"But it is not this which gives to my recollection of that period of my life its peculiar sadness. I might have made a merry life in the midst of it, like that of many another school-boy, and I was merry sometimes, but I had known better things. I had once learnt to hate wickedness, and I never could find myself at ease in the midst of it, though I had not strength to resist it openly. The first evening that I arrived at this new tutor's house, I was cordially received to mess with the set of three or four lower boys who were there. These were quiet, good-natured boys; but, to be one with them, it was soon evident that the sweet practices of devotion must be given up, and other rules followed from those I knew to be right. I was taken by them on expeditions of boyish depredation and pilfering. I had never been tempted or invited before to anything like this, and {14} it was misery to me, on account of my natural want of courage as well as my tender conscience, to join such enterprises. Yet I dared not boldly declare my resolution to commit no sin, and I made a trial now of that which has been so often tried, and what has often led to fatal confusion--to satisfy the world without altogether breaking with God. One day we went to pick up walnuts in a park near Eton; another day to steal beans or turnips, or the like, from fields or gardens; then, more bold, to take ducks and chickens from farmyards. It is a common idea that this kind of school-boys' theft is not indeed a sin. At Eton it certainly was not so considered. A boy who stole money from another boy was disgraced, and branded as a wretch almost beyond forgiveness, whereas for stealing his school-books, he would not be blamed; and for robbing orchards or farmyards he would be honoured and extolled, and so much the more if, in doing it, one or two or three together had violently beaten the farmer's boy, or even himself. But where is the reason for this distinction? The Word of God and a simple conscience certainly teach no such difference. At any rate, I know, to my sorrow, that the beginning of my fall from all that was good, was by being led to countenance and bear a part, though sorely against my better will, in such work as this.