27H Hunt In- HI Historical ,W/,y,/
tening to his charming utterances, that for years, no matter what other speakers were present, they were wholly dissatisfied with the exercises unless his voice had been heard. The common feeling was expressed some years ago, when he was not present, by a lady who had ridden twenty miles to see and hear him, as she had been accus- tomed to do, and has regularly done since, when she said: " This is no commencement at all. Dr. Hoge is not here."
INTEREST IN EDUCATION.
The explanation of all this, besides the fact of his wonderful power of speech and his attractive grace as a man, is to be found in his deep devotion to the place, his pride in its history, his sympathy in its as- pirations, and his thorough and absorbing belief in Christian educa- tion as auxiliary and essential to the real and permanent progress of the Christian religion. Dr. Hoge was not only a Christian, a gentle- man, a minister of the Gospel, a scholar, and a man of the finest culture, but he was educator. He believed in it. He distrusted that kind of religion which willingly remains in ignorance or willingly allows others to continue in this deplorable state. Immediately after graduation he was chosen to teach in the college. During the earlier years of his ministry, under the force of circumstances, he conducted in his own house a seminary for young ladies which gained high repute and at which many of the finest women of the land were trained. He was for years a valued trustee of Union Theological Seminary, and had much to do with the founding and success of "The Home and School" at Fredericksburg and of "Hoge Academy," at Blackstone. He was always in thorough sympathy with the young. He understood their possibilities and was anxious to see them make the most of themselves, and in order to do this, to afford them the best opportunities for improvement. His sincerity in the cause of education was abundantly shown by his generosity in bestowing his time, his efforts, and his money in its behalf. He was not only a benevolent but a beneficent man, and gave of his means freely and to nothing more liberally than to the Christian educational institutions. Hampden-Sidney has again and again participated in his bounty. He once spoke to his congregation in my presence al- most in these identical words: " I have often thought that if I were suddenly endowed with wealth, the first use I would make of it, before attending to any other claim or even making provision for the members of my own family, I would adequately endow Hampden- Sidney College in order that it may be fully prepared for the great
