I have sometimes questioned whether many libels on human nature had not been a natural consequence of the celibacy of the clergy, which was enforced for so long a period.
The child had met this and some other equally encouraging statements as to her spiritual conditions, early in life, and fought the battle of spiritual independence prematurely, as many children do.

If all she did was hateful to God, what was the meaning of the approving or else the disapproving conscience, when she had done "right" or "wrong"?
No "shoulder-striker" hits out straighter than a child with its logic.

Why, I can remember lying in my bed in the nursery and settling questions which all that I have heard since and got out of books has never been able to raise again.

If a child does not assert itself in this way in good season, it becomes just what its parents or teachers were, and is no better than a plastic image .-- How old was I at the time ?--I suppose about 5823 years old,--that is, counting from Archbishop Usher's date of the Creation, and adding the life of the race, whose accumulated intelligence is a part of my inheritance, to my own.

A good deal older than Plato, you see, and much more experienced than my Lord Bacon and most of the world's teachers .-- Old books, as you well know, are books of the world's youth, and new books are fruits of its age.