ALTHOUGH the children of an earlier time heard a great deal of
theological discussion which meant little or nothing to them,
there was one thing that was made clear and emphatic in all the
Puritan training: that the heavens and earth stood upon firm
foundations--upon the Moral Law as taught in the Old Testament
and confirmed by the New. Whatever else we did not understand, we
believed that to disobey our parents, to lie or steal, had been
forbidden by a Voice which was not to be gainsaid. People who
broke or evaded these commands did so willfully, and without
excusing themselves, or being excused by others. I think most of
us expected the fate of Ananias and Sapphira, if we told what we
knew was a falsehood.

There were reckless exceptions, however. A playmate, of whom I
was quite fond, was once asked, in my presence, whether she had
done something forbidden, which I knew she had been about only a
little while before. She answered "No," and without any apparent
hesitation. After the person who made the inquiry had gone, I
exclaimed, with horrified wonder, "How could you?"

Her reply was, "Oh, I only kind of said no." What a real lie was
to her, if she understood a distinct denial of the truth as only
"kind-of" lying, it perplexed me to imagine. The years proved
that this lack of moral perception was characteristic, and nearly
spoiled a nature full of beautiful gifts.

I could not deliberately lie, but I had my own temptations, which
I did not always successfully resist. I remember the very spot--
in a footpath through a green field--where I first met the Eighth