It is true that, for little people, our little souls were a good deal agitated on the question of eternal salvation. We were taught that heaven and hell followed life and death; that the one place was "a desirable location," and the other too dreadful to be mentioned in ears polite; and that what Matthew Arnold calls "conduct" was the deciding thing. Not that we heard much, until we grew old enough to read for ourselves, about Matthew Arnold; but we did hear a great deal about plain behaviour--unselfishness, integrity, honor, sweet temper--the simple good morals of childhood. We were taught, too, to respect prayer and the Christian Bible. In this last particular we never had at all an oppressive education. My Sunday-school reminiscences are few and comfortable, and left me, chiefly, with the impression that Sunday-schools always studied Acts; for I do not recall any lessons given me by strolling theologues in any other--certainly none in any severer--portions of the Bible. It was all very easy and pleasant, if not feverishly stimulating; and I am quite willing to match my Andover Sunday-school experiences with that of a Boston free-thinker's little daughter who came home and complained to her mother: "There is a dreadful girl put into our Sunday-school. I think, mamma, she is bad society for me. She says the Bible is exaggerated, and then she tickles my legs!" I have said that we were taught to think something about our own "salvation;" and so we were, but not in a manner calculated to burden the good spirits of any but a very sensitive or introspective child. Personally, I may have dwelt on the idea, at times, more than was good for my happiness; but certainly no more than was good for my character. The idea of character was at the basis of everything we did, or dreamed, or learned. There is a scarecrow which "liberal" beliefs put together, hang in the field of public terror or ridicule, and call it Orthodoxy. Of this misshapen creature we knew nothing in Andover.