Dr. McTeague a two-years' vacation to go and see the Holy Land.
He refused; he said he could picture it. They reduced his salary by
fifty per cent; he never noticed it. They offered him an assistant; but
he shook his head, saying that he didn't know where he could find a man
to do just the work that he was doing. Meantime he mooned about among
the trees concocting a mixture of St. Paul with Hegel, three parts to
one, for his Sunday sermon, and one part to three for his Monday
lecture.

No doubt it was his dual function that was to blame for his failure.
And this, perhaps, was the fault of Dr. Boomer, the president of the
university. Dr. Boomer, like all university presidents of today,
belonged to the presbyterian church; or rather, to state it more
correctly, he included presbyterianism within himself. He was of
course, a member of the board of management of St. Osoph's and it was
he who had urged, very strongly, the appointment of Dr. McTeague, then
senior professor of philosophy, as minister.

"A saintly man," he said, "the very man for the post. If you should ask
me whether he is entirely at home as a professor of philosophy on our
staff at the university, I should be compelled to say no. We are forced
to admit that as a lecturer he does not meet our views. He appears to
find it difficult to keep religion out of his teaching. In fact, his
lectures are suffused with a rather dangerous attempt at moral teaching
which is apt to contaminate our students. But in the Church I should
imagine that would be, if anything, an advantage. Indeed, if you were
to come to me and say, 'Boomer, we wish to appoint Dr. McTeague as our
minister,' I should say, quite frankly, 'Take him.'"

So Dr. McTeague had been appointed. Then, to the surprise of everybody
he refused to give up his lectures in philosophy. He said he felt a
call to give them. The salary, he said, was of no consequence. He wrote
to Mr. Furlong senior (the father of the episcopal rector and honorary
treasurer of the Plutoria University) and stated that he proposed to
give his lectures for nothing. The trustees of the college protested;
they urged that the case might set a dangerous precedent which other
professors might follow. While fully admitting that Dr. McTeague's
lectures were well worth giving for nothing, they begged him to
reconsider his offer. But he refused; and from that day on, in spite of
all offers that he should retire on double his salary, that he shoul