Standing somewhat apart from, but watching with intense interest this religious excitement, and wondering greatly at the confusion and strife attendant upon it was a lad fourteen years old. [1] He was born of parents numbered among the pioneers of the wilderness, and up to that time had lived with them surrounded by the conditions already described in the first part of this chapter as so favorable to morality and the development of religious sentiment. By this religious agitation the mind of the lad was stirred to serious reflection accompanied with great uneasiness on account of the sectarian strife so incessant and so bitter. He saw several members of his father's family connect themselves with the Presbyterian sect, but he himself was more partial to the Methodist Church; and at times he felt some desire to be united with them. The tumult arising from the religious contention, however, was such as to bewilder him, and he felt himself incompetent to decide who was right and who was wrong. "What is to be done?" he would often ask himself. "Who of all these parties are right? Or are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it and how shall I know it?" [2] Young as he was, his native intelligence taught him that something was radically wrong with all this contention over religion. It was clear even to his boyish mind that God could not be the author of all this confusion. God's church would not be split up into factions in this fashion; if he taught one society to worship one way, and administer one set of ordinances, he would not teach another principles diametrically opposed. [3]