affairs of the house, and had all the conversational powers of their father. The boys were all in love with them. All the other professors were able men and very competent teachers. The professor of ancient languages, James P. Waddell, was an excellent classical scholar. William Lehman, in the Chair of Modern Languages, and Dr. Henry Hull in that of Mathematics, were good teachers. Professor James Jackson of the Chairs of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry, was a splendid old fellow, much beloved by the students, "a great Presbyterian, whose face looked every Sunday as if it could not wreathe into a smile at the most beautiful thing in nature or art. He loved a fight and always made the boys tell him fully about every one that occurred." But one of the most remarkable men was Prof. C. F. McKay, Professor of Civil Engineering. He was a great mathematician, an admirable English scholar, and all round, one of the most remarkable men I ever knew. Among Ben Palmer's schoolmates were men who afterwards were known as Dr. James Jackson, Justice of the Supreme Court; Judge Benjamin P. Pressley, of the Circuit Court of South Carolina; Judge John S. Shorter, of the Superior Court of Alabama; John LeConte, M.D., LL.D., of many distinguished positions, finally President of the University of California; Col. Alexander M. Speer, and Robert Trippe, Justices of Supreme Court, and many others distinguished as professors in universities, colleges, or professional schools, as ministers, physicians, or lawyers. "Ben Palmer," continues Mr. Pope, "entered the Junior class. I entered the following year. We were from the same general region, knew of one another, and Palmer invited me to be his roommate. Though two years ahead of me in college, he showed for me the greatest consideration and sympathy, putting himself on a level with me. We would converse on all sorts of subjects. His mind was always clear and his use of language very remarkable. Almost as soon as I entered he pursuaded me to join the College Temperance Society. He delivered about this time the finest temperance lecture it has ever been my privilege to hear, though he was at the time only about twenty years old. I was not in his class. I cannot tell you anything of his recitations, but I know he was an elegant Latin scholar, a good Greek scholar, a splendid English scholar, a good mathematician and stood first in all studies. But the place in which I knew him best was the Phi Kappa Society, a debating society which met every Saturday and put in a large part of the day. He was himself wont to regard the training he derived in this society as of the first importance to his subsequent career. Palmer was never absent, and always took part in debate. He was as fluent then as he ever became, as eloquent then as he ever became. I have never seen a youth of his age who could surpass him as a debater. I remember one occasion on which the question was, 'Is Napoleon Bonaparte entitled to be called great?' He took the affirmative, and brought tears to our eyes as he pictured that eagle caged on St. Helena. "Palmer was always honorable and virtuous. He was a high, clean fellow. He was always in love. He fell very much in love with one of Dr. Church's daughters. But amongst her beaux there was a handsome fellow to whom she had become engaged to be married. Accordingly, when Palmer proposed she declined. Not long after his refusal we were walking together in the woods one afternoon, when reverting to the sore subject, he said, 'Do you think that that man is handsomer than I am?' I was intensely amused; for Ben Palmer, though every inch a gentleman, and a well-groomed one in his appearance, and evidently of great brilliancy and parts to those who knew him, was remarkably homely in the common eye. I said, 'The truth compels me to say that I do think he is handsomer than you, but he has not one tenth of your brains.' 4 "Palmer was graduated with the first honors, in August, 1838, and on that occasion delivered an exquisite oration." He ran this distinguished career in the University of Georgia with burdens on his shoulders. He largely supported himself during his entire career in the institution by private labors as a tutor. He served as tutor first in the family of the distinguished lawyer, Mr. Oliver H. Prince, of Athens. He was living in the Prince home, and in charge of the children of Mr. Prince when that gentleman, accompanied by his wife, made the trip to New York, that he might superintend the publishing of the "Digest of the Laws of Georgia" which he had compiled. And when, on their return voyage, the father and mother per This account of Mr. Palmer's life at the University of Georgia is largely in the words of the Hon. Daniel Joseph Pope, of Columbia, S. C., taken down as he talked in July, 1904. ished off the Hatteras coast in the wreck of the steamer Home, Mr. Palmer showed the greatest tenderness toward, and exercised the greatest care over, his orphaned charges until they were removed to Macon, Ga., to be with relatives. His faithfulness and tenderness to the sorrow-stricken children of the Princes, and his qualifications for tutoring, secured an invitation now to become tutor in the family of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Wiley Baxter. Here he taught Thomas W. Baxter, Jr., afterwards of Atlanta, Ga., Sally Catherine Baxter, who in due time became Mrs. Edgeworth Bird, of Baltimore, and John L. Baxter, who developed into a man of scholarly attainments and note, a physician. He so behaved toward these children as not only to advance them in learning but to gain their fraternal and undying affection. He won the love of the parents as fully as that of the children. This affection he returned, taking Mrs. Baxter into his heart as a kind of second mother to him, and the children as brothers and sisters. For Mrs. Baxter he ever entertained a huge admiration. Hers was a character as "pure and peaceful as ever blessed a home." Years later he said, "Her equable temper, early sweetened by divine grace, breathed around her an atmosphere so sincere, that to be near her was to be at rest. Her gentle patience broke the edge of sorrow, leaving it nothing but its pathos. Her step in life was so noiseless that even duty seemed eased of its burden. Her unselfish sympathy plucked the grief from many an aching heart, whilst an unobtrusive charity lighted many a scant home with her beneficence. Neither dazzled by the splendors of fortune, nor daunted by the frowns of adversity, her brave heart preserved an equal trust in the God of her salvation. A sweet and winning piety was hers. It had no glare about it, and was full of meekness and humility; yet it was so pervading it quickened every action and purified every thought, it breathed in every tone and gleamed in every look, rendering her whole life a sweet gospel, full of the savors of Christ. "Precious saint! Across the track of thirty years comes one through this sketch to pour his filial reverence and tears upon your grave. The days of youth are long since passed, when he was a son in her loving home; but the memory of her, who was to him like the sweet mother that first kissed his infant cheek, will ever be as 'ointment poured forth.'" From the little girl he taught in the Baxters' home, now Mrs. Edgeworth Bird, of Baltimore, Md., we learn that he used, while in college, to have not a little time for social duties, that he wrote regularly for the Lyceum, formed by the young ladies of Athens, and to which many of the students were invited; that his papers were full of charming witticisms. She heard him read one of these to a brother of hers, also a university student, for his criticisms. It was headed, "Shall I marry a missionary?" Overhearing it, she laughed out merrily at some of its conceits. Whereupon "he declared that he felt sure his article would at least amuse the ladies, if such a little tot could see anything in it." Mrs. Bird adds, "The girls of Athens were known far and wide for their beauty and the students fully appreciated it." We learn further from Mrs. Bird, that while he was in college, though a prime favorite socially and leading his class intellectually, he was very faithful to all religious duties. "He had a Sunday school in the country, two miles from town, and in summer's heat and winter's cold was faithful in attendance, generally walking to and from the school." "My father would often say," says Mrs. Bird, "Ben, order one of the horses, and drive, or ride to your school this afternoon.' With loving thanks, he usually declined, saying the walk would do him. good." At this time he seems to have been, for his years, already an able apologist for Christianity, tactful, resourceful and skilful. He had found with this noble family a thoroughly congenial home, the memory of which he carried with him as a precious possession to the last. His life at the University had been one of great successsplendid development and the joy that comes of it. This time he returns to the parental roof with the plaudits of his Faculty, his fellow students and the whole university community following him. At home there was no cold reception awaiting him. But he was conscious of a fight he had to make. To his broadened and broadening view, life's responsibitities were looming large. He had chosen to serve Christ. How was he to serve him? See the article headed The Confessions of a Skeptic, in the Southwestern Presbyterian, May 20, 1869. CHAPTER V. STUDENT FOR THE MINISTRY IN COLUMBIA SEMINARY. (January 1, 1839-April, 1841.) INCLINED TO THE LAW.-DECIDES TO STUDY FOR THE MINISTRY.-EN- HIM. THE COMMUNITY AND YOUNG PALMER.-A VACATION IN- OUNG Palmer was strongly inclined to the profession of the law. His clear mind, his vigorous powers as a debater, his mastery of the spheres of the pathetic and the sentimental, pointed to the most brilliant possibilities as an advocate. These, together with the very high high order of eloquence which he commanded, suggested a still more splendid career should he, after thorough study of the law, give himself to public life, in the pursuit of statecraft. Hayne and McDuffie, Drayton, and Petigru, Hamilton and Pinckney, and Calhoun, had thrown the sheen of their splendor over this latter sort of course, making it all the more attractive to a young man of such distinguished parts. Moreover, of his young friends in the McPhersonville neighborhood, Wm. F. Hutson, and his cousin Wm. M. Hutson, one of whom was subsequently a brother-in-law to Mr. Palmer, were studying law at the very time that he was at Athens completing his academic studies; and of his friends there, amongst the students, many of the most brilliant had chosen the legal profession, or were so biased in its favor that their choice of it was already practically decided. But alluring as the legal profession was, it had a rival in his heart, a rival more modest and humble, more certainly knit to narrow worldly circumstances, but very attractive, as concerned primarily with that which is highest as well as most central in man, the moral and spiritual elements of his nature. This was the calling to be a minister of the Christian religion. |