y, my parents
had taken me, as Elkanah and Hannah had long ago taken Samuel,
from their mountain-home of Ramathaim-Zophim down to sacrifice to
the Lord of Hosts in Shiloh. They had girt me about with a linen
ephod, and had hoped to leave me there; 'as long as he liveth,'
they had said, 'he shall be lent unto the Lord.'

Doubtless in the course of these fourteen years it had
occasionally flashed upon my Father, as he overheard some speech
of mine, or detected some idiosyncrasy, that I was not one of
those whose temperament points them out as ultimately fitted for
an austere life of religion. What he hoped, however, was that
when the little roughnesses of childhood were rubbed away, there
would pass a deep mellowness over my soul. He had a touching way
of condoning my faults of conduct, directly after reproving them,
and he would softly deprecate my frailty, saying, in a tone of
harrowing tenderness, 'Are you not the child of many prayers?' He
continued to think that prayer, such passionate importunate
prayer as his, must prevail. Faith could move mountains; should
it not be able to mould the little ductile heart of a child,
since he was sure that his own faith was unfaltering? He had
yearned and waited for a son who should be totally without human
audacities, who should be humble, pure, not troubled by worldly
agitations, a son whose life should be cleansed and straightened
from above, _in custodiendo sermones Dei_; in whom everything
should be sacrificed except the one thing needful to salvation.

How such a marvel of lowly piety was to earn a living had never,
I think, occurred to him. My Father was singularly indifferent
about money. Perhaps his notion was that, totally devoid of
ambitions as I was to be, I should quietly become adult, and
continue his ministrations among the poor of the Christian flock.
He had some dim dream, I think, of there being just enough for us
all without my having to take up any business or trade. I believe
it was immediately after my first term at boarding-school, that I
was a silent but indignant witness of a conversation between my
Father and Mr. Thomas Brightwen, my stepmother's brother, who was
a banker in one of the Eastern Counties.

This question, 'What is he to be?' in a worldly sense, was being
discussed, and I am sure that it was for the first time, at all
events in my presence. Mr. Brightwen, I fancy, had been worked
upon by my stepmother, whose affection for me was always o