Then, without another word, for the situation was getting close to the edge of tears, Thropper threw himself in his stuffed chair and I sat on the edge of the bed, under the hissing flare of the gas, both of us as busy as could be with the next day’s lessons. _Chapter XVI. Visions, Hysteria, Dogma, and Poor Lessons to the Front when the Revivalists Arrived. How Natural it Sounded when “Bird” Thurlow Asked a Flippant Question_ Then the annual winter revival was announced. Upon this event the University centered all its prayers, its hopes, its attention, as the banner event of the year. In the church papers where the advertisement of the University appeared, the annual revival was featured. Several of the students had been sent to the institution by their parents principally for the spiritual benefits that might come to them in the atmosphere of the revival. The whole air began to stir with the throb of revival preparation. A spiritual census of the students was taken, not officially or in any stereotyped way, and all the energy of Christian effort was brought to bear on creating the right, psychological mood for the time the evangelists should arrive. The prayer bands wove in extra meetings and increased their unction. Neglected, after-supper prayer-services were suddenly filled. Bands of earnest, zealous men and women roamed from room to room holding spiritual inquisitions over “The Clamorous Eight” and any others who were thought to need special portions of grace. “I’m heartily in favor of Christian effort,” I said to Jason, one day, when we were talking over the coming revival, “but take last year and think how many hours were lost to study and given to the meetings! I should think that those things might be left to camp-meetings and churches--there were three long revivals in the village last winter--and we ought to center our precious time on study!” Jason declared, emphatically and finally, “Brother Priddy, what are _heads_ compared to _souls_?” “Oh, I don’t object to any sort of efforts being indulged if people are to be made Christian, Jason, but according to what you said in the prayer-meeting last night, there are only three in the whole University who do not make any profession of religious faith: just three, and yet two whole weeks are to be set apart to the Evangelists who will come and preach the ‘third-birth doctrine’ and other dogmatic matters. That is what I protest against.” Again Jason answered with his inclusive, “Brother Priddy, what are _heads_ compared to _souls_?” By the time the revivalists appeared it had been announced in the prayer-service that not one of the students stood “outside the Christian fold.” The revivalists had a clear chance, then, to preach the special doctrine of “the third-birth,” without any further parley.