_Chapter IX. My Trip into the Magic World of the Past. How Appreciation is sometimes Worth More than Money. Jason and his Coterie on Scent of Terrible Heresies. How God Takes Care of His Orators. How a Big Soul can go through Annoyances_ The strangeness of my life had worn off by winter. I knew every man and woman by name and character, and they knew me. The daily routine of class work and waiting on table more and more took the novelty from my existence. I was getting the maximum of inspiration from my studies. Leaning back in my chair, under the hissing, flaring gas flame, with drowsy Thropper opposite me in his sheepskin upholstered chair, I went forth into the new worlds where Cæsar led his mailed Romans and his following of slave kings, where the gaudy coronations and noisy wars of ancient England were enacted; into the world whereon Christ scattered the seed of faith out of which grew, stone by stone, dipped in martyrs’ blood, the magnificent cathedral Universal Church. With the guidance of the professors, I pierced into the living, animal world where tooth and fang and claw were in contest and where the divine finger was busy sorting moral law out of it. I was being daily disciplined in the use of language and in the finer esthetic appreciations of it, under the direction of the English teachers and the Oratorical Professor. There were many, who with me, went in confidence to our teachers and gave them our thanks for their sacrificial services. Of all the service that I have seen men and women render, that done by the faculty of Evangelical University measured up to the finest. They were men and women of liberal culture; trained, many of them, in our most prominent institutions. Every day that they lingered at the University teaching us was a sacrifice. They were sadly underpaid. There was no endowment from which to guarantee them their salaries. Some of them worked with us, out of sheer enthusiasm, claiming that their wages were the gold of our thanks and outspoken appreciations. They were willing to economize and live in poorly furnished homes, in order to awaken in those of us who had had little opportunity, the first spark of intellectual response. One of our teachers took me aside, in the privacy of his empty classroom, for the purpose of assisting me with a back lesson. I had occasion to remark, “Professor, you aren’t giving yourself a fair chance, here, are you? Some of the students have been saying that you have had more than one opportunity to better yourself.” The kindly eyes of the man glistened with tears, for he was very readily responsive to his feelings, and he said,