g was kept up.

In the big parlour of Crosston Hall the boys grouped in prayer and
rejoicing. One after the other each one rose and told what God had done
for him. One after the other, each offered up prayer.

Toward three o'clock the climax was reached, when the captain of the
hall's football team jumped to a table in an extra burst of enthusiasm
and shouted, "Boys, all together now,--three cheers for Jesus Christ!"

I was one of the three in our hall who resisted all efforts at
conversion. The next morning a group of convertees knelt and prayed for
me, in front of my door ... that God might soften the hardness of my
heart and show me the Light.

For two weeks the flame of the revival burned. Some were of the opinion
that from the school this time a fire would go forth and sweep the
world....

There were prayer-meetings, prayer-meetings, prayer-meetings ... between
classes, during study-periods, at every odd minute of time to be
snatched.

Though, my preceding summer, my chief pastime had been to argue against
the Bible, all this praying and mental pressure was bound to have an
influence on my imaginative nature....

Besides, the temptation toward hypocrisy was enormous. The school was
honeycombed with holy spies who imputed it merit to report the laxity of
others. And, once you professed open belief, everything immediately grew
easy and smooth--even to the winning of scholarships there, and, on
graduation, in the chief colleges of the land.

So, suddenly, I took to testifying at prayer meetings, half believing I
meant it, half because of the advantages being a professed Christian
offered. And the leaders sang and rejoiced doubly in the Lord over the
signal conversion of so hard and obdurate a sinner as I.

* * * * *

One day, as I was marching in line from the chapel, a queer thing took
place....

One of the boys whom I could not identify hissed, "Go on, you
hypocrite!" at me.

* * * * *

In a few weeks the pendulum swung as far to the other extreme. My
hypocrisy made me sick of living in my own body with myself. I threw off
the transient cloak of assumed belief. Once more I attacked the
stupidity of belief in a six-day God, inventor of an impossible
paradise, an equally impossible hell.

* * * * *

In the early spring I left school before the term was over, impatient,
restless, at odds with the faculty ...