There was another matter which made me careless of my standing in the regular course. It was that the rules of the college required students to attend prayers at daylight in the winter at the chapel, and go to church twice on Sundays. I regret to say I did not always do this, shirking the prayers more frequently, however, than the sermons, perhaps, for the reason that I was very much interested in the doctrinal character of the latter.
A course of doctrinal sermons was preached by the Rev. Samuel F. Smith, an earnest speaker, who very clearly put the doctrines before us so that we could understand them. During his whole life he had been a teacher of the Calvinist Baptist faith, and obtained great and deserved celebrity as the author of what has become almost a national hymn, “America,” “My country, 'tis of Thee.” The penalty of neglecting each prayer or sermon was ten cents, which was quite a matter, considering how scarce the ten cents were in my pocket. But there was another penalty, and one which I deemed an injustice. My failure to attend prayers and church were marked so as to detract from my standing, as otherwise determined by my proficiency in my lessons. I thought this was unjust then, and I think so now; and I fought then as hard as I have been accustomed to fight against any palpable injustice, whenever such a case has come in my way.
By diligent listening to these sermons I had confirmed for me what I had understood before to be the doctrine of Calvin. This was: that God was self-existent, omnipotent, omniscient, and foreknowing all things from the beginning; that He was unchangeable, and that what He foreknew was predestined, and could not be different; otherwise He was not from the beginning omniscient. All mankind
