There he worked well, and became a good scholar, learning to read in the true sense of the word, that is, to try the spirits as he read.

His character, so called, was sound, and his conscience, if not sensitive, was firm and regnant.

But he was injured both spiritually and morally by some of the instructions there given.

For one of the objects held up as duties before him, was to become capable of rendering himself _acceptable_ to a congregation.
Most of the students were but too ready to regard, or at least to treat this object as the first and foremost of duties.

The master-duty of devotion to Christ, and obedience to every word that proceeded out of His mouth, was very much treated as a thing understood, requiring little enforcement; while, the main thing demanded of them being sermons in some sense their own--honey culled at least by their own bees, and not bought in jars, much was said about the plan and composition of sermons, about style and elocution, and action--all plainly and confessedly, with a view to pulpit-_success_--the lowest of all low successes, and the most worldly.
These instructions Walter Drake accepted as the wisdom of the holy serpent--devoted large attention to composition, labored to form his style on the _best models_, and before beginning to write a sermon, always heated the furnace of production with fuel from some exciting or suggestive author: it would be more correct to say, fed the mill of composition from some such source; one consequence of all which was, that when at last, after many years, he did begin to develop some individuality, he could not, and never did shake himself free of those weary models; his thoughts, appearing in clothes which were not made for them, wore always a certain stiffness and unreality which did not by nature belong to them, blunting the impressions which his earnestness and sincerity did notwithstanding make.
Determined to _succeed_, he cultivated eloquence also--what he supposed eloquence, that is, being, of course, merely elocution, to attain the right gestures belonging to which he looked far more frequently into his landlady's mirror, than for his spiritual action into the law of liberty.