ons of
life's enigmas were clear and simple, but they could only be reconciled
with certain obvious facts--such as the omnipotence and all-goodness of
God--by leaving many things absolutely out of sight. And this my mother
succeeded effectually in doing. She never doubted that her opinions
comprised the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; she
therefore made haste to sow the good seed in our tender minds, and so far
succeeded that when my brother was four years old he could repeat the
Apostles' Creed, the general confession, and the Lord's Prayer without a
blunder. My mother made herself believe that he delighted in them; but,
alas! it was far otherwise; for strange as it may appear concerning one
whose later life was a continual prayer, in childhood he detested nothing
so much as being made to pray, and to learn his catechism. In this I am
sorry to say we were both heartily of a mind. As for Sunday the less
said the better.

I have already hinted (but as a warning to other parents had better,
perhaps, express myself more plainly) that this aversion was probably the
result of my mother's undue eagerness to reap an artificial fruit of lip-
service, which could have little meaning to the heart of one so young. I
believe that the severe check which the natural growth of faith
experienced in my brother's case was due almost entirely to this cause,
and to the school of literalism in which he had been trained; but,
however this may be, we both of us hated being made to say our prayers.
Morning and evening it was our one bugbear, and we would avoid it, as
indeed children generally will, by every artifice which we could employ.

Thus we were in the habit of feigning to be asleep shortly before prayer
time, and would gratefully hear my father tell my mother that it was a
shame to wake us; whereon he would carry us up to bed in a state
apparently of the profoundest slumber when we were really wide awake and
in great fear of detection. For we knew how to pretend to be asleep, but
we did not know how we ought to wake again; there was nothing for it
therefore when we were once committed, but to go on sleeping till we were
fairly undressed and put to bed, and could wake up safely in the dark.
But deceit is never long successful, and we were at last ignominiously
exposed.

It happened one evening that my mother suspected my brother John, and
tried to open his little hands which were lying clasped in front of him