But how would it be with this ardent and imaginative boy?
His mind was struggling to free itself from artificial trammels.

To what goal might not that wish lead?
Earnestly he looked upon the bowed form at his feet, and in his eyes there was a great compassion.

But his lips pronounced, with sternness and decision, the words of the heavy penance imposed, and at the end of the prescribed formulas he raised the boy and looked searchingly into his face.
"My son," he said, very gently yet very impressively, "remember that the first sin that entered into the world was the sin of disobedience.

Remember that Satan's most powerful weapon is the one which he employed towards our first mother when he bid her eat of the tree of knowledge, because that knowledge is good--a God-given thing--when he persuaded her that God was wrong in keeping anything hidden from her that in itself was good.

The same sin by which death entered the world has abounded there ever since.