tion-room, except that I think I got
some capacity for cross-examining witnesses which was very
useful to me afterward from reading Plato's dialogues and
getting familiar with Socrates's method of reducing a sophist
ad absurdum. But Dr. Walker's throne was the pulpit of the
College Chapel. He used to preach four Sundays in each of
the two terms. He had a beautiful head, a deep but clear
voice, a deliberate manner and a power of emphasizing his
weighty thoughts which I have never seen surpassed by any
orator. He had a small and beautiful hand of which it is
said, though such a thing is hard to believe of him, he was
somewhat vain. But his only gesture was to bring very infrequently
the back of his hand down upon the cushion of the pulpit before
him. The ticking of the clock in the College Chapel was inaudible
when the chapel was empty. But it ticked out clear and loud
upon the strained ears of the auditors who were waiting in
the pauses of his sentences. I can remember his sermons now.
They are admirable to read, although, like other eloquence,
their life and sprit is lost without the effect of speech.
There was one on the text, "Thou shalt say no," which no hearer,
I venture to say, ever forgot to the day of his death. There
was another, on the control of the thoughts, from the text,
"Leading into captivity every thought." This made a deep impression
on the students. I seem to hear the tones of his voice now.
The Doctor described with a terrific effect the thinking over
in imagination scenes of vice by the youth who seemed to
the world outside to fall suddenly from virtue. He said
there was no such thing as a sudden fall from virtue. The
scene had been enacted in thought and the man had become
rotten before the time of the outward act.

"Sometimes the novice in crime thinks himself ready to act
when he is not; as appears from his hesitancy and reluctance
when the moment for action arrives. If, however, this unexpected
recoil of his nature does not induce him to change his purpose
altogether, he knows but too well how to supply the defect
in training for sin. If we could look into his heart, we
should find him at his accursed rehearsals again. A few more
lessons, and the blush and the shudder will pass away, never
to return."

This is tame enough in the recital. But I dare say there
are old men who will read these pages to whom it will bring
back the never-forgotten scenes of more than fifty years