and she consulted my Father. Taken, I suppose, at a
disadvantage, my Father told me I must not pray for 'things like
that'. To which I answered by another query, 'Why?' And I added
that he said we ought to pray for things we needed, and that I
needed the humming-top a great deal more than I did the conversion
of the heathen or the restitution of Jerusalem to the Jews, two
objects of my nightly supplication which left me very cold.

I have reason to believe, looking back upon this scene conducted
by candlelight in the front parlour, that my Mother was much
baffled by the logic of my argument. She had gone so far as to
say publicly that no 'things or circumstances are too
insignificant to bring before the God of the whole earth'. I
persisted that this covered the case of the humming-top, which
was extremely significant to me. I noticed that she held aloof
from the discussion, which was carried on with some show of
annoyance by my Father. He had never gone quite so far as she did
in regard to this question of praying for material things. I am
not sure that she was convinced that I ought to have been
checked; but he could not help seeing that it reduced their
favourite theory to an absurdity for a small child to exercise
the privilege. He ceased to argue, and told me peremptorily that
it was not right for me to pray for things like humming-tops, and
that I must do it no more. His authority, of course, was Paramount,
and I yielded; but my faith in the efficacy of prayer was a good
deal shaken. The fatal suspicion had crossed my mind that the reason
why I was not to pray for the top was because it was too expensive
for my parents to buy, that being the usual excuse for not getting
things I wished for.

It was about the date of my sixth birthday that I did something
very naughty, some act of direct disobedience, for which my
Father, after a solemn sermon, chastised me, sacrificially, by
giving me several cuts with a cane. This action was justified, as
everything he did was justified, by reference to Scripture 'Spare
the rod and spoil the child'. I suppose that there are some
children, of a sullen and lymphatic temperament, who are
smartened up and made more wide-awake by a whipping. It is
largely a matter of convention, the exercise being endured (I am
told) with pride by the infants of our aristocracy, but not
tolerated by the lower classes. I am afraid that I proved my
inherent vulgarity by being made, not contrite or h