Page:The Hope of the Great Community (1916).djvu/140

 training in these respects was not, as I now think, at all excessively strict. But without being aware of the fact, I was a born non-conformist. The Bible stories fascinated me. The observance of Sunday aroused from an early time a certain more or less passive resistance, which was stubborn, although seldom, I think, openly rebellious.

The earliest connected story that I independently read was the Apocalypse, from a large print New Testament, which I found on the table in our living room. The Apocalypse did not tend to teach me early to acquire very clear ideas. On the other hand, I did early receive a great deal of training in dialectics, from the sister nearest to me in age. She was three years my senior. She was very patiently persistent in showing me the truth. I was nearly as persistent in maintaining my own views. Since she was patient, I believe that we seldom quarrelled in any violent way. But on occasion, as I remember, our dear mother used, when the wrangling grew too philosophical, to set me