed up into heaven.

John Newton used to say, "Tell me not how one died, but how he lived." Dr. May had set his mind on the things that are above, he had died to the world and his life was hid with Christ in God, and his friends well knew that he was "forever with the Lord."

Dr. Sparrow wrote me on hearing of Dr. May's death: "Few such Christians have gone to heaven of late years. Keith, Sparrow, May; I knew and loved them all. There are three stars in the belt of Orion which shine side by side with equal lustre ; so these three men, that have gone into that world of light, shine down upon us in their bright example and sweet influences as the brightness of the firmament and as the stars, for ever and ever. Much of the tender love which the older Alumni cherish for this Seminary, as for a place in which they spent the happiest and most profitable hours of life, is owing to these men.

It has been my sad privilege last of all, though here six years before Drs. Sparrow and May, to recall their blessed memories and holy examples. It is a blessing thus to associate with them again, and it is thus, as Robert Hall says, that the friendship of high and sanctified spirits loses nothing by death but its alloy; failings disappear and the virtues of those whose "faces we shall behold no more" appear greater and more sacred when beheld through the shades of the sepulchre. Their spirits are now united before the throne, and if any event in this sublunary sphere may be supposed to engage their attention in their present mysterious elevation, it is doubtless the desire that this Seminary, the child of their prayers and the object of their love, may go on in greater usefulness and in closer communion with Christ than when they were its Professors, and that it may be the honored instrument of ever sending forth ministers of the New Testament, spiritually minded, Christ-like men, to turn sinners to righteousness and to conduct sons to glory until Christ come.

CHAPTER XVIII.

EPISCOPAL HIGH SCHOOL AND ALUMNI.

HE Episcopal High School was started long after the Semi

nary, and though so nearly connected, it has always been separate from our institution. Still, as it began three years after my coming here, and has had so many of our Alumni as its teachers and scholars, I will tell what I know of its origin and

course.

I cannot say exactly when Howard was built, nor by whom, but about 1800, I think. It was surrounded by trees, and a Mr. William Robertson lived there many years. He married a daughter of Dr. David Stuart, father of C. Calvert Stuart, who married Miss Cornelia Turberville. After he left, Mrs. Wilmer, the third wife of Rev. Dr. William H. Wilmer, so prominent in founding our Seminary, and step-mother of Bishop Richard H. Wilmer and Rev. Dr. George T. Wilmer, came to live there and opened the Howard School in 1831, on the site of the present Episcopal High School. The teachers were Rev. Jonathan Loring Woart (pronounced Wirt) and the Rev. John Woart, once chaplain in U. S. Army, lately deceased, both Alumni of our Seminary in the classes of 1831 and 1834.

While Rev. J. L. Woart was at Howard, Miss Elizabeth West, daughter of Richard West, of the "Woodyard," Prince George's county, Maryland, a famous and beautiful residence, visited Mrs. Wilmer (née Ann Brice Fitzhugh, of the Marmion Fitzhughs of Virginia), her intimate friend. Thus becoming acquainted, Mr. Woart and she were married at the "Woodyard" a year or two before the school closed. In 1834 Mr. Woart had charge of a parish at Tallahassee, Florida, where he served with great acceptance, and the people became warmly attached to him and his wife. She was an elegant specimen of that refined class to which her relatives of the Key, Taney, West and Lloyd families belonged.

In the summer of 1838, Mr. and Mrs. Woart went northward from Savannah to New York, on the Steamer Pulaski. The vessel foundered off the coast of North Carolina; they with the

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WRECK OF THE PULASKI.

other passengers were put on a raft, but were all drowned. Mrs. Rebecca J. McLeod and her brother Mr. Gazaway B. Lamar, of Georgia, were on board and when the ship went to pieces he swam to her to a piece of wreck on which she also floated, and later on they took a small boat which came within their reach and landed near Wilmington, North Carolina. She and her nephew, Charles Lamar, who was the only child saved from that wreck and who showed great nobility, fortitude and unselfishness, were picked up by a sailing vessel. Mr. Woart showed great consideration and courage, and his piety and prayers cheered his lovely wife and others in their sufferings and death on the raft. When she died he sunk down in grief and weakness and their bodies were swept off together by a heavy sea. Mr. Lamar afterwards married Miss Harriet Cazenove, of Alexandria. He gave Doctor Sparrow a trip to Europe on his sailing-vessel, and the Doctor went to Savannah to take the vessel.

The school continued three years. It was limited in number to eighteen pupils, and the prices were such as to insure the most valuable patronage. The boys were devoted to Mr. Woart, a successful teacher. It may be of interest to record the names of some who were members of Howard School. Richard H. Wilmer was there for one year, going in 1832 to Yale College, where he graduated in 1836. Charles Lee Jones, my brother-in-law, son of General Walter Jones; John, Littleton and Williams Carter Wickham, of Hanover county, were here at that time; the last named was a general in the Confederate army, and Vice-President of the C. & O. R. R. Other boys were Mansfield (afterwards General C. S. A.) and his brother Joseph Lovell, sons of Surgeon-General Lovell, U. S. A.; William Jones, son of Adjutant-General Roger Jones, who was with me at Bristol College, but was killed near Fort McHenry, shortly after graduating at West Point, by a fall from his horse caused by jumping him over a cow that was lying down. Charles and Turberville Stuart, brothers of Mrs. Harriet E. Cazenove; S. Wilmer Cannell, Philip Barton Key, son of Francis S. Key; J. Augustine Washington, and Henry Winter Davis of national reputation, and others attended one or more sessions. Henry Davis Dr. Wilmer remembers well during his school-days, before I knew him. His aunt, Miss Winter, lived in Alexandria and was pinching herself to educate him. He walked out to school, and some can now remember him, with elastic step striding along, a tin bucket on his arm, wearing a green baize jacket, his