him, and was helping him in the daily business of life--that it was
worth while asking that Being's advice, or that any advice would be
given if asked for; of any practical notion of a Heavenly Father, or
a Divine education--Tom was as ignorant as thousands of respectable
people who go to church every Sunday, and read good books, and believe
firmly that the Pope is Antichrist. He ought to have learnt it, no
doubt; for his father was a religious man: but he had not learnt
it--any more than thousands learn it, who have likewise religious
parents. He had been taught, of course, the common doctrines and
duties of religion; but early remembrances had been rubbed out, as off
a schoolboy's slate, by the mere current of new thoughts and objects,
in his continual wanderings. Disappointments he had had, and dangers
in plenty; but only such as rouse a brave and cheerful spirit to
bolder self-reliance and invention; not those deep sorrows of the
heart which leave a man helpless in the lowest pit, crying for help
from without, for there is none within. He had seen men of all creeds,
and had found in all alike (so he held) the many rogues, and the few
honest men. All religions were, in his eyes, equally true and equally
false. Superior morality was owing principally to the influences of
race and climate; and devotional experiences (to judge, at least, from
American camp-meetings and popish-cities) the results of a diseased
nervous system.

Upon a man so hard and strong this fearful blow had fallen, and, to do
him justice, he took it like a man. He wandered on and on for an hour
or more, up the hills, and into the forest, talking to himself.

"Poor old Willy! I should have liked to have looked into his honest
face before he went, if only to make sure that we were good friends.
I used to plague him sadly with my tricks. But what is the use of