able to his heart at least--to that green trust of the young in
things as they should be which becomes in time the best seasoned staff
of age. He hunted out especially the Catholic Church. His
great-grandfather had founded his as free for Catholics as Protestants,
but he recalled the fact that no priest had ever preached there. He
felt very curious to see a priest. A synagogue in the town he could not
find. He was sorry. He had a great desire to lay eyes on a
synagogue--temple of that ancient faith which had flowed on its deep
way across the centuries without a ripple of disturbance from the
Christ. He had made up his mind that when he began to preach he would
often preach especially to the Jews: the time perhaps had come when the
Father, their Father, would reveal his Son to them also. Thus he
promptly fixed in mind the sites of all the churches, because he
intended in time to go to them all.
Meantime he attended his own, the size and elegance of which were a
marvel; and in it especially the red velvet pulpit and the vast
chandelier (he had never seen a chandelier before), blazing with stars
(he had never seen illuminating gas). It was under this chandelier that
he himself soon found a seat. All the Bible students sat there who
could get there, that being the choir of male voices; and before a
month passed he had been taken into this choir: for a storm-like bass
rolled out of him as easily as thunder out of a June cloud. Thus
uneventful flowed the tenor of his student life during those several
initiatory weeks: then something occurred that began to make grave
history for him.
The pastor announced at service one morning that he would that day
begin a series of sermons on errors in the faith and practice of the
different Protestant sects; though he would also consider in time the
cases of the Catholics and Jews: it would scarcely be necessary to
speak of the Mohammedans and such others. He was driven to do this, he
declared, and was anxious to do it, as part of the work of his brethren
all over the country; which was the restoration of Apostolic
Christianity to the world. He asked the especial attention of the Bible
students of the University to these sermons: the first of which he then
proceeded to preach.
That night the lad was absent from his place: he was seated in the
church which had been riddled with logic in the morning. Just why it
would be hard to say. Perhaps his motive resembled that which prompts
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