CHAPTER LIX 



IN THE NEW ENGLAND ATMOSPHERE 1851-1853 



AT Yale I found myself in the midst of New England 

 Y&quot;\ Congregationalism ; but I cannot say that it helped 

 me much religiously. It, indeed, broadened my view, 

 since I was associated with professors and students of 

 various forms of Christianity, and came to respect them, 

 not for what they professed, but for what they really 

 were. 



There also I read under an excellent professor my 

 dear friend the late President Porter Butler s &quot;Anal 

 ogy&quot;; but, though it impressed me, it left on my mind the 

 effect of a strong piece of special pleading, of a series of 

 arguments equally valuable for any religion which had 

 once &quot;got itself established.&quot; 



Here, too, a repellent influence was exercised upon me 

 by a &quot;revival.&quot; What was called a &quot;religious interest&quot; 

 began to be shown in sundry student meetings, and soon it 

 came in with a full tide. I was induced to go into one or 

 two of these assemblies, and was somewhat impressed by 

 the penitence shown and the pledges given by some of my 

 college friends. But within a year the whole thing was 

 dead. Several of the men who had been loudest in their 

 expressions of penitence and determination to accept 

 Christianity became worse than ever : they were like logs 

 stranded high and dry after a freshet. 



But this religious revival in college was infinitely better 

 than one which ran its course in the immediate neighbor 

 hood. Just at the corner of the college grounds was a 

 Methodist Episcopal church, the principal one in New; 



II. 34 529 



