"The warm tears of your mother flow over her cheeks—"

("Mother!" he had no mother, and his stepmother only cried when she was angry! Who the deuce had composed the letter?)

"—when she thinks in solitude about your hard heart—"

(What the dickens has she to do with my heart when she has the housekeeping and seven children to look after?)

"—your unhappy spiritual condition—"

(That's humbug! My soul has never felt so fresh and lively as now.)

"—and your father's heart is nearly breaking with grief and anxiety—"

(That's a lie. He is himself a theist and follows Wallin; besides, he has no time to think about me. He knows that I am industrious and honest, and not immoral. Indeed, he praised me only a day or two ago.)

"You do not notice your mother's sad looks—"

(There are other reasons for that, for her marriage is not a happy one.)

"—nor do you regard the loving warnings of your father. You are like a crevasse above the snow-line, in which the kiss of the spring sun cannot melt the snow, nor turn a single atom of ice into a drop of water—"

(The writer must have been reading romances. As a matter of fact John was generally yielding towards his school-fellows. But towards his domestic enemies he had become cold. That was their fault.)

"What can your friends think of your new religion, when it produces such evil fruit? They will curse it, and your views give them the right to do so—"

(Not the right, but the occasion.)

"They will hate the mean scoundrel who has instilled the hellish poison of his teaching into your innocent heart—"

(There we have it! The mean scoundrel!)

"Show now by your actions that you have grasped the truth better than heretofore. Try to be forbearing—"

(That's the step-mother!)

"Pass over the defects and failings of your fellow-men with love and gentleness—"

(No, he would not! They had tortured him into lying; they had snuffed about in his soul, and uprooted good seeds as though they were weeds; they wished to stifle his personality, which had just as good a right to exist as their own; they had never been forbearing with his faults, why should he be so with theirs? Because Christ had said.... That had become a matter of complete indifference, and had no application to him now. For the rest, he did not bother about those at home, but shut himself up in himself. They were unsympathetic to him, and could not obtain his sympathy. That was the whole thing in a nutshell. They had faults and wanted him to pardon them. Very well, he did so, if they would only leave him in peace!)

"Learn to be grateful to your parents, who spare no pains in promoting your true welfare and happiness (hm!), and that this may be brought about through love to God your Creator, who has caused you to be born in this improving (hm! hm!) environment, for obtaining peace and blessedness is the prayer of your anxious but hopeful