In my day, students who dared consult Scripture — especially in religion class — were routinely ridiculed. Let one example illustrate: I once pulled out my Bible to check a reference during a discussion on an ethical question. Amid face-palms and rolled eyes came the complaint — “There he goes with that damn book again.” The professor did not say this, but he was obviously in full sympathy with the speaker.

Such a spiritual atmosphere can hardly be expected to be friendly to Calvinism. These rejected professors can move on in the comfort that they were “men of whom [LC] was not worthy,” and that they “it has been granted to them, not only to believe on His name, but to suffer for His sake.”