This statement the boy maintained alone (save such support as came from the belief of his own family, none of the immediate members of which, so far as I have learned, ever doubting his story), against the world for three years; without even the encouragement of a further spiritual manifestation. It would be improper, as I believe, to say that God did this to prove him. The Almighty, who is also All Knowing, knew before the test was made that he would endure it. God knew his spirit and its nobility and strength as he knew Messiah's or Abraham's; He knew it as he knew the spirit of Jeremiah and ordained him, too, to be a prophet to the nations before he was born. [3] But if God needed no new evidence of the strength of character possessed by his New Witness; if he needed no proof of his integrity, his devotion to the truth--the world did; and during that period of three years of sore trial, when alone he maintained the truth against scoffing priests, the gibes of his companions, and the sneers, ridicule and unbelief of the world, he gave to the generation in which he lived and to all generations succeeding, such evidence of his integrity to the truth, or what at least he believed to be true, as ought and will secure the respectful attention of sincere men to the testimony he bears for God. The constancy of the lad, under all the circumstances, laid deep the foundation for faith in the man, and in the work which, under God, he founded. There were so many interests--the peace of himself and family; his own and his family's good name and standing in society; the applause of religionists who would have hailed with delight his renunciation of the vision as a delusion of the devil--all these things cried out, "Renounce it!" But the fact that to all such demands the lad shouted back, "'Tis God's truth, I saw the vision!"--will go far towards making men believe that he did; for had he been base enough to invent such a story, when he found that it made against his interest and brought nothing but reproaches, without doubt, he would have denied it; for men seldom persist in conscious falsehood which works only to their disadvantage. And in this instance the renunciation would have been so easy by calling it a delusion wrought by the adversary of men's souls, by which he had been deceived. But neither ease of denial nor the seeming advantages to accrue from it moved him; against it all he was supported by the consciousness of having told the truth. Unless indeed we can believe him so insane as to have been a candidate for disgrace and ambitious of the contempt of his fellows.