I was but "unsweetened sixteen," and lack of tact and strength brought me many trials in my endeavors to "teach the young ideas how to shoot correctly." The usual tacks were placed in my chair, causing the war-dances incidental to such occasions; the customary pranks were resorted to by young America to settle the oft mooted question as to who is master; the inevitable interference of parents followed, who as usual, regarded their children as cherubs whose wings they seemed to think would soon appear were it not for the tyrannical spanks of the unworthy teacher.
I survived the fiery ordeal after a fashion, and that winter entered a college in the state of Maine. The same old unrest came to me there, wearied with the dry-as-dust lectures by the faculty of superannuated ministers, but I graduated after a two weeks' course, and vainly endeavored for three weeks to catch the divine afflatus at the Theological Institution, which was supposed to be necessary to enable me to rescue the perishing as a preacher of the gospel. Then at the suggestion of the president, who quickly discovered my mental deficiencies, I was matriculated as a student at another university founded by the brethren of the same "Hard-shell Persuasion." I was but a dreamer, in the middle of my teens, dazed by conflicting opinions, but anxious to walk "quo dews vocat."
"Here I stood with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and the river meet,
Manhood and childhood sweet.
"I saw shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Sees the falcon downward fly.
"To me, a child of many prayers,
Life had quicksands, and many snares,
Foes, and tempters came unawares.
"Oh, let me bear through wrong and ruth,
In my heart the dew of youth,
On my lips the smile of truth."
With this prayer of the poet upon our lips, many of us entered these "classic halls," hoping to find there in communion with the good and great of the past and the present, that mental and spiritual "manna" from heaven which would inspire us to lead ourselves and others to the sublime heights of heroic endeavor.
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.