"Was there ever a position so intensely human?
The thing he had striven for--the thing he needed inordinately--had been wrenched from him by a band of people who, in his eyes, were either fools or knaves.

What would you have done in his position?
What would have been your impulse?
What your instinct?
If I know anything of human nature, it would have been the same as his--precisely, accurately the same as his! "He had known for years of this sect to which his master belonged; and for years he had held it in contempt.

In his normal, youthful eyes, the idea of a creed that denied the high, simple theory of Christianity, and awaited the coming of a mythical Prophet was a subject for healthy scorn.

And now suddenly it was forced upon his understanding that this anaemic sect--this mystical, anticipated Prophet--were his rivals--the despoilers of his private intimate hopes.
"Such a knowledge has power to work a miracle; and in one single night it changed this boy into a man.

Embittered, hopeless, stranded, inspiration came to him.