Tom looked first one way, then another; he was all abroad. At last, says he, “I meant to burn that book.” “Glad to hear it,” says I; so taking up the book, with his consent, I poked it between the bars of the grate, and a rare blaze it made, flaring half way up to the mantel piece, giving more light to the world than it had ever done before, or ever would have done in any other way. Says I to Tom, when the filthy book was burned, says I, “Tom, when a man goes to market to buy a cheese, and the cheesemonger pushes in his borer that he may taste it, if he doesn’t like the bit that he bores out, it sets him against the whole cheese; for he naturally expects that one is like the other. Now it is just the same with your books: birds of a feather, you know, flock together; and as one of them has turned out to be a black crow, I hardly expect to find the rest of ’em to be white pigeons.” Well, I took up all his books, one after another: some things in them I did understand and some I did’nt; for there was so much about _impressions_, and _principles_, and _institutions_, and _propensities_ and _organizations_ that it flustered me. It was clear that a longer head than mine had been concerned in getting ’em up; so all that I could do was to try to get at some of the marrow of them here and there. I’m not over clever at book learning, but still I had gumption enough to make out a few points that settled my opinion about Socialism. I saw, or thought I saw, that the god of the Socialists was only a “Cause of all existences;” that he never troubled his head about us, and that we ought never to trouble our heads about him. That, in fact, there was no such God, in the Socialists’ opinion, as the gracious Almighty Being whom Christians worship. I saw, too, that Socialists believed the Bible to be a lie, trumped up to keep silly people in bondage: that marriage was considered “the greatest crime against nature,” that ought to be done away with; that theft, adultery, blasphemy, and murder were no crimes, for man was “not a responsible being;” he was “neither to be blamed or praised, rewarded or punished for either his thoughts, feelings, or actions;” that death was “simply a change of one organization for another;” and that the Christian notions of hell, heaven, and hereafter were all a bag full of moonshine.