Parts even in those spiritual things that are most near and sacred? I have among my friends a little boy whose father finds God
most surely in the operation of natural law. Indeed, he has often both shocked and distressed
certain of his neighbors by declaring it to be his belief that nowhere else could God be found. "His poor wife!" they were wont to exclaim; "what must she think of such opinions?" And later, when the little boy was born, "That unfortunate baby!" they sighed; "how will his mother
teach him religion when his father has these strange ideas?" That the wife seemed untroubled by the views
of her husband, and that the baby, as he grew into little-boyhood, appeared very similar to other children as far as
prayers and Bible stories and even attendance at church were concerned, did
not reassure the disturbed neighbors. For the child's father continued
to express--if possible, more decidedly--his disquieting convictions. "Evidently, though," said one neighbor, "he doesn't put such thoughts into the head of his child." Apparently he did not. I knew the small boy rather intimately, and
I was aware that his father, after the custom of most American parents, took
the child into
his confidence with regard
to many other matters. The little boy was well acquainted with his father's political belief, for example. I had had early evidence of this. But it was not until a much later
time, and then indirectly, that I saw that the little boy was possessed too of a knowledge of his father's religious faith. [Illustration: "DO YOU LIKE
MY NEW HYMN?"] I was ill in a hospital a year or two ago, and the little boy came with his mother to see me. A clergyman happened to call at t he same time.