Very great indeed was Jack's emotion when he discovered that the Saviour in whom he was rejoicing was the object represented by the image he had been taught to bow down before. He resented it deeply: I was quite alarmed at the sudden and violent turn his feelings took against Popery. * * * He spurned the whole system from him, as soon as the light of the gospel fell upon its deformities.
Returning from the chapel one day, soon after this, he came up to me under great excitement: he took up a clothes-brush, set it on one end, and with a ludicrous grimace bowed down before it, joining his hands in the attitude of prayer and chattering after his fashion; then asking the brush if it could hear him, waiting in an attitude of attention for its reply, and finally knocking it over and kicking it round the room, saying, "Bad god, bad god!" I guessed pretty well what it was all about; but as he concluded by snapping his fingers exultingly and seating himself without further remark, I spoke on other subjects.
Next morning, Jack was very animated, and came to me with an evident budget of new thoughts. He told me something very small came out of the ground, pointing in opposite directions; it grew: and then two more points appeared. I found he was describing the growth of a plant, and expecting some question, was all attention; but Jack was come to teach, not to learn. He soon showed that his tree had reached a great height and size; then he made as if shouldering a hatchet, advanced to the tree and cut it down. Next came a great deal of sawing, chopping, planing, and shaping, until he made me understand he had cut out a crucifix, which he laid by, and proceeded to make a stool, a box, and other small articles; after which he gathered up the chips, flung them on the fire, and seemed to be cheering himself in the blaze. I actually trembled at the proceeding; for where had he, who could not form or understand half a sentence, where had _he_ learned the Holy Spirit's testimony as recorded by Isaiah?
The sequel was what I anticipated: he feigned to set up the imaginary crucifix, and preparing to pray before it, checked himself, saying, "No;" then with animated seriousness reverted to the springing up of the little seedling, saying, "God made;" and as it grew, he described the fashioning of the trunk and branches and leaves most gracefully, still saying "God made;" he seemed to dip a pencil in color, to paint the leaves, repeating, "God made beautiful!" Then, that God made his hands too; and he came to the conclusion that the tree which God made, cut out by his hands which God made, could not be God who made them. Then he got very angry, and not satisfied with an unsubstantial object for his holy indignation to vent itself upon, he ran for the clothes-brush, and gave it a worse cuffing and kicking than before; ending with a solemn inquiry whether I worshipped crosses, etc., when I went to church.