In my senior year I was forced by the necessity for securing lucre to pay the increasing graduation expenses, to teach the high school in Bristol, Conn., and returned to the university to "cram" for the final examinations. For days and nights the merciless grind went on until, as by a miracle, I escaped the lunatic asylum. I knew but little of the higher mathematics, but the "Green" professor was a strong sectarian if not an humble Christian, and when the hour for my private examination arrived, I contrived to waste the most of it telling him about the Bristol Church. It was near his dinner hour, and he yearned for its delights to such an extent, that he did not detect me in copying the "_Pons Asinorum_" onto the blackboard from a paper hidden in my bosom, and as he glanced at the figures on the board, he said: "That's right, I suppose you know the rest," passed me, and hasted to his walnuts and his wine. The good president, of blessed memory, had another pressing engagement, as I well knew, when I called for his examination, he asked for but little, was too preoccupied to hear whether my answers were correct, passed me, and my "A.B." was won. We spoke our pieces on graduation day, rejoiced in the applause of our "mulierculae," took our sheepskins, and went forth from "_alma mater_" conquering and to conquer the unsympathizing world. I had acquired here but a modicum of that learning which was supposed to flow from this "Pierian Spring," but I rejoiced in the fact that I had cast away forever my belief in the "total depravity" of the human race, that in "Adam's fall we sin-ned all, that in Cain's murder, we sin-ned furder," and could now look hopefully upon my fellow-men in the full assurance that There lies in the centre of each man's heart A longing and love for the good and pure, And if but an atom, or larger part, I know that this shall forever endure. After the body has gone to decay-- Yes, after the world has passed away. The longer I live and the more I see Of the struggles of souls towards heights above, The stronger this truth comes home to me, That the universe rests on the shoulders of love-- A love so limitless, deep and broad That men have renamed it, and called it God. CHAPTER VIII. IN SHADOW LAND. I had cherished the delusive hope that my university diploma would be the open sesame to any exalted position to which I might aspire; but I found there was a multitude of competitors for every professional emolument, and that a "pull" with the powers that be was essential to secure any prize. My change in religious sentiments debarred me from the pulpit, and I had no friends influential enough to give me a profitable position as a teacher in New England.