And now imagine a boy in a state of mind like this told that he would _never_ be free. A boy's authorities might pass, school and home might be left behind, but God would remain. Masters can be avoided and deceived, God cannot be deceived. His eye is always on you. He sees everything you do. His hand is always guiding and directing and checking you. It seems to him that the exasperation was never to end, was to last even into the next life, if this be true. Then you may understand how his instincts drove his reason to find good and sufficient cause for rejecting this God and for seeking freedom. "Give me freedom," he cried, "freedom even to do wrong and suffer for it. I will not complain. Only let me alone. Do not interfere. I will not have a God who interferes." His reason helped him and showed him the emptiness of the creeds, and he went on his way without. Then there was the Sermon on the Mount. To most boys this does not appeal at all. They hear it read. It is to them part of "religion"--that is, for consumption on Sunday. It is not of any consequence, only words. They do not think twice of it. But with this boy it was different. The Sermon on the Mount did appeal to him. He thought it very beautiful as a little boy. It seemed worth remembering. He did remember it. It seemed worth acting up to as much as possible. But as he grew older and learned life as it is, he became able to see that it was not applicable at all to life, that life was much rougher and harder than he supposed, and required very different rules. He slowly grew disillusioned. And with the disillusion came bitterness. If you have never believed in any certain thing, never taken it to yourself, you can go on theoretically admiring it, and, if that becomes impossible, you can eventually let it go without trouble. But if you have believed, if you have strongly believed and desired to accept, when you find that your belief and acceptance have been misplaced, there comes a revulsion. If it cannot be all, it must be none. Love turns to hate, never to indifference. Belief changes to absolute rejection, never to toleration. This code of Christ could not be absolutely followed in daily life, therefore it was absolutely untrue. And being untrue he could not bear to hear it preached every Sunday as a teaching from on High. He shrank from it unconsciously as from a theory he had loved and which had deceived him: the love remained, the confidence was gone. He was betrayed. But he never reasoned about it till he had rejected it. Then he sought to justify by reason what he had already accomplished in fact. So do men think things, because they have done or wish to do them; never the reverse. * * * * * It seems trivial after the above to recall a minor point wherein instinct has had much to say.