his book. He became suspicious that a preconceived opinion was being
defended at the expense of honest scrutiny, and was thus driven upon
his own unaided investigation. The result may be guessed: he began
to go astray, and strayed further and further. The children of God,
he reasoned, the members of Christ and inheritors of the kingdom of
Heaven, were no more spiritually minded than the children of the
world and the devil. Was then the grace of God a gift which left no
trace whatever upon those who were possessed of it--a thing the
presence or absence of which might be ascertained by consulting the
parish registry, but was not discernible in conduct? The grace of
man was more clearly perceptible than this. Assuredly there must be
a screw loose somewhere, which, for aught he knew, might be
jeopardising the salvation of all Christendom. Where then was this
loose screw to be found?

He concluded after some months of reflection that the mischief was
caused by the system of sponsors and by infant baptism. He
therefore, to my mother's inexpressible grief, joined the Baptists
and was immersed in a pond near Dorking. With the Baptists he
remained quiet about three months, and then began to quarrel with his
instructors as to their doctrine of predestination. Shortly
afterwards he came accidentally upon a fascinating stranger who was
no less struck with my brother than my brother with him, and this
gentleman, who turned out to be a Roman Catholic missionary, landed
him in the Church of Rome, where he felt sure that he had now found
rest for his soul. But here, too, he was mistaken; after about two
years he rebelled against the stifling of all free inquiry; on this
rebellion the flood-gates of scepticism were opened, and he was soon
battling with unbelief. He then fell in with one who was a pure
Deist, and was shorn of every shred of dogma which he had ever held,