Epilogue: The Mood Family Bible

The Holy Bible: According to the Authorized Version: with a Perpetual Genealogical Family Register: Entirely New and Original
1859
(Nashville: Southern Methodist Publishing House) 

Francis Asbury (F.A.) Mood was a Methodist preacher and the founder of Southwestern University. After training as a preacher and serving as a chaplain during the Civil War, he became president of Soule University at Chappell Hill in 1868. As president of Soule University, Mood convinced the Texas Methodist conferences of the need for one central university rather than the many struggling colleges that the church had founded. Following a vision of Methodist education as a pillar of the church,  Mood established Southwestern University as the permanent, central institution of Methodist higher education in Texas. To do so cost him his personal finances, his health, and ultimately, his life; Mood died in 1884 at age 54, as a result of the lung illness he had developed living in the basement of Southwestern University in his final years.

This Bible, printed in 1859 and gifted to F.A. Mood as a member of the Book and Tract Society of the South Carolina Conference, contains a genealogical record of the Mood family. F.A. Mood filled the register by hand beginning with his ancestor Peter Mood, born in Germany in the 18th century, and ending with the births and marriages of his children in the late 19th century. The death of F.A. Mood is recorded here in another hand (page 9, left column, second entry). As Southwestern has persisted through the years, so has the Mood family; the family Bible was donated to the Mood Heritage Museum in 1994 by Robert Gibbs Mood III, but the family has continued use of the register after its donation. The most recent entry records the birth of a baby in 2013.