Now it grieved me that an old shopmate of mine should have tumbled into such a bog hole as Socialism; but thinks I, mayhap, after all, he has only been led out of the way by sharper fellows than himself, and doesn’t above half believe the juggling claptraps that are printed in his books; so I said to him, “Tom, look at me and answer me this question, Do you believe that there is a God?” Tom blinked, and shuffled, and stammered, and opened one of the books and read a bit about “nature,” and a “first cause,” and “a general principle,” and a “supreme power,” and “an external cause of all existence,” and an “all pervading cause of motion and change;” but I stopped him at once. “Tom,” said I, “you may spare yourself the trouble of running over that long rigmarole; for I’m not to have dust flung in my eyes in that way. I do not want to know what _your book says_, but what _you believe_; so answer my question. A handful of good grain is better than a bushel of chaff, and a yes or a no can be understood by any body. Do you believe that there is a gracious and merciful God, that you are bound to fear and to love with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your strength, to worship him, to give him thanks, to put your whole trust in him, to call upon him, to honour his holy name and his word, and to serve him truly all the days of your life?” I saw that whether Tom said yes or no, it was all one, for he didn’t know which to say. It suited him better to read to me out of his books than it did to answer my questions; but I asked him another question. “Tom,” says I, “do you really believe that the Bible is a lie? You don’t doubt the history of England, the history of Rome, and the history of Greece, and these have never been kept with half the care, nor gone through a tenth part of the sifting that the Bible has. Do you really believe that the Bible is a lie?” Tom had not the boldness to say that he did; and I felt sure in my heart that he did not think it was. “Tom,” says I, “are you so far gone as to think that marriage is a foolish and wicked institution? I thought your sister was going to be married; is it all off, then, or is she to disgrace you and her family?” This question twisted Tom as much as the last, and I saw that I was about as likely to get a badger out of his hole, as to get an answer from him. “Well,” says I, “Tom, I’ll say nothing about your sister, if its disagreeable, but ask you another question instead. Have you so little uprightness left in your deceived heart as to suppose that theft, adultery, blasphemy, and murder are no reproach to a man; and that any one may set up the trade of a robber on the highway, and justify himself by saying that he cannot help it, for ‘his character is formed for him by circumstances?’”