“According to the letter I received to-day, you come here to be trained to the ministry,” resumed he.  “Has all your previous education had this in view?”

“The education would have been the same, understand, whatever the end was to be,” explained the young man, with a shrewd smile in his sharp eyes.  “I am as well prepared to study theology as if I had been aiming at it all my life; but I might take up engineering or medicine as well as that.  About a year ago, I decided to become a minister.”

“And what led you to do that?” demanded the old gentleman, with rather a stern frown.  He did not like the idea of approaching religion in other than a reverent and self-searching attitude.

“My father first suggested it,” replied Bressant, on whom the frown produced no sort of impression.  “At the time, it surprised me, especially from him.  Afterward, I concluded I could not do better.  No one has such a chance to move the world as a minister.  I thought of Christ, and Paul, and Luther, and many before and since.  They were all ministers, and who had greater power?  I felt I had the ability, and I decided that it was as a minister I could best use it.”

“But what are you going to use it for?” questioned the professor, settling his spectacles on his nose, and leaning across the table in his earnestness.

“The men I have mentioned used theirs to invent, or confirm, or overthrow, religious sects, and perhaps they couldn’t have done better in their age.  Their names are as well known now as ever, and that’s the best test.  But I hope I may discover a better method.  I shall have the advantage of their experience and mistakes.  Perhaps I shall develop and carry out to its conclusion the dogma of Christianity.  That would be well as a beginning.”

“Very well, that’s certain!” assented the professor, dryly.  “It’s all I shall be able to give you any assistance in, too, so we needn’t discuss what the next step will be.  By-the-way, did you ever hear of doing any thing for the glory of God, and for the love of your fellow-men?”

“Oh, yes! they’re pass-words of the profession, and have their use,” returned Bressant, with another of his keen smiles.  “If you want to climb above the world, the rounds in your ladder must be made of common woods that everybody knows the names of.  The Bible is full of such, and some of them are works of genius in themselves.  After all, it is the people who must immortalize us, and we must feed them with what they are in the habit of eating.”

“What induced you to come here, sir?” asked the professor, abruptly.

“I never should have come of myself,” answered the young man, with entire frankness.  “I never heard your name mentioned until less than a year ago.  It was the first time my father was expecting to die.  He told me you were a wise man, and learned besides; he had known you when you were young; you would have some interest in teaching me; he would feel more at ease to die, if he knew you were directing me.  I thought it over, as I said, and decided to come.  Understand, I knew of no one except you, and I didn’t want to go to a theological school.”