truction given me.

As far back as I can remember, I understood the Bible to be the word of
God, every word of it, from the first word in Genesis to the last
"Amen" of Revelation; that it was all divinely inspired, _verbatim et
literatim_, just as it appeared in the old King James version; that it
was God's revelation to mankind, beside and outside of which there
never was, and never would be any other; that every word of it was
literally, and infallibly true, just as it read. Such a thing as
figurative, or allegorical interpretations I never heard of until I was
a grown man, as we shall see later.

This, of course, meant a literal six-day Creation, an anthropomorphic
God, a literal physical heaven, and likewise a literal, physical hell,
a personal devil, the absolute, literal, truth of the story of Eden,
the original perfection and fall of man, total depravity of the race,
vicarious atonement and the eternal damnation of all mankind,
individually and collectively, who did not accept the prescribed creed
of the church of my parents, as the only means of escape.

My first conception of God was that of a great big good man sitting
high up in heaven on a great white throne, whence He would judge the
world; that heaven was a great city somewhere up in the skies, with
streets of gold and walls of jasper; that hell was a literal burning
lake of fire and brimstone somewhere down under the world, and that it
was presided over by the devil and was made to burn people in who were
not good, or who had not believed in Christ as a personal Savior. As a
little child I was taught that if I was not a good boy, when I died,
the devil, usually spoken of as "the bad man," would get me and burn me
in this hell forever and ever; and that I never could burn up or die,
and if I called for water he would pour melted lead down my throat.
Many a time I would think over this horrible torture that I might
inadvertently fall into by doing some bad thing when at heart I really
meant to be good, and sincerely wish I had never been born.

In my night visions I could see the devil with his tea-kettle of melted
lead, pouring it down the throats of the helpless little ones, writhing
in the tortures of the never ending fire!

On the day that I was twelve years old a little incident occurred that
so indelibly stamped itself on my mind, and so changed the course of my
thoughts thereafter, that it is necessary to mention it. I was proud I
had reached