“Perhaps some of the professors might help you back--at least as far as a belief in God,” I suggested, timidly. “Oh, if I only could get back there,” he pleaded, “I would pray about the matter, but I can’t pray to nothing, can I?” I began then to realize how much a dilemma a philosophical honesty could create. “You are too serious, Burner,” I proposed. “You ought to take some things for granted; not seek to explain everything, you know.” He looked at me through astonished eyes, “I will take nothing for granted that cannot bear the test of logic!” “There,” I cried exultantly, “your intellectual adventures have brought you into German Rationalism: that’s just what’s the matter with you, Burner. You’re not the first one that has been caught. It is a passing experience. Keep on thinking, old fellow, you’ll come back after a time. It looks serious now, but it’s only a phase. Read the biographies of some of the saints; it will help you back to a positive faith, I’m sure.” So I left him with that comfort, hoping that he would not leave the Seminary in his intellectual excitement, for I felt sure that his Rationalism or Agnosticism or whatever form of mind he was in, would pass and give way to something with more color and inspiration in it. Our studies for the second year were more practical and philosophical than those we received during the first year. I was ready to appreciate the value of the studies more after my summer’s experience as a missionary. The intellectual honesty and sincerity of Burner was indicative of the spirit which one of the professors, who later left us, engendered in us. One incident will illustrate the temper of his art of teaching. Our class, in its first year, had approached this man’s recitation with a feeling of fear, for his astute mind and his impassive manner in the classroom, and withal, his absolute fearlessness in bringing up the other side of an affirmative, had not reacted in his favor. Even before we knew him, we had him placarded, in our minds, as an unbeliever! One day when we came into his class we found that some one had written on the blackboard, the professor’s name with this legend after it: “Professor ---- Atheist!” When he came into the classroom, and saw that, I thought he would burst into tears; a look of patient wonder came into his eyes, and he merely said to me, “Mr. Priddy, will you kindly take the eraser and give us a clean blackboard!” Our first class under this teacher was one in psychology. We met and his first question was, “What are we to study?” Instantly one of my classmates replied, “Psychology!” “What is psychology?” My classmate, who had read the definition in the day’s lesson replied, confidently, “‘The study of the mind and the processes of the mind,’ sir.” “Ah, and what do you mean by the mind? What do you know about the mind? Have you ever seen one?” My classmate stammered, “Why--eh, no, sir.” “Then perhaps some one else will inform me what we are here for?”