1901 "For many years it has been my earnest desire to so conduct the affairs of the institution that whether I was present or absent, there should be no abatement in the earnest purpose and devotion to duty which I have sought to make a part of the atmosphere of Hollins." CHAPTER VIII RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASMS AND ACTIVITIES All the activities of a good man's life are religious. Intelligent Christian thought has long since abolished the distinctions, "sacred" and "secular." The minister is not the only man with a divine calling. It is the right of every true man to regard his tasks, of whatever kind, as sacred, and the vigorous discharge of them as religious fidelity. The apostle, making tents, was serving God as truly as when preaching to the philosophers of Athens. All the vocations are spheres in which men serve their generation, increasing the sum of human comfort, and securing the moral order of the world. The man who serves his fellowmen is the anointed servant of the Lord. Mr. Cocke's life was an uninterrupted consecration to the cause of the education of women, permeated and energized by spiritual motive. No man understood better than he the living unity between intellectual and moral culture. He knew that cultivated faculties without corresponding nurture of the spiritual nature may prove a curse rather than a blessing. Along with growing mental power, must go a development of religious character. The two are inseparable in any right conception of human life. So, while he wrought with a wonderfully sustained enthusiasm in the sphere of education, he kept always in mind the transcendent claims of religion. There he recognized the fundamental interest of humanity. Teaching was his vocation, but the honor of God was his comprehensive guiding principle. To him the Bible was the word of Life, and the worship of the Holy One of Israel the supreme privilege and duty. Such was his view and, without intermission, his practice.