Well do I remember that one day, as I passed two workmen in the mill-yard, one said to the other, "That is young Holyoake the sceptic." They did not know that "sceptic" merely meant a doubter in search of evidence. They used the word in the brutal sense of one who disbelieved the truth, knowing it to be the truth. The term startled me, as I neither believed nor assumed to believe what I had reported as the opinions of my friends. For myself, I had no thought of holding their opinions. The heresy supposed to be included in them was, indeed, my aversion. Then I made the resolution to examine their principles, with a view to show what arguments I could myself bring against them. Great was my dismay when, after months of thought, I found that the questioned tenets seemed, on the whole, to be true. These tenets were that wise material circumstances were likely to have a better influence on men than bad ones; and that, men having general qualities which they have inherited, the treatment of the worst should be tempered by compassion for their ill-fortune. Then it concerned me no more what any one said of me. It was as though I had passed into a new country, leaving behind me the barren land of supplication for a land of self-effort and improvement; and entered into the fruitful kingdom of material endeavour, where help and hope dwelt. Heretofore doubt and perturbation as to whether I was of the "elect" had oft agitated me. Now, I had no bonds in the death of my disproved opinions--no struggle, no misgivings. Without wish or effort of mine, I was delivered by reason alone from the prison-house in which I had dwelt with its many terrors. Not all at once did the terrors go. They long hovered about the mind like evil spirits tempting me to distrust the truth written in the Book of Nature, of which I believed God to be the author. Some time before this change in my opinion occurred I had taken in, out of my slender savings, the beautiful Diamond edition of the Rev. Mr. Stebbing's Bible in parts. The type was very fine, the outline illustrations seemed to me very beautiful; they affect me with admiration still. It was the first book with marks of art about it that I had possessed. I had it bound in morocco, with silver clasps. It was quite a wonder in the workshop when I took it there. To possess many things I never cared, but if I had only one, and it had some beauty and finish in it, it was to me as though I had a light in my room at night, and the thought of it made me glad in the dark. A fellow-workman of sincere piety, whom I respected very much, coveted this Bible, and induced me to sell it to him, which I did, as I had it in my mind to get another bound in a yet daintier way.