There's an overweening confidence in the young, a kind of invincible optimism that tells them the future is theirs and it will come in their generation. Graduates of this institution (Princeton Theological Seminary) may recall the bit of folklore from the days of John Mackay's presidency. "Save the world forever" was running rather high one year among fundamentalist students on this campus, when some of the students conceived the brilliant notion of how they could evangelize their secular neighbor, the university, which was the only barrier between them and the conquest of the rest of the world for Christ.

What someone proposed they do was to take little slips of paper and write Scripture verses on them, and then roll them up very tightly, insert them into pharmacist's pellets, and take them over and throw them through the windows of the dormitories and the classrooms at the university. When Dr. Mackay heard about it, he stormed into chapel. "Boys," he said with fire in his eyes and the sound of the earth splitting in his voice, "boys, I know the Scriptures say we are to be fools for Christ, but boys, it doesn't say 'damn fools'!"