"The reputation of the institution for a high grade of scholarship and thoroughness of culture was inferior to that of no other college in the land. Young preachers, often numbering more than forty in a single session, sat under his special lectures in theology, and were moulded by his example and his teaching. With the authority of a prophet, with the gentleness of a father, he preached to the students, week after week, the word of life, and saw many of them accept with glad heart the yoke and burden of Christ. In private they revealed to him all that was in their hearts, and sought his sympathy and counsel. In public, whatever the occasion on which he spoke, they hung breathless on his lips, and received what he said as if from an angel of God. Those who have attended the Commencements can bear witness to the outgushing of love, the wise and noble utterances, the manly frankness and boldness, and the tenderness, almost motherly, with which he bade those young men farewell in unstudied words of genuine eloquence, and the beaming faces, the streaming eyes, the thunders of applause with which they responded. Nor were these his only labors. Often during the sessions he hurried off to preach in city or country at the call of the churches of the Virginia and Baltimore Conferences, or in order to raise money for the College. The summer vacation was no rest to him, but his busiest period. Incessantly he travelled through the two Conferences, speaking on Christian education, and speaking at District Conferences, at protracted and camp-meetings. He was in labors more abundant, not sparing himself, never reluctant to help in any good work. Everywhere he was sought, everywhere he was welcome. Thousands ascribe to him, under God, their first impulse to serve Christ, their revival from a lukewarm and languishing state, or their fuller consecration and seeking of a higher spiritual life. We may safely affirm that no man of his own generation has so powerfully impressed the religious character of an equal number within the bounds of these two Conferences as James A. Duncan. He was elected to the General Conferences of 1866, 1870, and 1874. That of 1870 he did not attend, his duties at the College not allowing his absence. He lacked only a few votes to be chosen bishop at that session, several delegates of this body, who held him in high admiration, and thought him in every way worthy of the honor, withholding their votes because they believed him essential to Randolph-Macon College. From that time the mind of the whole church turned to him as the fittest person to be elected to the episcopacy. In 1876 he attended the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church as one of three fraternal messengers from our General Conference, and his address on that occasion was marked by its catholic spirit, fervent love for Christ, and grand and thrilling eloquence.