Cedarville Magazine, Spring/Summer 2015

Martha Elizabeth (Murdock) McMillan said a prayer on the graduation day of her son, Homer, that many Christian moms would still “Amen” today: “May all that is good and best and highest and grandest and noblest and holiest in life crown my boys.” She wrote those words in her journal, pictured here, on Cedarville University’s first commencement day, held at theCedarvilleOperaHouse. Homer was one of five students in the first graduating class of 1897. His brother, Fred, had graduated the year before from Monmouth College. “This was a grand gathering in the Opera House today,” McMillan recalled. “It will always stand out above and over days bright and beautiful.” McMillan and husband James raised 10 children on their homestead near Cedarville. Her journals, comprising 8,000 to 10,000 handwritten pages, were given to the Cedarville University archives in the late 1980s. After graduation, Homer attended Union Seminary in New York City and Reformed Seminary in New Jersey. He pastored churches in New Jersey, Los Angeles, and Georgia, before serving asCoordinate Secretarywith theExecutive Committee of Missions with the Presbyterian Church in the United States. His biography from The Cedrus (1916) is also pictured. AMother’s Prayer on Graduation Day - 1897 Cedarville Magazine | 35