CHAPTER VII.

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