I was foolish—and cruel. I did not appreciate the Father’s love for me, nor realize his limitations. He was sure he was right. His whole intellectual system was based on an abiding faith. From the viewpoint of the new Pragmatic philosophy, he had tested his "truth" by a long life and had found it good. Perhaps in his earlier days he had encountered skepticism, but since early manhood, since he had taken up his pastorate, all his association had been with people who were mentally his inferiors. He was more than a "parson," he was the wise-man, not only of our little village, but of the country side. All through the mountains his word carried conclusive weight. Inevitably he had become cock-sure and dogmatic. It was humanly impossible for him to argue with a youth like me. In my narrow, bitter youth, I could not see this. I might have granted his sincerity, if he had granted mine. But for him to assume that I loved vice because I doubted certain dogma, looked to me like cant. But the men he knew, who were not "professing Christians," were drunkards or worse. He really believed that Robert Ingersoll was a man of unspeakable depravity. He could not conceive of a man leading an upright life without the aid of Christ. Peace between us was impossible. His ultimatum was an effort to starve me into repentance. "My income," he wrote, "comes from believers who contribute their mites for the carrying on of the work of Christ. It would be a sin to allow you to squander it on riotous living." So my college course came to an end. *IV* In one regard the fairies who attended my christening were marvelously kind to me. They gave me the gift of friends. It is the thing above all others which makes me reverent, makes me wish for a god to thank. There is no equity in the matter. I am convinced that it is what the Father would have called "an act of grace." Always, in every crisis, whenever the need has arisen, a friend has stepped beside me to help me through. So it was when the Father cut off my allowance. Utterly ignorant of the life outside, I was not so frightened by my sudden pennilessness as I should have been, as I would be to-day. Work was found for me. My friend, Prof. Meers discovered that he needed an assistant to help him on a bibliography which he was preparing. He offered me a modest salary—enough to live comfortably. So I stayed on in the college town, living in the fraternity house.