Chapter IX. My Trip into the
Magic World of the Past. How
Appreciation is sometimes Worth
More than Money. Jason and
his Coterie on Scent of Terrible
Heresies. How God Takes Care
of His Orators. How a Big Soul
can go through Annoyances
THE strangeness of my life had worn off by winter. I knew every man and woman by name and character, and they knew me. The daily routine of class work and waiting on table more and more took the novelty from my existence. I was getting the maximum of inspiration from my studies. Leaning back in my chair, under the hissing, flaring gas flame, with drowsy Thropper opposite me in his sheepskin upholstered chair, I went forth into the new worlds where Cæsar led his mailed Romans and his following of slave kings, where the gaudy coronations and noisy wars of ancient England were enacted; into the world whereon Christ scattered the seed of faith out of which grew, stone by stone, dipped in martyrs’ blood, the magnificent cathedral Universal Church. With the guidance of the professors, I pierced into the living, animal world where tooth and fang and claw were in contest and where the divine finger was busy sorting moral law out of it. I was being daily disciplined in the use of language and in the finer esthetic appreciations of it, under the direction of the English teachers and the Oratorical Professor.
There were many, who with me, went in confidence to our teachers and gave them our thanks for their sacrificial services. Of all the service that I have seen men and women render, that done by the faculty of Evangelical University measured up to the finest. They were men and women of liberal culture; trained, many of them, in our most prominent institutions. Every day that they lingered at the University teaching us was a sacrifice. They were sadly underpaid. There was no endowment from which to guarantee them their salaries. Some of them worked with us, out of sheer enthusiasm, claiming that their wages were the gold of our thanks and outspoken appreciations. They were willing to economize and live in poorly furnished homes, in order to awaken in those of us who had had little opportunity, the first spark of intellectual response.
One of our teachers took me aside, in the privacy of his empty classroom, for the purpose of assisting me with a back lesson. I had occasion to remark,
“Professor, you aren’t giving yourself a fair chance, here, are you? Some of the students have been saying that you have had more than one opportunity to better yourself.”
The kindly eyes of the man glistened with tears, for he was very readily responsive to his feelings, and he said,
“Albert, I cannot better myself. There is no higher privilege in this world than to invest what God has seen fit to give us in the way of privilege or attainment in other lives that thirst for what we have! There are men in colleges, whom I know, surrounded by their books in pleasant college communities, fitted to a delightful social and intellectual life, teaching in classrooms filled with students who do not have to fight for a living as do the students here, yet they are not happy men; not one-tenth so happy as I am teaching you boys and girls! No, sir! All that those positions that have been offered me could have done would have been to ease me from financial worries, and relieve me from a few hours of instruction; but there is nothing in this wide world, Albert, can equal the work I am privileged to do with such as you, to inspire you for useful service. It is missionary work; but missionary work pays the highest wages. I have the first chance at men in the making!”
It was not alone the poverty of the university equipment and the inadequate compensation they received which intensified the nobleness of our teachers’ characters, but also their endurance of some of the petty, trivial annoyances they suffered from the dogmatic Jason and his few followers. For even into the classrooms religious, doctrinal quibbles were carried by those stern and unyielding students. The little coterie went on strike in the English department when the Professor refused to debar Shakespere and Burns from the reading courses, in response to the charges drawn up and presented by Jason’s clique that those writers had unreadable passages in their works. Some one replied, that on this basis, Jason had better stop reading the Bible for the same reasons. To this Jason replied that “The Bible is the Bible, but Shakespere is only Shakespere!” But the more acute issues between Jason and his followers and the curriculum were to be found in the scientific and theological classrooms. Here the conflict between “science and religion” as the Church History termed it, became pointed, tragical. I can still see them, the two followers of Jason, standing before the scientific professor after class had been dismissed. They are on scent of a terrible heresy! Aggressively they quiz the able exponent of science, as follows:
“You said in this recitation, professor, that the world was created in millions of years?”
“I did!”
“But the Bible says plainly, that God created it in six days and that He rested from his labors on the seventh day!”
“Oh, the Bible, in that part is not to be taken literally—it—”
But he could get no further. Two shocked faces were before him, and one of the students interjected,
“Why, we have to believe the Bible!”
“We shall stick to the Bible!” added the other in support.
“But let me explain,” began the professor, patiently, “you see the early Hebrews possessed no real science—”
“But, professor,” interrupted one of the students, “God revealed it to them and—”
“We will not discuss the matter further at this time,” interrupted the teacher.
“But what shall we do when the examination comes around,” asked the first speaker, “if you tell us to give the age of the earth, we shall either have to say that it is millions of years old or that it was made in six days?”
“Of course,” added the second student, with finality, “we shall have to stick to the Bible statement, even if you mark us down!”
“Rest easy in your minds, young men,” retorted the severely tried professor, “I don’t think I shall call on you to undergo such a martyrdom!”
Even the professor of elocution was not exempt from this little band of literalists. Some of this band had so firm a confidence in God that they “could leave with Him” what they were to speak, how they were to speak it, and the sort of gestures that should accompany their exhortations, for they were preparing themselves for the church. “Pa” Borden was the leader in this sort of thought. He had done some exhorting before becoming a member of the University, and he summed up the case quite well when he said, in his heavy, sober way,
“What right has any man, I don’t care who he is, to improve on what God has done, I’d like to know? It will be given us in that day, says the Bible, what we shall say and how we shall say it. What more do you want?”
So this little band of the sons of the prophets stood apart from the kindly and helpful criticisms of the professor of elocution, and continued their old practise of yanking their stiff arms, standing on their awkward feet, speaking from tight throats, in stubborn loyalty to their faith in God’s oratorical interest in them.
The patience, the Christian patience, of the professors carried them past such trivial, but real annoyances with the same nobleness with which a true-compassed ship goes straight to its port despite the little chips that tap against it. For every one of these quibblers over doctrine, there were several appreciative, awakening minds, leaping at the truth. The professors centered their real efforts on the majority of those who could face the truth no matter in how startling a dress it first presented itself. In such, these deep-hearted, sacrificing teachers found their real reward: lasting gratitude.