My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

ii8MY LIFEsurrounded only by wild nature and uncultured man,I could ponder at leisure on the various matters thatinterested me. Thus was induced a receptiveness ofmind which enabled me at various times to utilizewhat appeared to me as sudden intuitions—flashes oflight leading to a solution of some problem whichwas then before me ; and these flashes would oftencome to me when, pen in hand, I was engaged inwriting on a subject on which I had no intention orexpectation of saying anything new.Before leaving this sketch of my mental nature atthe threshold of my uncontrolled life, I may properlysay a few words on the position I had arrived at inregard to the great question of religious belief. Ihave already shown that my early home training wasin a thoroughly religious but by no means rigidfamily, where, however, no religious doubts were everexpressed, and where the word " atheist " was usedwith bated breath as pertaining to a being too debasedalmost for human society. The only regular teachingI received was to say or hear a formal prayer beforegoing to bed, hearing grace before and after dinner,and learning a collect every Sunday morning, thelatter certainly one of the most stupid ways ofinculcating religion ever conceived. On Sundayevenings, if we did not go to church or chapel, myfather would read some old sermon, and when we didgo we were asked on our return what was the text.The only books allowed to be read on Sundays werethe " Pilgrim's Progress " or " Paradise Lost," or somereligious tracts or moral tales, or the more interestingparts of the Bible were read by my mother, or weread ourselves about Esther and Mordecai or Bel andthe Dragon, which were as good as any story-book.Put all this made little impression upon me, as it