"In relation to the Professorship of Languages, to which the Trustees have done me the honor to invite me, I have to say: In a previous letter to you on this subject entire freedom to accept or decline was reserved by me until I could procure more satisfactory information from Brother Paine concerning the prospects of the institution. At this time there exists no objection in my mind, and accordingly I now make known to you, with pleasure, my acceptance of the appointment, and desire you to communicate the same to the Board of Trustees. "Please accept for yourself and them my sincere regard and best wishes. "With brotherly love, ED. D. SIMS. "REV. JOHN EARLY" The acceptance of Dr. Olin completed the Faculty, when it came, several months after the College was opened. Rev. M. P. Parks, professor-elect, acted as president until Dr. Olin entered on his duties. The first Board of Instruction was as follows: Rev. Stephen Olin, A. M., D. D. (Middlebury College, Vermont), President and Professor of Moral Science. Rev. Martin P. Parks, graduate West Point Academy, Professor of Mathematics. Landon C. Garland, A. M., Hampden-Sidney College, Virginia, Professor of Natural Science. Rev. Edward D. Sims, A. M., Chapel Hill (N. C. University), Professor of Languages. Rev. Lorenzo Lea, A. B., Chapel Hill (N. C. University), Principal of Preparatory School. It will be appropriate and interesting to give sketches at this point of the men composing this first Faculty of the oldest Methodist College now in existence in America by date of incorporation; not simply on that account, but because they were mostly men of great ability, and made their mark on the times in which they lived in a way and to an extent that few others, if any, have ever done in the South. Dr. Stephen Olin was a native of Vermont, as was Dr. Wilbur Fisk, who, contemporaneously with him, was moving on a parallel line at the Wesleyan University, in Connecticut. These names, Olin and Fisk, the Church, and the alumni of the colleges they presided over will never let die. Wherever the initials "S. O." and "W. F." are seen in any catalogue, it will be readily understood that they respectively stand for these names, and they are common now, over a half-century after the principals ceased to live. President Olin was a graduate of Middlebury College, Vermont. He took the first honor in his class. From too much confinement and over-study his health gave way. On this account he went to South Carolina, and took charge of an academy at Cokesbury. He was fortunate in casting his lot in a very religious community, whose leading men, patrons of the academy, were pious Methodists. He had had no acquaintance with Methodists. He was not only not a Christian, but he had been much troubled in his religious belief, and was inclined to he skeptical. His views were changed by reading Butler's _Analogy_ and Paley's _Evidences_.