O Key of David and Sceptre of the house of Israel, Who dost
open and no man doth shut, Who dost shut and no man doth open, come and bring
forth from his prisonhouse the captive that sitteth in darkness and in the
shadow of death.
He would turn up
for the grand occasions in the Chapel when I was a student at Duke. He was an old man, very distinguished with a
craggy face, an emeritus professor of chemistry. His doctoral robe was Harvard Crimson, and he
wore a velvet cap. And he carried an
enormous jeweled staff, with a wide silver head, the mace of the
University. His title was the University
Marshall, and that staff represented, I think, the teaching authority. He bore on behalf of the faculty, who had
chosen them to represent him. When he
carried it in on Matriculation Ceremony, or on Founders’ Day or for
Baccalaureate, and laid it upon the Altar, it announced to all of us that the
university could now get about its business, that the teachers would teach,
that students could learn. He walked
very slowly, because he knew that everyone had to wait for him. His mace was the key that opened the
proceedings of a great university.
