g to match my Andover Sunday-school experiences with
that of a Boston free-thinker's little daughter who came home and
complained to her mother:

"There is a dreadful girl put into our Sunday-school. I think, mamma,
she is bad society for me. She says the Bible is exaggerated, and then
she tickles my legs!"

I have said that we were taught to think something about our own
"salvation;" and so we were, but not in a manner calculated to burden
the good spirits of any but a very sensitive or introspective child.
Personally, I may have dwelt on the idea, at times, more than was
good for my happiness; but certainly no more than was good for my
character. The idea of character was at the basis of everything we
did, or dreamed, or learned.

There is a scarecrow which "liberal" beliefs put together, hang in
the field of public terror or ridicule, and call it Orthodoxy. Of this
misshapen creature we knew nothing in Andover.

Of hell we heard sometimes, it is true, for Andover Seminary believed
in it--though, be it said, much more comfortably in the days before
this iron doctrine became the bridge of contention in the recent
serious, theological battle which has devastated Andover. In my own
case, I do not remember to have been shocked or threatened by this
woful doctrine. I knew that my father believed in the everlasting
misery of wicked people who could be good if they wanted to, but
would not; and I was, of course, accustomed to accept the beliefs of
a parent who represented everything that was tender, unselfish, pure,
and noble, to my mind--in fact, who sustained to me the ideal of a
fatherhood which gave me the best conception I shall ever get, in this
world, of the Fatherhood of God. My father presented the interesting
anomaly of a man holding, in one dark particular, a severe faith, but
displaying in his private character rare tenderness and sweetness of
heart. He would go out of his way to save a crawling thing from death,
or any sentient thing from pain. He took more trouble to give comfort
or to prevent distress to every breathing creature that came within
his reach, than any other person whom I have ever known. He had not
the heart to witness heartache. It was impossible for him to endure
the sight of a child's suffering. His sympathy was an extra sense,
finer than eyesight, more exquisite than touch.

Yet, he did believe that absolute perversion of moral character went
to its "own place," and bore the consequence