ldhood--unconsciously formed, but
very firmly believed in. As he grew up he made such modifications as
were forced upon him by enlarged perceptions, but every modification was
an effort to him, in spite of a continual and successful resistance to
what he recognised as his initial mental defect.

I may perhaps be allowed to say here, in reference to a remark in the
preceding paragraph, that both my brother and myself used to notice it as
an almost invariable rule that children's earliest ideas of God are
modelled upon the character of their father--if they have one. Should
the father be kind, considerate, full of the warmest love, fond of
showing it, and reserved only about his displeasure, the child, having
learned to look upon God as his Heavenly Father through the Lord's Prayer
and our Church Services, will feel towards God as he does towards his own
father; this conception will stick to a man for years and years after he
has attained manhood--probably it will never leave him. On the other
hand, if a man has found his earthly father harsh and uncongenial, his
conception of his Heavenly Parent will be painful. He will begin by
seeing God as an exaggerated likeness of his father. He will therefore
shrink from Him. The rottenness of still-born love in the heart of a
child poisons the blood of the soul, and hence, later, crime.

To return, however, to the lady. When she had put on her night-gown, she
knelt down by her bed-side and, to our consternation, began to say her
prayers. This was a cruel blow to both of us; we had always been under
the impression that grown-up people were not made to say their prayers,
and the idea of any one saying them of his or her own accord had never
occurred to us as possible. Of course the lady would not say her prayers
if she were not obliged; and yet she did say them; therefore she must be
obliged to say them; therefore we should be obliged to say them, and this
was a great disappointment. Awe-struck and open-mouthed we listened
while the lady prayed aloud and with a good deal of pathos for many
virtues and blessings which I do not now remember, and finally for my
father and mother and for both of us--shortly afterwards she rose, blew
out the light and got into bed. Every word that she said had confirmed
our worst apprehensions: it was just what we had been taught to say
ourselves.

Next morning we compared notes and drew some painful inferences; but in
the course of the day