"I came to have a little talk with you, father."

"I am glad you did, as there are several questions I wanted to ask
you, one of which is in regard to that saying of Jesus Christ--'ye
shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free'-you explained
before but I did not catch your meaning."

"Let us use an illustration to show what is meant by that saying. For
instance, supposing we had been taught from childhood that two times
two are five, and every person on earth believed this to be right, we
would all go through life making this mistake. There would be constant
trouble all over the mathematical world because of it, and when we
tried to rectify this trouble we would use this same mistake in trying
to arrive at a true answer. At times we would deceive ourselves and
believe we were right, only to find later on that we were in deeper
trouble. And when we had children of our own, we would still teach
them the same as we were taught that two times two are five, and the
longer the world stood, the greater would become this mistake, as no
one knew the truth that two times two were only four; yet all this
time the principle of mathematics existed and was correct, but man
knew it not. Now father, imagine how great and widespread this mistake
would become in several thousands of years, and how hard it would be
to convince the people of their mistake, especially the professor of
mathematics who had devoted a lifetime to proving that this mistake
was the truth. You can readily see it would be much easier for the
child who had never learned or believed in the mistake to grasp this
truth than the professor who believed that the mistake was correct.
Supposing that while these conditions existed some one should discover
the truth, that two times two are four, and would bring it before the