"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 shaking in their hands. The accuracy of the Hebrew verb did not matter so much as it did last term. The homiletic uses or abuses of an applied text, the soundness of the new school doctrine of free will, seemed less important to the universe than they were before the Flag went down on Sumter. Young eyes looked up at their instructors mistily, for the dawn of utter sacrifice was in them. He was only an Academy boy yesterday, or a theologue; unknown, unnoticed, saying his lesson in Xenophon, taking his notes on the Nicene Creed; blamed a little, possibly, by his teacher or by his professor, for inattention.