ed to stand
forth in any outwardly definite form, or to take any fixed relation to
other lives, except in matters of feeling and intelligence. Indeed the
power of manifesting myself properly was a very late accomplishment with
me, and was, in fact, not gained until long after the recommencement of
my present educational work.[63] I cannot now remember, during all the
time of this educational work, that my personal life stood out in any
way from the usual ordinary existence of men; but before I can speak
with certainty upon this point I must procure information as to the
circumstances of my earlier life. This much is clear, that my life at
the time I am speaking of has remained in my memory only in its general
ordinary human aspect. It is true, however, that then, as always in my
later life, it was and ever has been very difficult to me to separate in
thought my inner life from my outer, and to give definite form and
outward expression to the inner life, especially as to religious
matters.

I dare not deny, that although the definite religious forms of the
Church reached my heart readily both by way of the emotions and by
sincere conviction, and cleansed and quickened me, yet I have always
felt great reluctance to speak of these definite religious forms with
others, particularly with pupils and students. I could never make them
so clear and living to a simple healthy soul as they were to myself.
From this I conclude that the naturally trained child requires no
definite Church forms, because the lovingly-fostered, and therefore
continuously and powerfully-developed human life, as well as the
untroubled child-life also, is and must be in itself a Christian life. I
further conclude that a child to whom the deeper truths of life or of
religion were given in the dogmatic positive forms of Church creeds
would imperatively need when a young man to be surrounded by pure and
manly lives, whereby those rigid creeds might be illuminated and
quickened into life. Otherwise the child runs great danger of casting
away his whole higher life along with the dogmatic religious forms which
he has been unable to assimilate. There, indeed, is the most elevated
faith to be found, where form and life work towards a whole, shed light
upon each other, and go side by side in a sisterly concord, like the
inward life with the outward life, or the special with the universal.

But I must return from this long digression, and resume the account of
my