a wrong committed against God. God is an Infinite Being;
therefore sin against Him is an infinite wrong. An infinite wrong
against an Infinite Being deserves an infinite punishment--"

Now, the professor says that he has no recollection of ever having
said this in the Bible-class; but there is the note-book of the girl's
brain, stamped with the sentence for these thirty years!

"I have sometimes quoted it at the Seminary," he writes, "for
the purpose of exposing the impropriety of it. I do not think any
professor ever quoted the statement, without adding that it is
untenable. The Andover argument was ----"[5] He adds the proper
controversial language, which, it seems, went solidly out of my head.
Tenable or untenable, my memory has clutched the stately syllogism.

Sharp upon the doctrines there falls across the silence and the
sweetness of the moonlit Hill a strange and sudden sound. It is
louder than theology. It is more solemn than the professor's system.
Insistent, urging everything before it--the toil of strenuous study,
the fret of little trouble, and the dreams of dawning love--the call
stirs on. It is the beat of a drum.

The boys of old Phillips, with the down on their faces, and that
eternal fire in their hearts which has burned upon the youth of all
the ages when their country has commanded: "Die for me!" are drilling
by moonlight.

The Academy Company is out in force, passing up and down the quiet,
studious streets. The marching of their feet beats solemnly at the
meeting of the paths where (like the gardens of the professors) the
long walks of the Seminary lawns form the shape of a mighty cross.

"An infinite wrong deserves an infinite punishment--" The
theologian's voice falls solemnly. The girls turn their grave faces to
the open windows. Silence helps the drum-beat, which lifts its cry to
Heaven unimpeded; and the awful questions which it asks, what system
of theology can answer?

* * * * *

Andover was no more loyal, probably, than other New England villages;
but perhaps the presence of so many young men helped to make her seem
so to those who passed the years from 1861 to 1865 upon the Hill.

Theology and church history and exegesis and sacred rhetoric retreated
from the foreground of that scholastic drama. The great Presence that
is called War swept up and filled the scene.

Gray-haired men went to their lecture-rooms with bowed heads, the
morning papers shak