When I Went Out From Her Side Again I Wanted
To Run And Jump For Joy And Cleave The Air Like A Bird.
For I had been
in prison and had suffered torture, and was now free again - death
would not destroy me!
There was another result of my having unburdened my heart to my
mother. She had been startled at the poignancy of the feeling I had
displayed, and, greatly blaming herself for having left me too long in
that ignorant state, began to give me religious instruction. It was
too early, since at that age it was not possible for me to rise to the
conception of an immaterial world. That power, I imagine, comes later
to the normal child at the age of ten or twelve. To tell him when he
is five or six or seven that God is in all places at once and sees all
things, only produces the idea of a wonderfully active and quick-
sighted person, with eyes like a bird's, able to see what is going on
all round. A short time ago I read an anecdote of a little girl who,
on being put to bed by her mother, was told not to be afraid in the
dark, since God would be there to watch and guard her while she slept.
Then, taking the candle, the mother went downstairs; but presently her
little girl came down too, in her nightdress, and, when questioned,
replied, "I'm going to stay down here in the light, mummy, and you can
go up to my room and sit with God." My own idea of God at that time
was no higher.
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