In South Carolina. 577 



literary and religious condition of the college was never sounder 

 than at present. The absolute punctuality of so large a number in 

 attendance upon all scholastic duties and the amount of application 

 to studies on the part of the students generally are highly gratifying 

 to the committee, and they record with pleasure the uniform good 

 order and correct moral deportment which continue to characterize 

 the young men of the college. It is a gratification, which they can 

 find no language to express, to be able to say, without exaggeration, 

 what a growing attention from year to year has been given to the 

 noblest purposes for which colleges are founded, and how the young 

 men who frequent the halls of Wofford have advanced in respect 

 for religion and in earnest attention to its duties. Here not only is 

 the fire of genius cherished and the lamp of philosophy trimmed, 

 but here also burns brightly the candle which God has lighted for a 

 benighted world. About three-fourths of the students are members 

 of the Church, and evince a solid piety by a punctual attendance 

 upon the ordinances of God's house and a diligent use of all the 

 means of grace. In addition to the seven promising young men 

 who are pursuing a course of studies with an immediate view to 

 the work of the itinerant ministry, the minds of a number more, it 

 is believed, are turned to the holy office. The committee would 

 not withhold from the Conference, as a specimen of the letters 

 which from time to time are sent to the Faculty and serve to cheer 

 them in their arduous and responsible labors, the following brief 

 extract of one from a patron of the college, dated 8th March, 18G9, 

 and immediately subsequent to the gracious revival with which the 

 institution this year was again favored : " We feel rich in our pov- 

 erty; and would not exchange the conversion of our son (13th Feb- 

 ruary) for all the wealth of the Indies. It was to secure this very 

 end that we left the home of our ancestors and have lived in exile 

 among strangers. We felt persuaded that if we could obtain the 

 means of sending him to Wofford, God would convert him. Our 

 self-denial for his good seemed full of folly to some, but this happy 

 result has proved the wisdom of the act. We bless God that he 

 has put it into the hearts of good men to build up and sustain such 

 a college as Wofford, to which we can send our sons with almost a 

 certainty that they will be converted. In other educational advan- 

 tages, Ave know that she ranks among the first institutions of tho 

 land, but her chief glory consists in her wonderful success in initi- 

 ating our sons into the highest science — the consciousness of God 

 reconciled in the soul, and in the training of their spirits for heaven." 

 37 



