I unburdened my difficulty at home, telling the family
that "Aunt Nancy got down on the floor and said we were all
grubbelin' worms," begging to know whether everybody did
sometimes have to crawl about in the dust.
A little later, I was much puzzled as to whether I was a Jew or
Gentile. The Bible seemed to divide people into these two classes
only. The Gentiles were not well spoken of: I did not want to be
one of them. The talked about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the
rest, away back to Adam, as if they were our forefathers (there
was a time when I thought that Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel
were our four fathers); and yet I was very sure that I was not a
Jew. When I ventured to ask, I was told that we were all
Christians or heathen now. That did not help me for I thought
that only grown-up persons could be Christians, from which it
followed that all children must be heathen. Must I think of
Myself as a heathen, then, until I should be old enough to be a
Christian? It was a shocking conclusion, but I could see no other
answer to my question, and I felt ashamed to ask again.
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