On some natures again the expectation of others acts as a stimulus, the force of which is quite incalculable. It spurs a natural humility into fixed resolution and self-reliance; turns sloth into energy, earnestness into action, and goads diffidence up the hill of achievement. It has been truly said, that "those who trust us educate us." Perhaps it might be added that those who believe in us make or destroy us. If John, who was perfectly aware of the enthusiastic or grudging expectations that others had formed of him, had not as yet fallen into either of these two extremes, it was probably because what others might happen to think or not think concerning him was of little moment to him, and had no power to sway him either way. The thing of all others that puzzled John's staunchest adherents was their inability to fix him in any one set of opinions, social, political, or religious. Many after Mr. Goodwin tried and failed. For John's great wealth and position, besides the native force of character of which even as a very young man he gave signs, and an openness of mind which encouraged while it ought to have disheartened proselytism, all these attributes had made him an object of interest and importance, which would have ruined a more self-conscious man. As it was, he listened, got to the bottom of the subject, whatever it might be, never left it till he had probed it to the uttermost, and then went his way. He marched out of every mental prison he could be temporarily lured into. He would go boldly into any that interested him, but locks and bars would not hold him directly he did not wish to stay there any longer. Mr. Goodwin hoped against hope that John would see the error of his ways, and "come back"; that, according to his mode of expressing himself, the pride of the intellect might be broken, and John might one day be moved to return from the desert and husks and the sw---- philosophy of free thought to his father's home. He said something of the kind one day to John, and was astonished at the sudden flame that leapt into the young man's eyes as he silently took up his hat and went out. The one thing of all others which the Mr. Goodwins of this world are incapable of discerning, is that to leave an outgrown form of faith is in itself an act of faith almost beyond the strength of shrinking human frailty. To bury a dead belief is hard. They regard it invariably as a voluntary desertion, not of their form of religion, but of religion itself for private ends, or from a sense of irksomeness. Mr. Goodwin had reproachfully suggested that John had got into "a bad set" at Oxford, and was in the habit of mixing in "doubtful society" in London. Those whose surroundings have moulded them attribute all mental changes in others to a superficial and generally an entirely inadequate influence such as would have had power to affect themselves.