I don't deny that there may be a few children, here and there, at six
years old, who are so very patient, and so very--(what's the word for a
child that knows a deal more than he has any business to know at his
age? Stop! I've got it!--_precocious_--that's the word)--so very
patient and so very precocious that they will sit quiet in the same
place for two hours; making believe all the time that they understand
every word of the service, whether they really do or not. I don't deny
that there may be such children, though I never met with them myself,
and should think them all impudent little hypocrites if I did! But Zack
isn't one of that sort: Zack's a genuine child (God bless him)! Zack--"

"Do I understand you, my dear sir," interposed Mr. Thorpe, sorrowfully
sarcastic, "to be praising the conduct of my son in disturbing the
congregation, and obliging me to take him out of church?"

"Nothing of the sort," retorted the old gentleman; "I'm not praising
Zack's conduct, but I _am_ blaming yours. Here it is in plain
words:--_You_ keep on cramming church down his throat; and _he_ keeps
on puking at it as if it was physic, because he don't know any better,
and can't know any better at his age. Is that the way to make him take
kindly to religious teaching? I know as well as you do, that he roared
like a young Turk at the sermon. And pray what was the subject of the
sermon? Justification by Faith. Do you mean to tell me that he, or any
other child at his time of life, could understand anything of such a
subject as that; or get an atom of good out of it? You can't--you know
you can't! I say again, it's no use taking him to church yet; and
what's more, it's worse than no use, for you only associate his first
ideas of religious instruction with everything in the way of restraint
and discipline and punishment that can be most irksome to him. There!
that's my opinion, and I should like to hear what you've got to say