EARLY IMPRESSIONS -1832 -1851 527 



This state of mind was deepened by my first experiences 

 at college. I had, from my early boyhood, wished to go to 

 Yale ; but, under pressure from the bishop, I was sent to 

 the little church college at Geneva in western New York. 

 There were excellent men among its professors men 

 whom I came to love and admire ; but its faculty, its en 

 dowment, its equipment, were insufficient, and for fear of 

 driving away the sons of its wealthy and influential pa 

 trons it could not afford to insist either on high scholarship 

 or good discipline, so that the work done was most unsat 

 isfactory. And here I may mention that the especial 

 claim put forth by this college, as by so many others like 

 it throughout the country, was that, with so small a body 

 of students directly under church control, both the intel 

 lectual and religious interests of the students would be 

 better guarded than they could be in the larger and com 

 paratively unsectarian institutions. The very contrary 

 was then true; and various experiences have shown me 

 that, as a rule, little sectarian colleges, if too feeble to 

 exercise strong discipline or insist on thorough work, are 

 the more dangerous. As it was, I felt that in this partic 

 ular case a wrong had been done me and charged that 

 wrong against the church system. 



I have been glad to learn of late years that the college 

 just referred to has, since my student days, shared the 

 upward progress of its sister institutions and that with 

 more means and better appliances a succession of supe 

 rior instructors have been able to bring its students into 

 steady good work and under excellent discipline. 



Much was made in those days of the &quot;Christian evi 

 dences, 7 and one statement then put forth, regarding 

 the miraculous, produced a temporary effect upon me. 

 This statement was that the claims of the religions 

 opposed to Christianity did not rest upon miracles ; that 

 there was, at any rate, no real testimony to any except 

 Christian miracles ; and that, as a rule, other religions did 

 not pretend to exhibit any. But when I, shortly after 

 ward, read the life of Mohammed, and saw what a great 



