It will be taken for granted, that we children had among our other lessons a continued and progressive instruction in religion.  But the Church-Protestantism imparted to us was, properly speaking, nothing but a kind of dry morality:  ingenious exposition was not thought of, and the doctrine appealed neither to the understanding nor to the heart.  For that reason, there were various secessions from the Established Church.  Separatists, Pietists, Herrnhuter (Moravians), Quiet-in-the-Land, and others differently named and characterized, sprang up, all of whom are animated by the same purpose of approaching the Deity, especially through Christ, more closely than seemed to them possible under the forms of the established religion.

The boy heard these opinions and sentiments constantly spoken of, for the clergy as well as the laity divided themselves into pro and con.  The minority were composed of those who dissented more or less broadly; but their modes of thinking attracted by originality, heartiness, perseverance, and independence.  All sorts of stories were told of their virtues, and of the way in which they were manifested.  The reply of a pious master-tinman was especially noted, who, when one of his craft attempted to shame him by asking, “Who is really your confessor?” answered with great cheerfulness, and confidence in the goodness of his cause, “I have a famous one,—­no less than the confessor of King David.”

Things of this sort naturally made an impression on the boy, and led him into similar states of mind.  In fact, he came to the thought that he might immediately approach the great God of nature, the Creator and Preserver of heaven and earth, whose earlier manifestations of wrath had been long forgotten in the beauty of the world, and the manifold blessings in which we participate while upon it.  The way he took to accomplish this was very curious.

The boy had chiefly kept to the first article of belief.  The God who stands in immediate connection with nature, and owns and loves it as his work, seemed to him the proper God, who might be brought into closer relationship with man, as with every thing else, and who would take care of him, as of the motion of the stars, the days and seasons, the animals and plants.  There were texts of the Gospels which explicitly stated this.  The boy could ascribe no form to this Being:  he therefore sought him in his works, and would, in the good Old-Testament fashion, build him an altar.  Natural productions were set forth as images of the world, over which a flame was to burn, signifying the aspirations of man’s heart towards his Maker.  He brought out of the collection of natural objects which he possessed, and which had been increased as chance directed, the best ores and other specimens.  But the next difficulty was, as to how they should be arranged and raised into a pile.  His father possessed a beautiful red-lacquered music-stand, ornamented with gilt flowers, in the form of a four-sided pyramid,