Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/502

434 appointment to the Presidency of your University I cried out Shame! When I saw the man and had a short time to study him I found I had received a true portraiture of his characteristics. To my mind he has not a single qualification for the position he occupies. It was said to me in Salem that he was an accomplished gentleman, refined in all his manners. I ask how does it look to see an Educator of youth walking the streets of a city with a cigar in his mouth and using tobacco until the clothes betray it. Is it the mark of a scholarly gentleman to blat it abroad that he will resign his position unless some teachers are removed? Never! That was something that belonged to the Trustees alone. And when they are not removed, who licks th dust and remains. In such a character there is a fatal weakness that unqualifies him to be a teacher.

Nay more, the sermon that I heard him preach the last time I was in Salem in connection with the reception of members into the Church indicated to me that he lacked that nice moral sense that is so necessary in an instructor of youth. The substance of the sermon was that students should learn the true & beautiful &c together with good manners, to be gained from their teachers (I suppose a hit at Prof. Powell). It was a strange sermon indeed. You were present at the time. And then at its close, called up persons to be admitted into full connection, & stated that some of them had not been baptised but would be at some future time, but that day he would assume that they were baptised. And then used the ritual of the Church which reads in the address to the Congregation "The persons before you who have already received the Sacrament of baptism" &c. And then asked the first question addressed to the Candidates "Do you here in the presence of God & of this congregation renew the solemn promises contained in the Baptismal covenant ratifying and confirming the same, and acknowledge yourselves bound faithfully to observe and keep that covenant."

I could not help covering my face with my hands at the time in dismay at the lack of that nice sense of the true and the pure that was so outraged at the time. Is that the kind of training that students ought to secure and especially young men who may be studying for the ministry. No Never! You were a witness to just what