were to
officiate himself, he was as certain to allude to many things that came
not within the range of their faith. He disapproved of prayer
altogether in the manner it was generally gone about, he said. Man made
it merely a selfish concern, and was constantly employed asking,
asking, for everything. Whereas it became all God's creatures to be
content with their lot, and only to kneel before him in order to thank
him for such benefits as he saw meet to bestow. In short, he argued
with such energy that before we parted I acquiesced, as usual, in his
position, and never mentioned prayer to him any more.

Having been so frequently seen in his company, several people happened
to mention the circumstance to my mother and reverend father; but at
the same time had all described him differently. At length, they began
to examine me with respect to the company I kept, as I absented myself
from home day after day. I told them I kept company only with one young
gentleman, whose whole manner of thinking on religious subjects I found
so congenial with my own that I could not live out of his society. My
mother began to lay down some of her old hackneyed rules of faith, but
I turned from hearing her with disgust; for, after the energy of my new
friend's reasoning, hers appeared so tame I could not endure it. And I
confess with shame that my reverend preceptor's religious dissertations
began, about this time, to lose their relish very much, and by degrees
became exceedingly tiresome to my ear. They were so inferior, in
strength and sublimity, to the most common observations of my young
friend that in drawing a comparison the former appeared as nothing. He,
however, examined me about many things relating to my companion, in all
of which I satisfied him, save in one: I could neither tell him who my
friend was, what was his name, nor of whom he was descended; and I
wondered at myself how I had never once adverted to such a thing for
all the time we had been intimate.

I inquired the next day what his name was; as I said I was often at a
loss for it, when talking with him. He replied that there was no
occasion for any one friend ever naming another, when their society was
held in private, as ours was; for his part he had never once named me
since we first met, and never intended to do so, unless by my own
request. "But if you cannot converse without naming me, you may call me
Gil for the present," added he, "and if I think proper to take