habit of presenting.

"But mind," he added, "I do not allow that therefore my ideas must be
incorrect. If they be second-hand, they may yet be true. I do admit that
where they have continued only second-hand, they can have been of little
value to me."

"What you allow, then, father," said Dorothy, "is that you have yourself
taken none of your ideas direct from the fountain-head?"

"I am afraid I must confess it, my child--with this modification, that I
have thought many of them over a good deal, and altered some of them not
a little to make them fit the molds of truth in my mind."

"I am so glad, father!" said Dorothy. "I was positively certain, from
what I knew of you--which is more than any one else in this world, I do
believe--that some of the things you said concerning God never could
have risen in your own mind."

"They might be in the Bible for all that," said the minister, very
anxious to be and speak the right thing. "A man's heart is not to be
trusted for correct notions of God."

"Nor yet for correct interpretation of the Bible, I should think," said
Dorothy.

"True, my child," answered her father with a sigh, "--except as it be
already a Godlike heart. The Lord says a bramble-bush can not bring
forth grapes."