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THE UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE. 137 
 
 They murmured to me kindly, gently, — go, 
 
 Go, go, and do, and give, and love ! 
 
 A peaceful calm within my spirit passed 
 
 And filled my soul with gratitude and joy. 
 
 With these grand words will I go forth, 
 
 And do, and give, and love, as thou hast bid, 
 
 Dear helper, friend, and College Mother, thou ! 
 
 And now the great round moon arose 
 
 From out her daytime bed, and gleamed, and thus 
 
 Night broke in stillness on the College Hill. 
 
 Hunter L. Harris. 
 
 REV. JOHN WITHERSPOON, D. D., LL.D. 
 
 The author of the following sketch was Hon. Frederick Nash, who 
 for years held the eminent position of Chief Justice of the Supreme 
 Court of North Carolina. He was the son of Governor Abner Nash, 
 nephew of General Francis Nash, who was killed at Germantown, in 
 1777. He was a Judge of the Supreme Court from 1844 until his 
 death, in 1858, and from 1852 was Chief Justice. Rev. Dr. Wither- 
 spoon was one of the most prominent and useful divines of our State, 
 and our readers should be glad to possess a memoir of him from the 
 pen of one who ♦knew him well, and so ably portrays his life and 
 character : 
 
 "The late Rev. John Witherspoon, D. D., LL.D., was born near 
 Newbern, in this State, in the year 1791. His father was the youngest 
 son of the Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, who was for many years the 
 President of Princeton College, in New Jersey. Born in Scotland and 
 educated a Presbyterian, he early in life imbibed the spirit of freedom, 
 and was among the foremost to raise the standard of resistance to the 
 tyranny of the government of Great Britain, and during the whole of 
 the war of the Revolution was an ardent and consistent patriot. His 
 oldest son. Major John Witherspoon, entered the army, and fell at the 
 battle of Germantown, by the same ball that killed General Francis 
 Nash, of this State. David, the youngest son, and the father of the 
 
 i,fc5 Ob 
 
I 
 
 138 THE UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE. 
 
 subject of this brief notice, removed to this State after the close of 
 the war, and married. In the year 1801 or 1802, having lost his wife, 
 he removed, for the benefit of his health, to Princeton, and took with 
 him his son John, then of tender years. There he died in the suc- 
 ceeding year. By his will he appointed Dr. Samuel Smith, his brother- 
 in-law, and then President of the College, and Dr. John C. Osborne, a 
 physician, of Newbern, the guardians of his child. John was, in time, 
 sent to an academy kept at Baskenridge, in New Jersey, of which the 
 Rev. Dr. Findlay was principal, a man justly celebrated as a teacher 
 and a divine, and here he acquired the first rudiments of his academical 
 education. 
 
 " Being very young when he lost his mother, and the only surviving 
 child of a father broken in health, he never was subject in his earliest 
 days to that restraint so necessary in forming the character of the 
 future man. His mother's death occurred too early in his infancy for 
 him to have derived any benefit from her judicious care and manage- 
 ment. At the time, then, when he was placed under the care of Dr. 
 Findlay, he was a wild and reckless boy, spurning at an authority which 
 was new to him. How long he continued at the academy of Basken- 
 ridge the writer does not recollect, but he was taken from that school 
 by Dr. Smith and sent to his other guardian. Dr. Osborne, who resigned 
 his charge, and John's maternal brother was appointed in his place. It 
 is not a little remarkable that at this time, when his paternal family 
 friends had, in a measure, abandoned him and lost all hope of his re- 
 formation, a venerable friend of the family, the father of Dr. Findlay, 
 refused to join in the opinion, and remarked he had * no doubt John 
 Vv'ould yet reform and become a preacher of the gospel ; that there 
 never had been a time since the death of John Knox, in which there 
 was not a minister of the gospel in a direct line from him ' — a predic- 
 tion remarkably verified as to John ; the Rev. Dr. Witherspoon was in 
 that Hne, being a direct descendant of John Knox. 
 
 Upon John Witherspoon's return to his native place, he entered 
 the academy there, which was under the charge of Dr. Irving, a man 
 of science and full of learning, and an excellent instructor, who trusted 
 more to the rod than to moral suasion ; of the latter he knew little. 
 Mr. Irving was a man of unquestioned genius ; and among several 
 individuals who derived the rudiments of their education from him, 
 and who in after-life rose to eminence, was the late Judge Gaston. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE. 
 
 139 
 
 He afterwards turned his attention to the ministry, and was duly 
 admitted into orders in the Episcopal Church and installed as a priest 
 in the church at Newbern. 
 
 " The subject of this memoir was, at a subsequent period, placed at 
 the preparatory school of the University of North Carolina, then under 
 the care of Rev. Abner Clopton. Here he remained until he was pre- 
 pared to enter the University, which he did in the year 1808. and where 
 he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts, in the year 1810. He had for 
 his fellow-student, among others, the late James F. Taylor. They 
 were, on their Senior examination, declared equal ; the Latin Saluta- 
 tory was assigned to Mr. Witherspoon, and the Valedictory to Mr. 
 Taylor, he being the best speaker. After graduating, they both 
 entered the law ofifice of the writer, and were duly admitted to the 
 bar. North Carolina has produced few men, if any, who were superior 
 to Mr. Taylor in the qualities of mind and heart — the former was 
 strong and discriminating; the latter warm, true and faithful. In pri- 
 vate life he was gentle and playful ; in public life bold and very inde- 
 pendent, frank and sincere ; never demanding anything that was not 
 justly his due, and never permitting that to be refused which was. 
 He soon placed himself in the front rank of his professional brethren, 
 and while still a young man was chosen by the Legislature to fill the 
 high and responsible office of Attorney General of the State. The 
 arduous duties were performed by him with a vigor and success that 
 entitled him to the confidence of every class of society. He was a 
 general favorite, and his death, while still in the prime of life, was 
 mourned as a national loss. 
 
 " The subject of this memoir, at a very early period after obtaining 
 his license, abandoned the profession of the law. While on a visit to 
 the North, he was, in the providence of God, led to hear a sermon from 
 the Rev. Dr. Thomas Skinner, a native of this State, located at that 
 time in Philadelphia. From that sermon he always dated his first 
 serious impression upon the subject of religion — an impression which, 
 though slight at first, was, by the blessing of God, ripened into conviction 
 under the preaching of that eminent man of God, Dr. Robert Chap- 
 man, then President of the University of this State. He was received 
 to membership in the Presbyterian church of Chapel Hill, and for the 
 first time took his seat at the communion table. From this time he 
 felt himself called to a higher and nobler walk in life, and determined 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE. 
 
 at once to throw aside his law books, and to devote himself to the min- 
 istry. To do this more satisfactorily, he removed with his family to 
 Elizabethtown in New Jersey, where he went through his course of 
 Theological studies under the Rev. Dr. John McDowell, then pastor 
 of the Presbyterian church at that place, a man whose life has been 
 devoted to his fellow men, and whose ministry has been singularly 
 blessed by the Great Head of the Church. Having completed his 
 studies, he was regularly ordained a minister of the gospel by the 
 Presbytery of New Jerse}^, and returned to his native State, and lo- 
 cated himself at Hillsboro. At that time Hillsboro was destitute of 
 the forms of religion ; no house dedicated to the service of Almighty 
 God existed within its precincts ; nor was there any organized church 
 of any faith ; nor was there any regular worship. Its Sabbaths were 
 silent Sabbaths, undisturbed by the 'church-going bell,' and for many 
 a year previous thereto, a moral as a religious darkness had spread 
 over the community. But a great reformation had recently begun 
 under the preaching of Dr. Chapman. In 1816 the first Presbyterian 
 church that ever had been formed in Hillsboro, was organized by Mr. 
 Witherspoon, who was ordained its pastor ; and there he continued to 
 labor as such until 1832, when he removed to Camden in South Caro- 
 lina upon a call from the Presbyterian church in that place. He con- 
 tinued to labor there until he received and accepted a call from the 
 church in Columbia, in the same State. While pastor of the church 
 in Hillsboro, seeing the destitution of the place in a literary point of 
 view, there being no academy there, he instituted one, and associated 
 with himself a gentleman of the name of Rogers, who was, as to schol- 
 arship, thoroughly qualified for the station. Under their joint labors 
 it rapidly rose into public favor. Many of the young men of our State, 
 now in public life, received under these gentlemen the rudiments of 
 their education. Mr. Witherspoon possessed a high order of talent, 
 so much so, that one who knew him well, who was then young, and 
 who now occupies a high and distinguished place among us, when he 
 heard that he had abandoned the practice of the law, and had turned 
 his attention to the study of Divinity, exclaimed, ' Is it possible John 
 Witherspoon is about to bury himself in the pulpit?' What nobler 
 ground could an intelligent being occupy? What wider and more ex- 
 panded field for the outpourings of the head and the heart? To be 
 an instrument in the hand of the living God, to proclaim to fallen men 
 
THE UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE. 
 
 141 
 
 the precious promises of God, — what higher honor ? For the pulpit 
 Mr. Witherspoon was peculiarly fitted. With manners mild and 
 gentle, a voice sweetly and musically toned, with a sound, discrimina- 
 ting mind, well stored with learning imbibed from the source of all 
 valuable learning, and with a heart overflowing with love to his fellow 
 men, he was indeed fully equipped for the battle. In private life, he 
 was, especially among those with whom he was familiar, extremely 
 cheerful in his conversation, seeking to please as well as to instruct; 
 in the pulpit he was ever solemn, giving apparently his whole soul to 
 the subject before him ; no levity of conduct or of speech ever escaped 
 him — he was there solely to instruct and persuade. By many he was 
 considered a fine pulpit orator ; he was so, as far as a minister of the 
 gospel in the pulpit can be so, who uses little or no action. Mr. 
 Witherspoon used none, or very little. His presence in the pulpit 
 was commanding and solemn, his enunciation clear, his language chaste 
 and pure, and his sweet voice penetrated to the remotest corner of the 
 room in which he preached. The leading feature, perhaps, of his mind 
 was his knowledge of human character ; it approached in him nearer 
 to intuition than in any person I ever saw. This power, or faculty, 
 enabled him to adapt his discourses to his audience in a most effective 
 manner. Especially was he successful in addressing the young and 
 his colored hearers. His language and his illustrations then were 
 suited to their comprehension, and with both classes he was a favorite. 
 As to his usefulness as a spiritual instructor others can speak with 
 more propriety than the writer. In an obituary notice, published 
 shortly after his death, and written by one who knew him well, and 
 loved him well, it is said, 'To his labors was Hillsboro first indebted 
 for its intellectual, moral, and religious character ; through his instru- 
 mentality schools were established, education encouraged, moral in- 
 fluence exerted, religious principles, under the influence of God's spirit, 
 implanted, and men awakened to feel and to act as accountable be- 
 ings.' Again the same writer states ' As a pastor one heart can bear 
 testimony to his faithfulness. In sorrow he was ever a kind, affec- 
 tionate, sympathizing friend, weeping with those that wept, and pour- 
 ing the oil of divine consolation into the broken and afflicted heart. 
 To the young he was peculiarly tender and affectionate.' This is the 
 language of personal friendship, the outpourings of a warm and gener- 
 ous heart, of one first awakened to truth and life under his minis- 
 
142 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE. 
 
 tration. Not less dear to his surviving friends is the testimony borne 
 to his worth and usefulness, in the declaration and action of his breth- 
 ren of Orange Presbytery. On the records of the Presbytery, held at 
 Milton in September, 1853, is the following minute: 
 
 ' The committee appointed to bring in a minute with reference to the 
 death of Dr. Witherspoon, reported the following resolutions, which 
 were adopted : 
 
 'Resolved, ist. In view of the death of our beloved brother, John 
 Witherspoon, D. D., we acknowledge the hand of God, who has ap- 
 pointed the boundaries of the habitations of all men, and set to them 
 a limit which they may not pass. 
 
 ' 2d. Though sorrowing that we shall see his face no more on earth, 
 yet we rejoice in the hope that to him earth has been the end of all 
 sorrow and the beginning of all joy. His latter days were marked by 
 many and peculiar sufferings, and these were rendered the more severe 
 by the fact that in his earlier life his career had been one of peculiar 
 prosperity. 
 
 * The son of a noble race, a lineal descendant of John Knox, and the 
 grandson of John Witherspoon, of Revolutionary memory, having 
 enjoyed opportunities of instruction better than most men of his day, 
 and gifted with talents of the highest order, he entered at an early age 
 upon the duties of the sacred office. 
 
 * As a popular speaker, he was excelled by none ; the silvery tones of 
 his voice, the grace and elegance of his manner ; his ready flow of lan- 
 guage, combined with a remarkable memory ; a fervid imagination, and 
 vigorous powders of thought — made him a most attractive preacher. 
 For his success, however, he was, perhaps, not less indebted to his qual- 
 ities as a man than as a preacher — gentle, courteous, affable and kind, 
 he was a pastor greatly beloved. 
 
 ' Chosen Moderator of the General Assembly in times that tried 
 men's souls, he was found equal to the task, and made the finest im- 
 pression on the whole Church as to his ability and impartiality. But 
 the Master, ever mysterious in his dispensations, saw fit soon to lay 
 his servant by, and for many years he was called to suffer much and 
 to do but little. 
 
 ' It is a singular fact that in the same community where he first held 
 the pastoral office, and where, in the vigor of his early manhood, he 
 preached with so much success, there he spent his last days ; there, 
 
THE UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE. 
 
 143 
 
 too, as a supply, he preached the gospel of peace ; and though with 
 less of mental vigor and bodily strength, possessing no longer the 
 sweet voice which had attracted the fathers, yet with the same affec- 
 tionate manner and a chastened piety, he taught lessons of wisdom to 
 their children. 
 
 * Then, by the friends that survived, and by the children of others 
 that had gone before him, he was ministered to and wept over and 
 committed to the dust.' 
 
 " After laboring several years in the church of Columbia, Mr. With- 
 erspoon's health having given way, he returned to his native State to 
 die, as he stated to the writer. His life was mercifully spared for sev- 
 eral years after his return, and, though a life of suffering and of sorrow, 
 he bore all his trials with meekness, submission and resignation. Nor 
 did he relax his ministerial labors ; visiting the poor, the sick and the 
 afflicted, and ministering to their spiritual wants with tenderness and 
 unbroken zeal. On the 23d of September, 1853, and on the thirty- 
 seventh anniversary of his installation as pastor of the church in 
 Hillsboro, after an illness of great severity, he departed from this 
 world, clad in the robes of his Divine Master. 
 
 " Beloved brother ! loved while living by all who knew thee, and 
 mourned when dead by the community of thy affection, none loved 
 thee more ardently, or mourned thee more truly, than he who writes 
 these cold lines." (Signed) F. Nash. 
 
 THE ROSICRUCIANS. 
 
 [Read before the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, Feb., 1887.] 
 
 The intellectual history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
 in Europe is the history of a prolonged and triumphant struggle 
 against the thraldom of mysticism and superstition. The reign of 
 error and of darkness had been almost complete. Nor is this strange, 
 when we consider how corrupt the religions of the civilized world had 
 become. The Arabians, who were the teachers of Europe, were in 
 bondage to a faith in which the true Allah was inextricably confused 
 with false prophets, genii, ghouls and all manner of spirits. Under the 
 lead of the Patriarchs of the West, and subsequent rabbinical schools, 
 
144 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE. 
 
 the Jews had incorporated into their pure monotheism a vast mass of 
 tradition and superstition, which peopled the air and earth with pow- 
 ers of light and darkness, till their Temple became a very Pantheon. 
 Nor were the Christian Trinitarians much better. To the Triune God 
 they worshiped had been added a long list of saints and martyrs, and 
 idle, morbid, crazed ascetics had compiled whole tomes of legends and 
 visions, whilst lying ecclesiastics daily befooled the wonder-loving, 
 stupid people with relics and vaunted miracles. It was indeed a Dark 
 Age, and the tyrannical rule of priests and scholiasts kept it so. The 
 coming of the Reformation was like the dawning of a new day, though 
 it took a long and dreary time for the growing light to drive away the 
 clouds and mists. 
 
 Of all nations, the Germans seem to have been the most inclined to 
 this mysticism. Whatever was supernatural, or outside the range of 
 reason and experience, presented, to their minds, much that was attract- 
 ive. They peopled the forest and the river, the depths of earth and 
 of ocean, with creatures of their imagination. They delved among the 
 records of the past in search of the wonderful, and laboriously strove 
 to wrest magical secrets from Nature. They were a people peculiarly 
 ready to seize upon anything dark, mysterious and secret. Germany 
 furnished a fertile soil for the growth of Cabbalists, Paracelsists and 
 similar societies. It was here that the Rosicrucian Fraternity had its 
 rise. 
 
 Though mysticism had an important part to play in the growth of 
 this order, we must not lose sight of two other important factors — the 
 state of wretchedness and want of the masses in Europe, and the auri 
 sacra fames, which is a noticeable feature of modern society as well. 
 The formerled to the inception of the ideal order, though it was lost sight 
 of, apparently, when the ideal became the real. It is difificult for us to 
 picture the true condition of the lower classes during the Middle Ages. 
 What we regard as the inalienable rights of man, were the possession 
 then of those only who had might or wealth on their side. Rulers 
 were corrupt, priests corrupt, and truth and honesty were rare virtues. 
 Rapacious princes and robbers ground the people, as between the upper 
 and the nether millstone. But, worse than such oppression, sanitation 
 was almost unknown ; physicians were ignorant and disease rampant. 
 Our great charitable institutions, hospitals, homes, asylums, did not 
 exist. The hearts of thoughtful men were touched by these evils, and 
 
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