the boy as to the busy man of the world.

I know very well that a great many good souls will call levity what I
call honesty, and will abjure that familiar handling of the boy's lien
upon Eternity which my story will show. But I shall feel sure, that, in
keeping true to Nature with word and with thought, I shall in no way
offend against those highest truths to which all truthfulness is
kindred.

You have Christian teachers, who speak always reverently of the Bible;
you grow up in the hearing of daily prayers; nay, you are perhaps taught
to say them.

Sometimes they have a meaning, and sometimes they have none. They have a
meaning when your heart is troubled, when a grief or a wrong weighs upon
you: then the keeping of the Father, which you implore, seems to come
from the bottom of your soul; and your eye suffuses with such tears of
feeling as you count holy, and as you love to cherish in your memory.

But they have no meaning when some trifling vexation angers you, and a
distaste for all about you breeds a distaste for all above you. In the
long hours of toilsome days little thought comes over you of the morning
prayer; and only when evening deepens its shadows, and your boyish
vexations fatigue you to thoughtfulness, do you dream of that coming and
endless night, to which--they tell you--prayers soften the way.

Sometimes upon a Summer Sunday, when you are wakeful upon your seat in
church, with some strong-worded preacher who says things that half
fright you it occurs to you to consider how much goodness you are made
of; and whether there be enough of it after all to carry you safely away