The day for my final examination for a licence to preach the Gospel for ordination by the laying on of hands, and for installation as pastor for the Reformed Church of Belleville, N.J., had arrived.  The examination as to my qualifications was to take place in the morning, and if the way proved clear, the ordination and installation were to be solemnised in the afternoon of the same day.  The embarrassing thought was that members of the congregation were to be present in the morning, as well as the afternoon.  If I made a mistake or failure under the severe scrutiny of the Ecclesiastical Court, I would ever after be at a great disadvantage in preaching to those good people.

It so happened, however, that the Classis, as the body of clergy were called, was made up mostly of genial, consecrated persons, and no honest young man would suffer anything at their hands.  Although I was exceedingly nervous, and did not do myself justice, and no doubt appeared to know less than I really did know, all went well until a clergyman, to whom I shall give the fictitious name of “Dr. Hardman,” took me in hand.  This “Dr. Hardman” had a dislike for me.  He had once wanted me to do something for him and take his advice in matters of a pastoral settlement, which I had, for good reasons, declined to take.  I will not go further into the reasons of this man’s antipathy, lest someone should know whom I mean.  One thing was certain to all present, and that was his wish to defeat my installation as pastor of that church, or make it to me a disagreeable experience.

As soon as he opened upon me a fire of interrogations, what little spirit I had in me dropped.  In the agitation I could not answer the simplest questions.  But he assailed me with puzzlers.  He wanted to know, among other things, if Christ’s atonement availed for other worlds; to which I replied that I did not know, as I had never studied theology in any world but this.  He hooked me with the horns of a dilemma.  A Turkish bath, with the thermometer up to 113, is cool compared to the perspiration into which he threw me.  At this point Rev. James W. Scott, D.D. (that was his real name, and not fictitious) arose.  Dr. Scott was a Scotchman of about 65 years of age.  He had been a classmate of the remarkable Scottish poet, Robert Pollock.  The Doctor was pastor of a church at Newark, N.J.  He was the impersonation of kindness, and generosity, and helpfulness.  The Gospel shone from every feature.  I never saw him under any circumstances without a smile on his face.  He had been on the Mount of Transfiguration, and the glory had never left his countenance.

I calculate the value of the soul by its capacity for happiness.  How much joy it can get in this world—­out of friendships, out of books, out of clouds, out of the sea, out of flowers, out of ten thousand things!  Yet all the joy it has here does not test its capacity.

As Dr. Scott rose that day he said, “Mr. President, I think this examination has gone on long enough, and I move it be stopped, and that the examination be pronounced satisfactory, and that this young man be licensed to preach the Gospel, and that this afternoon we proceed to his ordination and installation.”  The motion was put and carried, and I was released from a Protestant purgatory.