professor could not at the moment recall who it was had evolved this
scheme, but it became involuntarily connected in his mind with
Bressant's peculiarities.

"According to the letter I received to-day, you come here to be trained
to the ministry," resumed he. "Has all your previous education had this
in view?"

"The education would have been the same, understand, whatever the end
was to be," explained the young man, with a shrewd smile in his sharp
eyes. "I am as well prepared to study theology as if I had been aiming
at it all my life; but I might take up engineering or medicine as well
as that. About a year ago, I decided to become a minister."

"And what led you to do that?" demanded the old gentleman, with rather a
stern frown. He did not like the idea of approaching religion in other
than a reverent and self-searching attitude.

"My father first suggested it," replied Bressant, on whom the frown
produced no sort of impression. "At the time, it surprised me,
especially from him. Afterward, I concluded I could not do better. No
one has such a chance to move the world as a minister. I thought of
Christ, and Paul, and Luther, and many before and since. They were all
ministers, and who had greater power? I felt I had the ability, and I
decided that it was as a minister I could best use it."

"But what are you going to use it for?" questioned the professor,
settling his spectacles on his nose, and leaning across the table in his
earnestness.

"The men I have mentioned used theirs to invent, or confirm, or
overthrow, religious sects, and perhaps they couldn't have done better
in their age. Their names are as well known now as ever, and that's the
best test. But I hope I may discover a better method. I shall have the
advantage of their experience and mistakes. Perhaps I shall develop and
carry out to its conclusion the dogma of Christianity. That would be
well as a beginning."

"Very well, that's certain!" assented the professor, dryly. "It's all I
shall be able to give you any assistance in, too, so we needn't discuss
what the next step will be. By-the-way, did you ever hear of doing any
thing for the glory of God, and for the love of your fellow-men?"

"Oh, yes! they're pass-words of the profession, and have their use,"
returned Bressant, with another of his keen smiles. "If you want to
climb above the world, the rounds in your ladder must be made of common
woods that everybody knows the names of. The Bible is