of its own choice.

Once I told a lie (I was seven years old), and my father was a
broken-hearted man. He told me _then_ that liars went to hell. I
do not remember to have heard any such personal application of the
doctrine of eternal punishment before or since; and the fact made a
life-long impression, to which I largely owe a personal preference for
veracity. Yet, to analyze the scene strictly, I must say that it was
not fear of torment which so moved me; it was the sight of that broken
face. For my father wept--only when death visited the household did
I ever see him cry again--and I stood melted and miserable before
his anguish and his love. The devil and all his angels could not have
punished into me the noble shame of that moment.

[Illustration: PROFESSOR AUSTIN PHELPS, FATHER OF ELIZABETH STUART
PHELPS. From a photograph by Warren, Boston.]

I have often been aware of being pitied by outsiders for the
theological discipline which I was supposed to have received in
Andover; but I must truthfully say that I have never been conscious of
needing compassion in this respect. I was taught that God is Love, and
Christ His Son is our Saviour; that the important thing in life was
to be that kind of woman for which there is really, I find, no better
word than Christian, and that the only road to this end was to be
trodden by way of character. The ancient Persians (as we all know)
were taught to hurl a javelin, ride a horse, and speak the truth.

I was taught that I should speak the truth, say my prayers, and
consider other people; it was a wholesome, right-minded, invigorating
training that we had, born of tenderness, educated conscience, and
good sense, and I have lived to bless it in many troubled years.

What if we did lend a little too much romance now and then to our
religious "experience"? It was better for us than some other kinds
of romance to which we were quite as liable. What if I did "join the
church" (entirely of my own urgent will, not of my father's preference
or guiding) at the age of twelve, when the great dogmas to which I was
expected to subscribe could not possibly have any rational meaning for
me? I remember how my father took me apart, and gently explained to me
beforehand the clauses of the rather simple and truly beautiful
chapel creed which he himself, I believe, had written to modernize and
clarify the old one--I wonder if it were done at that very time? And
I remember that it all seemed to