I wish, before publishing my forthcoming work, to obtain the views of some of my theological friends as to certain phases of experience of my own mind, and, to a certain extent, of other minds known to me. My _intellectual_ character was a singular compound of the practical and the imaginative. In youth I had no love for study or for reading even, excepting works of imagination. Don Quixote, the novel to which I first had access, was nearly committed to memory, as were a few other novels found at my grandmother's. The poets, both ancient and modern, were always in reach, and with these materials I early formed a habit of reverie and castle-building as my chief internal source of enjoyment. With this was combined incessant activity in practical matters, such as, at first, doll-dressing and baby-house building; afterward drawing, painting, exploits of merriment, practical jokes, snow castles and forts, summer excursions, school and family drama-acting, and the like. Till eighteen, I never wrote any thing but a few letters and scraps of rhyme, and the transforming of some stories into dramas for acting. A kind teacher, who sympathized in my strong love of the comic, described me as "the busiest of all creatures in doing nothing." _Socially_, I was good-natured and sympathizing, so that my jokes and tricks were never such as to tease or annoy others. _Morally_, I had a strong sense of justice, but was not naturally so conscientious as some of the other children. Add to these, persevering energy, great self-reliance, and such cheerful hopefulness that the idea of danger or failure never entered my head. Even to this day, perfect success and no mischances are always anticipated till reason corrects the calculation. Thus constituted, my strict religious training made little impression, for I rarely heard any thing of that which seemed so dull and unintelligible. Up to the age of sixteen my conceptions on this subject were about these: that God made me and all things, and was very great, and wise, and good; that he knew all I thought and did; that because Adam and Eve disobeyed him _once_ only, he drove them out of Eden, and then so arranged it that all their descendants would be born with wicked hearts, and that, though this did not seem either just or good, it was so; that I had such a wicked heart that I could not feel or act right in any thing till I had a new one; that God only could give me a new heart; that, if I died without it, I should go to a lake of fire and brimstone, and be burned alive in it forever; that Jesus Christ was very good, and very sorry for us, and came to earth, and suffered and died to save us from this dreadful doom; that _revivals_ were times when God, the Holy Spirit, gave people new hearts; that, when revivals came, it was best to read the Bible, and pray, and go to meetings, but that at other times it was of little use. This last was not taught, but was my own inference.