148 HENRY HILL GOODELL 



Many of the symbols of religion in common use were ex- 

 ceedingly distasteful to him on account of what seemed 

 to him their coarse and vulgar materialism, and he did 

 not possess the faculty of spiritualizing that which had 

 no possible suggestion of the spirit. Of religion itself he said 

 little and of theology nothing, especially in his later years. 

 His early impressions on the subject were calvinistic in their 

 tone and temper and would probably seem rigid from the 

 standpoint of to-day. But Calvinism was in its best days 

 one of the finest schools for the education of the domestic 

 affections the world has ever seen, and his loyalty to the 

 memory of his father and his teachings may have led to 

 his reticence on this subject. During freshman year (No- 

 vember 14, 1858) he united with the church connected with 

 Amherst College, and seems never to have severed his 

 relations with it. But after his marriage, as there was no 

 church of the denomination his wife preferred in town, a 

 compromise was made and they worshiped at the Episco- 

 pal church. Although he was never a communicant he held 

 several offices in the society and was clerk of the parish 

 long after his position as president made it incumbent on 

 him to attend services at the College chapel, although he 

 always maintained that the college, being a state institu- 

 tion, should not be connected with any particular form of 

 religion. There is every evidence that he was attracted by 

 the preacher more than by any dogmas he might or might 

 not teach. When a young man he used to attend, as oppor- 

 tunity offered, services at the West (Unitarian) Church, 

 Boston, and he wrote that when his family heard of it they 

 were both shocked and alarmed, but he said that he did not 

 know that he was walking in the paths of Satan until they 



