A DISENCHANTED COLLEGIAN-PREACHER.
Previous to my arrival at this ancient seat of learning, founded and
endowed for the perpetuation and propagation of the doctrines of our
denomination, I had never entertained the faintest shadow of doubt as
to the infallibility of our creed; but now all faith in it vanished
like the baseless fabric of a dream. Here at the fountain head of
wisdom, from which streams were supposed to flow for the healing of
the nations, my faith in the beliefs of my ancestors fled, nevermore
to return; here, where lived the great high priests of the sect, I had
expected to find the whole air roseate with divine love and grace, all
souls lifted to sublime heights on the breath of unceasing prayer and
praise.
The disenchantment was appalling; my brothers in Christ, the grave and
reverend professors, were cold as icebergs, evidently caring nothing
for the souls or bodies of their Christian or pagan students; the
preacher at the college church was an ecclesiastical icicle, who,
in his manner at least, continually cried: "_Procul, procul_, oh,
_Profani_!"
The prayer meetings were dead and formal, no enthusiasm; it was like
being in a spiritual refrigerator--with perhaps one exception, when,
through the cracks in the floor from the room of a frugal freshman who
boarded himself, came the overwhelming stench of cooking onions, and a
wag brother who was quoting scripture to the Lord in prayer, suddenly
opened his eyes, and sniffing the unctuous odors, shouted: "Brethren,
let us now sing 'From whence doth this onion (union) arise?'" and
roars of laughter would put an end to the solemn farce.
Within the dismal college dormitories were herded a few hundred
youths, entirely free from all moral and social restraints, abandoned
to all orgies into which many characters in the formative state are
most likely to drift. I frequently saw a professing Christian teacher
torture with biting sarcasm his brother church-member, who had done
his best, though he failed to grasp some intricate mathematical
problem, until the poor fellow abandoned the college in despair.
Is it strange that I and many others lost all faith in a religion that
brought forth such bitter fruit? When I strayed from the lifeless
dulness of the college church into the light and warmth of the
"liberal sanctuary," where the old man eloquently discoursed of
the ascent instead of the descent of man, and pictured the sublime
development of the race by heroic endeavor from the animal to the
archangel; when this good man welcomed us warmly as brothers to his
hearth and home and loaned me his silken surplice to cover my seedy
clothes when I delivered my orations at the class exhibitions, is
it strange that I embrace his Darwinian theory instead of the
mythological story of the fall of man tempted by a snake in the garden
of Eden?
I usually preached on Sundays, during my four years' course, in
the pulpits of the surrounding towns, but it was not of the total
depravity nor flaming brimstone; far grander themes engrossed my
thoughts and speech; the true heroism of keeping ourselves unspotted
from the world, the sublime possibilities of our natures if we would
walk in the footsteps of the only perfect One ever seen on earth.
By trimming the midnight lamp and ruining my eyes, I won a scholarship
which paid my tuition fees and room rent, so that I was released from
the necessity of drawing on the hard-earned savings of my father. The
usual college pranks were played, tubs of water were poured from
upper windows upon the heads of freshmen who insisted upon wearing
stove-pipe hats and the forbidden canes; we tore each others' clothes
to the verge of nakedness, and broke each others' heads in frantic
football rushes; we indulged in ghost-like sheet and pillow-case
parades, during which we fought the police and made night hideous with
yells and scrimmages with the "townies"; we burned unsightly shanties,
and thus improved the appearance of the city.
We tripped up unpopular professors with ropes in the night, on the
icy, steep sidewalk of college street, sending them bumping down the
long hill, hatless and with badly torn pants till they brought up with
dull thuds against the barber shop on South Main Street; we of course
stole the college bell so there was nothing to call us to prayers or
recitations; we howled for hours under their respective windows:
"Here's to old Harkness, for he is an imp of darkness!
Here's to old Cax., for his nose is made of wax!
Here's to old Prex--for he likes his double x!"
until some of us were thrust by the police into the nauseating dens of
the stationhouse.
Thus, like pendulums, we swung twixt studies and pranks till the boom
of the rebel cannon bombarding Fort Sumpter thundered upon our ears.
Suddenly our books were forgotten: the university cadets unanimously
tendered their services to the government; were at once accepted,
and it was the proudest day of my life when, as an officer in our
battalion, I marched with the rest to the drill camp on the historic
training ground.
The citizens turned out en masse to do us honor, and frantically
cheered us on our way to do or die; every house was gay with old
glory; our best girls, inspired with patriotic fervor, applauded while
they bedewed the streets with their tears; the air resounded with
martial music and the boom of saluting cannon; the young war governor,
who went up like a rocket and down like a stick, led the way on
a prancing charger; the people vied with each other in tendering
hospitalities, and every corner afforded its liquid refreshments. We
thought it lemonade, but it "had a stick in it" and, presto!--we were
no longer seedy theologues, but young heroes all, resplendent with
brilliant uniforms and flashing bayonets, marching to defend our great
and glorious republic.
We, unsuspecting, imbibed freely the seductive fluids, and soon our
heads were in a whirl. We wildly sang the war songs and gave the
college yells. It is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
That night, Jupiter Pluvius burst upon our frail tents in all his
fury, and I awoke the next morning half covered with water, and in a
raging fever. I was taken to the hospital, and as I was a minor my
father took me from the service.
For weeks I was a wreck, and all my dreams of martial glory vanished,
alas,--like the many which have bloomed in the summer of my heart.
Before I regained the little strength I ever had, the war was over,
but I had done my best to serve my country, and the rapture of
pursuing is the prize the vanquished know. The few remaining students
plodded along through the curriculum; but our hearts were far away on
the battle-fields, from the glory of which, cruel fate debarred us.
In my senior year I was forced by the necessity for securing lucre to
pay the increasing graduation expenses, to teach the high school in
Bristol, Conn., and returned to the university to "cram" for the final
examinations. For days and nights the merciless grind went on until,
as by a miracle, I escaped the lunatic asylum. I knew but little
of the higher mathematics, but the "Green" professor was a strong
sectarian if not an humble Christian, and when the hour for my private
examination arrived, I contrived to waste the most of it telling him
about the Bristol Church. It was near his dinner hour, and he yearned
for its delights to such an extent, that he did not detect me in
copying the "_Pons Asinorum_" onto the blackboard from a paper hidden
in my bosom, and as he glanced at the figures on the board, he said:
"That's right, I suppose you know the rest," passed me, and hasted to
his walnuts and his wine.
The good president, of blessed memory, had another pressing
engagement, as I well knew, when I called for his examination, he
asked for but little, was too preoccupied to hear whether my answers
were correct, passed me, and my "A.B." was won.
We spoke our pieces on graduation day, rejoiced in the applause of our
"mulierculae," took our sheepskins, and went forth from "_alma mater_"
conquering and to conquer the unsympathizing world. I had acquired
here but a modicum of that learning which was supposed to flow from
this "Pierian Spring," but I rejoiced in the fact that I had cast away
forever my belief in the "total depravity" of the human race, that
in "Adam's fall we sin-ned all, that in Cain's murder, we sin-ned
furder," and could now look hopefully upon my fellow-men in the full
assurance that
There lies in the centre of each man's heart
A longing and love for the good and pure,
And if but an atom, or larger part,
I know that this shall forever endure.
After the body has gone to decay--
Yes, after the world has passed away.
The longer I live and the more I see
Of the struggles of souls towards heights above,
The stronger this truth comes home to me,
That the universe rests on the shoulders of love--
A love so limitless, deep and broad
That men have renamed it, and called it God.