“Can’t, eh? Well, you see, as this is the particular doctrine for which the University officially stands, the few aggressive students who preach the idea are really in the majority. There’s a little set of them, led by Jason, the Poet, who roam through the life of this University like a little group of heretic hunters in some medieval community, with all power and authority back of them.” He sighed, deeply. “They make life miserable for many,” he said.
I laughed at him.
“Why, Thropper, don’t take it to heart so; just go along your own way, tolerantly, knowing that if some of us can’t actually agree, we can respect one another’s differences—if they’re not vicious.”
He regarded me as if I had lost my wit.
“That sounds nice, that does, Priddy, and it is good sense, too, but it’s wasted here, old boy. You and I and some others may find consolation in it, but Jason and his Board of Pharisees would have their tongues cut out and their right hands severed before they would rest easy with us differing from them, standing outside their particular doctrines. You don’t know Jason. Besides, wait till you have been here a year and then you will see so many things take place under the direction of the University that it will be impossible for you not to know that you are persona grata here only when you swing over to a full acceptance of the doctrine of the ‘triple-birth’: there’ll be the annual revival when a whole, intense week will be devoted to hardly anything else but a propaganda of that doctrine. There will come the weekly prayer-meetings, the talks from visiting exponents of the doctrine; oh, they won’t let you rest easy in your differences, Priddy. Wait till Jason and his crowd get on your track!”
“You talk as if they were going to be the worst sort of meddlers, Thropper.”
“Didn’t you hear me call them the Board of the Pharisees? Did you think I didn’t mean that for a good description, Priddy? Well, what were Pharisees always doing? Meddling. Telling the people to be holy by washing the dinner plates thus and so; telling the people that God was found by wearing this and that. Well, that’s what Jason and his crowd are busy doing about here, through the year. The sight of a gold ring on my finger fairly dilated the nostrils of one of them; he set about praying for me and urging me day after day to stop wearing it because it was the symbol of ‘carnal pride,’ and he quoted ever so much Scripture, too.”
After that I noted with especial interest the monopoly exercised by Jason and a small number of the students—male and female—over the multitude of religious meetings that embroidered the week of study. The two noon prayer-meetings, the after-supper services, the Thursday evening university service, the many missionary meetings, the Bible study classes, the Sunday morning “search” services: in all these the tone was given by the fervid and dogmatic Jason and his followers. Wherever a religious interest of any sort chanced to be organized, one was certain to find on its list of officers some representative of Jason, the Poet. Thropper and I, and several others among the students, formed “independent” circles for prayer and Bible study, where we could, for once a week, at least, have our own, special beliefs prevail.
One November morning, as I was leaving the dining-hall, Jason met me at the door.
“I should like to have a word with you, Brother Priddy,” he announced.