This resolution was not any too flattering. It may be truly said that it is doubtful whether any man in the Conference could have brought the College through the trying period of the panic as well as the late Financial Secretary. It was "_Resolved_, That the presiding bishop be requested to appoint at the ensuing Virginia Conference an agent for the College." At an adjourned meeting held at Danville, November, 1875, the Board abolished the office of Financial Secretary. William Willis, Jr., of Richmond, was appointed Treasurer, and Prof. William A. Shepard, Proctor. At the request of the Board, the Bishop appointed Rev. Thomas A. Ware, agent. [Illustration: WALTER H. PAGE, _Of North Carolina; Sutherlin Medalist; Editor Atlantic Monthly._] At the annual meeting in June, 1876, the Building Committee reported the Pace Lecture Hall as being about half completed, with funds on hand to meet expenses of completion. This was the second brick building erected on the campus. The following received the degree of A. M.: John M. Burton, of Virginia; Howard Edwards, of Virginia; Robert Sharp, of Virginia; R. Bascom Smithey, of Virginia. The President, in his annual report, does not give the statistics as to the number of students in attendance, but the catalogue for the year gives it as 167. He, evidently regarding this as the last he would make, takes the occasion to speak in the kindest and most commendatory terms of his associates of the Faculty. He was on the most cordial terms with them, and his kindly regard was fully reciprocated. Referring to his resignation, which he was about to tender, he said: "And now I approach a matter which it gives me very great pain to announce. Many reasons combine to make it best, however, that I take the step now; but these reasons I do not propose to open for discussion, because I have become satisfied and decided in my convictions. "I have worked earnestly, in all good conscience, before God for eight years to promote the cause of Christian education in connection with Randolph-Macon College; nor have I spared myself till my health demanded it. I have done what I could. Eight years ago, in a critical moment in the history of the College, your flattering representations of the service you believed I might render to Christian education induced me to sacrifice my own inclinations and to accept the presidency of Randolph-Macon. "What has been done is too well known to you to make it necessary for me to recount the familiar facts. My rejoicing in it all is the blessing the College has been to our young men, and the fact that, by abundant labors, I have also had a personal share in the rebuilding and re-establishing an institution whose work is its best witness. In God's providence these labors have, I trust, been blessed unto permanent good.