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.
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