better than that of St. Paul's Epistles—as I interpreted them. Only to one point in the theology of my youthful days can I now look back with pleasure; and that is to my treatment of the doctrine of Predestinarianism and necessity. On this matter I argued as follows: "If God knows all things beforehand, God has them, or may have them, written down in a book; and if all things that are going to happen are already written down in a book, it's of no use our trying to alter them. So, if it's predestined that I shall have my dinner to-day, I shall certainly have it, even if I don't come home in time, or even though I lock myself up in my bedroom. But practically, if I don't come home in time, I know I shall not have my dinner. Therefore it's no use talking about these things in this sort of way, because it doesn't answer; and I shall not bother myself any more about Predestination, but act as though it did not exist."[1] This argument, if it can be called an argument, I afterwards found sheltering itself under the high authority of Butler's Analogy; and I still adhere to it, after an experience of more than five and thirty years. To some, this "Short Way with Predestinarians" may seem highly illogical; but it works.
Up to this time I had been little, if at all, impressed by preaching. Our old Rector was a good Greek scholar and a gentleman; but he had a difficulty in making his thoughts intelligible to any but a refined minority among the congregation; and even that select few was made fewer, partly by an awkwardness of gesture which reminded one of Dominie Sampson, and partly by a grievous impedi-
- ↑ That children, even at a much younger age than ten, do sometimes exercise their young minds to very ill purpose about these subtle metaphysical questions is probably within the experience of all who know anything about children, and it is amusingly illustrated by the following answer (which I have on the authority of an intimate friend) from a seven-years-old to his mother when blaming him for some misconduct: "Why did you born me then? I didn't want to be borned. You should have asked me before you borned me."
