Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/26

 he appealed to his mother to explain the murders and massacres ordered by Jehovah and carried out by the Chosen People. She took him to the pastor. The pastor examined him and decided that he lacked the necessary firmness of faith. They prayed for him—all three on their knees in the pastor's study, Carey praying as fervently as the others—and when he rose he was surprised to find that he was "no better." Those terrible barbarisms of the early Hebrews still revolted him. He made a list of them, filled a note-book with them, and went back to the pastor. He and the reverend gentleman quarreled. Carey shook the pages of his indictment in the face of the horrified minister, and cried: "It wasn't a god! It was a devil!" He was put out on the pious door-step, sobbing, defiantly: "A devil! A devil!" The minister preached a sermon about him, in which no names were mentioned, but all his friends understood who was referred to, and they spread the secret. He was marked as an atheist. His home life became unbearable. He ran away, was brought back, ran away again, changed his name, and was not traced. He never returned. His mother developed religious hallucinations and went to an asylum for the insane. And that is why Who's Who gives no birthplace for him, and names no parents. The story that he was a foundling is not true.

As a matter of fact, his real name was John